![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Beautiful press release from her agent here.
I remember the first time I saw Bettie Page.
Around sophomore year of high school, I'd run across her poster in a novelty shop. In it, she was sitting/laying sideways on a padded chair, her legs raised in the air. Her clothes were dark: black corset, black stockings and the type of heels you wear for show, not walking, but you couldn't help but love and want them a little bit anyway. And then there was her smile: her big, wide and what looked like a totally genuine smile.
Feminists talk a lot about the male gaze, the assumption that the viewer of a photo will be male and inherently has to appeal to a male audience, sometimes to the point where it excludes any female audience. But looking at that poster, I felt like it was speaking to me. It was fetishistic without being dirty. It was idealized without being impossible. It was charmingly retro but seemed to speak more toward women's liberation than oppression. It was an expression of sexuality I could get behind and love. I didn't know anything about Bettie Page, but I knew I had to have the poster
It hung on the walls at college and at home. A lot of people really liked it, which I was always happy about. It's still back in New Jersey -- I never bought it to my Delaware apartments, but it's still one of my favorites.
The work of Bettie Page has been a like and interest for me ever since, although not necessarily an obsession. My default icon on my JF account is of her, and one of my fanfics was partly inspired by her work as shown in The Notorious Bettie Page, which shows how much I like her even if I don't show my like through a huge amount of hard-copy memorabilia. Her life, which was fraught with trouble, was sometimes hard to read about but always an inspiration. And that's what I like best to think of her as, and I'm glad to see other women thought of her that way, too. And that it was one of the things that made her proud.
I never communicated with Bettie -- given her seclusion I wouldn't have thought of it anyway -- but I'm glad she knew what women like me thought of her, and I hope pop culture history will see her that way as well.
I remember the first time I saw Bettie Page.
Around sophomore year of high school, I'd run across her poster in a novelty shop. In it, she was sitting/laying sideways on a padded chair, her legs raised in the air. Her clothes were dark: black corset, black stockings and the type of heels you wear for show, not walking, but you couldn't help but love and want them a little bit anyway. And then there was her smile: her big, wide and what looked like a totally genuine smile.
Feminists talk a lot about the male gaze, the assumption that the viewer of a photo will be male and inherently has to appeal to a male audience, sometimes to the point where it excludes any female audience. But looking at that poster, I felt like it was speaking to me. It was fetishistic without being dirty. It was idealized without being impossible. It was charmingly retro but seemed to speak more toward women's liberation than oppression. It was an expression of sexuality I could get behind and love. I didn't know anything about Bettie Page, but I knew I had to have the poster
It hung on the walls at college and at home. A lot of people really liked it, which I was always happy about. It's still back in New Jersey -- I never bought it to my Delaware apartments, but it's still one of my favorites.
The work of Bettie Page has been a like and interest for me ever since, although not necessarily an obsession. My default icon on my JF account is of her, and one of my fanfics was partly inspired by her work as shown in The Notorious Bettie Page, which shows how much I like her even if I don't show my like through a huge amount of hard-copy memorabilia. Her life, which was fraught with trouble, was sometimes hard to read about but always an inspiration. And that's what I like best to think of her as, and I'm glad to see other women thought of her that way, too. And that it was one of the things that made her proud.
I never communicated with Bettie -- given her seclusion I wouldn't have thought of it anyway -- but I'm glad she knew what women like me thought of her, and I hope pop culture history will see her that way as well.
Tags: