Platinum Blondes and a Bearded Lady (original) (raw)

Blonde: Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Bombshell

Vestigia Journal Volume 3, Issue 2, 2023

The uproarious response to Andrew Dominik’s divisive biopic/horror film Blonde (2022), imagining the unseen torments of Marilyn Monroe, at once points to the inherently contested nature of Monroe’s existence (doe-eyed sacred victim versus shrewd, talented businesswoman) and more fundamentally to the very question of misrecognition itself: the route by which every speaking subject must come to inhabit existence. Virtually every scene of the film confronts us with a form of doubling, both in Marilyn’s own image and in her relationship to us as voracious spectators and adoring fans. Her body is simultaneously deified, adored, invaded, colonized, raped and aborted; a feminist observation so trite as to become barely remarkable. But what is the function of the ‘Bombshell’ today as the force of sexual power under capitalism? And how does the face and ‘faciality’ as a concept relate to the Bombshell? A Theory of the Bombshell, a reference to Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl (MIT Press, 2012), would attempt to conceptualise the Bombshell as that which (in contrast to the entrepreneurial self) embodies the explosive existential potential of Monroe as a fatherless, motherless being who gave birth to itself.

Betrayed by blondness_Jiřina Štěpničková between authenticity and excess_1930 - 1945

The blondness of female stars is invariably associated with glamour, sexuality and wealth. But not much attention has been paid to stars articulating different sets of values attached to fair hair found in artistic, national and religious discourses. This article focuses on the Czech star Jiřina Štěpničková and her star image from the 1930s to the mid-1940s. I argue that, while blondness heavily contributed to her status as a national icon and dedicated performer, it also resulted in a complex set of negotiations between her star qualities and the national rural characters she performed. On the one hand, Štěpničková was labelled the ‘Czech Madonna’, the perfect embodiment of heroines defined by loyalty, self-sacrifice and chastity. On the other, she was questioned as too beautiful and elaborately styled for the parts she was cast in. Analysing formal elements of her image and reconstructing the promotional and critical discourses surrounding her allows me to present Štěpničková under three categories – as a celebrated actress, as an ideal woman and as an ‘inauthentic’ star – for which her blondness played a key role.

Encoding Signifieds of Hairstyles in the movie 'Unstoppable' A Semiotic Analysis

Arts and Design Studies, 2014

Media play an important role in conveying entertainment to the audience. As there are a lot of developments and discoveries in this postmodern era, media promote all those ideas which are newly introduced in any genre. Film from the very start, is one of the major genre in literature (visual) which claims more attention from the audience than any other form of entertainment. Media also play an important role in socio-cultural change of the society. Community considers media the best source of information, although at times, it is not. Media play an important role in shaping beliefs and ideologies of a common man. Film is considered the important medium which brings a lot of cultural changes in the society, The movie Unstoppable also invites those changes and left some questions in the minds of the audience. The present study analyzes the various hairstyles of the movie actors and how these styles are changed according to the setting of the scene along with employing the state of mi...

Not a Cinematic Hair Out of Place

2010

This thesis asks a question: Can transformations to a cinematic character's hair be indicative of a realignment or shifting of that character's identity? As an attempt to answer this question, I introduce three new concepts: the Opaque Movement (OM), the Transparent Violent Moment (TVM), and the Transparent Moderate Moment (TMM). All of these concepts revolve around the treatment and appearance of a character's hair within a film. In this examination, I establish a theoretical foundation for cinematic haircutting and apply the three concepts to several films. I ground the discussion in a Playing against type in the 1958 Hitchcock thriller Vertigo, Jimmy Stewart portrayed a desperate man, confused and psychologically tormented in his search for a woman. Within this tale of obsession lies a tale of identity-a story about seeing identity, finding identity, losing identity, and transforming identity. Vertigo is a film about the fluidity of identity. At the center of this film are four identities playing, searching, finding, losing, and becoming meaning all within the image of one body: Kim Novak portrays Madeline, Judy, and Judy playing Madeline. The movement inbetween these identities is a process of psychological pain as the character of Scottie suffers psychological torture as he wages psychological warfare against the various identities contained within the image of Kim Novak. Integral to this movement between identities are the changing hairstyles assigned to the various characters Novak portrays. From the upswept blond hairstyle of Madeline, to the flowing red tresses of Judy, back to the blond up-do of Judy playing Madeline, Novak's hair serves as the identifying characteristic linking the identity of these distinct identities to the body. The struggle to play, present and capture an identity that possesses a certain hairstyle is central to the narrative and the motivations behind the actions and behaviors of the characters in the film. In light of these transforming identities, I ask the question: Why is the appearance of a given hairstyle, specifically, a haircut or a transformation to hair an important field of study? In answer to this inquiry, it is clear that transformations to hair represent moments when the identity position of a character shifts, or is realigned. As seen in Vertigo, the process of becoming a given identity occurs subtly from the beginning of the narrative to the last scenes of the film. However, the moments in-between these identity positions occur when the character's hairstyle changes from one style to the next. As the epigraph at the top of this thesis indicates, hair matters in the struggle to produce or project the hairstyle needed to identify the character. The war in words between Judy and Scottie to make a change to her hair shows the aspects of psychological warfare and torture. The desire to change, the desire to be wanted, the desire to make, and the willingness to lose and surrender become apparent in this identity-making process. While Scottie says, "It can't matter to you" it matters to me and to the field of cinema and cultural studies. Hair serves a purpose: it points to gender, it points to sex, it points to race, it points to sexuality, it points to self. Hair isn't merely, or just, an example of fashion or a cultural trend, it is a marker of identity formation. This thesis develops three new concepts dealing with how to read and analyze a haircut or transformation to hair. Color, perm, tint, trims, shaving, and styling can be analyzed in film. i The concepts I introduce include: the Opaque Movement (OM), the Transparent Violent Moment (TVM) and the Transparent Moderate Moment (TMM). I will posit that the two moments, TVM and TMM, can only occur within the Opaque Movement of the narrative, and that all of the concepts revolve around the transformation of a character's hair within a film. The Opaque Movement finds it's theoretical conception in the first part of my discussion-the gendering, sexing, and consumption of hair. The Moments will be tied to the cutting of hair and the ability to read the new identity position via the narrative or personal history (the inbetweeness of identity accessed via suture). The ability to analyze the Opaque Movement and to distinguish between the two Moments will be examined throughout and worked through via a discussion of pain, torture and warfare as described by Elaine Scarry in The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. ii i Throughout this thesis, I will use the terms haircut or hair transformation interchangeably.

Filmic Photogénie in the Theatre

2019

Between 2003 and 2005, the Flemish theatre director Guy Cassiers produced four performances based on Marcel Proust's novel A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU. Since my research focuses on the influences of (live) video technology on the representation of time in theatre, the work of Cassiers, characterized by a sophisticated use of video technology, may provide interesting insights in the role technology plays in staging Proust's novel, which touches upon temporal experiences and ideas, in particular, the process of remembering. Cassiers shares with Proust an interest in representing the subjective world. They both experiment with creating a perceivable inner world of thoughts, dreams and sensory experiences. They also use cinematographic techniques, such as zooming in and out and close-ups, to represent and express this inner world. This paper will introduce the filmic concept of photogénie as a useful analytical tool, which sheds light on how and why Cassiers uses these techniques in his Proust performances to represent the subjective world of the main character, Marcel. During early French film debates, photogénie was one of the most widely circulated concepts. Filmmaker Louis Delluc first introduced the concept, which had origins in the field of photography, and used it to describe how the film camera showed reality in a new way. Delluc believed that ›the real‹ (or what he also termed »the factual« and »the natural«) was the material of film, but that it was transformed by the camera and the projection screen into something new, without becoming any less real (Abel: 110). The camera de-familiarized the familiar and presented the spectator with a new perspective on reality. It is important to realize that photogénie, as understood by Delluc and many other participants in the film debate, assigns the aesthetic and transformational power ›of looking at things in a new way‹ not to the artist, but to the technological device. Photogénie has to do with the possibility of the camera creating and installing a perspective, even before cinematographic techniques are implemented, such as editing, framing and camera positioning, to create perspectives for a possible narrative. The French film debate originated in early 20 th century Paris and was centred around questions regarding the specificity, function and effects of film and the aesthetic possibilities of film as art. Filmmakers and critics participated in this debate, primarily conducted in newspapers and magazines. The question of how to represent modern temporality-particularly aspects including velocity, memory and simultaneity-with cinematographic means was one of the recurring topics in the debate. A group of French impressionists, including important advocates such as Riciotto Canudo, Emile Vuillermoz and Germaine Dulac, dominated the debate. The French impressionists, also referred to as »The First Avant-Garde« or »Narrative Avant-Garde«, felt that film should become a site for experimenting with and sharpening the expression of modern experiences, specifically, the subjective experience. In particular, the photogenic powers of film would instil a new mode of