| Chapter Introduction: | Introduction |
|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
of the actress who performs the sex goddess as a “sexually aware, powerful female” (“Kinda Comedy” 60), one who both enjoys and exults in her own healthy view of sexuality, often at odds with societal views of what a woman's sexuality, or her own view of it, should be.
While exceptions can certainly be noted, in tracing West's career trajectory from “star” to her later “pop culture celebrity,” Robertson further touches on an important aspect of appropriating the role of sex goddess for many young, female celebrities: adopting the role can virtually guarantee a lasting and veritably renewable position in the cultural memory—a built-in propensity for self-repetition and imitation of one's own image—a career move which has been readily employed and exploited by many contemporary female celebrities like Madonna, Sharon Stone, and Reese Witherspoon. The economic impetus for imitating the sex goddess may explain in part why so many female celebrities appropriate the look and the act.
Historical Analysis
Today the sex goddess exists primarily as a cinematic/media construct in spite of much cultural imitation. Historically speaking, the role of the sex goddess did not generally extend to everyday women. Although Robertson insists that West was parodying “women's roles in the 1930s,” certainly these women's roles did not usually include the role of sex goddess (“Kinda Comedy” 58). Nor did this occur in the 1950s, at the height of Marilyn's celebrity, when most women's roles were nothing like Marilyn's. In fact, women's roles at the time were quite restricted for the most part, either to the domestic situation (being married with children) or to positions as low-wage workers: secretaries, maids, shop girls, and factory workers. This book will also explore the relationship of the cinematic sex goddess to her historical moment, contemporary women and their roles, as well as her curious ability to transcend her historical moment. Thus, when Robertson refers to the images of Mae West as recapitulating “contemporary stereotypes,” this discussion will assert more accurately that, instead of reifying some kind of popular