2. THE PATHOLOGY OF
GLAMOUR
By Dr. Sacha Playfair, ARPS
Due
to a typing error in the October CRCN, which spoiled the content of
Iconoclastic No.2, I have re-published it again, along with No.3. With
apologies to Dr. Playfair. C.R.C.Editor.
"Glamour
photos have shown one clear thing which forty years of medical practice
failed to teach - that when women dress, he first bit of clothing
they put on is suitable footwear with heels like stilts.
This
interesting social fact is confirmed on the covering of a video which
promises to teach photographer how to become "glamour" workers.
There she stands (or squirms) contorted into an arched position, bent
backwards by tightening of her torso muscles. Her buttocks stick out
prominently, her breasts project upwards, her stomach is tensed flat. Her
head and neck are twisted so that she is staring at the photographer, her
mouth is half open with lips pouting so that she seems to be crying out in
agony. The legs projected backwards at awkward angles with the feet bent
down sharply and in tight shoes with threateningly long stiletto heels.. All
this is supposed to make her enchanting, but poor thing, she seems to be in
the terminal stages of strychnine poisoning.
Another
characteristic picture from the "glamour" collection is that of a
woman leaning back on a sofa. She is nude except for her stiletto-heeled
shoes, for the stocking she is pulling up over one thigh, for the fur stole
about her neck, and for a top hat on her head. Not in my experience, a
customary domestic scene.
We
have seen pictures of naked girls lying across craggy seaside rocks, or
draped against dry walling in the Cotswolds. Is there a special category of
masochist models, or could the model release form carry extra clauses
concerning danger money.
Come
to think of it, the word "glamour" is very difficult to define.
Perhaps a dictionary might help. In Longman`s I read: "... a romantic
and often illusory attractiveness." The Oxford Concise describes
".. delusive or alluring beauty or charm."The operative words
could be "illusory" and "delusive", though
"synthetic" comes to mind, as does "contrived". The more
the photographer dictates idiotic, zany poses, remote from life, the more he
is making a fool of the model, and a fool of himself.
A
very acceptable generalisation
is that young women are nice, and that (more often than not) scantily-clad
young women are even nicer. But they must look likely, and not as some form
of nightmare marionettes.
Poland
has a yearly photographic exhibition called Venus, held at Cracow. It
was my good fortune once to be able to visit it. A lot of artistically
beautiful homage to women, and quite free of the chimera which is
perpetrated in the name of "glamour". Gentle shapes, forms and
shadows were the features. In fact the only artificiality to be found was in
one picture in which the prone body was photographed to suggest a landscape
and very elegantly too was this done.
If
a photographer is motivated to celebrate the shape of women. Let us
encourage him. But let him do it with the same esteem he might give to
recording the Lake District or the Taj Mahal. Feminists who object to
"glamour" condemn the sexuality inherent in such photographs. They
are mistaken. The real complaint is that most "glamour" is absurd,
mendacious and insincere. That the model is wearing nothing, or
next-to-nothing, is not relevant. That she is posed into becoming a
caricature is not forgiven.