Bettie Page

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Just finished watching The Notorious Bettie Page, recently released on DVD. I was marvelling over the mediocrity of Gretchen Mol playing Bettie, unable to figure out why she was cast until the bangs were cut and the clothes came off.

From there, it was at least visually stimulating, re-enacting many of her famous photo scenes. They nearly lost me earlier in the movie with a fake slap and recoil so badly acted that it makes professional wrestlers look like polished actors with finesse in comparison.

The storytelling is far from compelling, but this is still one I will add to my collection, since it involves Bettie Page and pin-up girls photography.

I also like that the movie portrays her as unrepentant for her cheesecake photos, even after she finds the Jeebus, fiercely declaring that Adam & Eve were nekkid, until they came into sin and were banished from the Garden of Eden - it was then that they wore clothes.

However, at the same time, they also showed that when she stopped modelling was when there was controversy over these photos and their “appeal to deviants,” and felt personal shame after overhearing the case against her photographer, Irving Klaw, in court. I wish she would have perservered, stigmas and religious fanatics be damned, but I suppose this was right for her.

I’ve seen recent interviews with her as an older woman now, and she insists on full shading obscuring her face and body from the camera as she spoke with her soft Southern voice. I think this adds to her iconic legacy in pop-culture, insisting on being remembered only as she was at her prime.

Unfortunately, there was a 1972 mugshot that did no justice to maintaining that memory. The woman in the mugshot has no spark, just joyless features vaguely reminiscent.