Pin-up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture [Paperback]

Maria Elena Buszek (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2006

Subverting stereotypical images of women, a new generation of feminist artists is remaking the pin-up, much as Annie Sprinkle, Cindy Sherman, and others did in the 1970s and 1980s. As shocking as contemporary feminist pin-ups are intended to be, perhaps more surprising is that the pin-up has been appropriated by women for their own empowerment since its inception more than a century ago. Pin-Up Grrrls tells the history of the pin-up from its birth, revealing how its development is intimately connected to the history of feminism. Maria Elena Buszek documents the genre’s 150-year history with more than 100 illustrations, many never before published.

Beginning with the pin-up’s origins in mid-nineteenth-century carte-de-visite photographs of burlesque performers, Buszek explores how female sex symbols, including Adah Isaacs Menken and Lydia Thompson, fought to exert control over their own images. Buszek analyzes the evolution of the pin-up through the advent of the New Woman, the suffrage movement, fanzine photographs of early film stars, the Varga Girl illustrations that appeared in Esquire during World War II, the early years of Playboy magazine, and the recent revival of the genre in appropriations by third-wave feminist artists. A fascinating combination of art history and cultural history, Pin-Up Grrrls is the story of how women have publicly defined and represented their sexuality since the 1860s.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Weaving commentary from academia with testimony from such sources as Salt N Pepa and sex worker Annie Sprinkle, Buszek's authorial debut shows how the evolution of the pin-up is inextricably tied to the femenists movement, for better and worse, providing formal and (as she demonstrates) well-deserved appreciation to an art form that's rarely given much respect. The term "pin-up girl," though popularly associated with a particular time period (pre- and post-WWII) and image (buxom and half-naked with a come-hither expression), had its first incarnation in the early days of photography. In using burlesque performers as subjects, pioneering photographers subverted the straightforward portrait form in the 19th century, well aware-along with their subjects-that they had the power to challenge ideas of what it means to be a woman. Drawing on a large body of research and commentary, Buszek smartly focusing on individual contributions and landmarks rather than sweeping claims. An academic, Buschek isn't afraid to dig deep into her subject, but she tempers her treatise with healthy doses of wit, grace and rhythm, and rarely falters. 103 photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“Pin-Up Grrrls is a funny, sexy, political take on the pin-up. In this book, women flaunt their sexuality, use images of themselves to their own ends, and remake the pin-up genre in endlessly creative ways.”—Susie Bright, author of Mommy’s Little Girl: On Sex, Motherhood, Porn, and Cherry Pie

“Pin-ups that women love? That they create? Yes! In her brilliantly vibrant debut book, Maria Elena Buszek gives a lucid, rich, and thorough account of a nineteenth- and twentieth-century history in which women employ the power of erotic imagery to celebrate themselves. From the writing to the reproductions, Pin-up Grrrls is eye-opening.”—Joanna Frueh, performance artist and author of Swooning Beauty: A Memoir of Pleasure

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (May 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822337460
• ISBN-13: 978-0822337461
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #147,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Criticism & Essays
  • #85 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > History

More About the Author

Maria Elena Buszek, Ph.D. is a scholar, critic, curator, and Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Colorado Denver, where she teaches courses on Modern and contemporary art.

Her recent publications include the books Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture and Extra/ordinary: Craft and contemporary art; contributions to the anthologies It's Time for Action (There's No Option): About Feminism; Blaze: Discourse on Art, Women, and Feminism; and Contemporary Artists; catalogue essays for numerous national and international exhibitions; and articles and criticism in such journals as Art in America, Art Journal, Photography Quarterly, and TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies. She has also been a regular contributor to the popular feminist magazine BUST since 1999. Her current book project explores the ties between contemporary activist art and popular music.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important and entertaining book, August 20, 2006

By 

Elizabeth Lee (Carlisle, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pin-up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture (Paperback)

For anyone who doubts what a study of pin-ups might have to offer, prepare to be convinced otherwise! Buszek has composed a rich analysis of her subject, which while full of original ideas on the topic never loses sight of the fact that it's a book about pin-ups, images created to titilate and delight. The author's subtlety in interpreting the history of the pin-up, which turns out to be much longer than we might have thought, enables her to extract a number of fascinating threads which connect the genre to contemporary feminist art. It is a compelling and novel approach on a fascinating, under-researched topic. Buszek leaves her reader with a deeper understanding of the pin-up as a genre and of the feminist movement overall. A must-read for anyone interested in either topic, not to mention pop culture in general.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An amazingly complex and enjoyable history, May 2, 2010

By 

Balás Márk "Trychydts" (Hungary) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pin-up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture (Paperback)

The book is a really exciting, amazingly thorough history of the pin-up genre from the feminist point-of-view. Both as a feminist philosopher and model photographer I found it and extraorinarily useful.

Of course, if you decide to read this book, you have to prepare yourself for a vast intellectual challenge. It is a complex weave of very different thoughts; the chapters are regulary cross-references so you have to keep many things is mind.

It could have been made a bit even more enjoyable with two things. First of all, there are several dozens of pages at the end of the book -- at this quantity, these would have been much more useful as footnotes. Secondly, much more pictures would have been much better. Parargraph-long description of pin-up pictures would be unnecessary if the reader could see the pictures itself.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Who would NOT like a book about pin-ups?, September 2, 2009

By 

Michael Valdivielso (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pin-up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture (Paperback)

OK, technical this is a book of feminism, starting in the 19th Century and following the history all the way up to the 21st Century. What do Pin-Ups have to do with it? Well, Pin-Ups were created about the time women's rights started to become an issue. In other words Pin-Ups and suffrage developed side by side. And Pin-Ups became a mirror to reflect America's, and the world's, ideas and images of women. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, Pin-Ups became a way to measure how far women had come. Or how far they still had to go. Maria Elena Buszek has made a book that is a must for anybody interested in history, culture, or Pin-Ups.