Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture
Select Format
Select Condition 
Book Overview
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.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0822337460
ISBN13:9780822337461
Release Date:May 2006
Publisher:Duke University Press
Length:464 Pages
Weight:1.85 lbs.
Dimensions:1.1" x 6.1" x 9.2"
Customer Reviews
3 ratings
An amazingly complex and enjoyable history
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 14 years ago
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.
Who would NOT like a book about pin-ups?
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 15 years ago
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.
An important and entertaining book
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
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.
Copyright © 2025 Thriftbooks.com
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information | Cookie Policy | Cookie Preferences | Accessibility Statement
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
