The dirty little secret—or what may be a “secret” to a 25-year-old kid who wears buckskin to a Halloween party—is that today’s appropriation of Indian traditional dress is in itself a tradition. In Hollywood, sacred Indian regalia and symbols were misused from the start, and sexed-up costumes were slapped onto popular non-Indian actresses. The sexy Indian maiden was a popular look for burlesque performers and strippers, and the most famous pinup artists used the fabricated stereotype in calendars and magazine work.
Below: Pinup by George Petty.
2 comments:
A history has to include Custer's Revenge. I mean, in a world where Indian women are two and a half times as likely to be sexually assaulted as women of other racial groups, there's only a matter of degree.
The slideshow obviously focused on movie and pinup art. The point was to show the early history of sexualizing Indians in the mass media. To be complete, yes, it could've included later images from comic books, video games, the Internet, and so forth.
Post a Comment