The merchandising of Bettie Page since the mid-20 century has evinced her diverse cultural associations at a variety of historical moments. Yet from a contemporary standpoint, the historical narratives prompted in the licensing of her name and image flatten her past into a palatable emblem of 1950s pin-up culture. In this article, I interrogate the ways Page’s image has been mobilized since the 1950s. I propose a cultural biography of Bettie Page attuned to her queer communitarian circulation in order to counter the nostalgic sanitation of her image since the 1990s. In November of 2017, several media industry and gay press news outlets announced that Violet Chachki, drag performer and 2015 RuPaul’s Drag Race season seven champion, would front an advertising campaign for a Bettie Page-inspired lingerie line by London-based brand Playful Promises. [1] [#N1] The campaign featured photography by Anna Swiczeniuk, in which Chachki’s poses, makeup, hairstyle, and apparel evoked a contemporary nostalgic view of Bettie Page’s pin-up style. While the campaign was largely applauded, there was a degree of negative criticism in the form of cis chauvinist comments that usually misgendered Chachki, who self-identifies as genderqueer, and asserted that lingerie should be exclusively worn by cis women. [2] [#N2] Playful Promises publicly denounced the negative commentary and posted a five-prong defense of their marketing decision on Twitter. In sum, this statement denounced the transphobic comments, criticized the gender disparities in pin-up fan communities, and suggested the productive use of drag for marketing a product culturally associated with hyperfemininity. [3] [#N3] In a final polemic statement, the brand positioned the campaign and their decision to foreground “a non-binary model who is not a cis woman, shot by a woman, wearing lingerie created by women” as an all-out industrial assault on the male gaze. [4] [#N4] The company’s redress assigned a political value to their circulation of the Page brand through a queer figure and by extension framed the consumption of their Page-inspired merchandise as equivalent to a political act. Since the resurgence of interest in Bettie Page in the 1990s, decontextualized nostalgia and generalizable alterity have become two primary facets of Page’s star image that maintain her popularity across a variety of subcultures. Contemporary cultural trends position Bettie Page as an offbeat alternative to the nostalgic appreciation of 1950s pin-up culture. Page’s dark hair, distinctive bangs, and often kitschy th 11/26/18, 10)56 AM From AIDS-era Queer Icon to Sanitized Nostalgic Property: The Cultural Histories of Bettie Page Merchandise Circulation Page 2 of 18 https://preview.quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fc/13761232.0042.203/--from-aids-era-queer-icon-to-sanitized-nostalgic-property?rgn=main;view=fulltext apparel set her apart from more wholesome associations of popular blonde pin-ups, the Betty Grables and Marilyn Monroes. Yet the actual history of Page’s past queer circulation and its regulation is all but forgotten in her contemporary mainstream commodification. The commodification of queer culture has a vast history: in the 1930s Queen Christina (1933) tie-in apparel traded on the distinctively gay camp sensibility that inspired Garbo’s wardrobe, [5] [#N5] during the brief surge of “bisexual chic” in the 1970s David Bowie’s public self-identification as both gay and bisexual functioned to market his Ziggy Stardust album, and more recently, neoliberal capitalization on diversity abounds. As seen in the Chachki example, Page’s property retains a relationship with queerness and sex-positivity, but that relation necessarily privileges self-expression over communitarian solidarity. A critical cultural biography of Bettie Page would be cognizant of the proliferation of access to her persona that defined the queer circulation of her likeness in the 1980s and preceded the aggressive regulation of her image as a media property. This article aims to examine the circulation and merchandising of Bettie Page over the span of several decades. In doing so, it offers a bridge between material culture studies and star studies via an industrial micro-history of the pin-up photograph, a publicity photo repurposed as film merchandise. A broad temporal frame allows a historical and comparative lens for critically engaging with merchandising’s tendency to occlude both histories of struggle and the ideological underpinnings of licensing practices. [6] [#N6] In this article I recount and juxtapose the trajectories that Bettie Page’s image has taken in three cultural moments from the 1950s to the 1990s. Movie Stars without Movies: Irving Klaw, Bettie Page, and the Mid-century Pin-up Industry During the World War II era, the merchandising of Hollywood film culture created pin-up culture and by extension produced the public persona of Bettie Page. [7] [#N7] This seemingly simplistic observation has been largely understated in both academic and popular historiography of the midcentury pin-up industry. It is also significant because it underscores the formative contradiction of much of pin-up culture: there are “movie stars” without movies. Bettie Page was, for all intents and purposes, a “movie star” at least a decade before she appeared in a feature length motion picture because there was a shared functional origin and resulting cultural slippage between the categories of “movie star” and “pin-up.” This slippage resulted dually from the proliferation of non-movie star pin-ups that substituted for a decrease in Hollywood pin-ups, and from the career transitions of successful pin-up models, such as Marilyn Monroe, into movie stars. [8] [#N8] This observation is important to both star studies and studies of material culture since the pin-up was a publicity still refashioned, and eventually monetized, for fan consumption. The publicity photo was one of a variety of marketing techniques for singling out screen talent that, as star studies examining cinema’s transitional-era have shown, facilitated the shift from a discourse on acting to an appreciation of individual stars. [9] [#N9] From a material history perspective, industrial conditions sparked changes in the production and consumption of pin-ups by the 1940s as they became viable forms of film merchandise. The mid-century pin-up industry began as the still photo merchandising of stars. The commercialization of non-movie star pin-ups followed a wartime product shortage of “actual” movie star photographs. This product shortage was due to wartime cutbacks generally, studios underestimating the still’s profit potential, and conservative public relations practices 11/26/18, 10)56 AM From AIDS-era Queer Icon to Sanitized Nostalgic Property: The Cultural Histories of Bettie Page Merchandise Circulation Page 3 of 18 https://preview.quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fc/13761232.0042.203/--from-aids-era-queer-icon-to-sanitized-nostalgic-property?rgn=main;view=fulltext that considered pin-ups too crass a form of commercial exploitation. [10] [#N10] The reduction in movie star stills effectively created the market for non-movie star pin-ups. In our contemporary cultural landscape, the name Irving Klaw has little resonance other than bifurcated associations that, on initial consideration, do not match up. For fans of pin-up culture, and Bettie Page fans specifically, Irving Klaw more or less means: the auteur behind Bettie Page’s “dark side,” namely the bondage photos and loops featuring Page. For fans of Hollywood film culture, and for film studies scholars who worked during the 1970s and 1980s, Irving Klaw was known as the founder and collector of a vast for-profit archive of Hollywood promotional materials, particularly film stills, known as Movie Star News. A history of Irving Klaw’s commercial operations links these two disparate associations, and reveals Klaw as a missing link between the mainstream Hollywood film industry and the seemingly marginal print and motion picture industries that commercially exploited sex. Movie Star News emerged out of the merchandising of Hollywood stardom in the late 1930s. In 1936, Irving Klaw opened a secondhand bookstore in Manhattan called Irving Klaw’s Bookshop. [11] [#N11] Specializing in magazine back issues, the store advertised in the classifieds sections of local newspapers. [12] [#N12] Klaw’s idea to sell individual photographs of movie stars came to him when he noticed youths, young women as the myth goes, attempting to cut clippings of movie star pictorials from his magazines. [13] [#N13] The store soon shifted to focus on movie merchandising, primarily specializing in still photographs, but also stocking other forms of Hollywood memorabilia. Klaw’s innovation was in realizing that the promotional still photograph could serve both as advertising for the attractions and commodities offered by the movie industry, and as a form of merchandise that promoted itself as a material means for fans to demonstrate their devotion to a star. His operation soon made waves in the motion picture industry as he forged business ties with studios in order to acquire product, and he quickly became known as a crucial intermediary between the studios and picturegoers. By the early 1940s, Hollywood studios and industry reporters considered Klaw a definitive gauge of audience interests. In 1943, Variety devoted a front-page article to Klaw’s operation, calling it “the largest mail order film still biz in the country.” [14] [#N14] Harry Rauch of the Los Angeles Times bestowed an even loftier international status on Klaw as the “world’s busiest salesman of movie stills,” and stated that the market information Klaw accumulated amounted to “a box-office barometer for Hollywood.” [15] [#N15] Famed Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper even used Klaw’s sales numbers as fodder to stir up star controversies. [16] [#N16] Klaw’s sales data, keen sense of fan enthusiasm, and

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从艾滋病时代的酷儿偶像到消毒的怀旧财产：贝蒂佩奇商品流通的文化历史

自 20 世纪中叶以来，贝蒂·佩奇 (Bettie Page) 的商品推销在各种历史时刻都证明了她的多元文化联系。然而，从当代的角度来看，在她的名字和形象的授权中所引发的历史叙事将她的过去扁平化为 1950 年代时尚文化的可口象征。在这篇文章中，我询问了佩奇形象自 1950 年代以来的动员方式。我推荐贝蒂·佩奇 (Bettie Page) 的文化传记与她的酷儿社区传播相协调，以对抗自 1990 年代以来她形象的怀旧卫生。2017 年 11 月，多家媒体行业和同性恋新闻媒体宣布，变装表演者、2015 年 RuPaul 变装大赛第七季冠军 Violet Chachki 将为伦敦品牌 Playful Promises 的 Bettie Page 灵感内衣系列广告宣传。[1] [#N1] 广告由 Anna Swiczeniuk 拍摄，其中 Chachki 的姿势、妆容、发型和服装唤起了对 Bettie Page 的迷人风格的现代怀旧观。虽然这场运动在很大程度上受到了赞扬，但也有一定程度的负面批评，以顺式沙文主义评论的形式出现，这些评论通常会误导自称为性别酷儿的 Chachki，并声称内衣应该只由顺式女性穿着。[2] [#N2] Playful Promises 公开谴责负面评论，并在 Twitter 上为其营销决策发表了五项辩护。总而言之，该声明谴责了跨性别评论，批评了炙手可热的粉丝社区中的性别差异，并建议有效地使用变装来营销与超女性气质相关的文化产品。[3] [#N3] 在最后的论战声明中，该品牌将此次宣传活动及其决定将“一位非顺式女性、由女性拍摄、穿着女性打造的内衣的非二元模特”作为对男性凝视的全面工业攻击。[4] [#N4] 该公司通过一个酷儿形象为他们的佩奇品牌流通赋予了政治价值，并由此将佩奇品牌商品的消费视为一种政治行为。自从 1990 年代对贝蒂·佩奇（Bettie Page）的兴趣重新兴起以来，去语境化的怀旧和普遍化的他异性已成为佩奇明星形象的两个主要方面，使她在各种亚文化中保持受欢迎。当代文化趋势将贝蒂佩奇定位为 1950 年代流行文化怀旧欣赏的另类选择。佩奇的黑发，独特的刘海，并且经常俗气 11/26/18, 10)56 AM 从艾滋病时代的酷儿偶像到消毒的怀旧财产：Bettie Page 商品流通的文化历史 第 2 页，共 18 页 https://preview.quod.lib.umich.edu /f/fc/13761232.0042.203/--from-aids-era-queer-icon-to-sanitized-nostalgic-property?rgn=main;view=fulltext 服装使她与流行的金发女郎的更健康联想区别开来，贝蒂格拉布尔斯和玛丽莲梦露。然而，佩奇过去的酷儿流通及其监管的真实历史在她当代的主流商品化中几乎被遗忘了。酷儿文化的商品化有着悠久的历史：在 1930 年代，克里斯蒂娜女王 (1933) 以独特的同性恋阵营敏感性为基础进行交易，这激发了嘉宝的衣橱，[5] [#N5] 在 1970 年代“双性恋时尚”的短暂浪潮中，大卫·鲍伊 (David Bowie) 作为同性恋和双性恋的公开自我认同起到了推销他的 Ziggy Stardust 专辑的作用，而最近，新自由主义对多样性的资本化比比皆是。从 Chachki 的例子中可以看出，佩奇的财产与酷儿性和性积极性保持着某种关系，但这种关系必然使自我表达优先于社区团结。贝蒂·佩奇 (Bettie Page) 的批判性文化传记会认识到，在 1980 年代对她的肖像进行了奇怪的传播，并在将她的形象作为媒体财产进行积极监管之前，她的人物形象的访问激增。本文旨在研究 Bettie Page 几十年来的流通和销售情况。在这样做，它通过海报照片的工业微观历史提供了物质文化研究和明星研究之间的桥梁，宣传照片被重新用作电影商品。一个广泛的时间框架允许一个历史和比较的视角来批判性地参与商品销售的趋势，即屏蔽斗争的历史和许可实践的意识形态基础。[6] [#N6] 在这篇文章中，我重述并并列了贝蒂·佩奇 (Bettie Page) 的形象在 1950 年代到 1990 年代的三个文化时刻所经历的轨迹。没有电影的电影明星：欧文克劳、贝蒂佩奇和本世纪中叶的炙手可热的行业在二战时期，好莱坞电影文化的营销创造了时尚文化，并由此产生了贝蒂佩奇的公众形象。[7] [#N7] 这种看似简单的观察在本世纪中叶时尚界的学术和流行史学中都被大大低估了。这也很重要，因为它强调了许多时尚文化的形成矛盾：有没有电影的“电影明星”。无论如何，贝蒂·佩奇在出演长片电影之前至少十年是“电影明星”，因为在“电影明星”和“别针”这两个类别之间存在着共同的功能起源和由此产生的文化差异。 -向上。” 这种下滑的双重原因是非电影明星模特的激增取代了好莱坞模特的减少，以及成功的模特模特（如玛丽莲梦露）向电影明星的职业转变。[8] [#N8] 这一观察结果对于明星研究和物质文化研究都很重要，因为海报是一种宣传方式，仍在为粉丝消费而重新设计并最终货币化。宣传照片是挑选银幕人才的各种营销技巧之一，正如对电影过渡时代的明星研究所表明的那样，促进了从演技话语到对个别明星的欣赏的转变。[9] [#N9] 从物质历史的角度来看，到 1940 年代，当海报成为可行的电影商品形式时，工业条件引发了它们的生产和消费的变化。世纪中叶的海报行业始于明星的静态照片销售。非电影明星海报的商业化是在“实际”电影明星照片的战时产品短缺之后出现的。这种产品短缺是由于战时普遍削减，工作室低估了仍然的利润潜力，以及保守的公关做法 11/26/18, 10)56 AM 从艾滋病时代的酷儿偶像到消毒的怀旧财产：贝蒂佩奇商品的文化历史流通 第 3 页，共 18 页 https://preview.quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fc/13761232.0042.203/--from-aids-era-queer-icon-to-sanitized-nostalgic-property?rgn=main ;view=fulltext 认为贴图是一种过于粗鲁的商业开发形式。[10] [#N10] 电影明星剧照的减少有效地创造了非电影明星海报的市场。在我们当代的文化景观中，欧文克劳这个名字除了分叉的联想之外几乎没有引起共鸣，在最初的考虑中，这些联想并不匹配。对于炙手可热文化的粉丝，尤其是贝蒂·佩奇 (Bettie Page) 的粉丝，欧文克劳或多或少意味着：贝蒂佩奇“阴暗面”背后的导演，即以佩奇为特色的束缚照片和循环。对于好莱坞电影文化的粉丝和在 1970 年代和 1980 年代工作的电影研究学者来说，欧文克劳被称为好莱坞宣传材料的巨大营利性档案馆的创始人和收藏家，特别是电影剧照，被称为电影明星新闻. 欧文·克劳 (Irving Klaw) 的商业运作历史将这两个不同的协会联系在一起，并揭示了克劳是好莱坞主流电影业与看似边缘化的利用性进行商业剥削的印刷和电影行业之间缺失的一环。电影明星新闻是在 1930 年代后期好莱坞明星的商品推销中出现的。1936 年，欧文克劳在曼哈顿开设了一家名为欧文克劳书店的二手书店。[11] [#N11] 该商店专门从事杂志过刊，在当地报纸的分类广告版块中做广告。[12] [#N12] 当 Klaw 注意到年轻人，即传说中的年轻女性，试图从他的杂志上剪下电影明星图片的剪报时，他萌生了出售电影明星个人照片的想法。[13] [#N13] 这家商店很快转向专注于电影营销，主要专注于静态照片，但也备有其他形式的好莱坞纪念品。Klaw 的创新在于意识到宣传静态照片既可以作为电影业提供的景点和商品的广告，也可以作为一种商品形式来宣传自己，作为粉丝展示他们对明星忠诚度的物质手段。他与制片厂建立业务联系以获取产品，他的业务很快在电影行业掀起波澜，他很快就成为制片厂和电影观众之间的重要中介。到 1940 年代初，好莱坞制片厂和行业记者将克劳视为衡量观众兴趣的权威指标。1943 年，《综艺》在头版专门介绍了克劳的运作，称其为“该国最大的邮购电影静物商业”。[14] [#N14] 《洛杉矶时报》的哈里·劳赫 (Harry Rauch) 赋予克劳作为“世界上最繁忙的电影剧照推销员”的国际地位，并表示克劳积累的市场信息相当于“票房晴雨表”。好莱坞。” [15] [#N15] 著名的好莱坞八卦专栏作家海达·霍珀 (Hedda Hopper) 甚至以克劳的销售数字为素材来挑起明星争议。[16] [#N16] Klaw 的销售数据，敏锐的粉丝热情，以及