January 18, 2004
Hollywood Sleaze
Helmut Newton, Allure Los Angeles, 1997.
It strips the glam of Hollywood away, does it not? We sure get enough of that. Recall the Nicole Kidman image spin of recent months with its gesture towards, and celebration of, elegance, weath, power and luxury. This cosmopolitan global culture of wealth elegance and taste explictly rejects the petit bourgeois and suburban world of Australia as provincal tacky and seedy, and it erects formidable barriers against any encroachment from the outside world.
How nice to see this glamour being subverted from within by Helmut Newton:
Newton,
Fascist chic.
These models look at us with an imperious, critical stare. The woman looks in control. When she looks back, at the camera it is as if the spectator doesn't exist. It is a look of indifference to the male voyeur that shrivels you up.