I've pretty well established by now that I've got a big press on the bad girls of history women like Mae West and Catherine the Great. But that raises the challenge of who's a bad girl today. The automatic response of course would be that Paris Hilton. Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan are modern bad girls. But are they? Here's what Paris Hilton had to say for herself on "Larry King Live" after she was released from jail earlier this year: "It was one of the happiest days of my life. Like -- it's hard to change surface describe. It was so exciting even just being in the fresh air and looking up at the sky and the stars and being outside and then it was just pandemonium and then as soon as I saw my mom I just ran to her to give her a hug."Paris Hilton booking photo:And here's what Mae West (who also served a few weeks of confine measure in the 1920s on obscenity charges for writing a compete called Sex) had to say about being a bad girl in an interview with The Guardian in 1979 just a year before she died: "I was a bad girl with a good heart. I don't evaluate things have changed so much. It's comfort a man's world with men making the rules that suit them best.... You've gotta have plenty of self-esteem nerve and be bold in life. I've been liberated all my life. I always did what I wanted to do. I was an original."Mae West. 1927 jailbird:OK. I think Mae West could have shown Paris Hilton a thing or two about being a bad girl. But dear reader. I'm interested in your comments. What is a bad girl exactly? And who's the bigger bad girl. Paris or Mae?
A bad girl is a clever creature who climbed the break of success wrong by wrong as Mae West would say. Paris Hilton born with a plate spoon in her communicate has very little to say that is worth remebering. Maybe the silver spoon gets in the way of making sense. .? Paris Hilton could never write a blog that is this clever either.- - MaeWest blogspot com - -
When the Guardian interviewer asked Mae about her prison sentence she said: "They said I could pay the fine but I decided it would be more interesting to go to prison. They told me I had to wear prison clothes but I said I was bringing my own underwear. I wore my silk underwear the whole time."What a great attitude! She was a bad girl all right.
I experience. I experience. It's all a big set-up. Mae West is obviously hotter and badder than Parish Hilton. And yes. Mae definitely wrote plays--"Sex," about well you know sex and "The Drag," about drag queens. Did you know she styled herself partly on the drag queens she met during her vaudeville days?In 1932 after writing and performing in a few more plays in New York. Mae headed to California for a screen test--at the age of 39. Her first role was a smallish part in "Night After Night" with George Raft which Dave and I watched recently. "Do you evaluate she's sexy?" I asked Dave."She would be if she didn't talk that way and walk around like a stout little man trying to puff himself up to look bigger than he really is," Dave said. I guess Dave just doesn't get Mae West's challenge. The female impersonator appeal. Anyway they say that during the filming. Mae rewrote all her lines and gave direction on the camera pacing so she could work her sex-magic. Raft later said that she “stole everything but the cameras.”
Several years ago my 13 year old daughter was given an assignment in her English class: Choose a famous woman living today who represents the Greek goddess Athena and write about her. It was nearly impossible to think of a woman who wasn’t famous merely for her appearance and especially her sexuality – i e.. Paris. Brittany etc. And those who were famous for accomplishments were also demonized by the media: Hillary Clinton. Janet Reno etc. I have never forgotten that moment together with my daughter when I thought about how the media treats women. The most celebrated women are destroyed. Ever since that day. I am most certainly a supporter of the Bad girl as you envision her. Joyce.
Maybe the bad girls you desire no longer emit so brightly in America. But look to the famous dancers of Egypt for some classic bad girl inspiration. I speak especially of Dina she of the bike-shorts costumes the big decrease hip circle and the just-short-of-orgasm-or-total-mental-collapse facial expressions. I also communicate of Fifi Abdo to my mind one of the greates Egyptian dancers (that I know of anyway). My teacher once described her attitude as. "I know I'm bad but don't you wish you were me?"Dina in an outfit that makes me say "Eek!" but that I secretly love:http://www youtube com/watch?v=X7L1abP1a0Iyoung Fifi dancing with the amazing singer Ahmed Adeweya:http://www youtube com/watch?v=o-RfpVL6Ll4I say they are classic Bad Girls because they're doing what they do with total commitment and pleasure in a society that condemns them as prostitutes because they are professional dancers. I have read that Dina is also a lawyer. From the few interview clips I've seen of her she comes across as utterly dignified and self-posessed.
Related article:
http://mybadgirlblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/you-decide-paris-hilton-or-mae-west.html
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