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fibula-rasa · 2 months

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Cosplay the Classics: Natacha Rambova

My closet cosplay of Natacha Rambova’s signature look from the 1920s

It’s unbearably common for people who have written about Natacha Rambova to emphasize that her “real” name was “Winifred Hudnut.” In reality, Rambova had about a half dozen names she went by (or could have gone by). Natacha Rambova was the name she took when she began her working life as a teenager with Theodore Kosloff’s ballet company—hence the Russophone name. And, as Rambova was a person who first and foremost lived to work, sticking with her professional name seems true to her character, Slav or not. You see, the primary reason Rambova was (and is) subjected to this passive-aggressiveness is part of a lingering effort to delegitimize her and her work. Sometimes that takes the form of calling her Winifred Hudnut and sometimes “Mrs. Valentino.” While there are valid reasons to criticize Rambova and her work, the aspersions typically lobbed at her fully miss their mark because they’re motivated by the desire to belittle a woman who knew the value of her work and her art and had the necessary privilege to fight for it.

"Natacha Rambova seems to belong most to me, the individual I think I am, but of course, I wasn’t born that way."

—“Wedded and Parted” by Ruth Waterbury, Photoplay, December 1922

Collage of portraits of Rambova from the 1920s

READ ON below the JUMP!

To begin at the beginning, Rambova was born as Winifred “Wink” Shaughnessy in Utah in 1897. Her father, who was significantly older than her mother, was found lacking as a parent and a spouse, and the Shaughnessy’s divorced when Rambova was young. Her youth was spent bouncing between her mother’s home in San Francisco, boarding school in England, and her aunt’s villa in France. Early on Rambova discovered two of the great passions of her life, ballet and mythology. The latter became an enduring fascination that guided Rambova’s varied pursuits throughout her life.

At first, her family encouraged Rambova’s interest in ballet. However, around 1914, when Rambova was 17, the shady nature of Rambova’s relationship with Kosloff was discovered by her mother, who tried to have Kosloff deported. At the time, Kosloff was supporting a wife and child back in England while keeping house with Rambova and another of his dancers, Vera Fredova (who was also legally named Winifred and also a teenager btw). Mom called off the lawsuit, and for years Kosloff, Rambova, and Fredova ran the ballet company together.

The company relocated to Los Angeles where Kosloff entered into a contract with Cecil B. DeMille. The company would provide art and costume designs for DeMille’s films and Kosloff himself would appear in the films. While Kosloff’s name is found in the credits for most of these films, it’s now widely accepted that Rambova was doing most, if not all, of the research and design work.

Theodore Kosloff in his costume from The Woman God Forgot (1917) on the left with Rambova (who does not appear in the film)

In this creatively productive period, Rambova shifted her focus away from dance toward historical research and costume and set design as her primary endeavor. For DeMille, Rambova contributed designs for The Woman God Forgot (1917), Why Change Your Wife? (1920), Something to Think About (1920), and also designed the Cinderella fantasy sequence of Forbidden Fruit (1921).

from the Cinderella sequence of Forbidden Fruit [more gifs here]

The work caught the eye of Nazimova, who was still working at Metro at the time. Once Nazimova realized that Rambova was the one doing the work, she engaged her directly to work on her now lost film Billions (1920). Rambova would receive on-screen credit for her art direction on Nazimova’s final film for Metro, the deco-bonanza Camille (1921).

from Camille [more gifs here]

Camille features designs verging on the bizarre, using circles and half-circles as a consistent symbolic motif throughout the film. One of my personal favorite touches however, is the sequence taking place at Armand’s country cottage. Where the Paris sets are oversized and characterized by rounded edges, the cottage is excessively square and feels almost claustrophobic. At this point in the story, Marguerite is conflicted, she feels happier and freer than ever before in her love with Armand, but is also haunted by the notion that she’s dooming him given her past and her illness. The interior of the cottage feels more artificial because of its realism, almost like a doll house, in comparison to the more heavily designed Paris settings. This highlights the feeling in Marguerite that she’s just playing pretend at a happy, heteronormative fantasy.

country house setting from Camille

Influenced by the highly stylized visuals of ballet but also preoccupied with historical research and symbology, Rambova’s designs stand out from anything else produced in this period, especially in the US. The more I study her designs and think about how young she was when she created them, the more impressed I am by them. Faced with challenging assignments, Rambova balanced accuracy and perceived authenticity with her penchant for larger-than-life symbolism. On top of all that, they photograph beautifully! Being able to create interesting and appropriate costume and set designs with a demonstrated understanding of how they would register on film is a sophisticated skill set which Rambova deserves significant credit for.

When Nazimova went independent following Camille, she brought Rambova with her. The first two projects Rambova would work on for Nazimova’s company were A Doll’s House (now a lost film, which I profiled on my Lost, but Not Forgotten series) and Salomé (1922). The latter has become regarded as Nazimova’s magnum opus on film and often referred to as America’s first art film. For Salomé, Rambova translated illustrations made by Aubrey Beardsley into three-dimensional sets and costumes and character designs for film. If you’ve seen Beardsley’s illustrations and you’ve seen the film, you know this was no simple task and that Rambova did a phenomenal job of re-working the illustrations into wearable costumes and weaving elements of Beardsley’s illustrations into the set design.

from Salomé [more gifs here]

Taking a second to emphasize Rambova’s range, her work on Why Change Your Wife?, Something to Think About, and A Doll’s House (which we can only judge by surviving stills) are contemporary settings with more realistic, grounded set and costume designs. Rambova executes the designs for these films with just as much skill, although as she admitted herself, with less gusto because they didn’t scratch the historical-research/symbology itch.

production still from A Doll’s House

It was in this same period of creative growth that Rambova split from Kosloff (and he shot her in the leg on the way out) and she started seeing her future husband, Rudolph Valentino. Valentino, however, was still legally married to another woman. This would lead to significant trouble for the couple in the first few years of their relationship.

Perhaps too much time has been spent picking apart the nature of the Valentino-Rambova pairing—most of it spent trying to characterize her as a Svengali type and Valentino as too immature or unintelligent to have any opinions of his own. Now, having read most of what Rambova has written about Valentino, both before and after their divorce, she often takes a paternalistic attitude toward Valentino, but one tempered by real affection. And, given how close Valentino became with her family (and remained close after the divorce, even leaving a significant part of his estate to her aunt), to doubt the legitimacy of their partnership feels willfully disingenuous. Valentino shared Rambova’s desires to elevate the artistic qualities of film, oftentimes beyond their means. Together they crafted the romantic idol of Valentino. Together they challenged the studios for underpaying him.

“Some producers find an unusual personality. They use up thousands of dollars to exploit it. They put that personality into a picture and the picture goes over and makes a million. Then, instead of letting the actor who does fine work go on doing it, they give him cheap material, cheap sets, cheap casts, cheap everything. The idea then is to make just as much money from that personality as possible with the least outlay. “Isn’t it short-sighted? Isn’t it unwise? Yet they do it again and again. But they can’t keep it up forever. The fans are beginning to wake up. They refuse to take second rate products even when a big personality is exploited. They are doing the one thing that will affect the producer—when poor pictures are offered them, they are staying home.”

—from “Wedded and Parted” by Ruth Waterbury, Photoplay, December 1922

Something I mentioned in the last installment of “Lost, but Not Forgotten” was that in this period, a number of film artists in Hollywood were recognizing the true value of their work and going independent of the emergent studio system. Studio heads saw no problem in curtailing the creative freedom of their artists to further pad their overflowing wallets. For the founders of United Artists, the system was usually able to be bent in their favor, with their films getting wide releases with decent promotion budgets. For a number of other independent artists, the road was rockier as distributors and exhibitors were reluctant to offend the increasingly powerful studios. Nazimova was one of those who eventually ran out of funds to produce their own work. Valentino’s star rose precipitously after The Sheik (1921) and Blood and Sand (1922) was a massive box-office hit, but Valentino’s salary did not match that bankability. This financial dispute, complicated by negative press around his relationship with Rambova, left Valentino out of work in film for a year. In turn, Valentino and Rambova went on a dancing tour of the country, which raised her profile as a public figure while bolstering his star image despite not appearing in any new films.

Valentino and Rambova in a promotional photo for their dance tour

Unfortunately, crossing the studio system as they did resulted in a coordinated campaign to take them down a notch. Reading film magazines from the period will give you whiplash. Many of these magazines had established relationships with studios and ran news items in keeping with whatever narratives the studios wished to push. However, the stars and their managers (if they had them) had their own relationships with the magazines. So, occasionally, you’ll find items deriding Rambova as some kind of artsy-fartsy manipulative phony and then a profile piece of her or Valentino that’s sympathetic to their business woes. This is the period where the narrative emerges of Rambova as a calculating climber, using Valentino to build her own career. This talking point is often repeated today, despite the fact that Rambova had already been working on big productions for DeMille and Nazimova for years before meeting Valentino. While Rambova was certainly a key figure in developing Valentino’s star image, the plain facts make it apparent that they were working as a team—hardly abnormal. Unfortunately, neither member of said team had much in the way of business sense.

As I mentioned earlier, Rambova fashioned her life around her work. Something I didn’t mention earlier is that she was an heiress. At this point in her life, Rambova was determined to live off her own labour and not touch her inheritance. When they were battling the studios, the couple continued to not touch Rambova’s inheritance. And, both desperate to return to filmmaking, they were subject to the studio’s will. While their split is often framed as Rambova abandoning Valentino when she was denied the ability to control his career, a slightly different scenario emerges upon closer inspection. Both Valentino and Rambova were highly dedicated to their work and their work was intertwined with their relationship, a similar dynamic to Rambova’s relationship with Kosloff and later with her second husband Álvaro de Urzáiz, with whom she restored villas. With Urzáiz, their relationship degraded when they no longer had a shared project to work on. (In this case due to the Spanish Civil War.) It’s neither sensational nor romantic, but following Valentino’s reconciliation with Hollywood, after a few films, the pair was intentionally separated creatively. (This was at least partly due to the machinations of their new business manager, George Ullman, who we now know was manipulating Valentino’s finances after litigation regarding the disposition of Valentino’s estate.)

“What I desire personally is simply to be known for the work which I have always done, and that has brought me a reputation entirely independent of my marriage.”

—“Natacha Rambova Emerges” by Edwin Schallert, Picture Play Magazine, August 1925

Rambova worked on one film independently from Valentino before their divorce, What Price Beauty? (1925), starring mutual friend (for the moment) Nita Naldi. The film is now lost and its production and release seems awfully sus, so I hope to cover that for “Lost, but Not Forgotten” soon. Regardless of the film’s success or failure, the whole endeavor soured Rambova on Hollywood.

Nita Naldi in a promotional photo from What Price Beauty?

In her book about her life with Valentino, Rambova opined:

“Hollywood—all the joys of the petty community life of ‘Main Street’ with an additional coating of gold dust thrown in for good measure!… it is merely an imitation gilded hell of a make-believe realm. Nothing but sham—sham—and more sham. “Hollywood—one continuous struggle of nobodies to become somebodies, all pretending to be what they are not.”

Through their divorce and Valentino’s untimely death the year following, Rambova never stopped working. Rambova operated boutiques selling her original designs in New York and then in France. Around this same time Rambova also got more deeply involved in spiritualism. In an odd move, she published Rudy with the final third of the book “dictated” by Valentino’s spirit. I won’t say that I don’t find that pretty distasteful, but having read the book, it reveals two key things: Rambova’s genuine affection for Valentino, patronizing as it may be, and a sincere belief in the spiritualism movement that she and her mother had been drawn into. There have been critics who have framed the book as some sort of cash-in or vengeful act against Valentino for excluding her from his will, but the facts do not support that. Rambova, to reiterate, was an heiress who did not need to work for a living. She also states directly that it is Rambova’s spiritual leader who encouraged her to publish the book as a way to promote spiritualism. That’s not necessarily any better than the false narrative, but the truth has value (and is more interesting in this case!)

In the 1930s, Rambova relocated to Spain where she finally began using that inheritance to develop rental properties on Mallorca with her aristocrat husband. If you know anything about 20th century European history, you may know what happened next. Urzáiz joined the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and despite her abiding fear of Communists, Rambova stuck around in Spain for as long as she could before fleeing to France. Of course, it wasn’t long before the Nazi Germany invaded France, so Rambova relocated back to the United States.

During her time abroad, Rambova’s preoccupation with symbology was reignited by a trip to Egypt. This sparked the next big passion of her life, which she would pursue for over two decades: Egyptology.

Rambova in Egypt

Rambova became a writer, researcher, and lecturer on symbolism and cosmology in Ancient Egypt (as well as spiritualism). Much of Rambova’s work was done in collaboration with Alexandre Piankoff and the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in Cairo (IFAO). With various grants, Rambova travelled to Egypt to document important sites, via photography and illustration. Rambova also used much of her inheritance to source objects from Egypt, which she donated to museums and universities in the US. (There’s a huge discussion about that to be had, which, as an archivist myself, I am drawn to explore. But, it falls outside the purview of this blog, so it’ll have to stay a discussion for another time and place.) These collections are still accessible to researchers and the public today. Rambova continued this work until her death in the 1960s.

Without doubt there are meaningful reasons to criticise Rambova and her work. Some of her design work is appropriative at best, overtly racist at worst. She had ignorant and arrogant attitudes toward class politics bred from her uber-privileged upbringing, which occasionally bled into her work and interfered with her ability to collaborate with other artists. She definitely lacked the social skills and business sense that were very necessary for artists working in a mass-media format like film. It’s typical, but disappointing still, that so much effort has been put into demonizing Rambova for reasons that were either completely fabricated, or rooted solely in the fact that she was a woman who knew her value, but by society’s standards, didn’t know her place. All that said, maybe we are due to spend a bit more time as film enthusiasts genuinely engaging with the art Rambova created and recognizing how much of a force she was in standing up for artistry in the American film industry.

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Postscript: This piece was a monster, so excuse me for not diving into rumours about Rambova’s potential queerness, as it eventually fell out of the scope of the essay. But, for those in the know: my personal take is that she likely was queer, though probably not romantically entwined with Nazimova, but maybe with Fredova. I also think her marriage with Valentino was not lavender. And, even if Rambova wasn’t queer, I appreciate what a keen collaborator she was with queer colleagues and what a good friend she apparently was to queer people in her social circles and her family, despite how often her detractors would try to use accusations of lesbianism as a weapon against her. IMO if someone were of weaker character, those types of aspersions would have driven a wedge between the object and their friends and colleagues.

Bibliography/Further Reading:

Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova by Michael Morris

Rudy: An Intimate Portrait of Rudolph Valentino by His Wife Natacha Rambova

Valentino As I Knew Him by George Ullman

Picture Play Magazine, August 1925

Photoplay Magazine, December 1922

Mythological Papyri – Texts by Alexandre Piankoff & Natacha Rambova

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bumble66 · 5 months

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The similarities between closeted right-wingers and Chris Evans

Alternative title: "Dear Mr. future president Evans,"

Recently, I saw how Chris Evans met Joe Biden. For people who don't know. Chris Evans has a political online platform called ASP. This was not the first time he met a famous politican but meeting the president of the United States is something else. It should be clear by now why he does that... Anyway, it reminded me of the gossip I found recently:

As I mentioned in my last big blog post, about Chris' potential boyfriends, I am not really a fan of marvel and didn't know much about him during his time as Captain America. I only got interested after he started the cringeworthy PR relationship in November 2022. In 2018, I was made aware of how many closeted celebrities exist and Mr. Evans being so clumsy with his Portugal bride gave me the perfect opportunity to uncover this Hollywood facade.

As you can see, I have also been asked by a lot of people why I think Chris could be closeted (either gay, bi or a straight guy who doesn't want to commit and just sleeps around). I will answer these questions in relation to today's topics: I. The Portugal PR relationship is mostly done for his future political career (or that was the plan before the backlash) II. The behavior of closeted right-wingers resembles Chris Evans' III. Portugal Bride was not the first PR relationship rumor but why does a rich, attractive and alleged womanizer like Chris need PR relationships all the time? As I always say. Everything on my tumblr is alleged. I merely summarize what people speculate online and give my own opinion on that.

Tim Scott, a failed GOP 2024 candidate and alleged closeted gay man, announced on X that he got engaged to a woman:

As you can see from the screenshot, no one's buying it. It is rumored Tim Scott is doing this because he will be chosen as Trump's vice president. People online claim that Tim Scott being gay has been talked about way before the first "Why doesn't have Tim Scott have a girlfriend" articles:

I heard about Tim Scott being gay and being pressured to have a PR girlfriend around the same time Chris pretended to have gotten married in September and that made me think... I can't find the comment anymore but I remember someone of Chris' fans on the LSA forum suggesting that Chris' "A starting point" political platform isn't just for shits and giggles. Apparently, he wants to go into politics after his acting career. No idea how successful he will be now with that after his latest movie flops and the Portugal relationship having led to lost followers on his social media accounts because it made him appear as a "dollar store Leonardo DiCaprio" but in general..., this idea isn't too far off. Remember the Terminator aka Arnold Schwarzenegger? An action hero became the Governor of California and with Chris Evan's fake Captain America image, pretending online and in interviews to be like Steve Rogers, he could sway a lot of people too!

Remember. The alleged marriage wasn't the first PR relationship of Chris Evans. At least according to his fandom, when they explained how he and Portugal Bride met, he was involved in several other PR relationships before:

According to this person, the relationships with Christina Ricci and Minka Kelly from long ago, were planned by a PR team too and it adds up with a blog post I found years ago about how Minka is allegedly a beard for my back then favorite actor Jake Gyllenhaal. Bearding appears to be a career of its own in Hollywood: https://gaywriter.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/blind-item-jake-gyllenhaal-is-looking-for-a-new-female-beard-to-present-illusion-of-heterosexuality-to-fans/

So his PR team not only allegedly had several options next to the Portugal Bride (like Monica Barbaro) but they were apparently also responsible for his faked relationship with Lily James? It is rumored that Lily wanted more from this PR arrangement from back in 2020. Possibly real love? The social media site Icons+ reports that "Lily James left Chris Evans to be a millionaire's "other woman"". She basically publicly "cheated" on Chris and many gossip sites reported on it. Did Lily do that as revenge because Chris solely wanted PR and rejected her? Kinda like "if you don't give me real love, I ain't giving you positive PR either". It makes me wonder though. Why would a heterosexual man privately reject a pretty woman like Lily James after wanting to be seen with her in paparazzi photographs after all? Odd.

Yes, Chris' alleged personal Paparazzo with the name Jesal basically admitted that he was called to do the pictures with Lily back in 2020 (Nowadays, he seems to be busy with the Portugal PR relationship as you can see from the screenshot, where he was called for a christmas party Portugal Bride and Chris attended). This reminds me of of another failed 2024 GOP candidate who is rumored to be closeted. There is a medium article regarding Ron DeSantis called "Is the GOP gossiping that Ron DeSantis is gay?", how most if not all of the GOP party know about his alleged homosexualty:

As you can see, not just his own party but the general public thinks so too. In fact, they speak about Ron DeSantis' being closeted the same way some people speak about Chris being allegedly closeted:

The replies to this dailymail article about Chris' and Portugal Bride's relationship-reveal, demonstrate that people think that both Chris and Ron overplay the alpha male macho tough guy image, solely to cover their true sexual orientation.

But PR relationships can also have another function. As I pointed out on my blog before: There are many heterosexual men I know who just wanted to sleep around but because of societal pressure, they pretend to be monogamous. The latest political example of that seems to be Gavin Newsom who has been in the news for being an alleged serial cheater. He was already caught cheating back in 2007. On X I found this summary of his latest shenanigans: (TRIGGER WARNING: mention of SA)

Why do I mention Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom in relation to Chris Evans? Because they all have one thing in common. A fake stable married man image. Look at the header picture of DeSantis and Newsom on X. Newsom holding his son in his harm. A few weeks ago, DeSantis had a header picture of holding his children's hands and the latest picture, you can see right now, also shows his wife and kids again to portray the family man image while allegedly being someone completely different (a closet case = Ron, a cheater= Gavin). Sorry not sorry but when I saw those header images combined with the rumors I knew about those two guys, I immediately though that Chris is not so different. He also calls the paparazzi, so he can be portrayed for the public as a guy who has a stable relationship and doesn't randomly sleep around in all kids of places.

As someone pointed out on the Lipstick Alley thread called "Chris Evans Relationship Theories 5", he used to go to parties similar to the ones seen in the movie "Eyes Wide Shut" but these rumors were allegedly scrapped by his team when he became Captain America. Why did they worry so much about this specific gossip? Was it true after all? Apparently this goes back as far as 2006:

I have no problems with that because I am pro sexual liberation. I actually point this out so we can normalize this and let people be who they really are, so that they don't have to do these fake relationships anymore.

I mean, remember the screenshot from my "Chris Evans possible boyfriends" post? The user ShellyT20... how she described that a lot of PR relationships in Hollywood exist because the male actors either sleep with each other, have p-word scandals and/or are serial cheaters "but post fake romance stuff on IG and other public platforms. It gives a fake sense of normalcy and stability and shuts fans up for the most part as well as acting as a distraction." When I read this I got reminded of the public "beyond the blinds podcast" episode you can listen to on spotify. The one about the Hemsworth brothers. There it was alleged that Chris Hemsworth is constantly cheating. I wasn't surprised. He isn't my type but I can't deny that he is what most consider super attractive + tall + rich = in no way is this guy monogamous as a famous hollywood actor (LMAO the audactiy to even thinkt hat)... Sadly, when I confront some people with that... for instance Evans fans on LSA or X, most roll their eyes and don't believe that.... They were like: "How can a guy like C. Hemsworth, who posts social media posts about loving being a father and being married for over a decade possibly be such a bad guy"... ... ... ... ... Well and this the reason why Hollywood still fools you with PR relationships because most of you are gullible. You want to see men married with children and as long as the women are age appropriate, you eat it up. And all this goes even beyond these Hollywood celebrities and politicians the general public is aware of. Apparently, even e-celebs are in PR relationships/fake image relationships these days. The youtuber TheQuartering, who said he was partying with right-wing e-celebs said this about them last year: (TRIGGER WARNING: transphobic slur)

Just like how Chris Evan's fans are disappointed that he wasn't the internet boyfriend after all (his fake image for the 2010s) and started to date random young women like Leonardo DiCaprio and Bradley Cooper, TheQuartering was disappointed too with his right-wing colleagues, who pretended to be committed husbands with children while actually being a closeted pride parade. The right-wing commentarors TheQuartering talks about are: Elijah Schaffer, Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich. When I found that out I was shocked. I was like "So even these e-celebs are basically "their own Hollywood club" and need PR relationships to function publicly". It really shows how deep gender roles are still ingrained in our society. That even internet-famous people have to have a family man image and portray themselves in a certain way to become "e-celeb-A-list". And if they don't, they will be denied that status.

I know it hurts that your favorite A-list stars are also wife cheaters and that their activism is most likely fake only so that they can continue participating in Hollywood orgies (Which apparently already happen on the e-celeb level). But at one point it had to come out and isn't it better to accept reality than to participate in and support these fake scenarios only to feel better about the world? Cause it is not just TheQuartering who exposed the fake image of the right-wing online community. Blaire White, a right-winger herself, pointed out the same. As people say, where there is smoke, there is fire:

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In this video at 55:35 regarding Blaze Media, Blaire White spills tea about closeted e-celebs. It also includes orgies and drugs... like with our favorite super hero (allegedly).

(Blaire is not the only one who knows about the orgy parties)

Lastly, one of the most famous right-wing e-celebs is Steven Crowder. On his channel he had a video where he once admitted that he had a bisexual phase... a phase..

And according to his own logic that means:

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He also went so far and basically created beard twins. I remember clearly the video where he announced the pregnancy of his wife. He held up a picture into the camera from an ultrasound. It was like "See, I am hetero after all. Are you happy now?". That's at least my opinion on how the video looked like and it adds up with what peole usually say about him:

Honestly, if someone had told me that this text is about Chris Evans, I'd have believed it and so now we have come full circle. While I only know about Chris Evan's since the pandemic (As I said, I don't watch super hero movies), I am still disappointed. In some interviews, he appeared so adorable, awkward and different from other men in Hollywood (like when he was interviewed about his "Lightyear movie announcement" tweet on Jimmy Kimmel). But in the end he is no better than the closeted republicans. Portraying a conservative image of marriage while behind closed doors it is worse than a sitcom trying to convince you that canned laughter makes everything funnier.

(picture: Is this the awkwardness people talk about? Adorable...)

Yes, there have always been rumors that his real personality is being "weird and awkward" and that he is not just acting in movies but also in most interviews. It goes so far that someone claimed he had been rejected on a date and that's why some people assume it is actually him who initiated the Portugal PR relationship and basically paid for it because he can't get someone himself through normal means. Are some people punished with their good looks?

IMO just like with the married right-wing e-celebs who do orgies all the time, it is also a bad idea of Chris wanting to become a father (at least according to his "sexiest man alive" PR narrative from 2022 which seems to be in the trash can now too).

But let's assume his PR team has that still on their minds: Not only would it be solely for his image (which would make this situation PR either way, even if the marriage were real) but according to all his alleged wild ways, he is also unfit to parent, it would be a disaster actually. Controversial commentator Pearl Davis described it very well. How some people just shouldn't be parents:

I agree with Vale. She would just be in it for the image of being a married woman and in our case... a married, monogamous, non-cheating family man. A user on LSA said that when you switch out "fake nails" with "fake teeth" in Pearl Davis' message, you will have the pefect description of Chris Evans:

(Chris Evans being interviewed at the Lightyear premiere resembling Barry Manilow with too much botox) Sorry but after seeing this picture, I have to agree with her. I love his clothing style but a bi-peacock who is more interested in vanity and fake status will never be a good role model for children. As the saying goes: "You can't have it both ways"

I know this is all a tough pill to swallow but c'mon people. This is the year 2024 and at one point this fakeness just needs to stop. Celebrities, politicians and even social meda e-celebs... you are being fooled. And according to Hollywood insider and daughter of famous TV personality John Walsh, a lot of times, one partner of the arrangement is suffering. Is this really what you support? I don't and that's why I uncover all these PR relationships of the entertainment world because as a true progressive, I don't think that people should be judged based on outdated gender expectations like marriage and monogamy.

The closet kills... your real personality. I mean honestly, what do you gain from being remembered after your death as someone you never were? As Joan Rivers jokes at 0:43 in a short clip from 1966. This so called bearding has been going on forever. I don't think we need a 100th anniversary of this shameful practice. So please help me to expose this so that in the future, celebrities can become famous for truly being themselves.

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paverics · 9 months

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i can’t believe it’s 2023 and the “only gay actors should play gay roles” argument is not only alive and kicking on twitter, but thriving. need you guys to shut the fuck up and log off so bad 😭

#im in the trenches for straight actors to play gay roles bro #because number ONE you don’t actually know if they are or not #which leads nicely to point number 2 — it’s none of your fucking business whether they are or not #basically it all just kinda translates to ‘I hate closeted people and I don’t think they deserve to work’ lmaooo #but also like imagine going into Starbucks and the hiring manager asks if you kiss girls #acting is a job and we should (literally) never allow people to be hired on the basis of their sexuality #you know why? because that opens the door for them NOT to be hired on the basis of their sexuality :)#thats never a precedent which should be allowed to exist #even if you think ‘oh but this is a special circumstance and it’s because it’s a public role’#that’s called a slope babe and it can get very slippery very quickly #Hollywood is powerful and stories are powerful and the media is powerful #and it’s ability to normalise and justify things at a rapid pace shouldn’t be overestimated

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ivyspeaknow · 2 months

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does anybody have any kind of insider knowledge about how hollywood still forces lgbtq talents to stay in the closet/force them into beard relationships?

any articles about it? anything, really. send it my way! <3

#friends of dorothea #gaylor #lgbetty #friend of dorothea #the hollywood closet #lgbtq

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dashiellqvverty · 1 year

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to be honest i think there is a very clear pathway to cheronica happening this season (cheryl’s “get out of my school” vibes, veronica introducing the concept of bisexuality to the group, hermione telling veronica “no boys” which EYE think would be very fun if veronica was like “okay fine then girls”) but i KNOW they’re not gonna take it

#riverdale #cheronica #i know they’re gonna use this as a reset button for choni and i hate it #i enjoy both cheryl and veronica the most when they have shared plotlines honestly so as a ship it just seems like the natural choice #and i would loooove to see enlightened hollywood veronica be the one to handhold 50s cheryl out of the closet #i know it’ll be toni but i don’t want them to put her through that job again #it was sweet enough the first time like i DID love the conversion therapy kiss but #toni deserves so much more than cheryl both as a person and like narratively she deserves better storylines #i cannot watch her just be the cool bisexual who does whatever cheryl does and also tackles serious racism topics sometimes again #like. i know the actresses are besties but i’m sorry the ship is bad it got boring fast #r.txt

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e-m-p-error · 2 months

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Velvette's outfit for the ball is based on flowers and death. Her necklace is the only thing that she didn't really want to theme correctly because she wanted an excuse to wear it.

She does not have a date, but is there more or less with Valentino and @videokilled

@cannibalxroses

#CLOSET ➽➽➽#Hollywood Made A Killing Machine She’s Like A Teenage Slaughter Movie Scene A Serial Killer Celebrity (νєℓνєттє)#Blood Ball - Outfits

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stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland · 10 months

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This says a lot about Hollywood closeting

#lgbtqia #hollywood #hollywood closeting

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twopoppies · 8 months

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I’m new to the fandom as of one year, but I don’t understand why people get so upset over stunts. It’s something fans have no control over. I see it in group chats and online. I feel like we’d all be better off to ignore it and accept that our faves are going to make decisions we don’t always like and move on

Well, I think it’s much easier for some people to do that than it is for others. For all sorts of reasons.

It’s impossible to divorce the fact that he’s in these PR relationships because he’s primarily sold as a sexual fantasy to women. Thus, his closeting and the homophobia of the music industry, the film industry, and wider world is front and center in his life and career. That, in and of itself, is bothersome to some of us.

It’s difficult for many to accept that Harry deals with his career and his closeting in a very different way than he used to. If you’re only a fan for a year that may not register for you, but it’s markedly different from how it was even 5 years ago with Camille. Not to say there aren’t reasons for that, but it’s hard for people.

And if you’ve watched him for longer—particularly when he was in the band—it can be difficult to understand that his relationship to his career and his closeting has changed.

Those are just a few reasons off the top of my head why it’s not so easy to just ignore what’s going on. But yes, I agree with you that being his fan would be a lot more enjoyable if one could just ignore all of that.

#closeting #bearding #pr and marketing #Harry’s image #Hollywood homophobia

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fibula-rasa · 2 years

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Cosplay the Classics: Lucille Ball in the 1940s

The first time I ever saw Lucille Ball not playing Lucy Ricardo was when TCM aired Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) when I was a kid. She floored me in this movie. This woman that had branded herself on my brain via sitcom reruns as an expert comedian and legendary face puller was also this knockout glamour girl?! And it’s not that Lucy is gorgeous, I already knew that, it’s that the film treats her as such. She’s lit like a goddess and that raging technicolor photography was a match made in heaven with her red hair and bright blue eyes. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a lot more of her film work pre-I Love Lucy, including one of my all-time favorite movies, Dance, Girl, Dance (1940).

Ball might best be known now for her masterful work in television, as a performer and a producer, but boy her journey to get there was nothing to sniff at. Ball gradually carved out her niche in pictures by the end of 1930s, when she had already been in show business for the better part of a decade. Not fully satisfied with her work in film, Ball did double duty and heavily delved into radio. Between her radio work and her growing roles in pictures, she became the newest “Queen of the Bs.” (“B” referring to B pictures, lower budget films that were typically the second feature in the double features.)

Lucy’s styling progression from the 1930s through the early 1940s

The type Ball most excelled at playing was brassy and headstrong with a penchant for banter that usually relied at least a bit on her comedic timing. The physical comedy we now know Ball excelled at is only present in fits and starts across her filmography of the 30s and 40s. Regardless, she is fantastic at delivering repartee, even when it’s not very well written.

Looking back from this side of decades of I Love Lucy continuously playing on our TVs (at least in the US), I get the feeling that lots of people might be unaware that Ball got her start in entertainment for her looks. (And that her acting and comedy skills came from diligent work!) She started as a fashion model and was a spokesmodel for Max Factor Cosmetics starting in the 1930s. Ball got her break as a Goldwyn Girl because she had the right look and good timing.

Reviewing her filmography to research this cosplay, the time around 1940 stood out as a turning point for her career (and, in turn, her look). Generally speaking in studio-era Hollywood, you knew you had made it when you became the type to cast rather than fitting the type of some other, more established star. And, when you became your own type, that was usually accompanied by a styling shift that emphasized your own features over adjusting your features to emulate another star. To illustrate, here are photos of Lucille Ball, Joan Bennett and Ginger Rogers taken when they were all working at RKO in the 1930s, alongside photos of them in the early 1940s, when they were all on their own paths. Ginger was a rising star for the studio in the 1930s, so hers became a dominant look. (An added note for Lucy’s career at the time, is that she was mentored by Rogers’ mother Lela at RKO.)

Ball, Bennett, and Rogers above in the 1930s and below in the 1940s

This cosplay was roughly based on Ball’s signature styling in the mid-1940s, specifically around the time she made the film Lured (1947). (A movie which I feel could have easily spawned a series.) By this point she was settled into the hair and make-up we typically associate with Lucille Ball. Her eyebrows are a relatively thick, rounded arch and generally the roundness of her eyes is accentuated, instead of trying to elongate them. Her coppery curls are arranged around the center of her forehead with hair swept up at the temples. Her lipstick is applied in a manner that leans into the fullness of her lips while also emphasizing her slightly dubious expression. While I’ll admit a lot of these styling shifts correspond with beauty trend shifts from the 1930s into the 1940s, the execution of the trends are tailored to her unlike the '30s trends, as illustrated above.

By the time Du Barry was released in 1943, Ball’s red hair was already a selling point (though it was dyed much brighter for the sake of the technicolor). Her typical hair and makeup by the time Lured came out in 1947 only changed marginally from then through the 1950s. That is to say, even updating her look with trends like shorter, tighter cuts for women’s hair and stronger contrasting lines for make-up of the 1950s, Ball found the shapes that suited her and she stuck with them. It’s a beauty paradigm that makes her a joy to emulate, even on the closet-cosplay level I operate on!

The references I used to put this cosplay together can be seen below:

I also got a little bored at the prospect of editing these images, so I tried to replicate the photographic look of full-color portraits from 1940s fan magazines. Most notably, this photo of Janet Blair from the September 1943 issue of Modern Screen Magazine:

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AND, if you want to read more about Lured, I wrote about it a few years back for Noirvember!

OR, if you want to read more about Joan Bennett, I cosplayed her a while back!

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