#Jean Acker

[diioonysus]

lgbtqia women in old hollywood

[sonata-stigmata]

old hollywood drama goes CRAZY

the girls just aren't doing it like this anymore

[clarabowlover]

Jean Acker (ca.1920s)

(No.2)

[silentdivasblog]

Jean Acker ❤️

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have My Favorite Wife 1940

[citizenscreen]

Rudolph Valentino and Jean Acker were married on November 6, 1919. Acker quickly had regrets and locked him out of their hotel bedroom on their wedding night resulting in the shortest Hollywood marriage on record according to Guinness World Records.

[countesspetofi]

Rudolf Nureyev in Ken Russell’s VALENTINO (1977); dance scenes.

With Anthony Dowell as Vaslav Nijinsky, Mildred Shay as a Maxim’s customer, Carol Kane as Jean Acker, Christine Carlson as Beatrice Dominguez, and Michelle Phillips as Natacha Rambova.

NB: Kane and Carlson are not credited as Acker and Dominguez, but it’s clear from the context that that’s who they’re supposed to be.

[vintagedreamsofsennett]

The Round-up (1920)

[venicepearl]

Jean Acker (born Harriet Ackers; October 23, 1892 – August 16, 1978) was an American actress with a career dating from the silent film era through the 1950s. She was perhaps best known as the estranged wife of silent film star Rudolph Valentino.

[intellectures]

Grandiose Abgründe

Der neue Roman des amerikanischen Avantgardisten Dennis Cooper ist so persönlich wie nie. »Ich wünschte« ist eine nachgereichte Umarmung an seine große Liebe und ein gleichermaßen erschütterndes wie erhebendes Dokument autofiktionaler Literatur.

Der neue Roman des amerikanischen Avantgardisten Dennis Cooper ist so persönlich wie nie. »Ich wünschte« ist eine nachgereichte Umarmung an seine große Liebe und ein gleichermaßen erschütterndes wie erhebendes Dokument autofiktionaler Literatur. Continue reading Untitled

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Alla Nazimova (A Doll's House, Camille, Salomé)—She was a proud lesbian, she was a director, she was artsy and experimental, she was instrumental in the rise to fame of Rudolph Valentino, she had the worlds biggest strap on energy

Xia Meng, also known as Hsia Moog or Miranda Yang (Sunrise, Bride Hunter)—For those who are familiar with Hong Kong's early cinema, Xia Meng is THE leading woman of an era, the earliest "silver-screen goddess", "The Great Beauty" and "Audrey Hepburn of the East". Xia Meng starred in 38 films in her 17-year career, and famously had rarely any flops, from her first film at the age of 18 to her last at the age of 35. She was a rare all-round actress in Mandarin-language films, acting, singing, and dancing with an enchanting ease in films of diverse genres, from contemporary drama to period operas. She was regarded as the "crown princess" among the "Three Princesses of the Great Wall", the iconic leading stars of the Great Wall Movie Enterprises, which was Hong Kong's leading left-wing studio in the 1950s-60s. At the time, Hong Kong cinema had only just taken off, but Xia Meng's influence had already spread out to China, Singapore, etc. Overseas Chinese-language magazines and newspapers often featured her on their covers. The famous HK wuxia novelist Jin Yong had such a huge crush on her that he made up a whole fake identity as a nobody-screenwriter to join the Great Wall studio just so he can write scripts for her. He famously said, "No one has really seen how beautiful Xi Shi (one of the renowned Four Beauties of ancient China) is, I think she should be just like Xia Meng to live up to her name." In 1980, she returned to the HK film industry by forming the Bluebird Movie Enterprises. As a producer with a heart for the community, she wanted to make a film on the Vietnam War and the many Vietnam War refugees migrating to Hong Kong. She approached director Ann Hui and produced the debut film Boat People (1982), a globally successful movie and landmark feature for Hong Kong New Wave, which won several awards including the best picture and best director in the second Hong Kong Film Award. Years later, Ann Hui looked back on her collaboration with Xia Meng, "I'm very grateful to her for allowing me to make what is probably the best film I've ever made in my life."

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Alla Nazimova:

HOT as hell. GAY as hell. TALENTED as hell. Producer, director, writer, actress. A silent era superstar who is credited with having coined the term "sewing circle" as a code-word for gatherings of lesbian and bisexual women. Has been called "the founding mother of Sapphic Hollywood" and was the owner/operator of the Garden of Alla Hotel in West Hollywood, which she bought in 1919 and sold in 1928 after deciding she wanted to go back to Broadway. In addition to starring opposite Valentino in Camille, she also had an affair with BOTH of his wives (Jean Acker and Natacha Rambova). In her day, she was one of the most influential women in the business.

"Nazimova was primarily a star during the silent film era, and her career in film started when she was almost forty. She was openly bisexual, and was engaged in two lavender marriages during her life while she carried on relationships with women (including at least one, and possibly two, of Rudolph Valentino's wives). She was brilliant and an autodidact - when she first moved to the United States from Ukraine, she spoke no English, but taught herself "in about five months" and went on to work as a screenwriter (among other things). Her predilections lay in art film, and she's credited with starring in / producing / directing one of the first American art films, the adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play Salome (1923). She has an elegant and commanding presence in all of her films, and is an absolute sensation to watch in motion."

Gif link, another gif link

A great actress who also produced a great deal of her films, Nazimova is absolutely mesmerizing to watch. She was also bi and coined the phrase "sewing circle" for sapphic celebrities.

Xia Meng:

[afro-hispwriter]

Summer Shadows(Camp Slasher Au) Welcome to Camp Paradis!

Levi Ackerman x reader(eventual)

Warnings- late 90’s, Levi and Mikasa are cousins, Levi sorta hates you

Summary- Camp Paradis is back in session after being closed for the past 30 years after the murder of 17 attendees. But that’s OBVIOUSLY not going to happen again!!!

Wc-2.1k

-

It’s too fucking hot for this shit

That's what was running through Levi’s head as he carried his two duffle bags through the sea of parents and children coming into Camp Paradis. 

Fucking summer camp, last time I let Erwin convince me to do this

“This is your fault,” Mikasa says next to him, her suitcase hitting her ankles almost every step. “If you hadn’t lost your job, then that shitty apartment we wouldn’t-.”

“Hey, brat.” He stopped and glared at her. “Do you ever shut the fuck up?”

“I hate you.” She stomped off to the check-in and Levi let out a ‘tch’. 

He walked over to where counselors were supposed to meet up when large hands clapped on his shoulders.

“Levi!” He knew the voice instantly and sighed deeply.

“Erwin.” The blonde moved in front of him, he had that stupid smile on his face. It was his first year as head counselor and Levi already knew he was overly excited. Just like he was when he was Valedictorian for his high school and college class, the best football player in both, and one of the smartest. While still being the kindest guy there was. Someone Levi could call his (best)friend. 

“I'm glad you’re here, let me tell you what cabin you’re being assigned.” Erwin looked at his clipboard and flipped through it. “Ackerman. Ackerman. Acker- ah okay you’re going to be In charge of Cabin G with 10 boys from ages 8 to 16.” Erwin points to the cabin far away. “Oh, and that cabin is next to a girl's cabin so you will have to keep an eye out a bit more often.”

“Great, as if just having to keep them alive for the next two months won't be hard enough.” 

“Hey come on, lighten up.” Levi rolled his eyes and turned his body to walk away but Erwin spoke again. “Made sure Mikasa is in the girl's cabin next to yours.”

“Tch. Why would you do that?” 

“Because she’s your family and you care about her. Regardless of whatever hatred there is between you two.” Levi said nothing and did nothing. Just stared at his friend and walked away.

-

Two steps into the cabin Levi knew what the first job the kids were going to be doing was. It was disgustingly filthy. He didn’t even want to throw his bags down. 

There was a paper to his left on a counter that read

Camp Paradis Cabin G

Head Cabin Counselor: Levi Ackerman(23)

Assistant Cabin Counselor: Furlan Church(19)

Campers:

Armin Arlet(14)   

Logan Beam(9)

Alexander Clarke(11)

Jean Kirstein(15)

Aloy Ramos(12)

Nicolas Shroud(16)

Connie Springer(15)

Jeremy Volantage(10)

Eren Yeager(15, watch closely, can be very troublesome)

Keiko Xu(8)

The rest of it was some rules and ways of communication. 

Levi rubbed his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. Oh, he knew this wasn’t going to be good. Between the mix of a whole bunch of adolescent brats and 2 little kids. He’s not getting a moment's peace, but at least he’s getting paid. 

He dropped his bags at the farthest bunk bed and grimaced at the dirt.

Did they not clean these beforehand?

“Hey!” A voice came from the entrance and Levi turned around. A guy with blonde hair and light gray eyes stood at the entrance waving at him. “Furlan Church and you are?” 

“Ackerman.” The blonde cocked his head to the side.

“Oh Levi. Really? I thought you were a-.” The eyebrow raised from Levi told Furlan it was best to keep that thought to himself. “Anyways, campers should be coming in soon, so what bed are you taking?“ 

Levi looked at the bed he was standing by. 

“Alright, guess I'll take this one.” Furlan tossed his bag on the bed by the main door. 

-

Levi remembered during orientation for counselors that there was a storage closet with cleaning supplies. He grabbed the handle and pushed it down but just as he opened it, someone was coming out. Before he could step back, his forehead rammed into their chin and his chest bumped a whole bunch of supplies in their arms. 

“Oh no I'm sorry, I should've watched where I was going.” Levi knew that voice. That irritating, grating voice. Looking up at her face confirmed his fears.

Y/n L/n. A total daddy’s girl with daddy's money. He went to school with you and the last time he saw you was high school graduation. He hated you. He always hated your stupid smile. He always hated how smart you were. He always hated how stupidly kind you were. He always hated how caring you were. He hated how you didn’t look any different you’re still so beautiful. Your stupid perfect hair hasn’t changed. He hated the stupid tank top you wore that matched your perfect skin beautifully. He hated those pretty shorts that he knew your ass looked great in. 

He hated you

“Levi? Levi Ackerman holy shit you’re here!” You say with a big smile and open your arms out wide. Dropping everything else in your arms. You stepped forward to hug him but he stepped back and out of reach making you stop. “Oh sorry.” You drop your arms but still keep a smile. “How have you been? 

He stared at you and let out a huff.

“Fine. What the hell are you doing here? Didn’t see you at the orientation and this isn’t your usual setting.”

“I’ve been a counselor here for 3 years now so it’s not mandatory, it’s nice though.” You squatted down and started grabbing the things off the ground. Cleaning supplies Levi could see. 

“Tch. Thought you’d be in Italy or some other country with your boyfriend.” That made you laugh, he squatted down and grabbed a bottle of cleaner.

“What boyfriend?”

“That rich guy-”

“Oh Sam!? Seriously? He was so obnoxious and not my type at all.” You stood back up and Levi followed. “I actually liked the whole camping thing and taking care of kids, it's nice. What Cabin are you in?’

“G.”

“Hey we’re neighbors, I'm in F as the Head. Guess that’s why I have Mikasa, she’s your cousin right?” He nodded and you pressed your lips together in a straight line. “Okay! I guess I’ll see you later. Bye, Levi.” You brushed past him and he was hit with the scent of your fruity perfume that made him turn his face to follow it. As he did his gray eyes trailed down to your ass.

-

The kids and parents were slowly starting to trickle in. Parents crying about letting their kids go, kids clinging to their parents, or the parent or kid who just wants to leave or stay to get away from each other. 

In Levi’s cabin, the first boy to arrive was Armin Arlet and his grandfather. He was quiet and settled in quickly. Next was Jean Kirstein, he came in by himself and just by saying a few words. Levi could see this kid had an ego. Eren Yeager came in and Levi and even Furlan were curious about the kid. Armin and he seemed to be good friends since the blonde boy jumped up and ran to Eren screaming his name. Eren’s father came up to Levi and held out his hand.

“I'm Grisha Yeager and this is my wife, Carla, I'm assuming you're Levi.” Their hands met and it ended quickly. “I'm sure they have mentioned our son but trust me on this, my son is a menace, I'm saying he would start a revolution if he could.” Levi sucked in a breath and let it out.

“Sir, I can and will handle your son.” Grisha’s shoulders dropped.

This guy seems disciplined, maybe he is who Eren needs 

“Thank you.” The man says and goes to Eren. 

A long day. A long day indeed.

-

The last boy to come in was Keiko Xu. He was clutching his mother's hand tightly and his other arm held his stuffed puppy toy. 

“Hey there!” Furlan approached them. “I'm Furlan and you are?” He looked down at the small boy.

“Keiko.” He says and he looks around the cabin and settles on Levi. 

“Cool name, how about you choose a bed kid, we still have three available.” Keiko nodded and dropped his mother's hand. He looked around all the beds, the boys smiling and waving at him. He got closer to Levi and Keiko looked at him in slight fear and that glare wasn’t helping. Levi noticed how nervous the kid was and relaxed his face. 

“Mmm, can I sleep here?” The small boy pointed to the bottom bed of the bunk next to Levi’s.

“Sure kid.” Keiko smiled and sat on the bed. His mother came over dropped his bags down and said her goodbyes. After she left, Furlan closed the door and Levi stood up. 

“Alright brats.” He said loudly and the boys all looked up at him. “Get settled in, we’re leaving in 20 for the grand welcoming in the mess hall. Understood?”

“Yes sir?” Connie salutes and Levi rolls his eyes.

-

Furlan stood in front leading the group while Levi was in the back making sure none of them strayed. The boys were already becoming fast friends but Keiko was still shy and almost cried when Levi told him to leave his toy so it didn't get lost. But that also seemed to be the reason why Keiko stayed close to Levi, as some sort of protection and comfort Keiko found in such little time. 

He kept looking around at all the people and some bumped into him making him stumble into Levi. In fear of falling, he grabbed Levi's hand and squeezed it tight. Levi’s eyes widened and tried to draw his hand back but Keiko wouldn’t let go. He just had to accept it.

He sat his group down and told them he would be in the back with the other councilors. There were refreshments and snacks that the adults were taking advantage of before the kids ate them all later. To Levi’s surprise, there was tea, it was in the bags but tea nonetheless. He grabbed a mug and the boiling kettle and started his tea. 

He listened to bits and parts of it. Erwin’s overly happy voice was about to give him a headache. 

Someone bumped his shoulder and pressed theirs against his due to the tight fit.

“Y/n.” 

“Levi.” You smiled at him. “Can I ask you a question?” 

“Mmm?” He took a sip. 

“Do you hate me? Like have I done something to you in the past? I just feel like you don’t like me.” He side-eyes you and takes another sip.

“Sorry if I wasn’t so fucking bubbly and happy.” He spit and you scrunch your nose.

“Guess I have my answer.” You start to walk away and Levi rolls his head back and shoots his arm out to grab your elbow 

“Wait brat.” He pulled you back next to him. “I don’t hate you.” 

“Then you strongly dislike me when I haven’t done anything to you. Tell me why you hate me.” He rolled his eyes and stayed quiet. “Fine if you don’t want to tell me, why don’t we just start over, and then when you have fallen hopelessly in love with me, you will forget why you hated me at all.” 

“Tch.” He shook his head and looked into his tea with a small smile.“In your dreams, but fine.” Keith Shadis, the director of the camp, was talking now about to close out. 

“So after lunch, me and my girls were going to do arts and crafts, do you and your boys want to join us?” Levi thought for a moment and stared at his group. He’d known them for less than two hours and he could tell they would prefer to throw a football or play volleyball rather than arts and crafts. Well, Armin and Keiko seem like they would. 

Fuck it

“Sure, I’ll bring them over.” 

“Fun!” You say and elbow him.

-

There were no directors, no counselors, no campers in the courtyard due to all of them being in the mess hall. 

Nobody knew of the man standing in the trees by the nurse's office. 

Staring right through the window. 

Staring right at Levi and Y/n. 

-

A/n- first time writing something like this!!! Next chapter will have more Levi and Y/n and masked man lore. Lmk if anybody wants to be tagged for this.

[queer-cinephile]

30 Days of Classic Queer Hollywood

Day 10: Alla Nazimova (1875 - 1945)

Once the highest paid film actress in the world, Alla Nazimova has also been dubbed "The Founding Mother of Sapphic Hollywood". This is due to her coinage of the term "sewing circle" as a discreet code for queer women in Hollywood.

Nazimova is confirmed to have had romantic relationships with many women, including: longtime companion Glesca Marshall, actresses Jean Acker and Eva Le Gallienne, director Dorothy Arzner, writer Mercedes de Acosta, and Oscar Wilde's niece Dolly Wilde.

Nazimova was in a 13 year long "lavender marriage" with actor Charles Bryant. Bryant surprised Nazimova and the public when he announced he was marrying a woman 20 years his junior, thus revealing their marriage to be a sham. The ensuing scandal damaged Nazimova's acting career.

[gooseprotocol]

Spice Girls interviewed by Kathy Acker in 1997 for the Guardian Weekend edition.

All Girls Together by Kathy Acker

The Spice Girls are the biggest, brashest girlie group ever to have hit the British mainstream. Kathy Acker is an avant-garde American writer and academic. They met up in New York to swap notes – on boys, girls, politics. And what they really, really want.

Fifty-second street. West Side, New York City. Hell’s Kitchen – one of those areas into which no one would once have walked unless loaded. Guns or drugs or both. But now it has been gentrified: the beautiful people have won. A man in middle-aged-rocker uniform, tight black jeans and nondescript T-shirt, lets Nigel, the photographer, and me through the studio doorway then a chipmunk-sort-of-guy in shorts, with a Buddha tattooed on one of his arms, greets us warmly. This is Muff, the band’s publicity officer. We’re about to meet the Girls … They are here to rehearse for an appearance on Saturday Night Live. Not only is this their first live TV performance, it’s also the first time they’ll be playing with what Mel C calls a “real band”. If the Girls are to have any longevity in the music industry, they will have to break into the American market and for this they will need the American media. Both the Girls and their record company believe that their appearance here tonight might do the trick.

There is a refusal among America’s music critics to take the Spice Girls seriously. The Rolling Stone review of Spice, their first album, refers to them as “attractive young things ... brought together by a manager with a marketing concept”. The main complaint, or explanation for disregard, is that they are a “manufactured band”. What can this mean in a society of McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and En Vogue? However, an email from a Spice fan mentions that, even though he loves the girls, he detects a “couple of stereotypes surrounding women in the band’s general image. The brunette is the woman every man wants to date. Perfect for an adventure on a midnight train, or to hire as your mistress-secretary. The blonde is the woman you take home to mother, whereas the redhead is the wild woman, the woman-with-lots-of-evil-powers.” So who are these Girls? And how political is their notorious “Girl Power”? Even though I have seen many of their videos and photos, as soon as I’m in front of these women, I am struck by how they look far more remarkable than I had expected, even though Mel C is trying not to look as lovely as she is. I had intended to say something else, but instead I find myself asking them: “If paradise existed, what would it look like?” Geri speaks first, and she is, I think, reprimanding me for being idealistic. “Money makes the world what it is today,” she says, almost before I have time to think about my sudden outburst, “a world infested with evil. All sorts of wars are going on at the moment. Everyone’s kind of bickering, wanting to better themselves because their next-door neighbour’s got a better lawn. That kind of thing.” “Greed,” Victoria adds. Mel C: “Instead of trying to be better than someone else, you have to try to better yourself.” In a few minutes, they are explaining to me that the Spice Girls is a type of paradise, Spice Girls is a lifestyle. “It’s community.” That’s Geri again. She and Mel B – one in a funky, antique Hawaiian shirt, the other in diaphanous yellow bell-bottoms and top – do most of the talking. Mel C, in her gym clothes, is the quietest. Geri: “We’re a community in which each one of us shines individually, without making any of the others feel insecure. We liberate each other. A community should be liberating. Nelson Mandela said that you know when someone is brilliant when having that person next to you makes you feel good.”

‘The Spicey life vibey thing’ ... The Spice Girls film the Euro 96 theme song video. Photograph: Dave Hogan/Getty Images

“Not envious,” adds her cohort, Mel B. These are the two baddest Girls. At least on the surface. I suspect otherwise. “It inspires you.” Geri again. “That is what life’s about. People should be inspiring.” I can’t keep up with these Girls. My generation, spoon-fed Marx and Hegel, thought we could change the world by altering what was out there – the political and economic configurations, all that seemed to make history. Emotions and personal – especially sexual – relationships were for girls, because girls were unimportant. Feminism changed this landscape in England, the advent of Margaret Thatcher, sad to say, changed it more. The individual self became more important than the world. To my generation, this signals the rise of selfishness for the generation of the Spice Girls, self-consideration and self-analysis are political. When the Spices say, “We’re five completely separate people,” they’re talking politically. “Like when you’re in a relationship,” Mel B takes over, “and you’re in love, you feel you’re only you when you’re with that person, so when you leave that person, you think ‘I’m not me’. That’s so wrong. It’s downhill from then on, in yourself spiritually and in your whole environment. In this band, it’s different. Each of us is just the way we are, and each of us respects that.”

“As Melanie says,” adds Geri, “each of us wants to be her own person and, without snatching anyone else’s energy, bring something creative and new and individual to the group. We’re proof this is happening. When the Spice Girls first started as a unit, we respected the qualities we found in each other that we didn’t have in ourselves. It was like, ‘Wow! That’s the Spicey life vibey thing, isn’t it?’”

Geri turns even more paradoxical: “Normally, when you get fans of groups, they want to act like you, they copy what you’re wearing, for instance. Whereas our fans, they might have pigtails and they might wear sweatclothes, but they are so individual, it’s unbelievable. When you speak to them, they’ve got so much balls! It’s like we’ve collected a whole group of our people together! It’s really, really mad. I can remember someone coming up to us and going, ‘Do you know what? I’ve just finished with my boyfriend! And you’ve given me the incentive to go ‘Fuck this!’” At this, the Spices cheer. Giving up any hope of narrative continuity, I ask the girls if they want boys. “Some of us are in relationships.” Mel B. “I live with my boyfriend. For three years now, yeah.” I tell them that I’ve never been good at balancing sexual love and work. “Of course you can. It doesn’t make me a lesser person to be in a relationship makes me a better person. Because I can still go out and . . . flirting is natural.” I’m listening to Mel B, but all I can think, at the moment, is how beautiful she is. “I can stay out all night and come in when I want. Your whole life doesn’t have to change just because you’re with somebody else.”

What man could handle all this? ... The Spice Girls at the 1997 Cannes film festival. Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images

“It depends on the individual,” says Geri. “I think whoever we would chose to be with should respect the way we are... and our job as well...” Mel B. “The way we are together. None of us would be interested in a man that wanted to dominate, wanted to pull you down, and wanted you to do what he wanted you to do.” I wonder what man could handle all this.

“If one of us was to go out with a dweeb of a man,” says Mel B, “he would probably feel threatened by the five of us. Because we do share things about our relationships, so it’s like a gang. Like a gang, but we’re not. We can have relationships, but they have to be on a completely different level.” Emma talks only about her mother, and Mel C is very quiet. What hides, I wonder, behind that face, which appears more delicate and intense than in her photos? Victoria, I learn later, is upset about an ex-boyfriend’s betrayal of her confidence – throughout our discussion she looks slightly upset. Several times she says that, above all, she wants privacy. Perhaps paradise is not as simple as it seems. I know that, to find out more about these Girls, I must change the subject, but instead, I just blurt out: “Let’s stop talking about boys!” “Yeah,” agree the Girls.

Do they think the Spice Girls will go on forever? And if not, what will they do after it ends? What do you really want to do? “We talked about that the other day, didn’t we?” Geri, sitting on the floor, turns around to the three girls sprawled on a black sofa. Emma, in a white from-the-Sixties dress, perches on a high chair. Their hair has been done, their faces powdered, and they’re ready for the photo.

Spice Girls: Say You’ll Be There - video

“I want to own restaurants,” Victoria takes the lead. She wears a skin-tight designer outfit, perfectly positioned Wonderbra and heels seemingly too high to walk on. Unlike the other girls, she never lets her mask break open.

“The entrepreneur,” remarks Mel B fondly. “Restaurants and art,” Victoria continues. “I’ve always liked art. Ever since I was...” She pauses. “And I’d like a nice big house, and to fill it with, you know...” “Sculptures!” Mel B. “Nude men.” That’s Mel C. All the girls are laughing. Victoria admits – and her emotions finally start to show – that’s she’s always fancied doing art. A few years ago, she and Geri were going to return to college, but they didn’t have the time. Now the others are teasing her about her shoes. I like these girls. I like being with them. “I don’t know what I want to do.” Mel C. The Spices who haven’t yet said anything are now talking. “At the moment I am completely into what I’m doing, and I find it hard to think, right now, what I want to do later on.” Mel B. “I want a big family, like the Waltons,” Emma admits. “I like taking care of people, I love kids.”

“You can look after mine.” Mel C.

Everyone’s saying something. Victoria wants to live with her sister, and maybe her brother Emma’s thinking of her mother. I’m beginning to realise how different from each other the Girls are. Mel C says she likes living alone, but wishes she were geographically closer to her family.

“Me and Geri,” pipes up Mel B, who’s rarely silent for more than a minute, “come from up north. It’s like living in a little community, isn’t it? And moving down into London, it’s like moving into the big wild world. I don’t even know my next-door neighbour, do you?”

“No,” answers Mel C. I like these girls. They’re home girls. “I’d be in a cult, or join a naturist camp or something, and just live there, like back in the Sixties in the hippy days,” Mel B is gesticulating, “where everything’s just One Love, everything’s free, and there are no set rules, where nobody judges you...” Geri tells me that she is a jack-of-all-trades. After speculating whether she might do her own TV show, or go into films, write a movie script, she announces that her model is Sylvester Stallone.

I think of Brigitte Nielsen. “I’ll tell you why.” He couldn’t get a part in Hollywood, she explains, so he wrote, directed and produced Rambo himself. “I just think that’s what it takes I always love it when the underdog comes through.”

The Girls have been in showbusiness for years. Emma started when she was three. All of the others were professional by the age of 17 or 18. I’m beginning to understand why these Girls have been picked, consciously or unconsciously, by their generation to represent that generation. Especially, but not only, the female sector. In a society still dominated by class and sexism, very few of those not born to rule, women especially, are able to make choices about their own work and lifestyle. Very few know freedom. None of the Spices, not even Victoria, was born privileged nor, as they themselves note, are they traditional beauties. Christine, a student of mine, watching them on Saturday Night Live, remarked to me: “They’re not even slick dancers or exceptional singers! They’re just the girl-next-door!”

And they are they’re just girls as more than one of them remarked to me, “We never really had a chance until this happened!” They’re the girls never heard from before this in England look, there are lots of them ones who’ve known Thatcherite, post-Thatcherite society and nothing else, and now, thanks to the glory and the strangeness of British rock-pop society, they’ve found a voice. Listen to the voices of those who didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge, or even to Sussex or to art school...

Geri: “I didn’t really know that much, you know, history, but I knew about the suffragettes. They fought. It wasn’t that long ago. They died to get a vote. The women’s vote. Bloody ass-fucking mad, do you know what I mean? You remember that and you think, fucking hell. But to get back to what Victoria was saying about us, that we never got anywhere, you know, the underdog thing. This is why I feel so passionate. We’ve been told, time and time again, you’re not pretty enough, you’re too fat, you’re too thin...” All the Spice Girls are now roaring. “...You’re not tall enough, you’re not white, you’re not black. What I passionately feel is that it is so wrong to have to fit into a role or a mould in order to succeed. What I think is fan-fucking-tastic about us now is that we are not perfect and we have made a big success of ourselves. I’m swelling with pride.” But you are babes. They all protest. “We were all individually beaten down... Collectively, we’ve got something going,” says Geri. “Individually, I don’t think we’d be that great.”

“There’s a chemistry that runs through us and gives us... where I’m bad at something, Melanie’s good, or Geri’s good at something at which the rest of us are bad,” says Victoria. Look, I say, I’m feeling stranger and stranger about these politics based on individualism. There are lots of girls who have the same backgrounds as they do, right? “Right.”

So what is holding those girls down? Keeping them from doing what they really want to do? They start to discuss this. I can hardly make out who’s saying what in the ensuing commotion. I hear “society and conditioning”; another one, Emma perhaps, is talking about being in showbiz, receiving job rejection after job rejection she’s saying how strong you have to be to keep bouncing back. Geri mentions Freud, then states that parents’ beliefs often hold back a child, parents and then the child’s reception in her school. “When you go and see a careers officer,” ponders Mel C, “and you sit down and say, ‘I want to be a spaceman’, instead of responding ‘Go study astrophysics’, they go, ‘Yeah, but what do you really want to do?’ That is so wrong. I think there should be a class in – what do you call it? – self-motivation. Self-motivation classes, self-esteem classes.”

I still feel that a bit of economic realism is missing here, but I can’t get a word in edgewise. Not in all the girl excitement. These females are angry.

“I think it all goes back to everyone wanting to feel that they’re part of an ongoing society,” Geri tries to analyse. “The humdrum nine-to-five, you know what it’s like... What do you do when you leave school? You go and get a job to have money to pay off the mortgage, you get a flat and have a nice boyfriend, pay off your bills, you go to work with your briefcase and your suit, and that’s it. That’s people’s normal, everyday thing, isn’t it? And if you branch out from that, it’s... well, ‘What does she think she’s doing?’ It’s going against the grain a bit – which not many people do. It’s not even going against the grain it’s just clinging on to the bit you want to do and thinking I’m going to do it, who cares?” The Girls, including Geri, tell me that they’ve got an American philosophy, an American dream. “But me,” says Mel B, “before I was in the band, I thought I’d like to be a preacher. I still do. Something like that. They’ve actually got this place in London which is called Speaker’s Corner. You get up on your stand there you can speak about anything. I’d like to speak about people, the emotional or mental blocks people have, especially regarding other people, things like that. That’s what the tattoo on my stomach means, ‘Spirit, Heart and Mind’, because that’s what fuels me – communication fuels me. You learn about yourself, about other people and life in general, through communication.” She says that’s she’s been writing since she was 11, writing everything down, “why the world is this shape, what would happen if everyone on earth died...”

“Stoned questions...” murmurs another Spice. “I’d love to go back to the Sixties,” Emma says in her clear voice. “I’d love that. I wouldn’t wear headbands though.” What about some of the politics of the Sixties, I ask. Malcolm X? The fight against racism? “The other day I watched The Killing Fields.” Now Geri’s doing the talking. “That was in the Sixties, Vietnam. I think it’s very healthy that there’s an element of that today. Through the media today we can see people demonstrating for human rights. In Cambodia, on the other side of the world. I think it’s brilliant when you see people standing up, when they have a voice, it kicks the system, a little bit, into touch.”

Spice Girls: Spice up Your Life - video

But what about in England today? I mention that in the US, racism is still a big issue.

Mel B and Geri start talking about racism. Geri tells me that she’s learned about racial prejudice from Mel B, who says, “The thing I find really bizarre about America and England ... You say that the racism thing is worse in America, yet if you look at television here [in NYC], they’re really scrupulous about making sure, for instance, that they have a black family in an advert. On the adverts in England, you wouldn’t find that.” Suddenly all the Spices are talking among themselves. I can’t understand anything. Then we’re on the subject of Madonna, of people who have inspired us, and Geri starts speaking about Margaret Thatcher. Why she admires her. “But we won’t go down there!” “Don’t go down there!” advise the Girls.

“We won’t go down there, but...” and Geri, who never seems to listen to reason, begins. She says that when politicians discuss the economy, they’re just talking about shifting money from one spot to another, and someone always suffers. This is the same distrust of government that so many Americans, both on the right and left – and especially among lower and working-class people – are feeling and articulating.

Mel C says softly, “We talked about suffragettes and getting the vote to women, and all that. But a lot of women don’t vote a lot of our generation doesn’t vote. I don’t. I don’t feel I should because I don’t know anything about politics ...”

“That was what I was going to say,” adds Emma. They blame the lack of political education in schools. Whether they like or dislike Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair, they distrust both the political industry and the related media. “Intellectual people chatting in bathrooms,” comments Mel B. “We are society,” exclaims Geri, “so really ...”

“... We should be running it,” Mel B finishes the statement.

“I’d like to run it for a day,” says Victoria, looking directly at me.

“But Victoria, who’s going to let you do such a job?” Geri reminds her. “The only way to go is growth,” says Mel B. “I think everyone’s turned a bit to the spiritual life.”

“You know,” interjects Victoria, “if you believe in evolution, we only use 20% of our brain ... if that. So it’s natural that we can evolve to the next level. We’ve got to, really.”

“Nowadays, people do sit down and ask themselves ‘Why am I doing this?’” Mel B continues. “They question themselves and what they’ve got around them. I know I do it, and you find your own little mission. And you fucking go for it. A lot more people are like that now.” Do they all feel like that? There’s a general quiet, then a “Yeah” all around me. I ask the Spices to describe themselves. For a moment, they’re lost for words. Victoria: “I love what I’m doing. I’m with my five best friends, and I’ve seen some great countries. I’m happy, I’m very happy. I care a lot about my family. Regarding my personality, I’m private. There are things for me to know and no one else to find out.” She hesitates. “I just accept the way I am. You have to make the most of it, make the best of yourself. I’m a bit of a fretter. If I’m going to do something, I want to do it properly. I want to do the best I can. I’m a perfectionist.”

Emma: “Me, I’m definitely a bit of a brat. I worry about what other people are feeling, that sort of thing.”

Geri: “I have quite an active mind. Quite eccentric, really. A conversationalist. I believe in fate in a big way, a very big way.” Mel B: “I’m always asking inward questions about things. I live off the vibes, I do, that people give me. If I don’t like someone then I won’t speak to them, even though something might be coming out of their mouth that I should listen to. I like to think I’m a bit of a free spirit. I don’t run by any rule book. I live on the edge a little bit. I always think, well, at least I’ll die happy today rather than worrying about it tomorrow.”

Mel C: “I’m very regimented. I really enjoy my own company, although I love being with other people.”

I’m watching the Spice Girls perform Wannabe on Saturday Night Live, but not seeing them. In my mind, I’m seeing England. When I returned there in July last year, lad culture was in full swing. Loaded was running what had once been a relatively intellectual magazine culture. Feminism, especially female intellectuals, had become extinct. “Where have all the women gone to?” I asked. Then came a twist named the Spice Girls. The Spices, though they deny it, are babes – the blonde, the redhead, the dark sultry fashion model – and they’re more. They both are and represent a voice that has too long been repressed. The voices, not really the voice, of young women and, just as important, of women not from the educated classes. It isn’t only the lads sitting behind babe culture, bless them, who think that babes or beautiful lower and lower-middle class girls are dumb. It’s also educated women who look down on girls like the Spice Girls, who think that because, for instance, girls like the Spice Girls take their clothes off, there can’t be anything “up there”.

The Spice Girls are having their cake and eating it. They have the popularity and the popular ear that an intellectual, certainly a female intellectual, almost never has in this society, and, what’s more, they have found themselves, perhaps by fluke, in the position of social and political articulation. It little matters now how the Spice Girls started – if they were a “manufactured band”.

What does this have to do with feminism? When I lived in England in the Eighties, a multitude of women, diverse and all intellectual, were continually heard from – people such as Michele Roberts, Jeanette Winterson, Sara Maitland, Jacqueline Rose, Melissa Benn. Is it also possible that the English feminism of the Eighties might have shared certain problems with the American feminism of the Seventies? English feminism, as I remember it back then, was anti-sex. And like their American counterparts, the English feminists were intellectuals, from the educated classes. There lurked the problem of elitism, and thus class.

I am speculating, but, perhaps due to Margaret Thatcher – though it is hard to attribute anything decent to her – a populist change has taken place in England. The Spice Girls, and girls like them, and the girls who like them, resemble their American counterparts in two ways: they are sexually curious, certainly pro-sex, and they do not feel that they are stupid or that they should not be heard because they did not attend the right universities. If any of this speculation is valid, then it is up to feminism to grow, to take on what the Spice Girls, and women like them, are saying, and to do what feminism has always done in England, to keep on transforming society as society is best transformed, with lightness and in joy.

[dearorpheus]

(that last anon again) Thank you so much for the recommendations! I'm truly in awe of how well read you are and how thorough your answers are. May I ask if you have any fiction recommendations with the same themes?

(following on from this ask)

hi!! you're very kind, apologies for taking so long to get back to you! i've been snowed under with assignments+readings for uni and the slowly encroaching exam crawl... but yes absolutely♡

- The Story of O, Anne Desclos - The Bloody Chamber ; The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman ; The Passion of New Eve, Angela Carter -> Angela appreciated and referenced symbolist artists like Rops:

Woman Putting on Costume, 1848-1898, Rops; The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter; excerpt from Romana Byrne's Aesthetic Sexuality: A Literary History of Sadomasochism (mentioned in previous ask) which seems esp pertinent given the Bloody Chamber is a Bluebeard tale (but which is actually referencing Story of O)

I also mentioned Giger in the previous ask, and Hans Bellmer was an influence of his whom I enjoy viewing alongside Rops...

this is Sans Titre (Jeune Fille et la Mort), 1963

- The Torture Garden, Octave Mirbeau

(Le Jardin des supplices (1976) dir. Christian Gion; screencap from estateofinsanity)

- Exquisite Corpse, Poppy Z. Brite - Necrophilia Variations, Supervert - Story of the Eye; My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man; Blue of Noon, Bataille - Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue ; Juliette ; 120 Days of Sodom, Sade - The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Anne Rice -> supplement w Sleeping Beauty (2011) dir. Julia Leigh - Venus in Furs, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch - Monsieur Vénus, Rachilde - Le Necrophile, Gabrielle Wittkopp - The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P, Reiko Matsuura - The Damned ; Against Nature, Joris-Karl Huysmans - Empire of the Senseless, Kathy Acker - Crash, J.G. Ballard (+ the Cronenberg of course) - Salomé / Teleny, or the Reverse of the Medal, Oscar Wilde - La Morte Amoureuse, Théophile Gautier

^Romuald bitterly remembers his lost love, 1904, Eugène Decisy—his etchings for Gautier's story are beautiful (x, x)

- The Image, Jean de Berg - Trois Filles de leur mère, Pierre Louÿs - House of Incest, Anaïs Nin - My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell - Naomi, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki - “Dolores”, Algernon Charles Swinburne:

-> first of many stanzas^ ; I also like his “Laus Veneris” - Trouble Every Day (2001) dir. Claire Denis - Belladonna of Sadness (1963) dir. EIichi Yamamoto

(screencap from eternal--return)

- Nekromantik (1988) dir. Jörg Buttgereit - Thirst (2009) dir. Park Chan-wook -> supplement w Zola's Thérèse Raquin and In Secret (2013) dir. Charlie Stratton

[volstruckerz]

caleb widogast (a better knife than a person)

empire of the senseless, kathy acker/ @peitalo/ a self-portrait in letters, anne sexton /@sunsbleeding​/ louise glück/ becca stadtlander /all my sons, arthur miller / the crucible, arthur miller (1953) + sculptures, kelly akashi, bound (2017) + feel me (2017)/ letters to milena, franz kafka/ simone de beauvoir, from a letter to jean-paul sartre (paris, 21 february 1941)/wintersmith, terry pratchett, / nov 4 2021, silas denver melvin/ richard siken + @lamp2003/ a burning hill, mistki