Homage

The Queen Of Pinups. God bless her (and God bless Irving Klaw). In case you don't know, Bettie "I Never Was The Girl Next Door" Page was voted "Most Likely To Succeed" in high school. And from the late Forties to the late Fifties, she succeeded in being photographed thousands of times in various poses of nudity, sadism, and masochism before Congress, recognizing her as a force of pure eros, formed an official Subcommittee On Juvenile Delinquency. Somehow they found Bettie Page's S&M photographs to be The Enemy, responsible for the unraveling of American morality and, as a result, ordered the incineration of most of the extant negatives and prints of her - truly a tragic loss.

At about the same time, Bettie converted to evangelical Christianity. She ended up employed by Rev. Billy Graham and his God Squad, preaching the envangel. Twelve years later, she was diagnosed with acute schizophrenia. Like a lot of people suffering from schizophrenia, she spent the rest of her life destitute, in and out of mental hospitals, group homes, and the legal system. When the forces of pop culture saw to it that she became an icon of hip, noir s&m femininity towards the end of her life, she did a few interviews but always refused to be photographed: "No, I don`t think my fans want to see me old and fat...Remember me as I looked when I was younger."

I have a theory about this "schizophrenia" diagnosis, though: What drove Bettie Page insane wasn't a pure constellation of latent tendencies and brain chemistry. This is a highly disputable claim, but, for my money, the culprit was/is the repressed macro-culture's inability to claim and integrate its own eros. A victim of bad timing and classic group dynamics, Bettie Page became the perfect scapegoat - the incinerated witch. And who among us could take the pressure of being adored so covertly and also loathed so publicly? Like Dylan, she found some temporary solace in the "born again" mythology. But a psyche under duress only has so much resilience before it will retreat into the depths of its own madness...and I think it's a testament to Bettie Page's femme-ferocity (pictured above) that she kept going as long as she did. I mean, it's not like there weren't a lot of powerful forces working against her...

The incomparable Miss Page endured, then died in California eight months ago today, in the pale American winter. She was 85 years old.