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Journal ArticleDOI

Beauty and the Market: Actress Postcards and their Senders in Early Twentieth-Century Australia

01 May 2004-New Theatre Quarterly (Cambridge University Press)-Vol. 20, Iss: 2, pp 99-116
TL;DR: Kelly et al. as discussed by the authors studied the use of picture postcards in early 20th century Australian theatre and found that women were major factors in the consumption of the glamour actress card.
Abstract: A hundred years ago the international craze for picture postcards distributed millions of images of popular stage actresses around the world. The cards were bought, sent, and collected by many whose contact with live theatre was sometimes minimal. Veronica Kelly's study of some of these cards sent in Australia indicates the increasing reach of theatrical images and celebrity brought about by the distribution mechanisms of industrial mass modernity. The specific social purposes and contexts of the senders are revealed by cross-reading the images themselves with the private messages on the backs, suggesting that, once outside the industrial framing of theatre or the dramatic one of specific roles, the actress operated as a multiply signifying icon within mass culture – with the desires and consumer power of women major factors in the consumption of the glamour actress card. A study of the typical visual rhetoric of these postcards indicates the authorized modes of femininity being constructed by the major postcard publishers whose products were distributed to theatre fans and non-theatregoers alike through the post. Veronica Kelly is working on a project dealing with commercial managements and stars in early twentieth-century Australian theatre. She teaches in the School of English, Media Studies, and Art History at the University of Queensland, is co-editor of Australasian Drama Studies, and author of databases and articles dealing with colonial and contemporary Australian theatre history and dramatic criticism. Her books include The Theatre of Louis Nowra (1998) and the collection Our Australian Theatre in the 1990s (1998).
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12 Mar 2014

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12 Mar 2014

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References
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Book
01 Jan 1993
TL;DR: The Transvestite Continuum: Liberace-Valentino-Elvis Conclusion a tergo : Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in Bed as discussed by the authors The Chic of Araby: Transvestitism and the Erotics of Cultural Appropriation 13.
Abstract: Introduction List of Plates Part One: Transvestite Logics 1. Dress Codes or the Theatricality of Difference 2. Cross-Dress for Success 3. The Transvestite's Progress 4. Spare Parts: The Surgical Construction of Gender 5. Fetish Envy 6. Breaking the Code: Transvestitism and Gay Identity Part Two: Transvestite Effects 7. Fear of Flying or Why is Peter Pan a Woman 8. Cherchez la Femme: Cross-Dressing in Detective Fiction 9. Religious Habits 10. Phantoms of the Opera: Actor, Diplomat, Transvestite, Spy 11. Black and White TV: Cross-Dressing the Colour Line 12. The Chic of Araby: Transvestitism and the Erotics of Cultural Appropriation 13.The Transvestite Continuum: Liberace-Valentino-Elvis Conclusion a tergo : Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in Bed.

1,265 citations

Book
01 Jan 1985
TL;DR: In his essay made up of a series of quotes, Hoolboom presents issues of theory and sexual imaging as mentioned in this paper, and program notes document films by eight artists and discuss the relationship between theory and imaging.
Abstract: In his essay made up of a series of quotes, Hoolboom presents issues of theory and sexual imaging. Program notes document films by eight artists.

9 citations

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The specific social purposes and contexts of the senders are revealed by cross-reading the images themselves with the private messages on the backs, suggesting that, once outside the industrial framing of theatre or the dramatic one of specific roles, the actress operated as a multiply signifying icon within mass culture – with the desires and consumer power of women major factors in the consumption of the glamour actress card.