From: mattm@apple.com (Matthew Melmon)
Subject: Re: Dietrich, Madonna, etc.
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 20:43:11 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.
Followup-To: soc.motss

In article <1b4m1oINNaq7@mizar.usc.edu>, adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson)
wrote:

> It's clear that our definitions of "icon" differ widely.  The word
> still retains its religious overtones for me.  A super-famous, super-
> rich, super-powerful person is not necessarily *mythic*.  Dietrich is. 
> Quite simply, Dietrich created a sexual aesthetic.  

Hah!  'Sexual aesthetic.'  And the blonde one has not created a sexual
aesthetic, baby doll?  Get thyself *real*

>Open any fashion
> magazine and you'll see Dietrich (at several removes) in picture after
> picture.  

Hah!  'Several times removed!'  Christ All-mighty.  Open any fashion 
magazine and you'll see Madonna, not 'several times removed' but, in
fact, right there.  

> has continued.)  Watch teenaged girls trying on clothes at a mall, and
> you'll invariably see one of them make Dietrich-esque expressions into
> the mirror.  

Double Hah!  Could it be you are mistaking preening drag queens for
teenage girls?  Could it be said teenage girls (IF - big IF - they 
are such) are doing a *parody* of *parodies* of Dietrich they may have
seen on television?  Or does double-indirection *count*?

[/etc/etc]

> Well, I was talking about the movies that one can see in a movie
> theater.  The number of those movies *has* steadily decreased since
> the 1920s.  Pick up any reference book and look at the numbers.  What
> were *you* talking about?

And perhaps the number of people going to movie theaters has also
been in decline?  And perhaps *theaters* are no longer the principle
source of visual entertainment?
 

> I've already answered this elsewhere.  Dietrich's active movie career
> was about 30 years in length (1923 to 1952).  And then she started her
> concert/nightclub career, which was wildly successful, and which
> lasted for another 25 years.  I just don't see Madonna having that
> kind of staying power.  

Madonna will be able to *produce* entertainment long after she no longer
stars in it herself.  She does, in fact, have a *production* contract.
She has given every indication that she plans on pursuing this.  She
certainly has the money to do it *herself*, even without the cooperation
of the studios - who at this point seem *more* than willing to cooperate.

> > Perhaps you are aware that Pickford was approached *before*
> > Swanson for the part?
> 
> So what?  

Brilliant.  People say they haven't heard of *your* icon.  You say,
'So what.'  I point out that Pickford, not Swanson, was the actress
Billy Wilder had in mind when he first started casting for the part.
You say, 'So what.'  But it get's better.
 
> > Desmond lived in a walled up castle in Beverly Hills.  Desmond
> > "Had more money than all this 'new' Hollywood trash."  Desmond
> > owned chunks of downtown Los Angeles.  Desmond owned oil wells.
> > Norma Desmond was all these things in the forties.  
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > What was Gloria Swanson in the forties?  A washed up was-been.
> > Gloria Swanson did not live in Pickfair.  Gloria Swanson did
> > not have more money that all the new Hollywood trash.  
> 
> Oh dear.  Do you understand the concept of fiction, sweetheart?

OH!  It was fiction!  Silly me.  And I thought it was a documentary.

Try the following little mental excerise:

Imagine, if you will, all the great Silent stars playing the part
as *themselves*  Yes, instead of Norma Desmond, it's Mabel Normand.
Or Vilma Banky.  Or Gloria Swanson (as herself, she *did* play the
part).  Or even dear little Garbo.  *None* of them would have been
believable.  People living in Hollywood at the time would have known
full and well that each and every one was a washed up had-been.  
Even at the *height* of their careers, none of them matched what
Desmond was supposed to be.  Pickford would have been *absolutely*
believable.  What's more, her complaint with the part was that
Holden's character was not subordinate enough.  There had to be
*no* *doubt* who the star was.

You can't get much more Norma Desmond than that.

Indeed, Norma Desmond would never have consented to play Norma Desmond.
A terribly complicated thought, Dolphie - and you have shown difficulty
with certain conditional expressions - but I'm sure one of your
intellectual stamina can parse it.


> > The phantom party that Swanson threw alluded to the hey-day of
> > Pickfair's bashes - or would have were it more than phantom
> > dreams.  
> 
> Mary Pickford was the only movie star to throw big bashes?

Pickford's bashes were famous around the world.  They *defined* the
Hollywood social scene.  Perhaps only Marion Davies held equal
prestige.


> > Zukor himself, dining with Pickford in the New York Paramount
> > Building in the twenties, said to her:
> > 
> > "You built this building, Mary"
> 
> How very nice.  I don't see how that proves that Norma Desmond is
> meant to be Mary Pickford.

No.  Of course you don't.  No connection between Zukor's statement,
between Pickford's own feelings on the subject, and between one
of Desmond's quips.  None whatsoever.
  
> > Pickford defined 'drawing power.'  Mary Pickford's name above
> > a film meant it would be a smash.  Paramount's early days
> > were lived because Mary Pickford was theirs.
> 
> If it hadn't been for Clara Bow, Paramount would have gone under in
> the late 1920s.  So what?  One-eyebrowed Deanna Durbin saved Universal
> from the creditors with her series of chirpy movies.  So what?

So what?  You use those words too much.  I don't think you know what
they mean.  The 'So What' is:  Desmond represented herself as the life
force of early Paramount.  Pickford *was* the life force of early 
Paramount.  You maintain there is *no* connection?
 

> Norma Desmond is
> represented as having made glamorous movies in the '20s, as having
> been a glamorous movie star.  Both are true of Gloria Swanson.  Mary
> Pickford made saccharine movies in the '20s and she was closer to
> Queen Mother than Queen of Hollywood.

All said in blissful ignorance of the reality of Hollywood social life,
a reality that revolved around Pickfair.  The party invitations would
not have been so universaly sought, the openings would not have waited,
if Pickford were not Queen of Hollywood.  Wilder would not have asked 
her to play the role *first* if she were *only* a dowdy, frumpy old lady.

On this topic, Dolphie Dearest, you are full of the *wrong* shit.
  

Melmothra, ACC
Newsgroups: soc.motss