Starlets in Chadors
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Politics
The Cinetrix pointed us to this odd sample of cultural colonization: a series of greeting cards, found in a post office in Tehran, depicting Hollywood starlets such as Natalie Portman, Kate Winslet and Katie Holmes, redrawn as "proper Muslims". By borrowing the tabloid tagline "Stars: They're Just Like Us!" to title her post, The Cinetrix implies that this redressing is kind of an embrace, by Muslim culture, of Hollywood; but I'm sure on some level it's more than just an appropriation of star power for the sake of star power – I wonder if it isn't also a scold.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-24-2005 @ 11:37AM
Galto said...
It took me like 3 hours to finish the shading on her upper lip.
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8-24-2005 @ 11:50AM
Peter Nellhaus said...
Oy! The irony is that Ms. Portman was born in Jerusalem as Natalie Hershlag.
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8-24-2005 @ 12:01PM
cinetrix said...
Thanks for the kind mention, although to be completely accurate, my partner found these gems on the internerd, and not during travel to Tehran. [That I know of, anyway.] I agree that the cover-up may be a scold, but it's also probably a clever work-around, allowing purience and modesty to coexist.
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8-24-2005 @ 4:31PM
cel said...
these are really really interesting. i'm at my white-board now tracing out the multiple intersecting vectors of signification (say that five times fast). i need to dust off my copy of "alice doesn't" for this one i think . . .
cel
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