1957: Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

JAYNE MANSFIELD

as "The De-voon Rita Marlowe"

DomMommy Glammazon Jayne is here to give less-than-manly Tony Randall a lesson in OverPowering Femininity...

As she works him over, one-time Sex Symbol Joan Blondell eyes the proceedings approvingly...

She wants him to change his clothes, and invokes Motherly Control...

"Why don't we let the baby dress in Mommy's bedroom?"

It's akin to inviting him to be a cross-dresser...

While he may have been tempted to put Jayne's clothes on, Tony comes out, terribly mis-fitted in some stud's garments...

Jayne let's him know he doesn't quite measure up in manhood to her Womanhood...

Tony's just not ready to take this Gal on...

 

In Sexual Psycho-pathology this is known as Inverted Impotence, where the man is so afraid of his desire, especially if the WOman is so abundantly sexy, that he can't get it up to pursue her... He does not pursue because she is undesirable -- he does not pursue because she is too desirable... It is either his fear of being consumed by or not being man enough for such an Overwhelming Sexual Femininity that prevents him from consummating the sexual act...

By the end of the movie Jayne becomes the living epitome of "Sex Sells," with Eroticism and Capitalism fully embodied in her as a Product SpokesGlamazon...

Here we can begin to combine the Freudian understanding of Fetishes with Marxian critique of Consumer Capitalism, with both designating a fixation on the Object of Desire in the pursuit of Orgasm & Money... In both instances it is a process known as "reification," where the non-physical (desire) becomes physical... A fetishist identifies a concrete thing (a shoe / a foot -  a nylon / a leg) as the physical embodiment of his lust... The consumer identifies a manufactured thing (a car, a house) as the physical embodiment of his sense of self... A Successful Consumer Fetishist is forever buying things that continually get him off...

Some of the greatest promo shots of all time come from this flick, which is in line with this being Jayne's greatest role in terms of physical beauty and comedic acting, essentially playing a caricature of herself (which is already a caricature) and doing it damn well... But at the same time, this role spells the death-knell for her career... After this, it was hard to take her seriously in anything (altho there is no choice but to take her hard), and H'wood ran out of gimmicks to feature her in as she drifted towards Europe and ultimately schlock productions... Once you establish yourself as the Most Stunning Bimbo, where else is there for you to go? Once you out-MM Marilyn Monroe, who can you pretend to be? Gargantuan Jayne could not answer these questions in her career and fell to the inherent dangers in pursuing Fantasy Femininity...