A Moulin Rouge inspired Emma Frost Comic Con International in San
Diego, July 2011. I think Dodson can draw a pretty amazing, strong and yet very elegant Emma Frost.
July 16, 2012
THE OUTER BEAUTY Part 1 + Welcome back!
Hello again, dear friends!
First of all I would like to thank everybody who stayed on this blog even when I didn't. I had a lot of personal stuff to deal with, so I had to cut short some of my activities in order to not get crazy. But I'm back now, all fresh and inspired =)
Some changes will be made around here - this blog will be less about quantity and more about quality of Emma-related news.
I will also do my best to write more on the subject. I'm happy to present my first article after the break! I planned on doing it for a long time and now I finally started. I give you:
Let me be the first to say that Emma Frost is one of the most
interesting, flawed, inspiring and complicated people in the comics
so far and that her appearance is by far not her only aspect worth
discovering. But! We all know why we landed here in the first place.
She caught our eye first. Or at least that's what happened to me. It
actually was like falling in love – I started noticing her inner
beauty after noticing her looks. So let's talk about them and see if
I can somehow rationalize my being a superficial jerk by comparing
her costumes to her way of thinking at the given time.
Emma started out as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club in her teens. She wore the same
clothes for pole dancing and villainous plotting. A corset
and tiny panties, high boots and gloves still represent her most
recognisable look. One should never forget the cape, an aсcessory
that returned only many years later. Being a young adult, Emma actually looked much older in her HC-era, maybe because of the artists, maybe because her story was a little retconned later to make her younger. Or maybe she just wanted to look older to gain more respect and fear. She also had some plastic surgery she openly admits to and is ever proud of. She wanted to be perfect. So she got perfect.
Every
woman in the HC was most likely forced or inclined to wear laundry,
no matter her status. In the Classic X-Men #34 we
can see Emma talking to a servant girl who wears just as little
clothes. By the way, this amazing issue is beautifully reviewed by Ken Kneisel and you just have to check it out if you didn't already! Emma
tells the girl that she is not ashamed of her look and that she, in
fact, sees it as her asset against men who think they are the
ones with power. Where, actually, the power is all hers. 'You wear
that outfit and men look at you and it cheapens you. But when I wear
it - it cheapens them.' Emma knew that she was a valuable asset in
the HC and she had both the intelligence and mutant powers to back up
her assertiveness. So she could wear whatever the hell she wanted and
men still respected her enough to try not to stare. I imagine it humoured her a lot.
This
costume radiated a deadly amount of sex appeal, but it is not the most
important thing about it. All women who were unfortunate enough to get into a fight wearing high heels, a décolleté dress or maybe, God forbid, only panties,
will know what I mean when I say that fighting ANY sort of enemy in
this dress is next to impossible. But Emma still pulled that off. You
can certainly call yourself a hero when you manage to work as a
villain while maintaining a perfect hair, not falling out of your
tight corset (and breathing in it!) and not breaking a heel. Well
done, Emma! It's about self-control, too. She made herself an armour
that forced her to always look her best, to be her best. She could
never relax. She could never be nice and caring. She could never
forget to epilate, for God's sake! There was no going back from this,
you could never go soft again. It is very funny that the only man she
actually loved created the same restrains for himself. Yes, Cyclops
and his visor, as seen in AXM 14. Notice the similitude?
I
should remind everyone that Frost was still almost a teenager when she first
joined the Club. It is very possible that she overcompensated for her
silent childhood by dressing up like a stripper and craving
attention. This look, paradoxically enough, is the most uncertain. It
is like a twisted cry for attention and love. The Hellfire taught her
what they taught her and Emma followed the only advice that seemed to
help, and it actually made her love herself and feel important. It
gave her power she never had before. It made her someone no one could
forget. I think the main reason why Emma stayed on top while being on
the edge of falling is that Emma was always intelligent enough to
not go too far with men. It was
never about men. It was about causing chaos. Men fantasised about
her, women envied and hated her. It was pure power of mischief and
misdirection. And it forged the woman we know and love out of a
problem teenager.
First of all I would like to thank everybody who stayed on this blog even when I didn't. I had a lot of personal stuff to deal with, so I had to cut short some of my activities in order to not get crazy. But I'm back now, all fresh and inspired =)
Some changes will be made around here - this blog will be less about quantity and more about quality of Emma-related news.
I will also do my best to write more on the subject. I'm happy to present my first article after the break! I planned on doing it for a long time and now I finally started. I give you:
EMMA FROST: THE OUTER BEAUTY
Let me be the first to say that Emma Frost is one of the most
interesting, flawed, inspiring and complicated people in the comics
so far and that her appearance is by far not her only aspect worth
discovering. But! We all know why we landed here in the first place.
She caught our eye first. Or at least that's what happened to me. It
actually was like falling in love – I started noticing her inner
beauty after noticing her looks. So let's talk about them and see if
I can somehow rationalize my being a superficial jerk by comparing
her costumes to her way of thinking at the given time.
I want to add that I am a woman myself and I absolutely realise that a lot
of Emma's costumes would look ridiculous on a real woman. In my opinion it
is insulting to suggest that the only way a woman can be sexy is by
dressing up like a stripper. But for me Emma is the only person who can
pull this off. And you know why? She teases men, she angers women,
and It. Is. Fun! =)
PART ONE: The Hellfire Club
Emma started out as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club in her teens. She wore the same
clothes for pole dancing and villainous plotting. A corset
and tiny panties, high boots and gloves still represent her most
recognisable look. One should never forget the cape, an aсcessory
that returned only many years later. Being a young adult, Emma actually looked much older in her HC-era, maybe because of the artists, maybe because her story was a little retconned later to make her younger. Or maybe she just wanted to look older to gain more respect and fear. She also had some plastic surgery she openly admits to and is ever proud of. She wanted to be perfect. So she got perfect.
Possible
reasons for dressing up like that:
Every
woman in the HC was most likely forced or inclined to wear laundry,
no matter her status. In the Classic X-Men #34 we
can see Emma talking to a servant girl who wears just as little
clothes. By the way, this amazing issue is beautifully reviewed by Ken Kneisel and you just have to check it out if you didn't already! Emma
tells the girl that she is not ashamed of her look and that she, in
fact, sees it as her asset against men who think they are the
ones with power. Where, actually, the power is all hers. 'You wear
that outfit and men look at you and it cheapens you. But when I wear
it - it cheapens them.' Emma knew that she was a valuable asset in
the HC and she had both the intelligence and mutant powers to back up
her assertiveness. So she could wear whatever the hell she wanted and
men still respected her enough to try not to stare. I imagine it humoured her a lot.
This
costume radiated a deadly amount of sex appeal, but it is not the most
important thing about it. All women who were unfortunate enough to get into a fight wearing high heels, a décolleté dress or maybe, God forbid, only panties,
will know what I mean when I say that fighting ANY sort of enemy in
this dress is next to impossible. But Emma still pulled that off. You
can certainly call yourself a hero when you manage to work as a
villain while maintaining a perfect hair, not falling out of your
tight corset (and breathing in it!) and not breaking a heel. Well
done, Emma! It's about self-control, too. She made herself an armour
that forced her to always look her best, to be her best. She could
never relax. She could never be nice and caring. She could never
forget to epilate, for God's sake! There was no going back from this,
you could never go soft again. It is very funny that the only man she
actually loved created the same restrains for himself. Yes, Cyclops
and his visor, as seen in AXM 14. Notice the similitude?
I
should remind everyone that Frost was still almost a teenager when she first
joined the Club. It is very possible that she overcompensated for her
silent childhood by dressing up like a stripper and craving
attention. This look, paradoxically enough, is the most uncertain. It
is like a twisted cry for attention and love. The Hellfire taught her
what they taught her and Emma followed the only advice that seemed to
help, and it actually made her love herself and feel important. It
gave her power she never had before. It made her someone no one could
forget. I think the main reason why Emma stayed on top while being on
the edge of falling is that Emma was always intelligent enough to
not go too far with men. It was
never about men. It was about causing chaos. Men fantasised about
her, women envied and hated her. It was pure power of mischief and
misdirection. And it forged the woman we know and love out of a
problem teenager.
I hope you liked the first part of this article! See next: Generation X
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