Friday, March 06, 2009

Watchmen Continues a Legacy of Leather

Watchmen debuts in theaters today, and it seems everybody is talking about how slavishly Zack Snyder has translated the comics to film.

I haven't seen it yet, and I'm sure the movie will fall short and/or verge away from the Watchmen comics in many ways, but I've already noticed an interesting difference: Silk Spectre's costume.

Seems Laurie Juspeczyk's flowing linen has been traded in for a tight latex number.

Of course, this seems like an inevitable decision considering the prominence of the leather/latex clad action heroine in the last decade or so.

The skin tight ensemble is the only option for the contemporary super lady. Starting as far back as Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman in 1989, it's been the go-to look for combining toughness and sexiness. It could be traced back even further to 1915 with Musidora as Irma Vep in "Les Vampires".

It doesn't get much more "to-be-looked-at-ified" than this. Encouraging a voyeuristic and fetishistic audience reaction, the skin-tight pleather/leather/latex clad action-heroine demands the gaze be glued to the screen.

To get an idea of just how prevalent this is lately, I prepared a sample continuum. Let me know what I'm missing [please click to enlarge:


Update: How did I forget Trinity?!

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