The Bottom Line

Musidora as Irma Vep in Les Vampires VI: Les Yeux qui fascinent (1916).

Musidora as Irma Vep in Les Vampires (1915-1916).

Asta Nielsen's gaucho dance in Afgrunden (1910). My screenshots from YouTube.

Asta Nielsen's gaucho dance in Afgrunden (1910).

Asta Nielsen's gaucho dance in Afgrunden (1910).

Asta Nielsen's gaucho dance in Afgrunden (1910).

Christina Aguilera, Beyoncé Knowles, Cardi B, Miley Cyrus, Fergie, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, April Lavigne, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Nicole Scherzinger, Shakira, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears...

There is an amazing emphasis in the 21th century on the well-rounded bottom in music videos and other visual expressions of leading female pop stars.

It used to be a rude obsession in the music videos of the male rap stars of the 1990s. I remember interviewing the female rap video director Millicent Shelton in 1994 when she visited the Tampere Film Festival (she directed videos for Salt-N-Pepa et al, and I had recommended her to them), and she was deploring the demeaning sexism rampant in the rap video. Sexism appeared, among other things, as an obsession with the big female bottom.

But female rappers were starting to share that emphasis. A turning-point was an appearance by Jennifer Lopez in 2000. In this decade there has been a turn from renaissance to mannerism and baroque with plastic surgery, butt augmentation (gluteoplasty, Brazilian butt lift) and selfies of the behind.

Never has there been such an obsession in pop culture with the pronounced behind.

In the cinema this penchant has been a part of certain historical trends.

Full-figured women were celebrated during la Belle Époque. Georges Méliès was a contemporary of Pierre-August Renoir and shared his taste in ample femininity.

After WWII was the golden age of full-figured love goddesses in the "baby boom" period in countries that were recovering from war. Federico Fellini satirized the trend in his Anita Ekberg films La dolce vita and Le tentazioni del Dottor Antonio.

The third wave is now, and it is mainly taking place among pop music goddesses. It is different from the previous waves because the trend does not seem to emerge from the male gaze. Sisters are doing it for themselves, reappropriating their sexuality in the culture industry.

It may be part of a larger trend, one of whose influences is the neo-burlesque. The trend has always existed, and Madonna has cultivated it in many ways. It is overdone, it is parodied, it is exaggerated. There is a Felliniesque dimension. It is so over the top, it ceases to be exciting.

A cinematic connection dates back to the first movie stars.

Asta Nielsen's breakthrough to stardom took place in The Abyss (1910) in which she performed the inflammatory "Gaucho Dance" which still invites comparison with the most daring numbers of Jennifer Lopez.

Five years later Musidora, celebrated at Il Cinema Ritrovato this year, became legendary as Irma Vep (anagram for "Vampire"), a cat burglar in black tights in Les Vampires (1915). Sensual cabaret dancing was deep in "La Torpillomane".

Asta Nielsen and Musidora were intellectuals, auteurs, in charge of their oeuvres. Body and soul: their uninhibited sexuality went together with their intellectual freedom. Brain and bottom were inseparable.

...

The issue has been discussed by feminist body-positive writers such as:

Kristin Tige Studeman: "Started From the Bottom: Experts Weigh in on the Cultural Obsession With Butts" (Vogue, 27 August 2014)

Gabriela Rossner: "Feminist: Female Pop Artists Take an Empowering Stand" (Verde Magazine, Palo Alto High School's features publication, 9 October 2014).

Miley Cyrus: Wrecking Ball (2013).

Beyoncé Knowles: Partition (2014).