Two sides of one woman. Jackie by day, Marilyn by night.
And speaking of Maidenform…
The Harlequin campaign (Are you a Jackie or a Marilyn?) developed for the Playtex client always had an interesting little twist in it for me.
When I think of black verses white, as it relates to lingerie, it’s a no-brainer. White is everyday, black is exotic. White is good girl and black is bad girl. White is safe and black is trouble.
So I find it fascinating that in the campaign that was developed, it is Jackie in the black and Marilyn in the white.
Jackie or Marilyn by Dyna Moe
Now, I understand why it was done that way. Visually it makes sense, and there are associations, particularly with Marilyn in Seven Year Itch.
And it is executed brilliantly. Somehow they’ve got the black looking elegant evening, and the white looking party girl.
But the identification that we have with the black vs. white understuff is undeniable. And so this juxtaposition, in an episode with themes of peeling back the top layer to see what’s underneath, is worth a ponder.
15 Responses to “It's a black and white issue”
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Nice catch. And the whole series is about peeling back the top layer, but cerainly this episode in particular.
Yeah, I didn't get the "white undies" Marilyn, Black, Jackie either — it doesn't work as a concept, only as the visual.
So was the art department driven?
(When I was a magazine editor, I occasionally had to fight an art department decision that didn't make sense editorially, because they were only thinking visually.)
The back story on that famous subway-vent shot is telling and sad.
While MM was filming The Seven Year Itch (a movie she’d fought for), she was still married to Joe DiMaggio — a turbulent marriage. Some of the locals here in his home city can report with some confidence that while he was a hero on the diamond, day-to-day Joe was no sweetheart.
Billy Wilder asked for that subway-grate scene to be filmed over and over again. In the process, a crowd gathered (it wasMM, after all). Marilyn’s husband was looking on — and getting angrier by the minute.
When they finally stopped filing for the night, MM and Joe had an argument, part of which Walter Winchell caught and reported. That scene, the fight and still another hiatus in the production of MM’s film were the beginning of the end for them. Monroe and DiMaggio separated not long after.
I can never see that shot without feeling sad. That poor woman: product of a nasty life and a nastier time. Born later, she might have still had the nasty life … but at least she might have met a better end.
Maybe black was associated with conservatism and white with frivolity or immaturity or youth.
I can tell you from personal experience that EVERY woman wore white bra and panties primarily in the 1950s, early 1960s.
Black was considered woo woo sexy, and even colors and patterns were rare.
(Way back in the early '90s my stepmother saw a silky flower patterned bra I'd bought and said, "That looks like a showgirl's bra," in a disapproving tone.
Talk about somebody mired in the 1950s, even 40 years later.)
Remember Psycho (1960)? Very early in the film, Janet Leigh wears white underwear when all she's doing is having an afternoon tryst with her boyfriend, who is too poor to get divorced (imagine that).
Later, after she's taken money from her office, she appears in black underwear, packing to leave town.
Same girl, different underwear — and she clearly was not wearing that stuff to match her hair. She (okay, Hitch) was setting the moral tone of the scene.
^is all I'm saying. The perceived morals don't match the underwear.
She also changes her purse. The money doesn't fit in her white purse; she switches to black.
I remember thinking that too about the mismatched undie personas. However, couldn't they also be saying every woman secretly wishes for the "other" persona. That there's a little party girl in classy women and loose women do have a classy side.
But they are men. Men who only care about betting what color of undies you have under a skirt they pull up.
Well, white is ordinary; they're selling ordinary as sexy instead, to make it appealing. Black is sexy, they're giving permission to be sexy by associating it with Jackie and classiness.
I was wondering something a bit similar to that – whether the ad is saying that secretly, "underneath" – where it counts – Marilyn is actually a respectable girl and Jackie is racy and exotic…
Right. The copy read, Nothing fits both side of a woman better than Playtex.
chamekke, you know what I keep thinking? And this is maybe a stretch, but,
When I see the Jackie model I think to myself, it's nighttime and she's sexy for her husband (the president).
When I see the Marilyn model I think to myself, it's daytime and she's doing it in the afternoon with her married boyfriend (the president).
Somehow the white is reading 'dirtier', and I don't know why.
Ooh, Roberta, I love that reading.'
I also want to point out that while, given the time and place in which this fictional campaign pitch is set, I agree that one would tend to expect "white"="sensible" and "black"="risque," this is a very white-centiric reading. For women of color, white is the underwear color more likely to be glimpsed through a not-quite-opaque-enough outfit (because of the contrast with the skin), whereas black is the "sensible," workday color. Obvious this doesn't apply to Jackie and Marilyn. But it seems worth noting.
Raya, thanks, you're right. Mine was an entirely caucasianly-skewed hypothesis. I remember figuring that out, and then feeling bad that black women, and particularly young teenagers, would have a harder time finding what they need (because certainly in my lifetime, I've seen the availability of black bras expand a whole lot. When I was younger, it was a whole lotta Playtex-white).