Toon Temptation

I’m very pleased to introduce our second guest blogger, the fabulously Fauxmo ChicaLolita. She went from a girl who watched He-Man to a woman who watches football, but what she really wants to be is a cartoon…

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a cartoon. You can say this is because I prefer the hyper-reality of something obviously fake rather than an airbrushed photograph or that these female forms clearly go against all laws of gravity, not to mention the cheesecake pin-up’s uncanny ability to have the breeze sweep up her skirt at just the right moment. It might just be because these images are so cheeky, silly and – well, cartoonish – that it’s impossible to take them seriously. Sex, gender and eroticism lose so much of their fun when locked down to traditional identity. It must be exhausting to maintain the constant sunken-cheeked pout of a Calvin Klein model.

 It’s no wonder burlesque has suddenly become so popular in the mainstream as a way of boosting women’s self-image. It takes the poe-faced solemnity out of sex, is fun to both watch and perform, plus it puts curvy girls at an advantage. The same cannot be said of pole-dancing. Ironic really that pole-dancers are in constant movement, yet don’t seem to actually move. Their flesh doesn’t jiggle delightfully, their facial expressions do not change to a cheeky grin or an ‘oops’ when they catch you looking. If gender is a performance, you may as well play up to it and acknowledge the gaze.

The ultimate fauxmo female in my view is Jessica Rabbit. How I wanted to be her when I was a child! Come to think of it, aged 33 that ambition hasn’t changed one little bit. She is the Tex Avery girl filtered through the way Frank Tashlin filmed Jayne Mansfield, herself playing a cartoon in flesh and blood all the way from her little girl squeaky voice to blonde wig and a body shape only ever seen in drawings. Jessica is hyper-real sexuality dropped into the real world of Bob Hoskins’ character, all tiny waist, huge bouncing bosom and impossibly long legs. She’s not bad, she’s just drawn that way. I’m not bad, I just like to draw myself that way.