The Ol' Swinging Cross
This picture of a cross dangling above a Bible is not taken from a Christian art film. It is actually a scene from The Notorious Bettie Page.
What's a nice cross like that doing in a film about this iconic pin-up girl? As the LA Times relates, Bettie Page is actually a born-again Christian who served as a counselor for the Billy Graham Crusade! Expect the film to use Bettie's life to explore the tension between sex and religion, not just as a matter of personal conscience but as an issue in public morality.
Can a believing pin-up girl wear her cross without shame? Well, here's a single evangelical guy who celebrates his celebate obsession with Bettie in her prime, and he thinks it's great that Bettie put the "carn" in "incarnation." Bettie herself has had more ambivalence, but today at 82 she seems to have accepted her peculiar path. Since she's the one who lived it we'll let her have the last word:
"Being in the nude isn't a disgrace unless you're being promiscuous about it," she said. She added with a laugh, "After all, when God created Adam and Eve, they were stark naked. And in the Garden of Eden, God was probably naked as a jaybird too!"


Comments
Posted by: RC of strangeculture | March 27, 2006 11:52 AM