Ms Kathleen's Review

Screen 6 of 7

Given the sensationalism that Hollywood usually takes when it comes to S&M imagery, you might expect that this film would aim for scandal. Not at all. Nor is it an attack on censorship or prudery. It doesn't defend Bettie or Klaw or the men that bought his photos, but rather it presents them as mundane laborers in the world of sex, finding a market and supplying it. Irving Klaw worked with his sister Paula. "Boots and shoes, shoes and boots," Paula muses to Bettie. "They can't get enough of them. Why? I guess it takes all kinds to make a world."

The tone of the movie is subdued and reflective. It does not defend pornography, but regards it (in its 1950s incarnation) with subdued nostalgia for a more innocent time. In the Senate hearings, a father testifies that his son died while attempting to tie himself up in a manner he saw in one of Klaw's bondage捆绑 — being tied or restrained films.

Often in the movies the witnesses at such hearings are routinely mocked as puritanical hypocrites, but Harron's film feels sympathy for the father, and so do we. We also feel, on the other hand, that Irving and Paula Klaw were not evil. In fact, they treated Bettie and the other models like family. The film presents their photo sessions as light hearted and fun. And their clients, such as pioneering fetish恋物 — a strong sexual focus on one thing photographer and bondage捆绑 — being tied or restrained artist John Willie, were so awed by the opportunity to photograph beautiful women like Bettie Page, that they treat the models as Goddesses女神 — a woman treated as divine.