James Dean & Natalie Wood‘s classic movie roles in Rebel Without A Cause sort of make all of the rebels news around the world, seem like they are retelling a classic Hollywood story.
Okay, that was a very creative interpretation of a Hollywood flick’s movie artwork in light of current world events with rebels waving guns everywhere in the Middle East, and US Media going–”Yiihaaaa! You’re all cool, you big bad rebels holding guns you. Get those oil wells and keep wearing our jeans!!!” …. but it does make you think! Democracy with ethics is worth rebelling for. Democracy with ethics is about human rights.
Democracy narratives are always told the best in denim when looking at democracy from America. As a rule, denim is about the people. It’s about a people movement.
Human stories (like movies) are universal, who can’t relate? Revolutions bring us images too in our newspapers, online constantly. Each life we see, rebelling in a revolution … is a unique story and could be a movie too. We feel like we are rebelling with these people, when we see them rebel. We are convinced the world is getting better, because these people are moving forward, at great cost to rewrite their history with a democratic reason as the catalyst. Suddenly, they are no longer foreign, Middle Eastern people or North African ‘other’ (or the ‘diaspora’ to use a w*anky academic toff term). Suddenly, they are more like us. They are people who wear jeans and need human rights too.
This movie poster depicts a film about rebelling that made Woods and Dean the Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson sex symbols of their generation. Up until then, people were treated like children. This film gave teens and early twenty-somethings a voice. The film created a culture of self expression for Western youth. They had space. They could breath. They had democracy within democracy, yet the democracy was more their own.
Rebel Without a Cause was a film that ignited denim culture around the world too–and with that came the concept of The American Dream being associated via denim jeans advertising to ‘American lifestyle,’ particularly for the young. The film helped build L.A to be known as the Denim Jeans Capitol of the World. The most jeans are made here. L.A denim and Hollywood denim is California too. Everyone wants a piece of authentic Hollywood. Libyan rebels seem to want this more than most other nations. Jeans provide that feeling or allusion of US freedom for these people.
In the Middle East, the next generation are wrestling over directions of their nations. We see Libyan defectors and refugees fleeing Libya as far afield as Italy. Revolution, rebelling, taking control of nations’ destinies of a new generation is upon us. These people want to be in a democratic global picture. This is a movie if played in the deserts of Cairo, of Libya – of Northern Africa–would still speak to an audience of people today.
I know the images from the Middle East and Northern Africa, speak to us back, in the same way a movie does. Our hearts are moved with a human message of rebelling–for better things, for new direction, for control, for fairness, for equality.
[Poster Art as sighted in the Weideman Gallery]
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Hollywood California USA. 3.2.11. www.jeffmarano.com~
WEST SIDE STORY POSTERS ARE HOT IN HOLLYWOOD
I know that it’s Natalie Portman‘s big year in Hollywood, but I just spotted this amazing vintage Westside Story original artwork poster with Natalie Wood painted with ebbony black hair.
I might stick it up, in the next day or two. California’s political story is currently like Westside Story, if we strip back the layers of tinsel. Personally, I love that about Cali life and culture. It keeps life real and exciting.
More on that to follow. I haven’t shared triple wood action for a while – so Natalie on Horiwood in Hollywood – coming up soon.
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Hollywood California USA. 1.15.11~
Posted by horiwood on January 16, 2011 in California, Culture, Hollywood History, Musicals, Natalie Wood, Pop Cultural Commentary, Trends