Lounging in the Arena

The female is thus "overlaid," visually "spliced" into the male world of the poster, its depictions of action and violence - and, more particularly in these two posters, into the realm of the arena. But here the woman is foregrounded vis-a-vis the action of the arena or the circus. I call this the "lounging in the arena pose," part of the composite message of the poster’s promise to the viewer. As if she is waiting for the hero to complete his physical trials, the female presence conveys to the viewer the promise of sex and of pleasures outside those exclusively male spaces. More precisely, the ambiguity of her placement, the melding of her body with the spaces of combat, suggests an equivalence between the two activities of sport and sex - as well as the hero’s prowess at both. In all of these examples, the female is affectively an adjunct to male activity and an aid to the definition of the male: a confirmation of his own sexual - and, indeed, heterosexual - virility.