ABSTRACT
Androgynous Victorian dandies prance around naked together, glam rockers float off the ground, and goth vampiresses drip blood and sex. While Victorian dandies and KISS rock stars could not seem more disparate subject matters, their intense devotion to their physical appearances and the artist’ ubiquitous use of white masked faces puts them in direct contact. The KISS women in Aurie Ramirez’s paintings reclaim femininity from the hetero, masculine rockers they take after and re-perform it. In early 1980s Los Angeles, Cassandra Peterson’s character Elvira quickly gained a cult following with her vampy sex appeal and flippant, campy sense of humor. In her film Elvira, Mistress of the Dark: [M]ost of the townspeople are uptight religious bigots who condemn Elvira for her sexual and monstrous transgressions, mostly manifested by her slinky black costumes and spicy double entendres.
