Bubble Gum Popped - Querying the "Bimbo" stance

[brandygang]

Originally Posted by Shadowsbane99

The concept of the "bimbo" is one that is fairly vague in what it means.

It has a lot of parallels with the Increased Beauty concept, but they are by no means the same. The IB concept is mostly, if not purely, a change in physical appearance towards the socially accepted concept of beauty (for women, slim waist, large firm breasts, smooth complexion, full lips, etc.) The bimbo concept is a mental change. If not a change in intelligence, at the very least a change in attitude. IB may have a change in attitude due to increased confidence, but bimbo implies that there has been a direct effect on the mentality of the person.

While bimbo does not have to mean stupid, it is usually associated with it. The blonde "bimbo" may actually be intelligent, but has an airy bubbly personality.

1) There are no specific instances I can think of where the media has deconstructed the bimbo archetype as stated above, though I would not be surprised if they existed.

2) Subversions of the bimbo archetype can be found in popular culture here and there, usually as a humorous way of playing with audience expectations. An example may include Trillian from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, who is in actuality a brilliant mathematician and astrophysicist, but plays up the fawning companion of Zaphod. An entire movie series is devoted to the subversion of what is a perceived bimbo, with the Legally Blonde movies. In those we have a character who is blonde, perky, party-going, willing to be sexy, and interested in fashion and other things people tend to associate with being vapid or shallow. The character, however, is intelligent, caring, committed, and deeper than expected.

What is vague though is what defines "bimbo". While some think it is intelligence related, I think it is more related to subservience and dependence. The bimbo archetype is usually helpless in some regard, either lacking common sense or common knowledge (such as how to use a payphone or cook toast). It is basically a form of male power fantasy, where the man has complete sovereignty over a woman by means of her sexual or intellectual dependence on the man.

What subverts this concept would be capability. Basically, a proper subversion would include a character who is perceived as a bimbo archetype, dependent on a "sugar daddy" or their "charms" to get by, and instead turns out to be surprisingly capable, either in general or in a specific fashion. This happens often enough since like I said, it can be played up for humor, or to make a point about not judging on appearances.

Deconstruction is a much different beast. It generally means creating a whole story where the troubles and concepts we have about a "bimbo" would be brought to bear. It would involve long and sad situations where the "bimbo" in question faces depression, anxiety, and abuse due to her position as the object of the dominant party. Alternatively, it could also have the "bimbo" lose the comforts of their provider and have to face the grim realities of fending for themselves.

The closest example of the latter I could think of is the webcomic Shotgun Shuffle, where the initial main character is a large busted blonde girl living with her parents, who is eventually thrown out without any form of provision. While she does still use her charms to her advantage at some points, the real world is not too nice to her and she eventually has to take a job she hates at a fast food joint, where she faces working hard for the first time in her life.

This is hardly a full deconstruction of the concept, especially since the girl is not exactly a bimbo so much as just a lazy person (initially), but it is similar to how I expect a deconstruction would be.

I'm going to agree with a lot of this, especially about bimbos not needing to be complete caricatures. Just them being either sexy, flirty or having bubbleheaded personalities can help qualify to get the point across.

From two other webcomic examples, Roxy Lalonde and Katia Managan come to mind. Roxy is flirty, happy-go-lucky blond stereotype but is by no means restricted to it. She macks on men and finds herself swooned to new figures constantly, but acknowledges it's all a front and her childish crushes are unhealthy and ultimately destructive.

She goes out of her way to quit drinking and stop hitting on her own brother and his boyfriend, but it's ultimately all for naught when she's "Trixsterfied" (A candycoated LSD mode that makes one uninhibited and insane), making her profess her love, demanding she get married and have lots of sex immediately. She's not a bona-fide bimbo, but one gets the sense it's derivative from such a standpoint because here, she's horny and demanding of sex but it's from her perspective and orders. She has dominance in this situation.

The other victim here, her own homosexual brother is terrified what she's become and how she's suddenly demanding that she sleep with him. I find that interesting because it's very rare in any story with that sort of thing that you have a male acknowledging what's gone on as wrong and completely refusing to be a participant. Would it be meaningful here if they weren't related and he was straight, and yet still disgusted by the insistence that he have sex with her? I think possibly, but with power at play here it might just bend to a NTR story anyway, since that seems to be a prevalent fetish with some regardless.

Anyway, what follows after Roxy helps get her bro and all her friends drugged up on Magic Alien spacecandy, is they wake up hung over together and have a long talk about what just happened and more of what sort of feelings and conflicts were building up far beyond that point previously. Roxy confesses here that she feels apologetic yet ashamed for her actions because she was always flirting like this veiled in humor, but all the Lollipop did was make her true feelings come to light about how lonely she was, even if her rampage wasn't an appropriate outlet for it.

For Katia Managan, the internets saddest slutcat, for her this side of her is absolutely terrifying and humiliating for her. Well she's not the brightest cat normally, alcohol is her one vice that completely flips her life over. When she gets in possession of it, she becames a raging, sex-obsessed trainwreck and it's implied she's a partygoing nymphomaniac. (She's lost count of how many partners or species she's slept with at this point) Although she doesn't remember any of it the next day, it always starts with her waking in bed naked with a new participant, to her humiliation.

The aspect of mind-control for her is explored later when despite her determination to deliver a simple letter, she's duped in a mage's guild by a sorceress using obsession-creating perfumes, which make Katia so obedient and starry eyed that she's praising and worshiping Sigrid even as she's stripping and giving away all her possessions to her. It's only after it wears off and she's naked, cold and alone in the rain out in an alleyway that she realizes the tragedy that's just been dealt, and for several pages it goes into her psyche as she tries to miserably rationalize her role as a victim after.

Bane spoke of "Bimbo" (or here atleast sex-addicted) characters needing to cope with the kind of depression and abuse that would come with any real stigma in reality. Here in these example's it's dealt with a lot more, giving weight and consequences to these actions and having the characters realize the depravity of it and dwelling into their thoughts and emotions over someone who has to suffer that sort of thing. It's not a direct deconstruction, but I believe it paints a more introspective look at the whole concept.