The Unsolved Murder of Hitler’s Half-Niece and His Romantic Obsession

December 2, 2013 / Deanna / Leave a comment

Femme fatale Geli Raubal was found with a bullet in her chest and Hitler’s gun by her side. Who fired Hitler’s gun that night?

The unresolved and hastily covered-up death in 1931 of Geli Raubal, Hitler’s half-niece and romantic obsession, has long been relegated to the murky footnotes of the Führer’s early career in the demimonde of Munich.

Deanna Dahlsad‘s insight:

Image of Angela Maria “Geli” Raubal via Find A Grave: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=22116

See on www.vanityfair.com

The Cost Of Rape

November 13, 2012 / Deanna / Leave a comment

Below is an image purported to be an actual statement showing the monetary cost of treatment a rape victim receives at a hospital in the United States. While the estimate, or average, financial cost for surviving rape victims vary, especially if the crime is far more violent, the shocking truth is that rape costs victims — all rape victims, be they straight or gay, in urban settings or on reservations, etc. — financially as well as physically and emotionally. This bill doesn’t even show the lost income from missing work, the cost of a new door lock, counseling, etc. This is one reason why the federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), imperfect as they may be, are so important.

Driving Female Victims Crazy

April 16, 2012 / Deanna / 4 Comments

Women, report rape, get labeled as having a mental illness. This isn’t only something that happens in the military, you know; it’s just easier to document this group of women and to hold an institution accountable. At least we hope it will be easier to hold the military accountable for this! However, the rest of us who are victimized aren’t officially given a psychiatric discharge to track.

If we live to tell of the abuses we suffered (and even a one-time assault has abusive consequences from the very persons, places, and institutions we are taught will protect us, provide justice, and support us), we are then treated to the same devices our abusers employed: Isolation.

We are silenced, ostracized, demonized, all but abandoned by a society which would rather believe (if they believe us at all) that we had somehow deserved or at least brought such atrocities — because to think otherwise is to believe that the boogeyman isn’t some stranger under our beds, but rather the man we lay with in our beds. The resulting isolation alone is enough to depress. Yet that isn’t they type of “crazy” they’ll be satisfied with either.

Women need to be put in their place with stronger, more pathological or violent diagnoses, so that we can be even less credible, dismissed completely. We are medicated (if we are white enough) and even institutionalized. There’s a long history of this, which Karen Essex shares:

I read the psychiatric journals of the period, which prescribed bizarre treatments for ladies who were “hysterical,” which usually turned out to mean that they were “excitable in the presence of men.” In many instances, the desire to read all day or engage in intellectual studies, were also regarded as symptoms of mental illness in the female. Young women were committed to asylums for doing cartwheels in mixed company, for desiring sex with someone other than one’s husband, or for staring seductively at a man. Most behavior that showed spunk, spirit, or sexual need, was pathologized.

All sorts of harrowing and torturous cures were developed to “settle” these women – restraints, forced housework (to help them remember their true natures), repeated plunges in ice water, and force-feeding, to name a few. As mental illness in females was thought to originate in the womb, doctors also were obsessed with menstrual cycles, figuring that if a patient’s cycle could be regulated to a strict 28-30 day cycle, the “illness” of wanting to have sex or read books all day, would disappear. Not coincidentally, an irregular cycle was also considered a sign of mental illness and required treatment.

If pure “spirit” or too much personality at odds with a man’s opinion is a problem, just imagine what daring to accuse a man will do to upset the apple cart.

(Absurd medical practices based on the thought that a woman’s menstrual cycle has any connection to her existence in utero, or manipulation of the former can correct the latter aside… If mental illness in women originates in the womb, just try to get insurance to cover that preexisting condition!)

But wait; there’s more.

You can be among the more fortunate of us and have escaped assaults, abuse and violence and still suffer. As I’ve asked before, in a social world of politics & legislation which tries to control us & our bodies, how do we keep perspective, how do we honestly keep our sanity in this mess?

Is simply being a woman in today’s society a reason why so many women, more than men, are medicated? I can feel a reason why more women in my age bracket of “over 45” are feeling crazy– as Angela Davis notes, 40 years later, and so many issues for women’s equality still have not been resolved.

Perhaps this why there’s something called feminist therapy.

Techniques that are used by therapists include helping the client understand the impact of gender roles in their lives, to provide clients with insight into ways social issues affect their problems, to emphasize power differences between men and women in society, to help clients recognize different kinds of power that they possess and how they and others exercise their power.

If your insurance will pay for it, of course.

Oiy, and before anyone whines or complains; I don’t hate men.

Punished For Parenting, Blue Laws, 1884

June 12, 2011 / Deanna / Leave a comment

Jim Linderman presents this original court document from Williamsport in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, dated June 3, 1884 in which Mrs. Susan Johnson was arrested and charged with being “addicted to scolding,” including the habit of using profane, vulgar and abusive language.” Given that, it seems obvious — or odd, depending upon your parenting views — that Mrs. Johnson also instructed “her children to insult, abuse and injure children and persons in general.”

At the bottom, or second page, of the court document, it is also noted that Mrs. Johnson dared to keep her business establishment open on Sunday, “the Lord’s day” — in violation of Blue Laws.

Me thinketh the open store, the audacity of a woman to make money on the sabbath, was the real problem.

But I’m a biased feminist.

In fact, without anything else to go on, I daresay Mrs. Susan Johnson was a strong woman, an independent woman with her own business. One who didn’t tolerate crap from anyone and was raising her children to do the same — in a time and place where women were like children and so should be seen and not heard.

But I have no proof of this.

According the arrest warrant, Mrs. Johnson had to pay bail in the amount of $200…

Despite my best attempts at research, I could not find any report of how the court story ends. However, it appears that poor Mrs. Johnson died shortly after tornadoes struck and leveled her house along with several others — “not a timber left standing” — according to a newspaper story in the Daily Gazette And Bulletin, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on February 23, 1884. I can’t be absolutely certain this is the same Mrs. Susan Johnson, but it’s the only trail I could find. Rest in peace, Susan.

Mississippi Paper Burning (Hot Vintage Magazine Blog!)

April 27, 2011 / Deanna / 2 Comments

I’ve fallen in love with a newly discovered blog: Visual Arts Library Picture & Periodicals Collections, part of New York’s School of Visual Arts. And not just because David Pemberton, the Periodical/Reference Librarian who runs the blog, linked to my (obsessively detailed) post on The Mentor magazine, either. (Though I am a sucker for librarians and curators — and links don’t exactly hurt.) No, I’m in love with this new-to-me blog because of it’s content.

Sure, the visuals are great — as you’d expect from a visual arts school library. But it’s more than that. It’s the writing. Not just the historical context I crave, but the frank tone I adore. Such as the delightful description of National Lampoon Magazine as having “heaping sides of boob and toilet humor.” (I know I’m a fan of heaping boobs and even side-boob *wink* I’ve even succumb to toilet humor plenty of times.)

But the best part is the mix of selected offerings. Again using the National Lampoon post, look at this gem from the August 1975 issue:

Many of the magazines have embedded publications in them that parody other actual publications, such as this one that is supposed to have been put out by the state of Mississippi Bar Association featuring articles on “Closing Those Loopholes in Mississippi Lynch Law” and “No-Fault Rape–New Concepts to Protect Our Menfolk:”

I’m absolutely dying to read that! I bet most of the satirical messages are still relevant today. But then I love to read what I collect. …How else can I obsessively research it, over-analyze it, blog about it?

After Stocking Panic, Women Made-Up

November 17, 2009 / Deanna / 8 Comments

I’ve researched and written a lot about vintage nylon stockings over the years because the history of nylon stockings is quite fascinating to me. I’m sure most of you have heard about the scarcity of nylon during WWII — just months after the new invention hit store shelves on May 15, 1940. Even silk stockings, second choice to the preferred fit and feel of nylon, were in very short supply as silk was also used for the war effort and the war itself interfered with over-seas shipments.

The inability to get stockings fueled “Nylon Mania” and caused “Stocking Panic.” These terms are not flowery exaggerations. When shipments of stockings were announced, long lines and even mobs formed. It was so common place, jokes and cartoon strips about Nylon Mania abounded.

Women (and stocking-loving males) everywhere in the country were saying they’d kill for a pair of stockings; whether or not any of them actually did isn’t out of the realm of possibility… People weren’t always content to wait for stockings to arrive in stores, then form and wait in long lines to buy them. They formed mobs, sometimes attacking other shoppers; stockings (which retailed for about a dollar) sold for as much as $20 (that’s a month’s worth of payday loans back then) on the black market, which only incentivised robberies and other crimes. So commonplace was this mania, so connected to criminal activity, that in Chicago, police investigating a murder case used “Nylon Mania” to rule out robbery as motive simply because six pairs of nylon stockings ($120 worth of valuable property) had been left at the scene of the crime.

This is why you often hear jokes about guys getting “in” with a girl by bringing her stockings; like chocolates & cigarettes, stockings were such a luxury that they might buy you things that money might not!

Some of you may have been told by a relative, or otherwise heard about, how women during World War II had no stockings and so they ‘penciled in’ seams, using eyeliner or eyebrow pencil to draw lines up the backs of their legs to create the look of stockings. Here, 1942 Hollywood starlet Kay Bensel applied her faux stocking seams with a device “made from a screw driver handle, bicycle leg-clip, and an ordinary eyebrow pencil.”

But apparently this was not the only cosmetic approach to hiding one’s bare legs with Victory Hose. In a copy of The Professional Beautician (June, 1942), I found an ad which surprised me (I may surprise many of you with my finds, but many things continue to surprise me too!); an ad for beauty shop owners to stock Curley Colortone Cosmetic Stockings:

The vintage wholesale advertisement for professionals promises that each unit of Curley Colortone Cosmetic Stockings includes a jar of Colortone (in all popular shades) and a jar of Curley Foundation Creme (to give complete perfection) and clearly shows that salon product was also available. While not the graphic feast for public promotion this 1943 ad for Gaby Nu-Natural leg make-up is, I do have the Curley Colortone ad to thank for informing me about such vintage beauty products.

But don’t get too excited thinking these products were simply a matter of the war (or get overly upset thinking that companies dared to capitalize off of the war) because the January 1938 issue of Popular Science boasted “Cream Replaces Silk Stockings,” a new cosmetic “boon to the outdoor girl,” (who I suppose didn’t want to damage silk stockings with snags on twigs and other outdoorsy things). And in fact, the Smithsonian, showing us Leg Silque Liquid Stockings by the Langlors Company, says that such leg makeup had been available since the 1920s — but “it wasn’t until rationing was introduced during the World War II that the product became an essential commodity for many American women.” Heck, by then even Hollywood was impacted; unable to get stockings for the gams of their actresses and starlets, Hollywood created its own makeup stocking substitute.

This all brings us to another WWII joke:

Q: What’s a wife more afraid of finding on her man than lipstick on his collar?

A: Leg paint on his back.

PS American women weren’t the only ones suffering either; Miner’s had great success with its Seam Stick and Miner’s Liquid Stockings.

When Beauty Is A Crime

November 8, 2009 / Deanna / 8 Comments

I have a modest collection of vintage vanity items. (My collection and I have even been featured in Collectors News magazine.) And indeed, I’ve often wondered about the vast popularity of Rachel as a powder shade. I’d rather believed the hype that this particular shade was named after a popular actress at the time — but in Antique Personal Possessions, Silvia Druitt gives another possible reason:

In the very limited colour ranges obtainable then and up to the 1930’s, one frequently finds the colour Rachel. This takes its name either from the actress of that name, or, more probably, from a certain Madame Rachel who set up a Salon in New Bond Street, London, in 1863, and had a great success. Alas for her many clients, most of whom wished to keep their visits dark, her most lucrative profession turned out to be a sideline in blackmail. After mulcting many, she ended her career as a beauty specialist in prison.

The blackmail was possible because at that time, colored cosmetics were not for ladies, only for prostitutes and/or actresses — the latter of which was equally reviled and in fact, the words ‘actress’ and ‘whore’ were synonymous to many. This whore/Madonna beauty thing is partly why I began collecting/studying such things, so how intriguing to discover Madam Rachel!

For more on Madam Rachel, I send you to Madame Rachel: Beautiful for Ever at Victorian History, and to Internet Archive for The extraordinary life & trial of Madame Rachel at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London : on the 22 23, 24 & 25, September, 1868. (If the link doesn’t work; search Archive.org for “Madame Rachel at the Central Criminal Court” and you’ll find it.)

I now eagerly await the publication of Helen Rappaport’s Beautiful for Ever: Madame Rachel of Bond Street -Cosmetician, Con-artist and Blackmailer for more information on this woman who spurned society and spawned so many powdered faces.

Roofies In 1910

October 13, 2009 / Deanna / 4 Comments

“Serious Charges Preferred Against Rich Furniture Dealer by Department Store Girl,” so reads a headline published in The Fargo Forum and Daily Republican, June 25, 1910; below the headline, a photograph of one Sadie Finklestein, “who has brought suit for $25,000 damages against a rich merchant. Declares that he drugged and mistreated her.”

What follows is a rather incomplete story, said to have taken place on January 15, 1910, in which Sadie S. Finkelstein “an 18-year-old-girl” (not an 18 year old woman) claims to have been drugged by one “Samuel Lyons, a wealthy west side furniture dealer.”

Finklestein and her friend, Sophia Mitchell, had just left a matinee and were eating ice cream in a store, when Lyons entered, accompanied by a “Louis” who is identified by his address and his status as a manager in one of Lyon’s stores. Finklestein was then introduced to Lyons by Mitchel, presumably their mutual acquaintance, upon which Lyons invited the women to Sullivan’s saloon for a lemonade. The women accepted.

“When I first placed the glass to my lips I noticed a peculiar taste to the lemonade, but thought nothing of it at the time. Soon, however, I began to feel dizzy and my head swam around and around until I almost lost consciousness. I immediately asked to be taken out into the air, where I thought I would feel better, and Mr. Lyons assisted me to the street. Taking me by the arm he led me to the rooming house at Thirtieth street and Wabash avenue, where I willingly went, not knowing the nature of the place and thinking he was endeavoring to assist me.”

The article then continues with the testimony of the next person to take the stand — a person identified only as “Hirschfeld” — who “denied that Miss Finkelstein had been drugged and stated that they remained in the hotel but 20 minutes.”

I don’t know how this Hirschfeld is connected to events or persons in this story. Is Hirschfeld the manager of one of Lyon’s stores — the afore mentioned Louis? Maybe he (if it is a he) is the owner of the non-respectable rooming house?

But if that drives one crazy with curiosity, the article simply ends with detailed description of Lyons’ businesses (presumed wealth) and even more detailed description of Lyons himself: “He sat through the session with a passive expression on his face, from which he constantly wiped the perspiration with a handkerchief.”

And so I am left wondering about the oldest (quasi) detailed account of a date rape drug related crime I’ve ever read. I shall have to return to the public library’s microfilm to search for any possible additional information, for the internet is of very little help…

The only Sadie Finkelstein I could find turns out to be a roaring 20’s Coe College hoax — most amusing in its own right, but certainly of no help to this story of a young woman who was quite possibly slipped a Mickey. And yes, the slipping of Mickeys was nothing new in 1910.

None of the names we are given turn anything up; the only lead lies in this sentence from the first paragraph: “Her story greatly resembles that told by Evelyn Thaw about Stanford White.”

Evelyn Thaw, aka Evelyn Nesbit, was involved in what was dubbed the “trial of the century” — the trial of her millionaire husband, Harry Thaw, for the 1906 murder of architect Stanford White. Apparently defending her husband, Evelyn Nesbit Thaw testified at the 1907 trial that she had been drugged and kept in a studio by White.

That Finklestein’s 1910 legal action would mention the Harry Thaw trials isn’t so surprising; after all, it wasn’t called “the trial of the century” for nothing. The Thaw trials were a sex scandal sensation, as Irvin S. Cobb, a reporter in 1907, explained:

You see, it had in it wealth, degeneracy, rich old wasters, delectable young chorus girls and adolescent artists’ models; the behind-the-scenes of Theatredom and the Underworld, and the Great White Way…. the abnormal pastimes and weird orgies of overly aesthetic artists and jaded debauchees. In the cast of the motley show were Bowery toughs, Harlem gangsters, Tenderloin panderers, Broadway leading men, Fifth Avenue clubmen, Wall Street manipulators, uptown voluptuaries and downtown thugs.

Did Sadie S. Finklestein’s saga suffer from a second-rate cast, relegating both she and her story to murky micorfilm and obsessive amateur historians while Nesbit continues to have books published about her? I continue to look for more on Sadie and her story; if you know anything, let me know.

What Can Be Learned From Chris Brown’s Light Sentence?

August 26, 2009 / Alessia / Leave a comment

By now you’ve probably heard how Chris Brown barely got his hand slapped for beating up Rihanna; just probation, community service, domestic violence counseling, and a restraining order. This for a man who, as reported by CNN, had two earlier incidents of domestic violence with Rihanna before the more publicized incident in which Brown punched Rihanna numerous times; put her in a head lock, restricting her breathing and causing her to start to lose consciousness; bit her ear and her fingers; and threatened to kill her.

Rihanna’s injuries included cuts and bruises inflicted by a large ring on Brown’s right hand, which he used to punch her, the probation report said.

“Officers at the scene observed numerous contusions and abrasions to the victim’s face and forehead, as well as bruising to her left arm near the bicep,” it said. “They also saw abrasions to her arms near both wrists and on her upper chest near her collarbone and around her neck. There were abrasions on her left leg and on the inside of her upper lips.”

If you want to know how such atrocities can be met with such a lazy legal response, keep reading here at Relationship Underarm Stick; we’ll be going through this subject in great detail. For now though, you may want to consider this poor court response of little consequence to Ryan Jenkins. He had a history of domestic violence & he too was allowed to be free — and he killed Jasmine Fiore. Rihanna should remember this anytime she even considers letting Brown break that restraining order.

Ryan Jenkins Dead; Long Live Domestic Violence

August 24, 2009 / Alessia / Leave a comment

The case of Jasmine Fiore’s murder gets even more upsetting as Ryan Jenkins is found dead from an apparent suicide in a hotel in Vancouver.

That a man would kill his ex-wife and commit suicide isn’t, unfortunately, so strange; but what’s being said by the manager of the Thunderbird Motel (in Hope B.C.) where Jenkins’ body was found is. The room was paid for by an unidentified woman (some speculate that it was Jenkins’ former girlfriend, Paulina Chmielecka) who only stayed at the hotel for about 20 minutes before leaving Jenkins behind. What follows is the sort of 15-minutes-of-fame-seeking commentary that you’d expect, such as “when I opened the door, I did smell the smell of death” and then the stuff that Jenkins supporters will take & make a grand conspiracy theory of:

The manager went on to tell reporters that the woman was “extremely calm” when she checked in, that there was no suicide note that he saw, and that Jenkins’ feet were touching the ground as he hung, which would indicate a sedative of some sort may have been used during the suicide.

Anyway, while Fiore’s mother & former boyfriends mourn the loss of the young woman and express anger that Jenkins has escaped answering for what he’d done, Jenkins’ family is also telling their story in the media. And what I’ve read is most upsetting.

Naturally none of us wants to believe the people we love are capable of such things, of murder & violence, but when that person has been found guilty on more than one occasion, as Jenkins had, you have to stop living in denial — and being an asshat.

In this interview, Jenkins dad, Dan Jenkins, told this to the Edmonton Sun:

What Jenkins refuses to believe, despite Ryan’s past conviction in Calgary for domestic abuse, is that his son was the only villain in a relationship gone bad.

“A lot of these things were just silliness, like the charge in California,” said Jenkins.

Ryan was arrested on a charge of domestic violence earlier this year, after allegedly slugging Fiore in the arm.

Jenkins says his son only pushed his wife into a pool, after a squabble.

“He felt like it was a police state. People push each other in the pool every Saturday afternoon, and he goes to jail for two days — that’s ridiculous,” said Jenkins.

“He turns around and his wife’s kissing another guy and he grabs her hand and starts walking away, and they’re arguing and he just pushes her in the pool. Well, big deal.”

Hey, daddy Jenkins, abuse isn’t “silliness.” Pushing a woman, into a pool or not, no matter who or what she kissed, is a big deal. Gee, I wonder where sonny boy got the idea in his head that it was OK to be abusive towards women.

Dan Jenkins interview continued:

Jenkins said his son’s relationship with Fiore, and Hollywood in general, was toxic.

“He went to Hollywood and something down there in the last four months, including this girl, just destroyed him,” said Jenkins.

“She would take off for days at a time and lie, and Ryan was lonely and distraught and alone down there. She was his only friend and she’d just disappear.

“It was hell on earth — I advised him 50 times to get out of that relationship.”

So he realizes the relationship was toxic, and said that he told his son to get out of it, but where does Dan Jenkins leave the blame?

On the victim.

Hasn’t Fiore paid enough?

Jenkins must be held accountable for his violence, even in death. And Dan Jenkins isn’t dead — he must be held accountable for his inexcusable misogyny. Isn’t he as much an accomplice as anyone who may have helped Ryan Jenkins kill Jasmine Fiore &/or helped him afterwards? I certainly believe daddy dearest is.

In a rare show of class for VH1, the channel has pulled both reality shows in which Ryan Jenkins participated. Too bad they didn’t have the sense to have properly vetted Jenkins in the first place.

Breast Implants Identify Murder Victim

August 23, 2009 / Alessia / 2 Comments

Playboy model Jasmine Fiore has been found murdered. Her body was badly beaten & naked, left in an Los Angels trash bin on Saturday — her fingers & teeth “forcibly removed” in an apparent attempt to not have the body be identified, but her remains were identified by the serial numbers on her breast implants. (Now there’s something many feminists don’t know about the benefits of breast implants!) The preliminary coroner’s report indicates that Miss Fiore was strangled.

Her former husband, Ryan Alexander Jenkins (formerly a contestant on VH1’s reality show Megan Wants a Millionaire) is wanted for questioning. You can read all the details here; but here are some of the warning signs people should have heeded:

Court records show that Mr Jenkins was charged in June in Clark County, Nevada, with a misdemeanour count of “domestic violence” when he was accused of hitting Miss Fiore on her arm.

Mr Jenkins was also charged with assaulting his girlfriend in July 2005 in Calgary and given a conditional discharge with 15 months probation.

I may have more to say about this; but I have to go cry & throw-up first.

Criminal Cause Celebre

August 20, 2009 / Alessia / 1 Comment

I don’t write about celebrities who get busted for domestic violence, rape & assaults because I don’t want to give them any attention and, if I may say so, press coverage. But…

In my thinking that as celebrities they are their own brands and that by the “any press is good press” philosophy by mentioning them I’m helping to promote them — but in reality, by not calling them on their crap am I somehow supporting them?

Recently, when an actor on one of the many popular crime scene science shows was busted, I thought about this all… I wondered if I should be pointing it out — if not calling for a boycott of the show &/or contacting advertisers, then implying same by letting readers know about it. My original thinking was that the actor is only one ingredient of the show, and that while he may be (at least allegedly) creepy & bad, the show isn’t “him.” He isn’t the only actor or participant; nor is his life &/or philosophy what frames the content or the messages of the show.

Yet, if his name is the billable one, if he’s the investment, the property, the celebrity which draws the audiences, then do I — do we — have a responsibility to act? Do we have the right to impact negatively upon his livelihood (as well as those of the cast & crew, etc.) based on his personal life?

If this man or the male singer who hurt Rihanna were regular Joes, we would be limited in what we could do & say. To disparage him & diminish his paycheck, even after the courts have found him guilty, could result in legal problems of our own. As employees, average Joes have protections to keep their jobs. If it didn’t happen at work, it’s not the employers business; if jail time affects work, employers may have to hold jobs for them (regardless of how the employer feels about it). But when celebrities have placed themselves in the fishbowls we have different expectations & results…

We collectively place upon celebrities (albeit slim in some cases) standards of decency in exchange for their fame. Entertainment contracts have clauses for this (whether they are “used” is another issue). Celebrities are given perks in exchange for being “role models” and so they are (sometimes) taken to task for their crimes (bringing attention to societal issues); other times they are so beloved their fame blinds people with a “he couldn’t have” or minimizes the crime in general so as to keep the hero a hero (resulting in additional victim blaming & diminishing the societal concerns for issues such as rape, domestic violence and abuse).

In a society in which we are all supposed to be equal, just where do celebrities fit in? Just how much are we allowed to hold them up? And when are we supposed to tear them down?

And does talking about them by name help or hurt their brands? Help or hurt the victims? Help awareness or hurt the causes?

Please do tell.

1965: Legal Marital Rape

April 1, 2009 / Alessia / 4 Comments

Can a husband legally force his wife to have sexual relations when she doesn’t wish to? That 1965 Dell Purse Book by Richard T. Gallen, Wives Legal Rights, says, “Yes.” As long as his demands are “reasonable and her health is not impaired or endangered.”

No mention of hitting or physically forcing her exists (apparently because on page five they’ve already said no hitting allowed). But what’s really implied here with this notion that a husband’s legal right to force his wife to have sex so long as it doesn’t impair her physical health, is a side-step of physical abuse on the part of the man, neatly placing responsibility for any altercations at the feet of wives, for a wife can’t/ought not resist or she would be at fault for denying him his sexual rights.

All of this completely denies the existence of any other reason for sexual denial. As if her body & mind are indeed his property, subject to his whims.

We could just ignore this, write it off as “history,” but these idiotic notions are still with us. They linger in court decisions, media coverage, and even family reactions, even 40+ years later.

They only specifically mention sex during pregnancy, which clearly shows the fetus (or ‘baby’) has more value than the mother-to-be.

Then again, I know many women who while pregnant, wanted sex at least every night; those hormones, you know…

And there’s no mention of her right to have sex, pregnant or not. The stereotype that women don’t want sex was is so prevalent, that it doesn’t even warrant discussion of women’s marital rights to sex. *snort*

My Pajamas Made Him Kill Me (Or, In Which I Review A Film I Haven’t Seen)

March 19, 2009 / Alessia / 6 Comments

Most would say it’s not fair to review a movie you haven’t seen — and normally I’d agree. It’s an ethics thing. But sometimes you hear about a movie (based on the opinions of those who have seen the film), and you just have to say something…

This is especially true when the movie is based on a true story.

In this case, the film is based on a crime — but the real crime here is not (just) that the makers of the film have sensationalized and exploited a murder, but have missed the very points which make the story moving and important.

The film is The Pyjama Girl Case (1977), and it’s based on the real life story of the unidentified charred remains of a woman discovered in Australia in 1934.

Let’s begin with the reviews…

Stanley Runk “Runkdapunk” says:

On the books this film is a giallo, but it is only in the most basic sense. Yeah it’s a murder mystery, it deals with sexual themes and it’s Italian. That’s where all comparissons end though. No rampaging killer with gloves and a hat/hood and no real body count to speak of other than the Pyjama girl herself. Sure there are a few more deaths, but not until the end of the film.

J. B. Hoyos says:

“The Pyjama Girl Case” disappointed me for several reasons. First, and foremost, it is not a true Italian giallo. Absent is the typical black-gloved serial killer. Only two people are murdered. Second, this movie doesn’t contain any major shocks or plot twists. The plot is very linear. Third, there is only one attractive woman and that is actress Dalila Di Lazzaro who later went on to act in Dario Argento’s superb “Phenomena,” which is definitely an Italian giallo.

(Oh, and “Runkdapunk” also says that Dalila Di Lazzaro is “yummy except for the armpit hair” — just in case you wanted to know.)

And those are the people who gave it three stars at Amazon; there are worse reviews with less stars.

Now I don’t know what a “giallo” is, let alone an Italian one, but that’s neither here nor there because I’m not going to judge this film by whatever standards either may have. And I’m not going to even discuss if a movie can have enough killing (I’m totally one girl who doesn’t go in for body-count flicks). But I do have a lot to say.

Again, this movie is based on a true story. The real-life “Pyjama Girl” was a brutally murdered unknown woman, whose battered and partially burnt body was found dumped roadside in Albury, New South Wales on September 1, 1934. Normally I find the phrase “brutally murdered” to be redundant or excessive — nearly an expletive to induce horror — but the details, according to Australian Screen, make it pretty clear that one can easily use the extra word:

The victim’s head was wrapped in a bloody towel and her body was pushed headfirst into a hessian bag. The body had then been set alight. A post-mortem revealed that she had been shot below the right eye, but the cause of death was probably eight blows to her face.

“Brutal murder” no longer seems to be just for shock-value, does it?

Anyway, as her identity was not known, the woman was dubbed the “Pyjama Girl” because she was found wearing pieces of pyjama fabric.

After coroner’s inquest failed to establish the identity of the woman, artists’ sketches and a forensic facial reconstruction were created to represent what the victim may have looked like, with the images shown around the world, in hopes that someone would identify her.

And her body was preserved in order to be put on display and shown to hundreds of people. Yes, hundreds of people paraded past her post-mortem. For ten years.

Her death was naturally shocking, but her death became a mystery which fascinated the nation and, for some, became an obsession. To the extent that in 1939 an entertainment “newsreel” was made to be shown in cinemas before feature films (and, in some cases, was, like other newsreels, shown continuously).

Again, a quote from the Australian Screen (where you can catch clips):

The Pyjama Girl Murder Case newsreel, produced in 1939 after the coronial inquest, is considered to be Australia’s first true crime film. Filmmakers Rupert Kathner and Alma Brooks defied a ban by the New South Wales Police Commissioner, William MacKay, on newsreel coverage of the case and even tried to break into Sydney University to film the body. The use of adverbs such as ‘stealthily’ and emotive phrases such as ‘fiend in human form’, as well as the re-creations of various episodes of the case, indicate the ways in which the filmmakers sought to sensationalise the case.

In 1944, ten years after her body was found, a man was convicted not of her murder, but of manslaughter. Rat-bastard Antonio Agostini confessed to the police commissioner that he had “accidentally shot” his wife, Linda Agostini, “during an argument.”

Just how unlikely it is that Linda was Pyjama Girl (Linda Agostini had brown eyes; Pyjama Girl’s eyes were blue), is as astonishing as a husband who confesses to murdering his wife but only gets 6 years — and serves less then 3. And this is stuff that Richard Evans tells in his book, The Pyjama Girl Mystery (also available via Amazon).

But what we end up with now, are two dead women — both of which were likely killed by men they knew. (The odds say it’s true; and who else has access to a woman in her pajamas?)

Author Evans’ investigation into this case is far more fascinating than the story told in that 1977 movie — but that’s not even my main (or only) point.

Apparently in 2004, Australia’s ABC’s Rewind program ran a story on the Pyjama Girl mystery and, along with an extremely interesting interview with Evans, they presented this fascinating bit of cultural commentary:

MICHAEL CATHCART: In the 1930s, pyjamas were exotic, the sort of thing worn by young flappers. These so-called ‘new women’ dressed in skimpy clothes, they smoked, they drank, they partied and they laughed at convention. The straitlaced moral guardians of the day held up the Pyjama Girl as an example, a warning of what happens to young women who go astray.

CALEB WILLIAMS, CURATOR, JUSTICE AND POLICE MUSEUM: It was a wonderful trope for the newsmen of the day to play with. The idea of, you know, this wonderful, gorgeous, sexy woman abandoned bashed in a ditch in a pair of exotic silk pyjamas – it was sort of media heaven, basically.

In case you missed it, let me highlight the most offensive part here: The straitlaced moral guardians of the day held the Pyjama Girl up as a warning of what happens to young women who go astray. Why did they think the young woman had “gone astray”? Because she wore pajamas.

Pajamas.

Pajamas were, at the time, the “exotic” sort of thing worn by young flappers. And flappers were amoral women. Women who, apparently, deserve to be beaten, shot, burned and left dead in a ditch.

That’s a whole lot of conclusion jumping and victim blaming.

Just like the crap said about Linda Agostini.

Wikipedia (a site I trust about as much as I do the investigation into the Pyjama Girl case), says that Linda was a “penniless glamour girl” who “worked at a picture theatre in the city and lived in a boarding house on Darlinghurst Road in Kings Cross where all accounts tell she ‘entertained’ more than her fair share of young, attractive men. Platt was a heavy drinker and a flighty Jazz Age party-goer who had difficulty adjusting to stability.” Lovely. Who writes and edits at Wiki? Tony Agostini’s family?

Wiki does not reference those particular sentiments (for they sure aren’t facts), but none of the sites referenced says such things. One of the sites referenced, Australian Dictionary of Biography, says the following:

Tony and Linda were a popular couple. He was 5 ft 7 ins (170 cm) tall, trim and dark haired; she was only five feet (153 cm) tall, attractive and well liked. Yet, according to Tony, their relationship was not an easy one.

Linda sometimes left him for long periods and drank too much which shamed him within the Italian community. In 1933 the couple moved to Carlton, Melbourne, where he worked on the newspaper, Il Giornale Italiano, and she took a job at Ferrari’s hairdressing salon in the Manchester Unity Building. Agostini later claimed that there were frequent altercations. During one quarrel in bed, Linda was fatally shot with a pistol which Tony alleged she had held.

“They were well liked,” but… Tony says “their relationship was not an easy one,” Tony says there were “frequent altercations,” Tony says they argued in bed and she had a pistol. *snort*

Tony says it was an accident — but the bitch had it coming.

Who is here to speak for Linda? (And couldn’t I argue that with an ass-hat like Tony for a husband, I’d take off and drink too. Only I wouldn’t return to where he lives — by my choice, not his hand.) But let’s all blame the victims.

Linda’s treatment is like Pyjama Girl’s: Unfair and unwarranted crap which absolves their murderers from any responsibility. Which makes me really, really upset. The kind of upset that renders me unable to even swear properly.

How can anyone ven suggest that a woman was somehow responsible for her own murder because of the PJs she wore or drinking?

That Pyjama Girl’s death & “murder case” was reduced to media hype, social agendas, sloppy & corrupt police work — and just plain political no matter how you cut it — is a story which deserves to be told. If only because it may be the only way this woman (and Linda Agostini and other victims) can be honored. And because it just might be of value in teaching people what matters.

And that isn’t a woman’s pajamas. Or her short skirt. Or the number of drinks she’s had, who she knows, where she goes. She’s human and her life was taken — and likely by someone she trusted.

So, just how ridiculous does that not-giallo-enough film made in 1977 seem now? Like some chick’s armpit hair, it just doesn’t matter. Other than it was an insignificant waste of time.

And yeah, I could be all wet because, as I readily admit, I didn’t see this 1977 film. But then “Runkdapunk” says, “The disc has a half hour documentary about the actual Pyjama girl murder case which is actually more interesting than the film.” So I rest my case.

Now if only poor “Pyjama Girl” could only rest in peace.

Kitsch-Slapped

Tag: crime