An It girl or It-girl is a charming, sexy young woman who receives intense media coverage unrelated or disproportional to personal achievements. The reign of an "It girl" is usually temporary; some of the rising It girls will either become fully-fledged celebrities or their popularity will fade. The term "It boy", much less frequently used, is the male equivalent. This term is unrelated to the abbreviation IT.
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Clara Bow and It (1926)
The term was coined by English romance novelist and screenwriter Elinor Glyn to describe actress Clara Bow as she appeared in the 1927 Hollywood silent film It. Glyn described the term thus:
- "IT" is that quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force. With "IT" you win all men if you are a woman—all women if you are a man. "IT" can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction.[1]
and
- Self-confidence and indifference whether you are pleasing or not—and something in you that gives the impression that you are not at all cold. That's "IT".[1]
However, the movie also plays with the notion that "it" is a quality which eschews definitions and categories; consequently the girl portrayed by Bow is an amalgam of an ingenue and a femme fatale, with a touch of "material girl". By contrast, her rival is equally young and comely, and even rich, blonde and well-bred to boot, but she simply hasn't got "it".
Based on Glyn's novella of the same title, the movie was planned as a special showcase for the popular Paramount Studios star. Owing to Glyn's widely publicized pronouncement, the term It girl entered the cultural lexicon. Bow's contemporary and friend, the actress Louise Brooks was also widely described as an "It girl", especially retrospectively.
Modern "It girls"
Since 1927 the term has been extended beyond the world of film, referring to whoever in society, fashion or the performing arts was in vogue at the time, and eventually extending beyond young female performing artists to mere "media celebrities".
The British underground newspaper, International Times, also known as IT, used as its logo a black-and-white image of Theda Bara, vampish star of silent films. The founders' original intention had been to incorporate an image of Clara Bow, but an image of Theda Bara was used by accident and, once deployed, was never changed. The paper's logo is therefore sometimes called 'the it girl'. Andy Warhol's muse, Edie Sedgwick, was dubbed the It Girl.[2]
The writer William Donaldson observed that, having initially been coined in the 1920s, the term was applied in the 1990s to describe "a young woman of noticeable 'sex appeal' who occupied herself by shoe shopping and party-going."[3]
Musical
Glyn's movie script was adapted into a musical called The It Girl, which opened off-Broadway in 2001 at the York Theatre Company starring Jean Louisa Kelly[4].
See also
References
- ^ a b Slate from the movie "It" (USA, 1927)
- ^ http://amanoutoftime.livejournal.com/600411.html?mode=reply
- ^ Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics, 2002
- ^ It Girl Musical
External links
- Clara Bow, the original It girl
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