Vie est belle: BE*WITCHED.

Sweet coupled airs we sing.
No lonely seafarer
Holds clear of entering
Our green mirror.

-The Odyssey

Inspired by an episode of Oprah today featuring Raquel Welch, known perhaps more famously for her sexpot status a la One Million Years B.C. than her contributions to film (unless you count wearing animal skin loin cloths as 'contributions'), I visited some of the prevailing women of the last century who defined SEX ICON and changed not only film and women's place in it, but much of our conversations and discussions on male/female relations. Strangely intrigued by these siren songs of beauty and carnal objects of lust and desire for men (and women, I need mention), I think that there has always been something beguiling and mysterious about the heavy-lidded, tease-tressed sexpots, what with their lips ever so slightly parted and their dreamy bedroom eyes begging silent invitation. With much of their appeal centered squarely on their sulking beauty and glowing sensuality, the women featured below are a few amongst the pantheon of World War II pinups and tribute magazine spreads legions of men and women have come to iconify.

Marilyn Monroe

Brigette Bardot

And while their beauty is intoxicating, dreamy even, what with their coy smiles and generous figures beckoning the eye their direction, there is something so tragically marred about these archetypal 'femme fatales', who seemed to carry with them an elixir containing both a bounty of power and impending calamity. Take it back to Homer's Odyssey, set in 12th century BC, where the Sirens sing a song so irresistible, Circe warns Odysseus to plug the sailor's ears with beeswax and have them tied to the mast if they wish to go onward with their treacherous journey. This idea of temptation as a deadly threat is no novel idea, harkening back to Biblical times with the first original ancestors of sexual deadlock , Sir Adam and Madame Eve. Postmodern cinema and Hitchcock films of noir showcase these cutting figures of device and trickery as the lady in wait casts a sort of magical spell over the trembling men who are so lost in desire, they see only crimson.

Elizabeth Taylor

Tempted to call it mere fantasy, it's more than just that, as a power play shifts into gear, one's feminine wiles used as tricks of allure to advance one's personal gains. This interlocking exchange between power and tantalizing seduction among men and women is self-evident from literature to films and music and even in our most esteemed governmental institutions. The women captured in this post are only a few of the beauties who captivated audiences and suitors over the last century; their lives were heralded, their deaths declared tragedies. For the ones whose lives and careers were cut short, we are left to wonder whether they were driven to their grave by the very success which made them into superstars. However, upon closer examination, in our impassioned urges to assign blame, it becomes clear that it was no mere ploy of the directors and film studio heads whose low budget films profited immensely from these women's draw. We see, indeed, the way these women used and profited themselves, turning their faces and bodies into commodities, tools for profit and self-advancement.