Bikini in comic books: From Jo-Jo, Congo King published by Fox Feature Syndicate
Bikinis appear in competitions, films, magazines, music, literature, magazines and even video games. Despite the easy availability of more revealing glamour imagery, bikini modeling remains popular and can still stir controversy.
The Bikini Planet is a science fiction comedy written by David S. Garnett and released exclusively in the UK as a paperback. It was written as a sub-sequel to an earlier story by Garnett in 1994, entitled Stargonauts, and features some of its settings and characters.
Bikini News is a series of satirical news videos featuring two comediennes performing in bikinis in a comedic style similar to The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live available in podcast and vodcast form, as well as in mov and wmv file formats. As of October 2007, over 90 episodes and 80 bloopers/sketches have been created. NCIS, an American police procedural television series revolving around a fictional team of special agents, had an episode on Bikini Wax (18th epidosde, 2nd season). Bikini Bottom is a city that appears in the Nickelodeon animated television series, SpongeBob SquarePants. Located at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, it is where the series' main characters live, and where most of the episodes take place.
The Bikini Karate Babes is a digitized 2D fighting game developed by Creative Edge Studios. It features an all-female cast of 19 fighters, all clad in bikinis and played by real actresses.
The Swedish Bikini Team was a group of American female models who appeared in an advertising campaign for Old Milwaukee beer. These commercials ran for several months in 1991 in the United States, playing with American stereotype of blonde and big breastsed Scandinavian women. Feminist activists found the ads misogynistic. Though the campaign generated widespread interest, the advertisements were dropped after protests by the National Organization for Women and female employees of the Pabst Brewing Company.
Bikini contest
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A bikini contest is a beauty contest where women compete against each other in bikinis. Bikini contests can take place in bars, nightclubs, strip clubs at beaches, and beauty pageants. Related companies regularly sponsor such contests to discover and attract new talents to promote their products. Bikini contests can also take place over the Internet by women submitting pictures of themselves in bikinis.
Contestants often wear sashes indicating where they are from in bikini contests, in similarity to the tradition in other beauty pageants. It is becoming more and more common for women to wear bikinis as part of the swimsuit competitions at major pageants. Participants in the Miss Teen USA pageant are now required to wear bikinis.
Movies
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poster for Bikini Beach, one of the early Beach Party films made in 1964
Beach Party films were an American 1960s genre of feature films which often starred Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. They were originally intended as a low-budget imitation of both the Elvis Presley musical and the Doris Day sex comedy, aimed at the teen market, but they ended up taking on a life of their own. The "classic" series was produced by American International Pictures, and imitated in turn by numerous other studios. Beach Party (1963), Muscle Beach Party (1963), Bikini Beach (1964), Pajama Party (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) are titles that were made as part of the classic beach party genre. The final entry in the original series was The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, released in 1966. The end credits for another AIP Avalon comedy, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) reveal that the original title planned for this film was The Girl in the Glass Bikini, and that Funicello and Avalon were slated to appear. However, Funicello and Avalon both passed, and the leads in The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini were played by Tommy Kirk and Deborah Walley.
Avalon and Funicello starred in Paramount Pictures Back to the Beach in 1987, playing off their original roles and subsequent careers. The 1965 movie Ski Party (with Dwayne Hickman, Yvonne Craig, Lesley Gore and James Brown) is also notable for employing many of the same actors and schticks, only transplanted to a ski resort in the Sawtooth National Forest. The 1996 movie That Thing You Do! touches briefly on the phenomenon, with the Wonders making an appearance in a fictional beach party movie, Weekend at Party Pier. A 2001 episode of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch ("Beach Blanket Bizarro") also paid homage to the series, with Avalon appearing as himself.
Bikini Cavegirl, The Bikini Carwash Company, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, and It's a Bikini World are some of the many films that have plotlines revolving around the bikini.
Depictions of metal bikinis in art
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia wearing the metal bikini in the Return of the Jedi (Star Wars: Episode VI) was voted one of the most memorable swimsuit moments of cinema history.
A variant of the bikini popular in fantasy literature, originating from the cover-art of Earle K. Bergey (a direct inspiration for Princess Leias outfit), is a bikini that is made up of metal to serve as (admittedly rather impractical) armor, sometimes referred to as a "chain mail bikini" or "brass bikini". The character Red Sonja is a famous example of such; the game Poxnora is another example, in which all the women wear bikini-like clothing. A term for such usage, where sex appeal is more important than actual practicality, is babes-at-arms (parodying "men-at-arms" for fully armoured soldiers). In science fiction, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi features the notable "Princess Leia's metal bikini". It is worn by the character Princess Leia when she is held captive by Jabba the Hutt at the film's beginning. This particular "bikini" has since been elevated to pop culture icon status, spawning various spoofs and parodies (notably the episode of Friends, "The One with the Princess Leia Fantasy") and even a dedicated fansite — Leia's Metal Bikini.
Music
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, a singles written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, has become a part of the history of the bikini. Released on August 8, 1960, it was also the first single sung by Brian Hyland to enter Billboard Hot 100. The song features in 1961 Billy Wilder film comedy One, Two, Three, as well as films like Sister Act 2 and Revenge of the Nerds II. It also features in commercials for Yoplait light yogurt, YWCA, and TV Easy magazine.
Do The Bikini Dance, a single by Dee Dee Ramone, was released on the day Ramones were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2002. In the Gang of Four song "I Found That Essence Rare", the Bikini is suggested to be "...dressed for the H-Bomb...". In 1997 the French-German Electronic band Stereo Total released an album named Monokini. Hungarian rock band Bikini, Riot Grrrl movement induced punk rock band Bikini Kill and Los Angeles, California based electro-pop duo Cherry Bikini had names inspired by the bikini.
Magazines
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is published annually by Sports Illustrated. It features fashion models wearing swimwear in exotic locales. Inclusion is considered a stick by which supermodels are measured. In addition, the issue is a media nexus that in 2005 carried $35 million in advertising. New issues come out around the middle of February or later. First published in 1964, it is credited with making the bikini a legitimate piece of apparel. The issue that got the most letters was the 1978 issue.The best selling issue was the 25th Anniversary Issue with Kathy Ireland on the cover in 1989.
Urbe Bikini (UB) is a Venezuelan, Maxim-styled monthly created by Urbe's editor-in-chief & creative director, Gabriel Torrelles and publisher, Carlos Lizarralde, who sold the company to the country's largest publisher, Cadena Capriles. It is the largest circulation glossy in the country and a cultural and circulation phenomenon in itself for more than 10 years.
<< Pervious
A string bikini refers to a bikini swimsuit that is scantier and more revealing than traditional bikinis. It gets its name from the string characteristics of its design. Rather than featuring a full single piece bottom, the string bikini consists of two triangular shaped pieces connected at the groin but not at the sides, where a thin "string" wraps around the waist connecting the two parts. String bikini tops are similar and are tied in place by the attached "string" pieces. String pieces can either be continuous or tied.
A monokini, sometimes referred to as a unikini, is a woman's one piece beach garment equivalent to the lower half of a bikini. The term is used for different styles of one-piece swimsuits inspired by the bikini.
A microkini is an extremely skimpy bikini. The designs for both women and men typically use only enough fabric to cover the genitalia. Any additional straps are merely to keep the garment attached to the wearer's body. Some variations of the microkini use adhesive or wire to hold the fabric in place over the genitals. These designs do not require any additional side straps to keep the garment in place. The most radical variations of the microkini are simply thin straps which cover little or none of the wearer's body. The term "microkini" was coined in 1995 in an online community dedicated to enthusiasts of the extreme designs. Microkinis fill a niche between nudism and conservative swimwear. In addition to keeping the wearer just within legal limits of decency, they have also evolved to become the ultimate in provocative sun wear.
Female athletes who play beach volleyball professionally usually wear two-pieces. These bikinis are designed with functionality rather than fashion in mind. In the 2004 Olympic Games, inclusion of bikini-clad athletes raised eyebrows, while a controversy broke out around bikini-clad cheerleaders performing at a beach volleyball match. Bikinis stirred up a controversy at the 2006 Asian Games at Doha, Qatar, and the Iraqi team did not wear them. In the 2007 South Pacific Games, players were made to wear shorts and cropped sports tops instead of bikinis. In the same year, fans voted for contestants in the WWE Diva contest after watching them playing beach volleyball in skimpy bikinis. The popularity of Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball, a video game for Xbox, was attributed to the skimpily clad women.
A bikini or two-piece is a type of women's swimsuit, characterized by two separate parts — one covering the breasts (optionally in the case of the monokini), the other the groin (and optionally the buttocks), leaving an uncovered area between the two garments. It is often worn in hot weather or while swimming. The shapes of both parts of a bikini closely resemble women's underwear, and the lower part of a bikini can therefore range from the more revealing thong or g-string, to briefs, and modest square-cut shorts.
Two-piece garments worn by women for athletic purposes have been observed on Greek urns and paintings, dated as early as 1400 BC. Ancient artwork from over 1700 years ago in Villa Romana del Casale have depicted women in garments resembling modern-day bikinis.. Other bikini-style swimwear existed for many years before the first official bikini. Films of holidaymakers in Germany in the 1930s show women wearing two-piece bathing suits. They were to be seen again a year later in Gold Diggers of 1933. Two-piece swimsuits started appearing in the US when the U.S. Government ordered a 10 percent reduction in the fabric used in woman's swimwear in 1943 as part of wartime rationing. The July 9, 1945 issue of Life shows women in Paris wearing similar items.
According to the official version, the modern bikini was invented by French engineer Louis Réard and fashion designer Jacques Heim in Paris in 1946 and introduced on July 5 at a fashion show at Piscine Molitor in Paris. It was a string bikini with a g-string back. It was named after Bikini Atoll, the site of a nuclear weapon test called Operation Crossroads on July 1 in the Marshall Islands, on the reasoning that the burst of excitement it would cause would be like the nuclear device. Monokini, a bikini variant, derives its name, as a back formation, from bikini, interpreting the first syllable as the Latin prefix bi- "two" and substituting for it mono- "one", on the (perhaps intentionally) mistaken notion that the bi- element was the Greek prefix meaning "two". Réard's suit was a refinement of the work of Jacques Heim who, two months earlier, had introduced the "Atome" (named for its size) and advertised it as the world's "smallest bathing suit". Réard "split the 'atom'" even smaller, but could not find a model who would dare to wear his design. He ended up hiring Micheline Bernardini, a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris as his model.
Catholic countries like Spain, Portugal and Italy banned the bikini. Decency leagues pressured Hollywood to keep bikinis from being featured in Hollywood movies. One writer described it as a "two piece bathing suit which reveals everything about a girl except for her mother's maiden name." Movie star Esther Williams once said: "A bikini is a thoughtless act." Brigitte Bardot helped popularize the bikini in Europe in the 1950s, but the United States took longer to adopt it. Modern Girl magazine wrote in 1957, "It is hardly necessary to waste words over the so-called bikini since it is inconceivable that any girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing."
In 1962, an icon was born as Bond Girl Ursula Andress emerged from the sea wearing a white bikini in Dr. No. Other iconic portrayals of bikinis in movies include Raquel Welch as the prehistoric cavegirl in the 1966 film One Million Years B.C., and Phoebe Cates in the 1982 teen film Fast Times at Ridgemont High. These three scenes were recently ranked 1, 86, and 84 respectively in Channel 4 (UK)'s 100 Greatest Sexy Moments in Film. The Dr. No bikini scene has been quoted as one of the most memorable scenes from the British spy film series. Virgin Media puts it in 9th position in its list of top ten movie bikini, and the top position in the list for top ten Bond girls. The Herald (Glasgow) put the scene as best ever bikini scene on the basis of a poll. It also helped shape the career of Ursula Andress, the look of the quintessential Bond movie. According to Andress, "This bikini made me into success." That white bikini has been described as a "defining moment in the sixties liberalization of screen eroticism".
Ultimately the bikini caught on, due to a host of films and songs featuring the garment in the early 1960s. In Malta, bikinis took time to be introduced. In the 1960s, the police fended off Bishop Michael Gonzi's request to ban bikini clad tourists following fear of compromising Malta as a tourist destination. Malta Labour Party girls felt safe putting on bikinis during beach parties but this was unacceptable by those supporting the Nationalist Party. The lower part of the bikini was further reduced in size in the 1970s to the Brazilian thong, where the back of the suit is so thin that it disappears into the buttocks.
