FIRST, LET us not confuse the pin-up girl with the pornographic or erotic imagery that dates from the dark backward and abysm of time. The pinup girl is a specific erotic phenomenon, both as to form and function. –Bazin

A public domain photo of Ingrid Bergman

André Bazin‘s 1946 essay “Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl,” was first published as “Entomologie de la pin-up girl “, L’Écran français issue 77, September 1946.

It starts thus:

Definition and Morphology

A wartime product created for the benefit of the American soldiers swarming to a long exile at the four corners of the world, the pin-up girl soon became an industrial product, subject to well-fixed norms and as stable in quality as peanut butter or chewing gum. Rapidly perfected, like the jeep, among those things specifically stipulated for modern American military sociology, she is a perfectly harmonized product of given racial, geographic, social and religious influences.

“Entomology of the Pin-Up Girl” is featured in Qu’est-ce que le cinéma?