Sex Symbol
The "sex symbol" in twentieth-century American culture is, for the most part, a product of the movies, which over the decades has offered a dizzying variety of male and female images to American audiences: the Vamp, the Red-Hot-Mama, the Golddigger, the Exotic Other, the Girl (and Guy) Next Door, the Femme Fatale, the Strong, Silent Type, the Sex Bomb, the Sex Kitten, the Latin Lover, the Matinee Idol, the Punk, and the Hunk, among many others. Before films became popular entertainment in the 1910s, attractive models having particular standards of "desirability" were only beginning to be seen in the new mass culture, as with the Gibson Girl and Gibson Guy images found in mass-circulation magazines. But once Americans were able to attend films, it was possible for millions to see the same kinds of women and men being held up as models of beauty and sensuality on the silver screen. Over the years, practically the only thread of commonality to be found throughout the various manifestations of the movie sex symbol have been racial and ethnic—the Hollywood sex symbol is almost always white, almost always of northern or western European heritage, and almost always American, though "exotic" examples from Asian, Latino, and African cultures have had their place in film as well as print media.
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