Rocky VII: What Are You, a Fuckin' Keebler Elf?

Slouch hats annoy me.  So does any article of clothing that invokes forest-dwelling cookie makers.  I thought fashion was taking a better direction this last year because everyone started dressing sartorially and streamlined like they were characters from Mad Men.  And while that may not be an original thing to do in the slightest, dressing like Pete Campbell or Joan Holloway at least means you’re going to look proportionate, well-tailored, and damn good.  So I had my hopes up for a minute there, until Slouch lurked along with its leg-stumpifying flat-heeled slouch boots, and shit all over the country’s fashion sense.  Now slouching is all the gotdamn kids care about these days.

I honestly thought dressing up like Peter Pan was over and done with back in 2005, but just like T-shirts under tank tops and club-trash gladiator stilettos, I have a feeling that Slouch will be one of those trends that are a recurring crime.  Slouch isn’t the main topic of this post at all, and I’m not trying to dog too hard on the folks who dress like a parade float-sized ball sack.  Wardrobe choice is a very personal thing, you know?  Maybe the thirty year-old woman that still ‘rocks’ pink and black hoodies really did have a special moment in the front row at an Avril Lavigne concert back in 2001 (I’m talking about Avril herself, of course).  I wouldn’t doubt if there’s a whole population of American men that wear skinny, skinny jeans because they actually lost their penises in the Great War of 2008 with Urban Outfitters.  Tragic.

It’s not like I expect everyone to dress up in suits and ties every day (and it’s not like I have any right to considering I’m in my underwear with a paper napkin wrapped around my foot….long story).  I totally dig those girls that walk around like they’re on their way or just got out of the gym at all times because at least they’re committing to a look that’s….active.  Dresses with sneakers are a strange combo, but I’ll accept that any day over the grouping of pajama bottoms and slippers worn outside of the house.  When I see full grown men and women wear that shit at the grocery store, I throw up a little.  Jammy Jams as daywear should die in the same way as long, blonde Juggalo goatees should:  autoerotic asphyxiation.  

Okay!  So, Ashlee, focus.  What I’m here to discuss is the absolute opposite of Slouch, the gone-but-not-forgotten, right-on-top-of-that-Rose phenomenon known as the EIGHTIES POWER BITCH:

 These women were amazing.  They attended meetings:

They threw dinner parties:

They gate-kept:

And even threatened rival power bitches with crutches:

Uh, hmmm.  20th Century Fox, everybody, check it out!  So, the usage of Sigourney three times for this post is deliberate for two reasons:  a) I love her face, and b) she epitomizes the EIGHTIES POWER BITCH in my mind because of her ingenious role on Working Girl.  She was hardcore.  And not like the five-foot tall thirtysomething that listens to Rancid and thinks she's hardcore, but like, the Real Deal.  The muse for Nagel.  Dr. Venkman's love conquest. 

Anyways, the E.P.B. is unfortunately an extinct specimen of our pop culture.  No modern movie I know of that’s set in the eighties has ever achieved true historic verisimilitude with power bitches, and I don’t think they ever will.  The problem is that no costume designer is either allowed or wants to dress their starlets in the authentic, hulking E.P.B. power suits of years yonder because no one wants to be ugly for the sake of art anymore.  Everyone is so preoccupied with being The Pretty One these days that we’re never going to see movies where teenagers are wearing the most outrageously ill-fitting clothes known to man:

C'est la vie, mes amis.  It’s too bad, but we’ll always have the past.  I know my fondness for E.P.B.s goes against what I mentioned earlier about being proportionally dressed and whatnot, but you have to remember that the 80s defined an era of not just material decadence and good movies, but also that of the emergence of post-feminist revolution empowerment in the workplace.  If you’ve ever seen Scarface, you’ll know by Michelle Pfeiffer’s outfits that fashion designers knew how to dress women and also flatter their figure, so it’s not like all tailors lost their measuring tapes all of a sudden.  However, as the 80s opulence marched forward, women’s clothing became more and more puffed out, extravagant, and crazy. It makes perfect sense because where else are your shoulders to go after millennia of oppression but up?

 So, Sigourney may have stolen my heart, but Ivan Drago's wife on Rocky IV comes in a very close second in the EIGHTIES POWER BITCH awards:

It helps that she's a wife, trainer, Soviet public relations spinster, pusher, agent, and all around shit-starter in my favorite Rocky movie.  God, Jesus, I love that movie more than my job.  I counted one time, it has FIVE montage scenes.  James Brown's in it.  Apollo dies.  Paulie engages in a romantic relationship with the robot maid that was his birthday present from Adrienne.  Rocky Balboa single-handedly ends the Cold War.

In true E.P.B. style, Ivan's wife just coldly raises an eyebrow while watching her husband transform into a cockroach boxing machine through all the steroid-fueled training the CCCP puts that man through.  Mongo is just a pawn in the game of life, I guess.