Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary

Schools

Bc. Ivana Plevíková

Lolita: A Cultural Analysis

Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A., Ph.D.

2016
 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..
Author’s signature
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Most importantly I would like to thank Jeffrey Alan Smith and Kathleen Loock for their
inspiring guidance and valuable advice provided during the process of writing.

My gratitude also belongs to my parents for their lifelong support. I cannot forget to
thank my closest friends, their help, patience and much-needed relaxation services
oftentimes provided on a very short notice.

Lastly, I would like to thank Štefan whose memory and love enabled me to put my heart
into this work and will always be a driving force to me.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................... 1

2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ........................................................... 6

3 FILM ADAPTATIONS ........................................................................... 20

4 MUSIC INDUSTRY AND MUSIC VIDEO ART .................................. 23

4.1 THE NYMPHET AND THE ENCHANTED ...................................................... 25

4.1.1 Imagined Pedophilia .................................................................................... 26

4.1.2 Embodying the Nymphet ............................................................................... 29

4.2 DADDY’S GIRL OR THE EMPOWERED ........................................................ 42

4.2.1. Controlled Lolita ......................................................................................... 43

4.2.2 Lolita as a Dependent Escapist .................................................................... 46

4.2.3 Lolita’s Power Within a Relationship .......................................................... 53

4.2.3.1 Alizée .................................................................................................... 53

4.2.3.2 Marilyn Manson ................................................................................... 55

5 ADVERTISING ....................................................................................... 60

5.1 FILM ADAPTATIONS AND NOVEL PROMOTION ...................................... 62

5.1.1 Film Posters ................................................................................................. 65

5.1.1.1 Contemporary Approach ...................................................................... 72

5.1.2 Book Covers ................................................................................................. 75

5.1.2.1 Visualizing the Nymphet ....................................................................... 77

5.2 LOLITA AS A FRAGRANCE ............................................................................. 81

5.2.1 Marc Jacobs’s “Oh Lola” ............................................................................ 82

5.2.2 Lolita Lempicka’s “Le Premier Parfum” .................................................... 85

5.3 LOLITA AS A PRODUCT.................................................................................. 89

6 FASHION................................................................................................. 91

6.1 WESTERN PERCEPTION.................................................................................. 94

6.1.1. Inspiration in Music and Cinematography ................................................. 94

6.1.2 Sexual Fixation and the Birth of Nymph ...................................................... 98

6.2 NON-WESTERN PERCEPTION...................................................................... 101

6.2.1 Origins and a Denial of Nabokov............................................................... 102

6.2.2 Lolita Complex ........................................................................................... 105

7 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................... 110

BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................... 113

PRIMARY SOURCES ............................................................................................ 113

SECONDARY SOURCES ...................................................................................... 114

RESUMÉ (ENGLISH) .............................................................................. 119

RESUMÉ (CZECH) .................................................................................. 120

ATTACHMENTS ..................................................................................... 121

1 INTRODUCTION

The novel Lolita is undoubtedly Vladimir Nabokov’s most famous and most talked

about literary work. The book presents a story about a middle-aged professor who

becomes obsessed and falls in love with a 12-year-old girl, who firstly in only his

tenant’s daughter, but later the step-daughter of his own. The inclusion of a young

underage girl and placing her into a sexual context were one of the major reasons for the

novel to cause a huge controversy. It is a story about their relationship, their adventures,

as well as madness and a desire to run away and part forever. Ever since Lolita’s first

publication in 1955, Vladimir Nabokov’s most read and perhaps most valued literary

work has attracted minds of many readers. Nowadays, one can claim that this novel

without a doubt managed to stay in the literary consciousness and maintains its

popularity even though its readership and the socio-cultural aspects of the environment

these people live in significantly changed over the last 60 years. Throughout the

different periods of 20th and 21st century, the spectrum of different opinions about the

novel ranged from perceiving it as an immensely appreciated piece of art to dooming

the work for being morally inappropriate. The controversial reception among different

readers and different time periods is certainly one of the crucial factors influencing its

everlasting dominancy. The opinions and discussions were in many cases soon

transformed into more concrete entities. As people started to feel the need to express

their opinions and understandings of Lolita somewhat differently, the reactions to the

work became more tangible and continually transformed Nabokov’s written work into

derivative artistic works. The artistic representation took place on many different levels,

further reshaping Lolita as a work of visual, aural, metaphoric, or the original verbal

artistic fields.

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 In my bachelor’s studies, the research of my final thesis had already dealt with

the spheres of adaptation and cultural reception of Nabokov’s Lolita, however, back

then it was focused merely on the cinematographic side of it, namely the first film

adaptation of the work directed by Stanley Kubrick. The thesis that I wrote, although

focused only on a very small part of the spectrum, served as an inspiration for a further

analysis and convinced me that the story of Lolita is undoubtedly still challenging and

can definitely serve as a subject of deeper research. Because the film adaptations, not

only the one of Stanley Kubrick but also the one directed by Adrian Lyne, have both

already been a subject of my research, they have also served as a great research interest

for many other scholars. Whether these researches focus on film adaptation studies,

literary criticism, narratology, feminism, or other fields, it seems that these adaptations

have both been examined and discussed on almost all possible levels.

In my master’s thesis, I would like to tie to the vast discussions of Lolita’s film

adaptations, move further and focus on fields of Lolita’s representation which can

nowadays be considered more current and popular. Even though the films are an

essential part of the stories adaptation history, especially Stanley Kubrick being the one

adapting the novel as the first one, while playing an important role in understanding the

works analyzed in this thesis, they will mostly serve as intermediate points between the

chosen works and the novel. This work is divided into three different sections

representing works of different media which Lolita was adapted and appropriated in –

Music, Advertising, and Fashion. In the first of the three main chapters, I focus on the

field of music industry and music video art. I observe five different artists divided into

three subchapters dealing with different topics and incorporations of Nabokov’s novel.

The chapter examines sexualization of Lolita’s character, as well as the portrayal of the

archetype of nymphet in the chosen songs and videos and its further impact on the

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position of Lolita as a woman and within the relationship with Humbert. The artists

discussed include Lana Del Rey and primarily songs “Lolita” and “Off to the Races”,

Alizée and her song “Moi… Lolita”, Melanie Martinez’ “Carousel”, Marilyn Manson’s

“Heart Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)”, and Sia’s “Elastic Heart”.

Afterwards, the thesis moves on to the analysis of advertisements appropriating Lolita

in a certain way. The advertising sphere is here as well divided into several subchapters

according to the different type of promotion and thus also different ways of

appropriating. The thesis focuses on film posters, different book covers, advertisements

for perfumes, and of course, the iconic heart-shaped glasses. The research examines the

way advertising industry uses the novel and its themes for creating an effective way of

promotion and tries to point out the reasons that might stand behind the particular ways

of appropriation. The last area of focus is looking at Lolita-inspired fashion trends

around the world as a distinct way of self-expression and human interaction with the

novel. It is divided into two subchapters distinguishing between Western and non-

Western understanding.

The aim of these works’ analysis is to look at the elements that in certain ways

influenced or changed the way people look and perceive the picture of Lolita or the

themes in the book. Among these, I firstly take into consideration the socio-cultural and

moral predispositions that serve as a platform for modeling audience’s views, as well as

their understanding, reception and further recreation of the book. Closely tied to that lies

the importance of the fact that all of the works focused on are a part of mass media and

popular culture, which introduces aspect oftentimes absent from the discussions of other

works of art. These works are in many ways predestined to be well-known, seen, heard,

and perceived. Popular works like these often introduce the aspect of being

overwhelmed, and one’s exposure to the works passively. The works I focus on in this

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thesis are all very recent, created in the 21st century solely and thus are not only popular

and in the scope of today’s person perception, but also have only rarely been a subject

of previous scholar analyses. Even though some have already served as a focus of

academic research or articles, they can still, to a greater extent, be considered as

unexplored in the fields of reception and appropriation studies. The research with the

aim to present firstly the individual analyses of these sections and secondly to bring

them together therefore seems valuable and innovative to me.

In the main body of the thesis, the work is divided into three main chapters

further divided into subchapters. I will be dealing with several chosen works

appropriating Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita all belonging into the three previously

mentioned categories. Most of these are works originally created in the United Stated,

however there are also others originating in different parts of the world such as France

or Japan. The purpose for using these works is two-fold. First, it is the significant

importance and inseparable place of these works within the field of Lolita’s

appropriation studies, which simply makes them impossible to be left out of the

analysis. Secondly, because of the globalization taking place especially in the field of

popular culture where the popular element quickly transforms from country to country

and culture to culture, the importance of these works also ties in the retroactive impact

that they later have on the United Stated, and their perception of Lolita, despite not

being created there.

At the beginning the thesis first presents two chapters providing a necessary

background. First it is a brief introduction of the previous film adaptations that are very

important for further analyses as well as they connect many of the works with

Nabokov’s novel. Secondly the thesis presents a theoretical background, which presents

a set of works dealing with topics, concepts, theories, and ideas crucial for

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understanding the way the analyzed works are perceived and dealt with. Some of the

groundworks include James Young’s Cultural Appropriation and The Arts that is

devoted to the study of appropriation, misrepresentation, assimilation and collective

knowledge. It also focuses on the moral and aesthetical aspects that stem from these

processes. As a theoretical background to the issue of morality, the thesis builds upon

the thoughts of Jesse Prinz and his philosophical theory of moral relativism, and the

ways in which it connects to the study of cultural reception of morals in Lolita. Other

works helping to portray the background to how artistic works such as books get

transferred into new and popular forms and media are Janet Staiger’s Media Reception

Studies and importantly Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Adaptation. I will describe the

way a work of art can migrate between more different medias and the ways, in which

these allow the viewers to see it from several different perspectives.

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2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Before presenting the main body of the thesis, devoted to works adapting and

appropriating Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, I first want to address the theoretical works

that serve as a background for perception, analysis, and the process of dividing the

artworks into the following chapters, as well as into wider context. This chapter

introduces the concepts such as adaptation, appropriation, mythology and archetype;

and the ways they are related to the works dealt with in the rest of the thesis.

Among the major theoretical works referred to in this chapter belong Linda

Hutcheon’s A Theory of Adaptation, especially valuable for the importance the author

puts on the differentiation between individual media, genres and modes of engagement;

Julie Sanders’s Adaptation and Appropriation, for her definitions of adaptation and

appropriation and the cultural implications related to these processes; Janet Staiger’s

Media Reception Studies, in which she focuses on sociological, psychological, and

cultural approaches to the reception of works adapted into mass media; and James O.

Young’s Cultural Appropriation and the Arts, because of his focus on ethical aspect of

adaptations and appropriations. From each of these studies the thesis extracts the

necessary essence supporting the main subject of my further analyses. On the basis of

Hutcheon’s A Theory of Adaptation, for instance, the thesis justifies the way in which

the primary works of this thesis are divided into its following chapters, and the

importance of these works’ media, which the original work is adapted into, being an

integral part of the adaptation and appropriation processes.

When discussing the above-mentioned matters and modes of cultural

representation, the issue of morality is undoubtedly one that also needs to be addressed.

The reason behind that is its relatedness not only to reception, appropriation and

adaptation themselves, but also to the story and image of Lolita, which will be discussed
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in connection to it, and which certainly is a subject of a morals-related dispute. For the

purpose of that I will refer to the thoughts of a contemporary philosopher Jesse J. Prinz,

whose main topics of interest include emotions, morals, aesthetics and especially the

individual ties and interconnections between them. Before all of that, however, I would

like to discuss what comes prior to the adaptations and appropriations, what makes them

exist, what is the driving force for their creation and ongoing re-creation – the theory of

myths and archetypes.

The founder of structuralism Claude Lévi-Strauss was one of the key persons

preoccupied with the topic of myths and symbolism, as well as their deep-rootedness in

the human history. In his essay “The Structural Study of Myth”, he quotes Franz Boas:

“It would seem that mythological worlds have been built up only to be shattered again,

and that new worlds were built from the fragments” (qtd. in Lévi-Strauss 428). That

naturally does not mean that he thinks all of the stories across the different centuries in

the entire world are similar and only put together from the pieces of the others. Myths

are not subjects knowingly created, and as Lévi-Strauss claimed, they are coming to a

man unbeknownst to him. They may come broken or scattered, and “the handyman who

recycles them, is what Claude Lévi-Strauss calls a bricoleur—a term that he made

famous even in English-speaking circles—and that the English used to call a ‘rag-and-

bones man’” (Myth and Meaning ix).

When discussing mythology, it is also important to differentiate myths from their

common misinterpretations connecting them with terms such as “fantasy”, “magic”, or

“supernatural”. What Lévi-Strauss called a “myth” was not the content of the individual

stories, which could of course be fantastic, magical, supernatural or anything else for

that matter. Because while the content of these collected stories is to a great extent

arbitrary and often diametrically differs, it is rather the structure that, as he found out,

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many of the stories created around the world across different centuries share (“The

Structural Study” 429).

By examining Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, and mainly its two main characters,

Humbert Humbert and Lolita, one may spot that the mythic origin behind this partner

relationship is also strong and notable. In her article, Brooke Gladstone mentions that

even Nabokov himself might not have been so innovative when coming up with his

novel. She points out the existence of a short story titled Lolita, written in 1916 by a

German author Heinz Von Litchberg. Like Nabokov’s Lolita, this one is also centered

around an older man obsessed with a young girl, however, published more than 40 years

prior Nabokov’s (1). Gladstone of course is not the first one to point out the similarities

in not only their titles, but also themes addressed in both stories. Was Nabokov a

plagiarist? Was he aware of Litchberg’s book when he wrote Lolita? These and many

other questions were and still are continually discussed in different interviews and

articles. What makes these, and other, stories recurring and in some ways similar is not

only their mythic origin, but also subjects that represent the inseparable part of myths.

As Sanders points out, “myth is deployed to discuss the most familiar of subjects:

families; love; fathers and daughters” (Sanders 65). These subjects, generally called

archetypes, are described as “certain images that recur in the myths of peoples widely

separated in time and place [that] tend to have a common meaning or, more accurately,

tend to elicit comparable psychological responses and to serve similar cultural

functions” (Guerin et al. 184). Archetypes are also a part of our society, and are

represented by, for instance, conventionalized models of human behavior assigned to

different roles – father, mother, son, etc. These can also be called stereotypes. One of

the classic stereotypes for the father role, for instance, is a so-called “stern father” who

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enforces self-discipline and self-reliance, rewards and punishes, protects form evil and

upholds the moral order (University of Richmond 39:20).

Humbert Humbert in Lolita only hardly represented this stereotypical role of

father for Lolita. In fact, he was very far from it and perhaps one of the only

stereotypical features that he possessed and imposed upon his stepdaughter was male

dominancy, however, a different kind of dominancy than the society desires for fathers

to have. Roddy Reid says that any deviation from the norm sets up a “discursive

machine for moral panics and social paranoia” (qtd. in Staiger 17). Archetypes of Lolita

did in no way fall into picture of the society’s desired archetypes of father and daughter.

Instead, there is a nymph (or a nymphet, as Humbert calls her), an archetype dating

back to Ancient Greece many centuries ago.

[Nymphs were] alluring, entrancing and bewitching. […] The nymph was
a young female mystical being, usually associated with nature that
entranced lone travelers. Once a man has fallen in love with a nymph, he
is never able to let go. […] Nymphs are not of this world; therefore, they
are not something that can be entirely innocent, yet they are still mortal.
(Margeson 1)

A definition of the Ancient Greek nymph that Margeson offers is certainly in many

ways applicable to Lolita. Nabokov was, however, not the only one borrowing this idea,

there were other authors of literature such as William Faulkner or Edgar Allan Poe.

Nevertheless, in the 20th and 21st centuries the number increased. The dominancy of

Humbert, as the only remnant of the “proper” fatherly role, was also not exactly

desirable through the eyes of society. As Margeson says:

While a man may temporarily physically dominate over the nymphet,

like when Humbert Humbert takes the role of Lolita’s stepfather in
Lolita, he does not truly possess her. Because nymphets are a result of
their male counterpart’s projection, the male is incapable of ultimately
sating their desire because they cannot possess that which does not exist.
(2)

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The dominancy that Humbert imposes upon Lolita is a part of their nymphet - male

counterpart relationship, in which he abuses his it as a father, protecting her from being

outside for too long, from meeting boys at school, etc. Thus on one hand, he makes the

kind of decisions that a stern father would have made stereotypically, however, with his

purpose being not the protection of his young child, yet rather a position very much in

favor of his pedophilic and nympholeptic desires, the perception of him as a parent

diverts from the archetype immensely by bringing sexual dominancy and immorality

into the question.

Having introduced the concepts of myths and archetypes, it is necessary to tie

them to the processes serving as a groundwork for this research – namely adaptation

and appropriation. The understanding of both terms varies considerably across different

dictionaries, academic studies, scholarly researches, or public opinions. Some of them

see adaptation as a deliberate decision of an artist to imitate and recreate. Others, for

example T.S. Eliot, believed that, “no poet, no artist, of any art, has his complete

meaning alone” and that this meaning “stems from the relationship between texts,

relationship which encourages contrast and comparison” (38). In regard to the process

of adapting, Julia Kristeva coined the term “intertextuality” which according to her is a

“permutation of texts” (36), a sort of process in which the text that is being adapted,

referred to, or borrowed from is mixed with the new text in which the thoughts and

ideas of a new author are incorporated, which is in its basis very similar to Eliot’s

contrast and comparison. His words also imply the feeling of togetherness of the artistic

community, the mutual influence between the artists, which even if not consciously

perceived in some cases, is very much present.

This sense of influence can, in regard to the whole society, also be expanded and

applied to spheres outside of the artistic one. Just like artists, people are influenced by

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other people in their surroundings, by media, by politics, and literally by any sphere that

has a direct impact on their lives. Not to forget one of the essential parts of everyone’s

life, it is important to mention that every language is filled with “words and

grammatical patterns from other languages” (McWhorter 1). The comparisons and

analogies are also elements that help people to learn new languages. In the introduction

to her book, Julie Sanders mentions that, “adaptation and appropriation are fundamental

to the practice, and, indeed, to the enjoyment, of literature” (1). Although she mostly

focuses on adaptations within the sphere of literature, her thoughts are also applicable to

other media. Adrienne Rich introduces another term when perceiving the process of

adaptation as re-vision. She describes it as “the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh

eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction. […] We need to know the

writing of the past and know it differently than we have ever known it; not to pass on a

tradition but to break its hold over us” (396).

Appropriation is another process that is frequently mentioned in discussions

about adaptation. What is the difference between adaptation and appropriation? Linda

Hutcheon defines appropriation as a process “of taking possession of another’s story,

and filtering it, in a sense, through one’s own sensibility, interests, and talents”

(Hutcheon 18). Looking back at some well-known adaptations, however, one might see

that this definition can in many ways be also a definition of adaptation. Naming for

example Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Lolita, further discussed in chapter 3, it is

undeniable that the work matches the definition of adaptation. However, considering the

presence of many personal and stylistic choices characteristic for Kubrick specifically,

it is also true that he has made Nabokov’s novel to some extent his own. It can therefore

be assumed that these terms are not exclusively defined, yet represent dynamic

processes, whose meanings are in some ways intertwined and cannot be in all cases

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distinguished one from the other. Sanders believes that appropriation and adaptation

“can vary in how explicitly they state their intertextual purpose” (Sanders 2) and that

appropriation “clearly extends far beyond the adaptation of other texts into new literary

creations” (Sanders 148). What she adds is the aspect of newness and innovativeness

that is lacking from many of the definitions of adaptations. This aspect makes the

appropriation liberated and less bound to the original text, therefore naturally also more

personal, more creative, and predisposed to use different means of re-creation.

However, because of the personal value that the new artist assigns to it, it also causes

the appropriations being more frequently accused of stealing.

When discussing appropriation, or more specifically cultural appropriation, it is

also important to think about the term “culture”, which will especially be important for

the discussion of cultural exchange and interaction discussed in regard to Lolita-inspired

fashion trends. The question then is, what is understood by culture? And what is its

exact role in the adaptation and appropriation processes? Sir Edward Burnett Tylor

claims that culture is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts,

morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member

of society” (qtd. in J. O. Young 7) and Young adds that it also includes “civilization,

customs, artistic achievements, etc., of a people, esp. at a certain stage of its

development or history” (7). While appropriating culture that is not primarily

considered one’s own, a person therefore finds oneself in a state described by Harold

Bloom as “misprision”, “the often happenstance or inevitable reinterpretation of texts

during the process of adoption, translation, and reworking them into new contexts” (qtd.

in Sanders 10). The term used by Bloom evokes a kind of discomfort and uneasiness

that an individual feels while on one hand not being able to avoid reworking,

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reinterpreting, and thus appropriating; and feeling pressured from those who consider

these actions to be thefts on the other.

Before the moral stance of appropriation is addressed, one should think about

what these theories about culture and appropriation mean for people and societies in

general. From the research of many different spheres of natural as well as social

sciences, it is clear that appropriation has been taking place for many centuries in almost

any sphere one can think of. The school of structuralism has been concerned with the

inevitability of repetition of virtually everything from people’s daily activities,

language, literature, to various other forms of art. In regards to the age of consumerism

and postmodern thought of an ongoing re-creation of everything already existing,

Kwame Anthony Appiah “has wondered about the usefulness of the concept (of culture)

in a world where cultures increasingly overlap” (qtd. in Sanders 8). In the world where

members of different cultures share everything from space, language, food or art, the

concept of dividing the individual elements into different groups only belonging to

certain groups oftentimes seems pointless. Can then the appropriation of cultural

artifacts be damaging or rightfully offensive to some individuals?

Many people, mostly those who feel harmed or depraved of something crucial

and important, call cultural appropriation “theft”. Various celebrities and musicians are

continually accused of stealing cultural features of other people and appropriating them

in a way that does not take the origin of them into account, but instead are used for

publicity and promotion of one’s style and image. Famous examples include the

ongoing discussion about Eminem stealing music, fashion and behavior that belongs to

African-American people by becoming a rapper (McWhorter). Cathy Young does not

agree with the stance of understanding appropriation as theft and says that, “these

accusations have become a common attack against any artist or artwork that

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incorporates ideas from another culture, no matter how thoughtfully or positively.” The

question then is; is there a correct way to appropriate? Who decides if the appropriation

really is “thoughtful” and has “positive impact”? And what if people accuse others of

stealing their culture? Does it really represent a theft, as so many people keep calling it?

McWhorter asks: “What does it mean to “steal” someone’s culture when we’re not

talking about money” (McWhorter 1)? According to Sanders “cultural appropriation

could be a kind of theft and sometimes it is” (63). She also adds that:

An act of cultural appropriation may be wrong in two ways. It may cause

unjustifiable harm or it may be unjustifiably offensive. Acts of cultural
appropriation could cause harm in at least two ways. Someone could
appropriate something that belongs to members of another culture. That
is, some acts of cultural appropriation can be acts of theft. On the other
hand, cultural appropriation can harm members of a culture without
depriving them of anything they own. (19)

Thus she implies that cultural heritage, habits, mental possessions are also a part of

one’s belongings, even if not a physical one. Some individuals can therefore consider a

situation of someone taking, borrowing, changing, or innovating these long-used parts

of the culture, and creating new, slightly different ones, to be an act of theft and

therefore an immoral, even illegal thing to do.

Immorality, degradation, or secondary position, are some of the denominators

often connected with the appropriations. Sanders says that, “the relationship [between

source text and appropriation] is often viewed as linear and reductive; the appropriation

is always in the secondary, belated position, and the discussion will therefore always be,

to a certain extent, about difference, lack, or loss” (Sanders 2). There is a feeling,

naturally stemming from such definitions, of understanding the process of appropriation

as something inherently wrong. Hutcheon says that a particular moralistic rhetoric often

crosses the path of filmmakers during their adaptation process (85). Robert Stam further

explains that, “infidelity resonates with overtones of Victorian prudishness; betrayal

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evokes ethical perfidy; deformation implies aesthetic disgust; violation calls to mind

sexual violence; vulgarization conjures up class degradation; and desecration intimates

a kind of religious sacrilege toward the sacred word” (54).

Not solely connected to adaptation and appropriation studies, the aforementioned

American philosopher Jesse Prinz has researched the topic of moral values as such. He

tried to deploy a definition of where these values come from and how they influence the

perception of society and culture. Each moral value serves as an intermediation between

what people see happening in front of them, and how they eventually process that

situation in their minds. Prinz strictly distinguishes moral truths from the truth of

sciences and claims that, “morality derives from us. The good is that which we regard as

good. The obligatory is that which we regard as obligatory” (2). Morals are also parts of

particular cultures, although unlike other elements of culture, they often seem to be

much more diverse in different societies. For that reason, one can see later on in the

thesis that some of the discussed appropriations of Lolita are understood with

significant differences also because of a different socio-cultural background. In the

lecture “Living with Relativism”, Prinz describes strange or even pathological nature of

moral-related arguments: “We engage in what looks like an exchange of reasons and

arguments for our particular political perspectives with no hope of ever persuading the

other side” (University of Richmond 4:05). People keep preaching their moral values to

other people, even though they know that in only a very few cases one actually achieves

to persuade the other person about values such deep-rooted into their lives and

mentality. If it does not, as Prinz says, these differently opinionated people are seen in

two categories: “[Either] they are evil people, doing evil nefarious things, intentionally

doing bad stuff, [or] if they aren’t evil, they must just be dumb” (University of

Richmond 5:10). With morality, there oftentimes does not exist anything like “mutual

15
understanding” of the values of the other, in case they differ from one’s own. It is not

comparable to fashion style, hobbies or preference of food or music genres, which one

could more easily accept as “possible choices to be right” for another person.

The differences in moral values of conservatives and liberals, which Prinz uses

as an example for explaining his theory, are very relevant for the understanding of some

of the adaptations and the following reception of Lolita’s adaptation in, for instance,

1960s United States. Because of its instant popularity, the book was immediately

attractive for artists working with media other than literature, predominantly

cinematography. Staiger describes that, “the two areas of individual human behavior

were particularly threatening: sexual deviance and violence” (Staiger 18). Both of those

are inseparable parts of Nabokov’s novel. When such fusion of these “feared elements”

gets into the popular media, which are in many cases used as the means of maintaining

the conservative social and moral values, it can also do the exact opposite. Attracting

the audience towards something new and fresh, which was in the artists best interest,

was by certain regulating offices, for example in 1950s and 1960s, oftentimes

considered unfavorable. Due to these offices regulating certain type of content, creators

had to find another way to put their content through. Many times it may seem that both

people responsible for media contents as well as their audience only consider media a

“good influence” when the content that the they promote is in accordance with the

moral values of their own. Such declarations are thus oftentimes very personally and

subjectively driven. In regard to the influence of media, Herbert Marcuse of the

Frankfurt School claims:

The means of communication, the irresistible output of the entertainment

and information industry carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits,
certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers
[…] to the producers and, through the latter to the whole [social system].
The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false
consciousness which is immune against its falsehood... Thus emerges a
16
 pattern of one-dimensional thought and behaviour, in which ideas,
aspirations, and objectives […] are either repelled or reduced to the terms
of this universe. (26-7)

Such one-sided prescription of what people can and cannot see in popular media, was

then to a great extent restrictive and depriving the audience of the possibility of choice.

What is the right choice then? Prinz asks:

Why can’t we help caring about morality? This question may actually be
harder to answer than the question of why we do care. There is no single
answer to the latter question. Moral systems serve various ends. They
regulate behavior, they imbue life with a sense of meaning, and they
define group membership. The question ‘Why does morality matter?’ is
like the question ‘Why does law matter?’ or why does ‘Culture matter?’.
(8)

He therefore does not suggest giving up any of these values – if it is morality, law,

culture, or others. His suggestion is actually very similar to the process of appropriation

itself. One should not only be aware of one’s own values, but as well the values of

others. Even though these values may seem strange or unacceptable at a certain point in

one’s life, one should be able to look back with fresh eyes and re-evaluate, be open to a

possibility of change and fluctuation, without, however, imposing such values on

anyone else (Prinz 2).

As a last point before moving towards a brief introduction of Lolita’s film

adaptations and eventually the analyses of different appropriations in fields of music,

advertising, and fashion, I want to stress the importance of thinking about these works

in close relation to the particular media forms, in which they have been adapted. For

that reason, I tried to divide each of the chapters with precision, thoughtfulness and

logic. As Hutcheon stresses: “Most theories of adaptation assume […] that the story is

the common denominator, the core of what is transposed across different media and

genres, each of which deals with that story in formally different ways and, I would add,

through different modes of engagement—narrating, performing, or interacting” (10).

17
Each medium, therefore, represents a different mode of engagement, which means that

the authors willing to adapt the story will always focus on different parts of the original,

while keeping in mind the tools and methods for re-creating it that their desired media

offers them. It can be said that these modes are dividing the adaptations into three

different categories. It is, however, not only the issue of modes of engagement, there are

other aspects, equally important and responsible for what the adaptation looks like in its

final version. As an example, Hutcheon says that, “an adapter coming to a story with the

idea of adapting it for a film would be attracted to different aspects of it than an opera

librettist would be” (19), and that with a comparison to literature, “telling a story in

words, either orally or on paper, is never the same as showing it visually and aurally in

any of the many performance media available” (23). The works which I decided to

include in the following chapters are therefore always in certain ways similar, whether it

is their medium, mode of presentation, or engagement of human senses; and at the same

time they differ in exactly these spheres from the works included in the other chapters.

In regards to the chapter devoted to music and music video art, it is the only

medium of those presented using the auditory element as the most important one for its

perception. The composition of the musical background becomes crucial for example

for evoking a special mood and atmosphere. Because of the musical element, as well as

the act of singing, the lyrics are much more compressed than the words and sentences in

novels or short stories. With the connection of music and video becoming more popular,

however, the chapter puts equal importance on the visual representation of the chosen

songs as well. In the chapter dealing with the advertising and its connection to Lolita,

the focus is on the static visual media, such as photography, typography, drawing, and

graphic design, with one case of exception using video. The last chapter dedicated to

fashion is the only one representing the interaction as the main mode of engagement. In

18
her studies, Hutcheon assigns this mode to videogames, in which the people are

themselves part of the adaptation. In case of fashion related to Lolita, they are people

fashioning themselves and in such way appropriating the story, or trying to embody the

image and characteristics of Lolita. As Hutcheon says, “each medium, has its own

specificity, if not its own essence. In other words, no one mode is inherently good at

doing one thing and not another; but each has at its disposal different means of

expression—media and genres—and so can aim at and achieve certain things better than

others” (24). On the basis of this categorization of individual media, I believe that the

division of chapters in the thesis is logical and will serve the purpose of creating a

meaningful, coherently structured analysis.

19
3 FILM ADAPTATIONS

Apart from the importance of theoretical works that serve as a vital tool for analyzing

the individual appropriations, a look at the adaptations of Lolita that are not at the center

of this thesis’s analysis, yet play a crucial role in the ways these appropriations were

created, or the ways their creation was inspired, are of the same importance. This part’s

aim is to briefly introduce both film adaptations of Lolita and to point out some of the

necessary facts for further understanding of their influence on the appropriations in

spheres of music, advertising, and fashion discussed later on.

The two adaptations greatly differ in many aspects, however, both of them in

their own ways serve as a connection point between the original novel, and some of the

contemporary appropriations. Firstly, their importance lies in the fact that they both

offer visual representation of not only Lolita’s character, but of the story in general.

And because all three media discussed in the following chapters place an importance on

visuality, the fact that the story that they appropriate was already visually represented in

these films at the onset of their creation, caused that the works oftentimes appropriate

not only the original text, but also the aesthetics of these adaptations. Thus, what one

may observe in the discussions of works in the following chapters is the fact that many

times, the authors, rather than coming up with a whole new one based solely on the

book, often appropriate, changes, recreates the image already visualized either by

Stanley Kubrick or Adrian Lyne in their adaptations.

Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation was directed and produced in 1962, only 4

years after the novel’s publication in the United States, and thus became the first

adaptation of Lolita in any media. The process of creating the film also had the

advantage to have Vladimir Nabokov himself taking part on screenwriting and thus

through him having an actual connection to the story. However, because of the years of
20
film’s production being the late 1950s and early 1960s, its journey to the cinemas went

through a series of obstacles, which are respectfully reflected in the way the final

picture looks. At the time, Stanley Kubrick was the only one who dared to recreate a

literary work as scandalous and controversial as was Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. The

strict social and moral values in the United States of that time therefore predicted

various problems with the film’s production, which was held under the supervision of

The Production Code Administration. The PCA was then responsible for many plot

omissions, changes or additions. One of the most discussed topics was the visual

appearance of Lolita portrayed by Sue Lyon, where the PCA ordered the producers to

style her to look much older than she was. Other disputes included a request of a

complete shutdown of sexually explicit scenes in the final picture. When questioned

about Lolita’s production, Kubrick said: “If I could do the film over again, I would have

stressed the erotic component of their relationship with the same weight Nabokov did.

But that is the only major area where I believe the film is susceptible to valid criticism”

(qtd. in Leff 245).

Because of the impossibility to include the desired explicitness of certain scenes

in the film, Kubrick tried to grasp the themes and sexuality of the novel subtextually by

a frequent usage of irony, jokes and comical situations. In such a way the director

succeeded in creating a platform, through which he could unobtrusively address some of

the restricted topics. In such execution on the screen, the film did not draw that much

attention towards the aspect of immorality, but rather was presented as a “logic and

delight of games” (Bordo 306).

The second adaptation, produced 35 years after the first one, naturally, looks

very different. With the moral values of the society in the late 1990s being gradually

more accepting than in times of Kubrick’s production, it allowed its creators to be much

21
freer in many of the story’s aspect and scenes. With unconventional appearance, beauty

and the true immature vulgarity, Adrian Lyne’s Lolita portrayed by Dominique Swain

was a much greater success. At the time of the shooting, she was also older than

Nabokov’s Lolita (Lee 118), however, “Lyne has loaded her with accessories

ostentatiously advertising her girlhood: old-fashioned plaits wrapped around her head,

retainers on the teeth, milk mustaches, oversize pajamas” (Bordo 312). Moreover, with

her “tight top, hair loosely tied back, pale skin accentuating bright red lips with her

index finger resting on her tongue provocatively” or “revealing both thighs sitting baby-

like in a child’s outfit blowing a bubble with gum” she stayed more faithful to the

original Lolita’s appearance and was soon after film’s production considered to be the

ultimate embodiment of “the uncontrollable ‘daddy’s girl’” (Lee 117).

When looking at both adaptation side by side, one could notice that even though

the second one could allow to have Lolita more vulgar and precocious, as well as the

scenes being more explicit, Kubrick’s Lolita of the sixties proves that when considering

the times of its production, and restrictions accompanying its production, it still

manages to seem quite sexually knowing. However, because of the notable differences

between the execution of both of these film adaptations, and most probably also because

of Lyne’s adaptation being in many ways closer to the modern and contemporary

audience’s mindset, it is also the one that later on became more significant as an

inspiration for re-creating and appropriating the story into new forms and media, which

are discussed in the main body of this thesis. In many cases, one can also spot the

influence of the former adaptation, or in some cases rather a knowledge of its existence,

however, it is Adrian Lyne’s film, and more particularly the portrayal of Lolita by

Dominique Swain that remains on the center of attention.

22
4 MUSIC INDUSTRY AND MUSIC VIDEO ART

One of the most significant spheres of popular culture in which one may find

appropriations of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is undoubtedly the music industry. When

exploring different portrayals of Lolita within the sphere of music, whether it is the

appropriation of the girl’s image or the novel’s major themes, one finds out that the

process of appropriation may be completely different, especially when compared to

other media forms discussed. Moreover, the themes and symbols from the novel have

started to be reflected and incorporated in music only recently. Whereas for instance the

film industry reacted to the book almost immediately after its publication, the songs that

adapt and appropriate Lolita only started to emerge from 2000s onwards. The period of

their production, largely undermined by the cultural and social environment, naturally

influenced the way these final products look like.

The main focus of this chapter is on several songs as well as artists who created

them, which all appropriate Lolita in their own ways. Some of these pieces perform a

quite straight-forward and intentional appropriations, others merely allude to some of

the book’s themes or borrow its words. We can also see different notions to the

appropriations. Some put the girl on a pedestal and seem to somehow glorify her, others

present a rather parodic portrayal of girlish naivety. At the focus of my analysis are five

different interprets and their songs. The one with probably the greatest connection to the

novel is Lana Del Rey, in which’s case I not only look at specific songs, but at her

whole artistic production, as many spheres of it deem as significant. Apart from Lana

Del Rey, I focus on a French singer Alizée, whose song “Moi… Lolita” that I examine

was the first one produced from those chosen. From the more recent musical creations I

discuss songs of Melanie Martinez, an emerging American singer, a well-known star

Marilyn Manson, and a song by an Australian, US-based singer Sia. I examine

23
strategies used for appropriating the novel when creating these pieces, and I also look at

what kind of personal choices the authors made during the process.

It is important to note that besides the mere presentation of the music on vinyl

records or cassettes, as it has been common in previous decades, the newly emerging

and gaining on popularity was also a presentation of music in connection to videos

created specifically for the particular pieces and thus offering not only the aural, but

also visual engagement to its audience.

Music is also to a great extent a part of the previously analyzed audio-visual

media such as film, television, and drama. However, compared to the usage in music in

connection with music videos, in the media above music can have more diverse roles.

The part that they share are the non-diagetic sounds, the ones that not present on the

screen and are assumed not to be present in the action, which in films and TV offer

“aural ‘equivalents’ for characters’ emotions and, in turn, provokes affective responses

in the audience” (Hutcheon 23). Though the role of sound in music videos can, at times,

play similar role, it primarily works the other way round. While in film, the non-diagetic

sound is despite its importance still only secondary, and essentially accompanies the

visual action; in music videos, it is (or should be) surpassing the visual element, thus

serving as complementary. Thus, it may help the audience to see the thoughts and

meanings that are behind what they hear. The visuals also often unravel the hidden

metaphors that part of the lyrics represent, or in some cases go beyond the aural

component completely, presenting something additional, something new that provides

meaning by tying both of the components together. Moreover, when looking at the

presentation of words sung in these songs, naturally changing from mere speech to

sound, it is important to note that, “since music lacks the speed and verbal dexterity of

language [used in films or tv-shows], fewer words are needed [for the expression]”

24
(Hutcheon 45). The usage of language in music thus utilizes different tools than are

usually used in films, such as repetition of certain phrases, or a change of pitch or tone

in order to highlight some passages.

In the contemporary music industry, many songs are already being created with

specific visual realization in mind. Thus video-making is often directly connected,

prepared and shot simultaneously while the music is being recorded. In the end, both of

these together create a whole. Because the popular music today is distributed to mass

audiences, the number of fans is also adequately growing. That causes the establishment

of various fan groups which engage in discussions about the artist’s songs, personal life,

or creating theories interpreting the songs or videos. There also lies the origin of fan art,

which may consist of creating song covers, new videos, or impersonating the object of

fandom. I will discuss the topic of fandom predominantly in relation to Lana Del Rey

and primarily her songs “Lolita” and “Off to the Races.” However, it can also be

connected with other artists in this as well as the following chapters.

4.1 THE NYMPHET AND THE ENCHANTED

The archetype of nymph, or a nymphet, as Vladimir Nabokov names it in his personal

take on the myth in the novel Lolita, can also respectfully be traced in the further

adaptations and appropriations. In this subchapter, I will focus on the ways in which the

archetype of nymphet is represented in the several musical pieces, and more particularly

on the ways in which it either adheres or departs from the original ancient Greek

concept as well as the ways the industry handles and bends it for its own purposes.

As Margeson describes, the nymph’s existence is largely undermined and

inseparable from the existence of the older male that creates her. Together they are a

part of a partner paradigm and the nymph thus does not “exist outside her relationship to

25
her male counterpart and must engage in the male’s image of her” (Margeson). Further

in her essay, one can observe the dynamics that mythologically are assigned to this pair.

“Once a man has fallen in love with a nymph, he is never able to let go. Nymphs are not

of this world; therefore, they are not something that can be entirely innocent, yet they

are still mortal. This odd juxtaposition leads to a character that is cast as the

enchantress, and the men that fall for them, regardless of the nymph’s intent, as the

nymph’s victims” (Margeson). Much of the whole concept is naturally dealt with on the

imaginative level, considering the unreal existence of the nymph. The observation of the

myth’s appropriation in not only music industry, but also in other media discussed,

offers several interesting discussions, since all the media taken into consideration work

with visual representation, which in Margeson’s view results in a negative interpretation

of what the myth of nymph really means.

4.1.1 IMAGINED PEDOPHILIA

The archetypal appropriations of nymphs in the songs and music videos I discuss vary

significantly, and that primarily with the depth and complexity, or lack thereof, with

which the artists reflect it in their work, as well as ways in which other media,

especially mainstream journalism talks about it. By a closer look at, for instance, the

music video for the Sia’s song “Elastic Heart” which stars 12-year-old dancer Maddie

Ziegler and 28-year-old Shia LaBeouf, one finds it to be a perfect example of media

doing the job of seeming “appropriation” instead of the artist herself. I start with the

example of this song’s video to point at perhaps the simplest and least imaginative and

complex way to connect an artwork with Nabokov’s Lolita. The relationship of the

nymph and her male counterpart, with its dynamics of power and the age difference

between them evokes the presence of pedophilia. The dance between Ziegler and

26
LaBeouf in Sia’s music video, as well as the age difference between the two, stirs up the

discussions about its sexual and pedophilic nature, moral inappropriateness, and

nymphic and Lolita-esque image of Maddie Ziegler.

The video is shot in a big cage in which the two performers are trapped and

interact with each other through dancing. The mixed feelings and reactions might also

be strengthened by the fact that they are both poorly clothed, wear nude-colored

underwear which in some of the very fast-paced dance shots seems as almost

completely absent, and also engage in body-on-body touching. The dance that they

perform is different from what one may more often see in music videos – it is

innovative, vibrant and seemingly not restricted by a specific choreography. In

differently toned articles, however, there has appeared a critique of the point of view

that labels the interaction of these two as specifically sexual primarily based on the fact

of their age difference. Ellen labelled this phenomenon, not strictly connected only to

this artwork, as “increasingly paranoid 21st-century mindset, in which paedophilia, once

so grotesquely secretive, is now seen everywhere and in the most kneejerk fashion.”

Slater adds that, “while certain works of art may contain, and perhaps even be seen to

“promote”, ideas as abhorrent as paedophilia, they should be permitted on the basis of

their artistic merit – that is, their depth of feeling, their technical innovations, the ways

in which they drive the medium forward.” What further serves as a crucial aspect when

examining the audience’s reactions to such pieces as pedophilic, nymphic, or Lolita-like

is the connection of the art of dance to the deep-rooted moral, social and religious

values playing an important role in the United States, as well as in other Western

countries. The perception of dance, and especially its physicality “imbued with

“magical” power to enchant performer and observer, threatens some people”

(Karayanni) and especially the corruption of the society’s moral and cultural values.

27
Furthermore, “some Christians believe dance encourages unchaste thoughts and leads to

sinful behavior. [Hisorically] dancers in Europe and the United States were stigmatized

and associated with prostitution, [and thus] moral constraints led to views of a dance

career as decadent” (Hanna 9).

After the boom around the video escalated, on her twitter account, Sia

apologized to her audience saying that she anticipated some “‘pedophelia!!!’ Cries for

this video” (Sia), however, says that she believes that Maddie and Shia are the only ones

who could play these two warring selves of herself. As Sia refers to it, when focusing

on choosing the performers, she took into consideration their artistic and performative

abilities rather than their gender, appearance or age. And although the artwork is always

open to the interpretations, it is important to elaborate on what drives the interpretative

mechanisms for each individual person. The aforementioned influence of one’s

religious, moral and cultural background is naturally the aspect forming the

interpretation the most, and as seen in the numerous mainstream media and audience

reactions can, without a critical input, also be a source of projection of judgement onto

the observed artwork. In cases such as Sia’s video for “Elastic Heart” there is an

outcome in the form of pedophilia that is not visually portrayed or subtextually implied

by the author, but rather imagined in the mind of the observer. Moreover, the reason

behind mainstream media’s adherence to such opinions is most probably also connected

to its general focus on attractiveness over accuracy, and thus by using language such as

“Pop’s Lolita Moment” (Slater) in the article’s title naturally serves the purpose of

attracting readers more significantly. The controversy of Lolita and issues related, in

connection with the mindset which has them hardwired as pedophilic and amoral

creates something that despite the predominant Western social and moral values which

28
instinctively draws one to judge and disapprove, is at the same time a source of

curiosity and interest in something rare and different, the desired forbidden fruit.

4.1.2 EMBODYING THE NYMPHET

Further I would like to move towards the discussion of musicians and their works, in

which the archetype of nymph can be traced in specific features, rather than being

merely a product of one’s cultural and social predispositions. I explore the nymphic

nature in the musical works created by Lana Del Rey, Alizeé, and Melanie Martinez.

What is crucial to note before moving to the particular songs and music videos, is the

inevitable shift in seeing and understanding the archetype of nymphet, and image of

Lolita in these artworks, compared to what it is in mythology, or in Nabokov’s Lolita.

The major shift is represented by the nymphet’s metaphorical coming to life. Because

mythical nymphs “do not exist and cannot exist in the world, [one] cannot depict

something that only exists within the mind’s eye” (Margeson). The central idea of all

the artists whose works are examined, however, contradicts with this view immensely.

Though they do allude to the nymphic themes and themes from Lolita on the lyrical

level, the visual representation, and therefore “visualization of the nymphet” is equally

important and inherent part of their works. One may naturally argue that Lolitas that

these artists themselves portray still does not exist in the context of real world, since

their existence is kept within the realm of their artwork. On the other hand, even a mere

visualization of such concept, particularly with the artist embodying it, and the ways of

doing that may be fascinating to follow.

The first, and one could say the most famous for her Lolita references and

impersonations is Elizabeth Grant, a singer and songwriter performing under her stage

name Lana Del Rey. She appropriates the novel both lyrically in her texts, and visually

29
in the music videos of her songs. Dan Auerbach from Black Keys said that, “she has a

definite vision of what she is and what she wants to be, musically and visually. […] She

just like looks at this whole thing as this big art project that she gets to do” (qtd. in

Ciapponi). Moreover, the fact that she does not use her real name, but rather uses a

made up pseudonym of a character instead, which on stage, photographs and in music

videos looks visually differently from the persona she represents in public, supports the

idea of using the art of music not only for producing songs but also for creating

someone new, a phenomenon with a particular style and ways of expression. Speaking

about the intentional self-fashioning, one may notice that there is not a very intricate

concept behind it. Many of her songs and music videos appear to have the aim to reflect

perhaps the major of her visions, which is the embodiment of Nabokov’s Lolita by this

fabricated artistic persona of hers. She plays with her voice while singing, poses for

photos in girly yet sexual ways while wearing short schoolgirl dresses and, of course,

Kubrick’s Lolita’s heart-shaped glasses.1 As Ciapponi points out, Del Rey’s music “has

so many Lolita references that we could write a novel the size of the actual book […]

analyzing it.” Del Rey herself described her artistic character as a “‘gangster Nancy

Sinatra’ and ‘Lolita lost in the hood’” (qtd. in Frere-Jones) and Frere-Jones added that

she also is, “a combination of disaffected and cynical and romantic and brutal and

naïve.”

A different kind of Lolita may be seen in the second performer, Alizée Jacotey, a

French singer and a dancer who gained popularity in as well as outside Europe thanks to

several of her songs. Her most famous and well-known song, as well as the one central

for this chapter, is “Moi… Lolita”. Despite her work not originating in the Anglo-

American context, she not only manages to achieve a worldwide popularity with her

1
For the photograph of Lana Del Rey embodying Lolita, see the attachment 1.
30
song referencing Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, but also, she was a first to create a music

appropriation of it. It is thus essential to acknowledge her importance in this chapter.

Alizée is “little and sweet, with a short dark hair and short skirts, […] with her eyes

winking, she compares to the Kindfrau2 Lolita from the famous novel by Vladimir

Nabokov” (Holzer)3. However, as Holzer stresses “it is probably not only her talent, that

quickly got her into the top of the charts. Above all, the credit goes to the clever strategy

of her producers: From the beginning, they made a particular, characteristic style for her

– the Lolita style” (Holzer)4. Compared to Lana Del Rey, Alizée does not use any direct

references to Lolita outside her song “Moi… Lolita”, thus does not create a

“personality” like Del Rey does. The lyrics as well as the music video of “Moi…

Lolita” narrate the story of Lolita, a young girl of, judging from Jacotey’s age at the

time of song’s production, around 15 years old. Thus as far as the singer’s age is

concerned, she undoubtedly has an advantage of being a teenage singer where her

natural appearance not only brings her closer to Nabokov’s Lolita as well as the

archetype of nymphet, but also helps her to address the topic of blurred lines between

childhood and adulthood somewhat less forcibly.

When observing Lana Del Rey’s embodiment of Lolita in her songs, one may

find numerous allusions to the novel, as well as connecting or dividing aspects between

her, Alizée, and Melanie Martinez. With the first look at the lyrics of a song directly

calling for Nabokov called “Lolita”, one may immediately notice that Lana Del Rey

herself is the one aiming to portray Lolita in this song. From the point of view of

2
Literally a ‘child woman’ – a term describing girls or women that have features of both childishness as
well as mental and physical maturity.
3
Translated from the original: “Klein und süß, mit einem dunklen Pagenkopf und kurzen Röckchen, […]
Augenzwinkernd vergleicht sie sich darin mit der Kindfrau Lolita aus dem berühmten Roman von
Vladimir Nabokov.”
4
Translated from the original: “Dennoch ist es wohl nicht allein ihr Talent, mit dem sie sich an die Spitze
der Hitparaden katapultiert hat. Vor allem profitiert sie von der klugen Strategie ihrer Produzenten:
Von Anfang an hatte sie ihren eigenen, unverkennbaren Stil - den Lolita-Stil.”
31
adherence to the given archetype, there are both quite significant similarities as well as

differences. Where Lana Del Rey’s portrayal of Lolita differs the most is the fact that

she herself is not a little girl, nor only slightly older than Lolita, or a nymph. Lyrically,

the age of the artist does not represent a problem. It also might not necessarily have to

be problematic visually, unless the artist does not directly appropriate already existing

visual images of Lolita, such as those from Kubrick’s and Lyne’s films, which Lana Del

Rey focuses on predominantly. Because of those two portrayals of Lolita being young

girls, the artist attempts to not only look but also sound like a little girl, while borrowing

many of the aesthetics from Lyon’s and Swain’s movie appearances. Melanie Martinez,

a 21-year-old American singer, has a completely different take on the Lolita-like visuals

and especially her both lyrical and visual take on childhood. She considers her music to

be very concept-based (Music Feeds 4:07) and has a particular vision of what kind of

thoughts she wants to express and themes she wants to address. By ignoring the

Westernized model of Lolita’s appearance based mainly on film adaptations, and

incorporating Japanese Lolita fashion and aesthetics, Martinez definitely brings

innovation and originality into Lolitas of the music industry.

Despite the differences in the individual portrayals of Lolita’s character, what

can be spotted in the embodiments of all Lana Del Rey, Melanie Martinez and Alizée is

the presence of a childish playfulness not only in their lyrics, but also while singing and

performing. Their sing-song high-pitched voices a strong reminder of babbling babies

or clamoring teenagers, using their voices as a tool. The focus on the Lolita-esque

aspects in the works of these artists shall thus be observed on multiple levels rather than

merely focusing, for instance, on the lyrics of their songs. Oftentimes the lyrics are

thematically inseparable from music as well as their visual representation in the video

and can only hardly be set apart. As nowadays, the understanding of music is still to a

32
great extent tied to its aural element, artists such as Martinez stress the importance of

visuality in their music. In an interview she says: “When I write music, basically, […] I

have to see a music video in my head in order to finish the song” (Music Feeds 5:08).

That is certainly the case for Lana Del Rey and many other contemporary musicians as

well. In the following analysis of these musicians and their songs, the attention will be

equally put on each of these sections.

Strong visual allusions to Nabokov’s novel as well as the mythical nymph are

present in the music video accompanying Lana Del Rey’s song “Lolita”. It is available

on YouTube, and was created by Lana Del Rey herself. From the way the video is shot

and cut, it is apparent that its production did not require much special camera

equipment, post-production, or visual effects. On the other hand, it much more

resembles fan art videos, which rather than presenting one’s own ideas are focused on

re-creation or imitation of the subject of their fandom, or something that already exists.

Jenkins says that fan productivity includes not only fiction writing and art but also

“filking” (creating songs), videos and music videos (reediting video material), […] role-

playing, [and producing] music videos (Jenkins 223-49). In Lana Del Rey’s music

video, the audience can see different cut-outs mainly taken from four cinematographic

works. The majority of the clips are either Lana Del Rey’s videos of herself singing, or

are taken from both Kubrick’s and Lyne’s film adaptations of Lolita.

The film clips used in the video include predominantly those from the second

more explicit adaptation produced in 1997. She also uses those scenes that were not

added to the final version of the film, but are still available to find and watch under

“deleted scenes” on YouTube. One of the examples is the scene where Lolita and

Humbert sit on a sofa in the living room while Lolita brings Humbert into “a state of

excitement bordering on insanity” (Nabokov 40) – a scene rather important for their

33
relationship development in the novel. Most of the other scenes used come from either

of the two films all depict Humbert and Lolita’s interaction, whether it is talking,

touching, or romantic and sexual scenes. The explicitness of Adrian Lyne’s film is

probably one of the reasons for the majority of scenes being chosen from the latter

adaptation, so that it more suitably fits into the image of sexualized nymphet that Lana

Del Rey presents. Some of the sexually charged scenes are even repeated or played in

slow motion, such as the one depicting Lolita biting the apple in the living room scene

mentioned above.

Small number of the clips used in the video is also taken from the animated

version of 1990s Japanese manga series Sailor Moon, and Walt Disney’s animated film

Fantasia from 1940. The cut-outs chosen from Sailor Moon show young schoolgirls

experiencing adventures while using their special powers as magic super-girls, which

also supports the appropriation of Lolita as well as Lana Del Rey’s wish to include the

topic of empowerment in her song. The cut-outs that she chose to take from Fantasia

are mostly the ones portraying supernatural creatures, such as unicorns, pegases,

centaurs, flying baby angels; or magical elements made of psychedelic technicolors

such as mountains, sunsets, gardens full of flowers, waterfalls, and lakes. In one of the

scenes used, a young blond girl bathes in a lake while an angel puts a make-up on her

face. Later on she steps out of the lake and unravels that she actually is a centaur. This

may imply that Lana Del Rey also wanted to show that her character is something else

than most people think, or that just like centaur is both animal and human, she also is a

kind of inbetweener – Lolita trapped between childhood and adulthood. The scenes

taken from these cartoons and fairytales may to some seem rather randomly chosen

considering their seeming disconnection with the clips from the adaptations. All of

them, however, bear some of the thematic similarities within them that refer back to the

34
novel as well as the archetype of nymph. It is precisely the nature of the inbetweener, of

someone who is neither an adult nor a child, or someone who is both real and fictional,

that can be traced first in the ancient myth and Nabokov’s Lolita, and then also in Lana

Del Rey’s visual demonstration in her song.

Looking at the representation of the same topics of childhood and adulthood,

Alizée’s “Moi… Lolita” offers different looks at them in its both couplets and a refrain.

Each of the couplets has a different dominating theme dealing with Lolita’s age, her

different selves, relationships and sexuality. The first one examines Lolita’s difficulty to

understand the dynamics of her “double personality”, which one gets to know at the

beginning of the couplet, when she starts with introducing herself by saying:

Me, I am Lolita
Lo or even Lola (Alizée)5

In a casual conversation the French word “moi” that Lolita uses before introducing

herself is considered redundant and likely signifies a childish clumsiness of using

language. Lo and Lola are firstly both references to the nicknames that Humbert also

used for addressing Lolita throughout the novel and thus reinforces song’s connection to

it. Secondly, it also highlights the division of Lolita’s personality, which has two

different sides or selves. At the same time, she is a child and an adult, or an innocent

one versus the evil one. These different selves are a part which is very important for the

interpretation of the whole song, since these opposites of her persona are in an ongoing

conflict. She continues by singing:

Me, I am Lolita
When I dream of wolves
It’s Lola who bleeds (Alizée)6

5
Translated from the original: “Moi je m’appelle Lolita / Lo ou bien Lola”
6
Translated from the original: “Moi je m’appelle Lolita / Quand je rêve aux loups / C’est Lola qui
saigne”
35
The “wolves” in this part of the song are a metaphor for men that Lolita dreams about,

and as a young girl, the act of dreaming implies that she herself does not have much

experience with men, therefore they mostly occur in her fantasies. When she dreams of

being with men, she likewise dreams of being older and more adult than she actually is.

Hence Lola, which is a childlike part of her, bleeds, because she abandons her and tries

to become Lo. Afterwards she sings:

My name is Lolita
Lo for life
Lo for the floods of love (Alizée)7

It is a reinsurance of the fact that Lo is the part of her which does not want to be a child,

but rather desires a full enjoyment of life and abundance of love. However, it is also

apparent that the perception of what would Lolita be like if she was not child anymore,

is quite notably the one of a child, quite naively thinking of adulthood as of a better

place to be, without rules and restrictions.

The intersection between childhood and adulthood is also portrayed in Alizée’s

music video, which helps the song’s concept to be even more explicit than just the lyrics

alone do. One of the reasons for that may be that the lyrics are not very long and many

of the lines tend to get repetitive. Another one may be that at the time the song was

produced, it was already very popular to play songs in various television programs

dedicated to presentation of pop music, and thus the explicitness of the visual part might

have seemed more convenient. Even more so when one considers the fact that French

language is not as widespread as for example English, therefore the song needed

another platform through which it could address its non-English speaking audience.

The truth is that the narrative of the song is not very difficult to follow and does

not include passages that would be ambiguous, contain metaphors, or perhaps be hard to

7
Translated from the original: “Je m’appelle Lolita / Lo de vie, lo aux amours diluviennes”
36
interpret. As mentioned before, the initial dialogue is quite important for the

interpretation of what kind of figure Lolita plays here. It presents a story of a young

teenage girl who balances on a line between being a child and becoming an adult. With

her physical appearance she still clearly is a child; with her mind she thinks otherwise,

as it is, after all, not uncommon in this phase of life. The act of taking money from a

man reflects to Nabokov’s Lolita in a way, since his Lolita took money for having sex

with Humbert. Here, however, the situation is different. Lolita takes money from an

older man infatuated and foolishly in love with her, who does not proceed to try any

sexual moves on her throughout the whole story. Just as in Lana Del Rey’s songs, there

is a stress put on the themes of empowerment and liberty.

Alizée’s Lolita is young and reckless, she pretends to be an adult and visits a

night club. In most cultures a night club is a place representing adulthood, since only

people of age are usually allowed to enter. Thus Lolita crossing the line of its door is as

if she tried to have a taste of what it feels like being one. As she enters the club, the

second couplet of the song starts. While in the video she observes the way adult women

put their make up on and style their hair in the bathroom and tries to copy it, she sings:

Me, my name is Lolita

A schoolgirl in stockings (Alizée)8

A figure of a schoolgirl is widely known for being also a subject of sexual fantasies of

women dressing up into short skirts and dresses and over-knee stockings representing

the merge of childhood and adulthood. Alizée’s Lolita sets herself into this position as

well. Thus although she is still her young self – Lola, she wears make up, dresses like

an adult, dances to the music and lets Lo tease the older men surrounding her. Then she

shows her Lola side again by singing:

But be quiet, don’t tell

8
Translated from the original: “Moi je m’appelle Lolita / Collégienne aux bas”
37
 The mommy that I am a phenomenon (Alizée)9

That is again a reminder for the audience as well as for her, that she still is a child,

having to keep her deeds and desires a secret from her mother.

Lolita’s behavior may of course from many perspectives be perceived as wrong

and inappropriate for such a young girl. Lolita’s mother, in the song’s lyrics as well as

in the music video, is the representation of Prinz’s concept of stern parent, upholding

the moral values of the family. In Nabokov’s novel, Charlotte Haze, was also the one

scolding Lolita for doing all sorts of things differently than she was supposed to, than it

was considered “right”. In the music video, the mother scolds Lolita when she comes

home. She observes the way she looks, especially what kind of clothes she wears, and

her look is full of anger and disgust. She represents the alert for what Lolita is not

doing, but what is, from a girl of her age, socially and morally expected. The constant

imbalance between her child and adult self in the song is as well a constant reminder of

who she actually, physically is – a girl. In this way, when looking at the awareness of

Lolita’s age on the part of the audience, it is presented much more explicitly and

repeatedly than in Lana Del Rey’s appropriations of Lolita.

The last part of the song, a refrain, which is first sang after the first couplet and

then repeated multiple times at the end is connecting the themes of both couplets and

connects them together. She sings:

It’s not my fault

As soon as I lose interest
I see the others
ready to throw themselves at me (Alizée)10

9
Translated from the original: “Motus et bouche qui n’dis pas / À maman que je suis un phénomène”
10
Translated from the original: “C’est pas ma faute / Et quand je donne ma langue aux chats / Je vois les
autres / Tout prêts à se jeter sur moi”

38
The phrase ‘it is not my fault’ directly refers to the childish nature inside of her, for it is

children who typically blame everyone else without constructively self-reflecting on

what they did and where is the fault’s origin. The whole quote speaks about what Lolita

seems to be unaware of when acting according to her desires, and that she is actually

playing with fire, with something unknown, whose reaction cannot be predicted. Thus

when she loses interest in attracting men, it is not automatic that they do as well, even

though she would expect it to be. To some extent, this moment in a song is an allusion

to a moment in Nabokov’s novel when Lolita finds out that her mother is dead. It also

serves as a sort of breaking point, in which she realizes that playing with Humbert may

have been fun to her while she was sure of other people’s presence in her life, however

stops being so when she knows he is the only one left for her. She thus gradually loses

interest in him and becomes more and more reluctant to obey his orders, while he, on

the other hand, is more and more interested and possessive of her.

Playing with fire as a sign of trying potentially dangerous activities, having a

lack of caution, or lack of experience for doing them is also a vital aspect of Melanie

Martinez’s song. Her work as a whole is oriented at childhood and uses childish objects

and themes for creating metaphorical meanings, however the danger of balancing

between childhood and adulthood in particular is most present in her song “Carousel” in

which she connects the themes from Nabokov’s Lolita in her narrative, style and

visuality inspired by the Japanese Lolita fashion11 with a noir twist. In terms of

Hutcheon’s modes of engagement, music falls into the mode of performing, which

engages mostly aural, but also visual perception of the work. Similarly to Lana Del

Rey’s take on Lolita, Martinez likewise utilizes the mode of interaction with the work

by playing different roles. The fashion she wears as a performer is not merely a stylistic

11
Japanese Lolita fashion will be closely analyzed in chapter 5
39
choice for her music videos or artistic persona, the singer styles herself in such way in

her ordinary life, therefore also interacts with the themes drawn from the book and to

some extent embodies Lolita in reality. In her songs, she emphasizes the topic of

childhood, infancy and also family drama usually experienced from the position of a

child. In her song “Cry Baby” she styles and dresses herself as an infant, in “Sippy

Cup” and “Dollhouse” she touches of the topic of family and different relationship

problems between its members. Her girlish aesthetics are significantly different than, for

instance, those embodied by Lana Del Rey. Her style orientation is much closer to

Japanese Lolita fashion. In her song “Carousel”, her aesthetic and stylistic choices, as

well as choices of colors and objects used in the video, nicely connect her musical

expression with the childlike tenderness and cuteness of Lolita, which are then projected

onto more personal topics such as childhood naivety, helplessness and relationship

dynamics.

The central symbol of Martinez’s song narrative is a carousel and from that she

derives various metaphors reflecting Lolita’s themes. From the beginning of the music

video, the focus on a carousel in connection with the singer’s styling immediately points

at the connection with childlike themes and imagery. The place in which the video was

shot also bears significance. The environment of an amusement park, with all its

attractions and ways to spend money on fun and carelessness, also refers to Nabokov’s

Lolita’s obsession with exactly these kinds of elements of American popular culture,

which Humbert always treated her with in order to calm her down or stop her from

crying. When Lolita got to know that her mother is dead, Humbert offers an

enumeration of material item he purchased in order to comfort her:

Four books of comics, a box of candy, a box of sanitary pads, two cokes,
a manicure set, a travel clock with a luminous dial, a ring with a real
topaz, a tennis racket, roller skates with white high shoes, field glasses, a
portable radio set, chewing gum, a transparent raincoat, sunglasses, some
40
 more garments – swooners, shorts, all kinds of summer frocks. (Nabokov
102)

Perhaps an interesting observation of Martinez’s song is that although she does not use

any direct quotations of Lolita, such as quotations, keywords, or names; she still in

many ways portrays its themes, symbols and imagery in her song. Moreover, the

narrative offers more than mere allusions to specific themes such as childhood or

entrapment, it connects them and presents them in a story. Martinez, styled as a

Japanese Lolita wearing a short tutu skirt, a plush top, oversized bow, and dyed hair,

everything in pastel shades.12

The major and recurring themes in the work of all of these artists included in

their songs are perhaps one of the most troubling when the character of Nabokov’s

Lolita is concerned. The focus on imbalance of different kinds seems to be the key to

understanding their messages, whether it is the imbalance between childhood and

adulthood, or imbalance between being free and entrapped. Firstly, the focus on

childhood and adulthood and the expression of sort of blurred lines between the two

which are seen in all of these artists’ works are largely undermined by the culture of the

society that they were created in and for. In case of Alizée, the artistic choice of

embodying the Lolita character was to a great extent a popular choice, having in mind

the audience the song would have, rather than any personal beliefs. In Martinez’s case,

the popular element is definitely the embracement of the childish cuteness of Japanese

Lolita fashion, which still does not have such tradition in Western countries and thus

represents an instant interest for many observers. When Lana Del Rey’s work is

concerned, the popularity and above all the controversy that the image of Lolita brings

with itself is definitely crucial. Her representation of Lolita is both visually and lyrically

a perfect image of a shocking and from a certain point of view a reversed version of

12
For the photograph of Melanie Martinez portraying Lolita in her song “Carousel”, see the attachment 2.
41
Lolita. As she manages to maintain the controversy, it is looked at with the perception

of who she is, an adult. Her adult female body, heavy make-up, plastic nails and high

heels are an inherent part of her Lolita character, and similarly as Lolita trying to escape

the world of childhood and taste what it is like to be an adult, Lana Del Rey as an

opposite to that, as an adult tries to be more girly and reinvent some of the childish

aspects in herself.

A focus on the imbalances, especially the contrast of freedom and entrapment, is

even more important when the womanhood and female identity of these artists is

concerned. The fact that Lolita in Nabokov’s novel is predominantly spoken about and

described, not speaking for herself, to the reader, it makes her seem a lot like a ghost,

rather than a real character. Nothing about her is direct, everything goes through a

synthesis of Humbert’s mind and mouth. Her nymphic nature thus seems more accurate

because just as a nymph she often seems as if she was not really there, having a

standpoint and her own voice. After Humbert admits that a major part of the way he

sees her, as a nymphet, is only a product of his own nympholeptic imagination, the

reader may keep questioning until the novel’s end, which part of Lolita is real and

which part is not. To some, precisely that is understood as the greatest magic offered to

the reader, a whole book about someone, who one cannot quite figure out until the very

end, someone who ends up undeciphered and thus different in mind of every single

reader. Nabokov’s wish of not visualizing Lolita thus may seem a little more

understandable to those who disagree.

4.2 DADDY’S GIRL OR THE EMPOWERED

Stemming from the rhetoric that the myth of nymphet and its portrayal in the novel

present, the male counterpart of the nymphet represents both an “active hunter” who

42
makes the nymphet exist because he is the one that sees her as a nymphet, and a passive

“victim” who then is obsessed by the nymphet and cannot escape. The designation of

roles within this paradigm then directly influences the distribution of power within the

two participants. However, because all three of the female artists examined in the

previous subchapter presented Lolita as a visible human being by embodying her

character in their own individual ways, and giving her a voice, both real one used for

singing as well as an abstract one used to speak for oneself. Because of this process, the

character of Lolita became real and thus the imaginary fairytale-like aspect of Lolita as

a nymph absents. Their representations challenge Lolita’s position not only within the

world she exists in, but also within the relationship paradigm that she, as a nymphet, is

in with the male counterpart. Because of that, in this part the thesis focuses on the extent

to which Lolita represented in the songs and music videos of the chosen artists is either

presented as empowered and self-reliant woman, as well as the extent to which she is

the opposite, a “daddy’s girl” and the controlled one.

Besides the three female artists dealt with in the previous part – Lana Del Rey,

Alizée, and Melanie Martinez – I also focus on an additional one, Marilyn Manson and

his song “Heart-Shaped Glasses – When the Heart Guides the Hand.” The subchapter is

divided into three different parts depending on the extent to which Lolita is presented as

either free or entrapped in the songs. The last part, specifically, deals with the songs and

music videos which directly show the audience the interaction within some sort of

relationship between Lolita’s character and her male counterpart.

4.2.1. CONTROLLED LO LITA

Melanie Martinez’s song as well as the music video for “Carousel” lies the closest

towards the representation of Lolita as controlled, tied and entrapped by her male

43
counterpart. Her personal style and the inclination to present herself as a baby in not

only this, but all of her songs and music videos, suggests the viewers and listeners the

idea of her being dependent and unable to take care of herself with the need to be

guided by someone more competent, just like little children are. Her dependence and

undermined position as a person is first depicted the moment she wants to enter an

amusement park and ride a horse on a carousel. She sings:

You must be this tall

To ride this ride, at the carnival (Melanie Martinez)

She describes the frustration that children feel when they are refused services because

they are too small for them. That refers to Lolita’s age and the fact that she also was too

young to do certain activities, such as engaging in sexual relations with Humbert. Later

in the video a man “helps” Lolita to pass this test and magically makes her levitate

above the ground, so that she is enabled to ride. Thus, just as Humbert, he helps her to

be treated as a person older, than she actually is. The motif of ride in Martinez’s song is,

however, different from the one that Lana Del Rey portrays. In this song, rather than a

representation of escape and freedom, the riding is much more obviously a metaphor to

sexual act as well as a reassurance of the power lying in the man’s hands as being the

only one able to help her pass.

Later on in the song, there emerges a conflict. At the point when Martinez sings:

And it’s all fun and games

Till somebody falls in love
But you already bought a ticket
And there’s no turning back then, (Melanie Martinez)

Lolita realizes that the situation, to which she was brought, escalates once the man starts

to see their relationship more seriously and consequently she finds herself being

trapped, controlled and abused by the man. Similarly to Alizée’s representation of

Lolita, such conflict strongly alludes to the moment in the novel when Lolita realizes

44
that her life is being controlled entirely by Humbert as the only parent after her mother

passes away. She realizes that once she stepped in and allowed this man to access her

life in such way, there is no way back, even though she does not enjoy it anymore. At

this point in the music video, Martinez feeling deceived and caged by the man is riding

a horse on the carousel and goes in circles although she already wants to get out. Her

hands are tied to the horse with a rope and that makes it impossible to leave.

After the atmosphere escalates and the narrative gets more dark, there is also a

noticeable change in camera’s angles as well as the post-processing effects. It changes

the angles very quickly and thus the vision of both Lolita and the audience seems

flashy, blurry and evokes a dark disturbing atmosphere. The element of Lolita’s

entrapment is even more strengthened by the repetitive chorus, where Martinez signs: “I

feel like I’m glued on tight to this carousel” and keeps repeating the phrase “round and

round” which implies dissatisfaction as well as the fact that her situation is not changing

and she merely goes in circles and endures the same.

In the final couplet, Martinez closes up the story she narrates by:

Why did you steal my cotton candy heart?

You turned it in this damn coin slot
And now I’m stuck, I’m stuck
Riding, Riding, Riding (Melanie Martinez)

She brings up the elements of childhood and innocence by referring to her heart as made

of cotton candy. First, it nicely connects with the whole topic of amusement parks, and

it also refers to the tenderness and delicacy of Lolita’s heart, body and soul. The man

corrupted it and turned it into a toy serving only his own fun and amusement, and not

hers anymore. In the final two lines, one may again spot the signs of the repetitive

nature of the lyrics referring to the ongoing and dead end situation she is in.

45
4.2.2 LOLITA AS A DEPENDENT ESCAPIST

The most number of examples of the omnipresence of the older male character are

contained within the work of Lana Del Rey and can be traced in not only the previously

discussed song “Lolita”, but also others such as “Off to the Races” or “Ride.” In Lana

Del Rey’s case, the male character is many times only hinted to be there, and not

described in much detail. It is rather the depiction of different changing roles that Lana

Del Rey has within the stories of these songs. When the male counterparts are

mentioned, they are always seen through the perception of the singer’s embodiment of

Lolita, and thus give her the power and the voice to tell a story, and describe people and

situations from her perception. Such roles distribution thus offers the opposition to the

way the story is told in Nabokov’s novel, where Lolita is the submissive one, the one

that is talked about. On the other hand, similarly to Nabokov’s Lolita, the perception

that the observer gets is only one-sided, and thus a portrayal of any sort of relationship

that could be traced throughout the whole song or its music video is not visible.

Regarding the empowered position of the character Lana Del Rey portrays in her

songs, her role is ever-changing and fluctuates between presenting herself as a powerful

woman not caring about the men around her, and placing herself into the submissive

undermined position of a needy girl desiring to be taken care of, saved, or ignorant of

the mistreatment from the side of her man. In her song “Lolita”, Lana Del Rey tries to

present the character of Lolita as a strong, confident and self-reliant girl, who on one

hand knows that men desire her and she could be theirs, but on the other laughs at them

and expresses her carelessness towards them calling at her “Hey Lolita, hey!” (Lana Del

Rey, Lolita), which is one of the repetitive lines of the song. When she sings to the male

figure, or men in her life generally,

You make me happy, you make me happy

And I never listen to anyone, (Lana Del Rey, Lolita)
46
as explained before, she mentions men, however, not for the purpose of paying them

attention, but rather to point out her stance in the relationship towards them. The

resistance expressed in the lyrics may also refer to a part of Nabokov’s Lolita when

Humbert tries to use his fatherly power to forbid Lolita to have the freedom of going out

with her friends, especially boys, and do anything that he is not a part of. However, just

like the novel’s Lolita’s frustration grows so immensely that she decides to ignore these

orders and eventually runs away with Clare Quilty, Lana’s character likewise expresses

that she does not mind receiving men’s attention for her own happiness and reluctance

to do so in. In a different passage of the song, when she sings: “I want my cake and I

want to eat it too,” (Lana Del Rey, Lolita) the singer points at the predominantly

childlike tendency to expect more than is feasibly possible to achieve or have at the

same time and assigns this feature to her Lolita figure.

The male figure, whom she addresses in the lyrics by saying:

Cause I like you quite a lot, everything you got

Don’t you know? It’s you that I adore
Though I make the boys fall like dominoes (Lana Del Rey, Lolita)

Here it seems that even though Lolita that Lana Del Rey represents is sometimes a bad

girl and has no problem with sending boys away from her, it is “him” who she adores,

likes and wants. Making boys fall like dominoes also evokes the game that many people

used to play when being young children. Therefore, Lana Del Rey’s Lolita is playful, as

a child playing games, however, plays with boys instead. Later on she sings,

Whistle all you want, but I’m not gonna stay

No more skipping rope
Skipping heartbeats with the boys downtown, (Lana Del Rey, Lolita)

which is another example of a reference to a children’s game with a switch of meaning

towards romantic or perhaps sexual games with men, whom Lana Del Rey also

47
childishly calls “boys”. Such parts of the lyrics very clearly reflect the blurred line

between childhood and adulthood that the character of Lolita experiences.

Another of Lana Del Rey’s songs abounded in references to Lolita and especially

the topics of empowerment and entrapment is called “Off to the Races”. Moreover, this

song is particularly connected to Lolita because of its direct lyrical borrowings from the

novel. Lana Del Rey quotes the most iconic introductory line “Light of my life, fire of

my loins” (Nabokov 3) and continues with less poetic but more straight-forward

Be a good baby do what I want […]

Gimme them gold coins
Gimme them coins, (Lana Del Rey, Off to the Races)

by which she alludes very specifically to the nature of Lolita and Humbert’s relationship

later on in the novel, based on the exchange of money for sex. Less explicit, but still a

borrowing from Nabokov’s Lolita is also the usage of the phrase “glimmering darling”

which Humbert uses when observing Lolita sleeping: “I moved toward my glimmering

darling, stopping or retreating every time I thought she stirred or was about to stir”

(Nabokov 94). The lyrical borrowings in this songs are not accidental. All of them

somehow help to portray the features of the relationship whose story the artist tries to

narrate.

When the male counterpart is described in her songs, such as in the mentioned

“Off to the Races”, but also in “The Other Woman”, Lana Del Rey oftentimes uses the

expression “old man”. The Free Dictionary describes the expression “old man” as either

a slang word for father, husband, boyfriend, or a man in authority (The Free

Dictionary), which may, as a reference to Lolita, also imply that the man she sings

about has more than one of these roles at the same time. The male thus can be both

father and partner, but his identity stays ambiguous. In “Off to the Races” she describes

the man as

48
 My old man is a bad man
My old man is a tough man
My old man is a thief, (Lana Del Rey, Off to the Races)

implying that similarly to the relationship of Lolita and Humbert, the man does not treat

her well. Later she continues with saying that despite him treating her the way he does,

she is “gonna stay and pray with him till the end” (Lana Del Rey, Off to the Races).

The conflict of feeling the mistreatment from the side of a dominant male character, and

at the same time having no other choice than staying with him, represents an allusion to

the conflicted feelings Lolita has within herself until she decides to run away from

Humbert. The theft described earlier may serve as a reference to different experiences of

Nabokov’s Lolita, such as Humbert deflowering Lolita and depraving her of both her

innocence, personal time and space, and above all her childhood. At the beginning of

the song she directly cites the beginning of Nabokov’s novel “Light of my life, fire of

my loins” and adds “be a good baby, do what I want” (Lana Del Rey, Off to the Races).

As the cited part of the book is Humbert’s replica, the added part probably also comes

from the Humbertian character to Lana Del Rey’s Lolita. Together with other passages

such as “I need you to come here and save me”, “I’m not afraid to say / That I’d die

without him”, or “I’m sorry that I’m misbehaving” directly points at the kind of

relationship Lana Del Rey describes. It is more than apparent that she, deliberately or

not, is the man’s “little girl”, obeying his orders and apologizing in case of not doing so,

the submissive one that feels incomplete without the man. This song thus may leave its

audience puzzled, since the woman’s position in the story it narrates is very much

undermined by the male character’s position and is thus controlled and entrapped by

him.

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 Apart from the clear references to Lolita’s disgust and her feeling of being caged

by Humbert, there is also a reference to what happens in the story afterwards. When

Lana Del Rey sings:

I need you to come here and save me

I’m your little scarlet, starlet
singing in the garden (Lana Del Rey, Off to the Races)

she reflects to a scene in Kubrick’s film when Lolita reminds Humbert of the times they

spent together when he sat in the garden while she sang and exercised with hula hoop.

She reminds him that she is still his little scarlet, referencing the poem Humbert wrote

after she left him: “Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. / Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.”

(Nabokov 184) On the basis of reminding him who she really is, however in a very self-

interested way, she wants him to save her, probably by giving her money, just as Lolita

in the novel asked him to. At the end of the song, however, Lana Del Rey’s character

decides to get back to her male counterpart because even though he is a thief, she is

going to “stay and pray with him till the end” (Lana Del Rey, Off to the Races). Later

she sings:

Who else is gonna put up with me this way?

I need you, I breathe you, I’ll never leave you
They would rue the day, I was alone without you […]
I love you forever, not maybe
You are my one true love
You are my one true love, (Lana Del Rey, Off to the Races)

thus the ending strays from the Lolita scenario and Lana Del Rey chooses to go her own

way. After all, distancing from the original and the inclusion of personal experience is

what appropriations in most cases and with the usage of various means do in order to

become works of their own and transform the source artwork into something different.

Although these two songs are the strongest source of references to Lolita in Lana

Del Rey’s work, she has many different allusions to the novel in her other songs as well.

A very strong theme already mentioned in the previous two, but also appearing in
50
others, is the theme of escape. She mentions it in her song “Ride” where she repeats the

line “Just ride, I just ride, I just ride” (Lana Del Rey, Ride) where she tries to ride away

from her man and something bad that happened to her. She also sings to her man: “You

can be my full-time daddy” (Lana Del Rey, Ride), which just like the expression “old

man” is ambiguous in what it really means and who really is the man she addresses, her

older lover, her father, or both. In her song “Carmen” she refers to the nickname

Humbert gave Lolita based on the song she likes to sing in the novel. Humbert uses it at

several points in the book, first early on as he tries to recall the song’s lyrics: “O my

Carmen, my little Carmen! / And, O my charmin’, our dreadful fights” (Nabokov 42)

and later on, when Lolita is already away, he writes a poem including this line: “And

the cars, and the bars, my Carmen” (184). In her song, Lana Del Rey even uses the same

rhyme “Carmen – charming” that appears in Nabokov’s book.

One of the other frequently addressed themes is also the empowerment and

independence of Lolita’s character. After considering all of the standpoints and facts,

however, the empowerment that Lana Del Rey presents may only be seeming and even

absent. Obviously, by embodying Lolita and singing the lyrics from her perspective,

Lana Del Rey makes her the narrator of the story and thus gives her a voice, rather than

giving it to Humbert. That may be viewed as a positive aspect from a feminist point of

view, since a great part of the feminist critique of the novel was centered around the

idea that Humbert is the one narrating the story and the reader has no chance to know

what Lolita thinks or wants. Ciapponi claims that while “Lana may be a reluctant

feminist, […] these allusions have a definite feminist bent. In Lolita, Lo represents

unparalleled strength.” On the other hand, even though Lana Del Rey tries to present

her Lolita as strong and careless towards men’s desires, in many passages of her songs’

lyrics, it is notable that at some point, Lolita accepts everything that the man does to her

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and demands from her, and even though it is sometimes bad and tough, as she says, she

sticks to him and succumbs, because she really loves him. The inclusion of the topic is

thus to a great extent in conflict with the promotion of empowerment. Lana Del Rey

thus “puts forth the idea that, like her, Lolita willingly got herself into a relationship

with an older man [and] advocates the cultural tendency to blame the victims of sexual

assault, dismissing their helplessness, characterizing them as temptresses” (BidnessEtc).

In regard to the woman’s position in the lyrics of her songs as well as in her

videos, it ends up, because of such conflicts, seeming submissive and secondary

compared to the position of a man. By doing all that, Lana Del Rey appropriates

Humbert’s vision of Lolita, yet presenting it from Lolita’s point of view and “the only

Lolita we get is the fantasy of Humbert Humbert’s imagination” (Ciapponi). There are

two important facts to be noted about this approach. Firstly, it makes the character of

Lolita look like she is the one “in charge” of the relationship, and aware and agreeing

with everything that it brings, therefore deliberately choosing to be a part of it.

Secondly, it is essential to focus on what kind of representation of Lolita Lana Del Rey

actually offers. What the audience thinks and feels when it sees a 30-year-old woman

impersonating a 12-year-old girl from a novel is a question to which we will never

know the answer. However, in that sense, it is very probable that Lana Del Rey does not

really empower the figure of Lolita by giving her a voice, but rather presents herself

styled as someone, who in itself is for the most part a combination of appropriation of

previous adaptations and her own self. It is also worth noting that in the music industry,

the authorial intent can go far beyond just personal or stylistic, and can become more

tactical and economic, even more so when the artist has a worldwide popularity.

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4.2.3 LOLITA’S POWER WITHIN A RELATIONSH IP

The last section related to the power positions of characters depicted in the chosen

songs is the focus on the portrayal of relationship dynamics between Lolita character

and her male counterpart. The relationship of the two people must therefore be clearly

depicted in either lyrical or audio-visual part of the song. The artists analyzed in this

section are Alizée and the portrayal of her relationship with the man appearing

throughout the music video for her song “Moi… Lolita”, and Marilyn Manson whose

relationship with a Lolita figure is depicted in both lyrics as well as music video of his

song “Heart Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)”. The analysis also

offers an interesting insight into how are these relationships presented, since each of

them is narrated by a different part of this partner paradigm, first by Lolita character and

then by the male counterpart.

4.2.3.1 ALIZÉE

As far as Alizée’s “Moi… Lolita” is concerned, one of the most important passages of

the song is the one having a form of dialogue between her and the older man happening

before the singer starts singing. Lolita, the girl Alizée herself portrays, runs on the street

while the man runs after her shouting at her: “Wait, wait wait! I would like to know if, I

would like to know if you love me. Because I love you” (Alizée) 13. While he is

shouting, Lolita stops, listens to him, and then replies: “Do you have 200 francs?”

(Alizée)14. After she takes the money from the man, she turns around and runs from him

again. The initial conversation represents an important part of the whole song, music

video, and above all says a lot about the kind of personality of Lolita that producers of

13
Translated from the original: “Attends, attends, attends! Je voulais savoir, je voulais savoir si tu
m’aimes. Parce que, je t’aime”
14
Translated from the original: “T’as pas 200 francs?”
53
this song intended her to have. The fact that she takes the money and leaves with no

words and merely a laughter also points at some of her characteristics, such as

carelessness, desire for freedom, detachment from the man, and perhaps also a lack of

judgement of her actions’ consequences. Besides her, the viewer can instantly get a clue

about the man as well. From the initial clip, especially when the man’s power over

Lolita is concerned, has a fundamentally different position than Humbert in Nabokov’s

novel has. He gives her both money and love, just as Humbert tries in the novel, and

though they both fail to eventually get the girl, Nabokov’s Humbert was nevertheless in

a much more significantly powerful position in his relationship with Lolita. Throughout

the song, the music video walks the viewer through Lolita’s way of experiencing the

world of adults by putting on her make-up, visiting a dance club, but most importantly

by deciding what she wants to do. The portrayal of adulthood and empowerment of a

female human being in this song is predominantly connected with being unchained,

reckless and liberated, rather than for instance making wise and thoughtful decisions

about one’s life or the future.

That, however, again brings into the discussion the importance of male

counterpart’s presence throughout the whole video. As Lolita moves around different

places, this man whom she meets at the very beginning is following her. Although there

are no signs of the man being violent or pushy towards her, there undoubtedly are clear

signs of voyeurism and obsessive tendencies. More generally, the music video presents

the man as an overtly interested individual overstepping the boundaries of ordinary

human contact with Lolita, and thus a type like him would, perhaps in a different story,

have a quite high chance of actually interfering with Lolita’s daily life and serve as a

possible threat to her. That can also represent another sign of her unawareness of her

actions’ consequences, of what might happen afterwards. However, that standpoint also

54
is to a great extent a part of being careless. While Lana Del Rey’s Lolita ran away from

her men and then waited for them to save her and possess her again, Alizée presents

Lolita that only runs, enjoys and does not care. Thus if the man who follows her to the

party, observes her, and then also on her way from the club, or any other man she teases

got back at Lolita and tried to sexually possess her, it would not have been her own

choice, but merely a consequence of her own ignorance. In this sense, even though the

story presents an attitude highly unacceptable for many, Alizée still manages to convey

the image of empowered and genuinely free Lolita coherently.

4.2.3.2 MARILYN MANSON

Marilyn Manson’s “Heart Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)”,

similarly to Martinez’s “Carousel”, has also implemented the noir element in the

representation of Humbert and Lolita’s relationship in both the song and the video. This

aspect of the song is, however, compared to Martinez’s “Carousel” more elevated and

offers a completely different perception. What brings the change, for instance, is the

fact that this song as the first of those covered in this chapter does not present the Lolita

figure as the main one, or rather the one portrayed by the artist himself. The figure of

Lolita, of course, is present in both lyrics and video, nevertheless there seems to be

more balance of performance between her and Marilyn Manson, who portrays her male

counterpart. Brian Hugh Warner, as the first male interpret focused on in this chapter,

has a slightly different approach on appropriating Lolita. Though the lyrics of the song

do not necessarily ask for a girl’s presence in its visualization, with a desire to include

Lolita’s figure, he asked the actress Evan Rachel Wood, the artist’s girlfriend at the

time, to participate. Though Warner, much more than any other artist, is well-known for

his fabricated yet well-thought-out on-stage persona named “Marilyn Manson”, the

55
song, and predominantly its sexual explicitness as well as the artist’s gossiped

inclination towards young women, aroused a lot of controversy, which caused that both

media and the public automatically connected the roles the two of them portray in the

music video with their real-life selves.

At the beginning of the song, he introduces Lolita:

She reminds me of the one in school

When I was cut and she was dressed in white (Marilyn Manson)

The fact that the girl reminds him of someone he met in school implies that he refers to

his past and the girl he mentions is most probably quite young, thus he is far past the

point of regularly meeting girls of her age. There is also a significance of the color

white, which as he sings she was dressed in. White is a symbolic color of innocence,

softness and delicacy; and because these attributed are oftentimes assigned to children,

it is also a symbol of youth. It may as well be a reference to Annabel Leigh from

Nabokov’s Lolita, who was the first nymphet in Humbert’s life and then reminded him

of her when he met Lolita a long time after that. As far as the inspiration for this song is

concerned, Manson revealed the process of creating this song for BBC Radio 1:

When I wrote the song, […] it was one of the songs that I really expected
an immediate response from. […] The song was written in a simple way,
I was reading the book Lolita and it was something inspired by my
current girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood who’s obviously much younger
than me, but having the sarcasm to make the point of that and showing up
to visit me once wearing heart-shaped glasses which is the same as the
Kubrick movie poster for the film Lolita, and me saying what I say in the
chorus of the song. I said that to her and I suddenly realized I should
really write a song about that. (Interview)

Therefore, even though the nature of the relationship between him and Wood is not

transferable from reality into the art, it is true that the story the song presents was to

some extent inspired at least by the fact that they already had a relationship together.

As far as the imagery and symbolism of the song is concerned, also serving as an

inspiration for the song’s title, the Kubrick’s Lolita definitely was Manson’s major
56
source. The first half of the video presents Lolita, a blonde-haired Wood who walks

through the crowd at Manson’s concert and slowly approaches the stage with her heart-

shaped glasses on.15 As quoted above, the symbol of heart-shaped glasses originates in

Kubrick’s Lolita and first appeared on a poster for the movie presenting Sue Lyon

wearing them. Over the years it became almost an inseparable symbol of Lolita’s style

and appearance. The fact of casting a woman with blonde hair also connects the video

to this adaptation rather than to any other. That, however, might not have been an

intention, since for Manson, Wood as his girlfriend, a major inspiration for the song,

was the only one who could star in it.

When Lolita walks into the room, she wears a girly dress with a big bow and, as

one later sees, over-knee stockings, which are girly, but could also be a part of various

sexual fantasies including young girls or women. One can also spot that Lolita in the

video is unique and different from everyone else in the crowd, which implies the

inexpressible, almost hidden beauty that Manson, as the representation of Humbert

figure, saw in her. In the first half of the video, this scene is cut up multiple times and

mixed with another very sexually explicit one presenting Wood and Manson having sex.

The camera and post-processing of the video makes a point about the imbalance

between Lolita as a child in her schoolgirl uniform, and Lolita as a woman enjoying

sexual intercourse with Manson. The various cuts of the two of them having sex also

caused the biggest boom around the song and consequently also made it popular.

The lyrical part of the song representing the kind of relationship between Lolita

and her male counterpart the most is:

Don’t break, don’t break my heart

And I won’t break your heart-shaped glasses
Little girl, little girl you should close your eyes

15
For a photograph of Evan Rachel Wood portraying Lolita in Marilyn Manson’s song, see the
attachment 3.
57
 That blue is getting me high. (Marilyn Manson)

The passage bears significance for multiple different reasons. First, it clearly points at

the male dominance of Humbert figure over the Lolita figure. Manson plays with the

word break in the lyrics and first uses it as a significance of mental pain and betrayal,

and then as a significance for real physical pain. In such declaration where the

occurrence of one is the predisposition of the other, the section may as well sound a

little bit scary and dangerous. Simply put, if Lolita betrays the love he feels for her, he

will break her. The topic of kinkiness and sadism is also quite an important feature and

is apparent not only from the lyrics, but more explicitly from the video itself. In the end

of the video, when Wood lies naked on the bed with Manson over her, having the rain

of blood pouring over both of them, “the whole thing quickly descends into David

Lynchian spooky highway/party scenes followed by bloody apocalyptic sex”

(Goodman).

Overall, rather than the overview of their relationship as such, it is the usage of

the individual themes and symbols alone that serves as an inspiration drawn from both

Nabokov’s and Kubrick’s Lolita. When considering the relationship that Manson and

Wood present in this song, it definitely is unusual, and close to Lolita – Humbert

relationship with its age difference. However, its dynamics are much more similar to a

Bonnie and Clyde, partners in crime kind of couple, rather than Lolita and Humbert. At

the end of the song, when the two of them are riding a car towards big flames, they

jointly say: “Together as one and against all others” (Marilyn Manson). Their

relationship is portrayed as something that is somehow unusual in the fact that the

society around them not always understands it, which is mainly a reference to the

mentioned age difference. However, it also is a portrayal of unconditional love, where

they are always together, and are always willing to do everything for their love. The

58
kind of harmony of love and passion that Manson tries to express in his song is perhaps

best described with one of his own lines:

I wouldn’t take my hands off her

She wouldn’t let me be anywhere but inside. (Marilyn Manson)

Thus it becomes obvious that at this point, the paths of this story and the one of

Humbert and Lolita’s relationship did not cross.

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5 ADVERTISING

[Lolita] it was to whom ads were dedicated: the ideal consumer, the
subject and object of every foul poster. (Nabokov 146)

When discussing cultural appropriation of Nabokov’s Lolita, another one of the

significant fields, which her character, image, and the book are represented in, is the

sphere of advertising. Over many decades, Lolita has served as a subject of many

different types of promotion processes. Different elements of Lolita can be found

anywhere from graphic art advertisements such as posters, book covers or photographs,

through promotion of various products such as perfumes, to serving as a means for

selling fashion accessories, such as the iconic heart-shapes glasses first introduced by

the producers of Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation through Sue Lyon wearing them. Though

all the works mentioned in this chapter serve the purposes of advertising and sale-

boosting intentions, there is a way in which they differ and can therefore be divided into

two groups. The first includes the advertisements which are created to promote either

the original novel Lolita, or one of its adaptations, such as the posters for the film

adaptations from 1962 and 1997. In the other group, one finds those advertisements

taking the thematics and imagery from Lolita and reuse them for the development of

their product, and then subsequently use them for its promotion.

Therefore the reasons for the utilization of the inspiration taken from the novel,

are in the campaigns of these two groups, visibly different. In both cases, naturally,

there is the original purpose of promotion and the effort to sell the biggest quantity of a

certain product – whether one speaks about cinema tickets, DVDs, books, perfumes,

accessories, or in unusual cases even apartment renting. According to this division, the

chapter presents these works in two individual subchapters. The first subchapter

discusses three posters created for the screenings of Lolita’s adaptations, two of them
60
being the original ones created for the film premieres, the third being a recent

inspirational piece created by Bartosz Kosowski in 2014. The analysis of the posters is

followed by a closer look at the representation of the novel in a series of different book

covers summarized by John Bertram in his book. The second part of the chapter then

presents advertisements for two different perfumes – Marc Jacobs’s “Oh Lola!” starring

Dakota Fanning, and Lolita Lempicka’s “Le Premier Parfum” starring Elle Fanning.

The second part also includes the advertisement for Moschino’s heart-shaped glasses

and the unusual case of an apartment promotion on a real estate website.

The methodology of the analysis of the above mentioned chapter contents is

similar to that previously applied, however, it naturally differs in those aspects, in which

these specific media differ from the previously discussed, and in some places they

therefore require a different approach. When considering advertising, the reasons

driving the creators of these pieces largely differ from those that one encounters being

done in media such as music or film. Advertising’s main aim is to promote a certain

product, and via the means used for its creation, its aim is thus to communicate with the

potential customers, to persuade them that they need that exact product. In case of

music industry, for instance, it likewise is an important aspect, to look a certain way the

people like and sing about things that people can relate to and thus become popular.

Music, however, is still in various ways a reflection of the artist or a music band, and so

is the film a reflection of its director, scriptwriter, producer, etc. It is true that nowadays,

there are also advertisers that try to break this spell over them as only focusing on the

shallow material desires of the customers and try to attract through a “deeper

connection”. Such efforts can for instance be seen in Marc Jacobs’s and Lolita

Lempicka’s advertisement discussed in the second half. These are oftentimes

advertisements that are either considered morally or socially inappropriate, sexualizing,

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personalizing, or simply do not look like advertisements. They try to build up a deeper

connection with their consumers, and create something resembling a relationship in

which, however, both of its sides are everyone and no one in particular, the brand

owners and developers on one side and the consumers on the other. That is the factor

distinguishing the personalization and bonding between filmmakers or musical artists

and advertisers who create promotion for products. Also because of that, the works in

both of the following subchapters will be examined somehow differently, with a stress

put particularly on the themes, symbols and motifs of Lolita that were used for the

promotion, and in case of the second subchapter, likewise as an inspiration for the

creation of the products themselves.

Advertisements as one knows come in all shapes and sizes, can be presented in

different media, with different way of focusing on the customer. As far as the

importance of media type is in question, more than media themselves, the stress in this

chapter is put on the way they serve as means of achieving a certain aim, as

intermediate stages between a thought of the advertisement and its final execution. The

chapter will cover the specific promotion features offered by graphic art, photography

and video.

5.1 FILM ADAPTATIONS AN D NOVEL PROMOTION

The works discussed in this part include primarily the posters for Lolita’s adaptations

screenings in 1962 and 1997, and numerous books covers that were created and

published in different countries all over the world. The study will thus focus exclusively

on the areas of photography and graphic design. When speaking about graphic design,

as well as the manipulation and post-processing of photography, there are certain

options of re-working that the artist has freedom to execute, as opposed to a work with

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other media. A design previously made by someone else, can easily be broken down

into individual elements and used for a new design with the techniques of collage, cut-

outs or changes in fonts of texts and titles. As in everything, some consider this

possibility and practice to be somewhat unfortunate because of the inevitable repetition

and re-usage. However, in the advertising industry in particular it may often have an

interesting impact. In a slightly different case, a design can also be borrowed and stay

visually unchanged, only transformed into a different object. Thus various movie

posters of Lolita can be transformed into postcards, flyers, book covers, or a print used

for creating various fashion-related merchandise items. Vice versa, book cover designs

can of course be also borrowed and used to create any of these items too.

It should also be noted that such processes, as are today habitually used in

advertising and graphic art connected to it, were not as equally accessible in the

beginning of the second part of the 20th century as they are nowadays. In the 1950s and

1960s, graphic art, photography, typography and the ability to work with them were

considered much more valuable than they are today. In the age of numerous number of

different graphic and editing programs for both computers and mobile phones, the pace

of creating individual pieces is quicker and thus the number of the outcomes is much

higher. That many times results in remakes of old graphics or creating whole new ones

with the help of up-to-date electronic equipment, and innovative and different styles and

techniques. That is also important for the discussion about these kinds of advertisement

connected to Nabokov’s Lolita, simply because apart from the pieces that will be

mentioned in this chapter, there are, of course, many more, which are somehow

derivations and alternations of them.

When looking at film adaptations posters closely, by simply searching on the

internet, one finds an endless number of different pieces that over the span of 50 years

63
appeared as a promotion of the films. Even though there are still only two adaptations,

their repeated screenings in many cases also motivated the artists to create new posters

over and over again. The chapter will firstly examine the two original film adaptations

posters – the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s original poster for Stanley Kubrick’s premiere of

Lolita in 1962 featuring Sue Lyon16, and the poster for Adrian Lyne’s adaptation from

1997 featuring Dominique Swain and Jeremy Irons17. Then it concludes its first part by

focusing on some of the other famous posters for the screenings of either of the two

films, and moves towards the second part dealing with the debate of the Lolita book

covers.

Posters and book covers both share very similar aims, which are first the ability

to create a graphic artwork in such a way that it would visually represent what the

whole literary or cinematographic piece behind them is all about; and further to attract

one’s interest towards not only the artwork itself, but rather again towards the bigger

picture, which is the novel, the story of Lolita. Because of not only their aims, but also

the similarity in the medium in which these artworks are presented, the approaches of

different artists towards creating them are also similar. Regarding the book covers, in

her essay Alice Twemlow distinguishes these four different approaches of visually

capturing the book’s spirit:

The first group of covers use objects mentioned in the narrative to stand
for sex, for Lolita herself, or for one of the novel’s themes. The second
set of covers attempt to convey a sense of Humbert’s obsession,
depravity, and increasing psychological disturbance. The third group
evoke what the designers perceive to be the prevailing mood of the novel,
whether it is beauty, comedy, or a dark sense of foreboding. The covers
in the final category zoom in to the words themselves, celebrating the
texture, rhythm, and significance of Nabokov’s language. (qtd. in
Bertram 36)

16
For the design of the poster, see the attachment 4.
17
For the design of the poster, see the attachment 5.
64
Considering the similarities in medium and visual representation, one could also apply

such categorization when distinguishing different film posters. It is true, however, that

there naturally are differences, particularly those stemming from the fact that book

covers represent a written work as opposed to film posters representing an audio-visual

work. Based on that, the posters naturally tend to portray real human beings, most

commonly the actors involved, much more often than the covers. As a result of that,

they also tend to be to some extent less abstract. Despite slight differences, discussing

and analyzing these posters and covers within the boundaries of the above mentioned

categories may be useful for not only spotting different approaches of the artists

creating them, but also for mapping their intentions within the field of advertising and

promotion.

5.1.1 FILM POSTERS

The first poster created for the story of Lolita as a film adaptation was the Metro-

Goldwyn-Mayer’s original poster for Stanley Kubrick’s premiere of Lolita in 1962. By

only a quick look at the poster, one instantly has a chance to notice the major and the

most space-consuming subject portrayed – a close-up on Sue Lyon’s face and a glimpse

of her naked shoulder in the background. The colors used on this picture are a

combination of different cold hues of nude, pink and red colors, which combined with

the white background of the poster signify and emphasize the girly and innocent part of

Lolita’s character. The light colors evoke naturalness and the transitions between them

are very soft and gradual until they slowly blur into the background. The blurriness

gives the feeling of Lolita, despite very big and notable on the poster, being also a kind

of a dream, a fantasy diffusing into the background of not only the poster but one’s

mind as well. Compared to the stylistic portrayal of Sue Lyon as Lolita in the actual

65
film, where she wears make up, her hair is curled and styled to perfection, and her

clothes are very womanly, Lyon on the poster is much softer, natural and even though

wearing a lipstick, actually looks like a child. That, however, is not because these

elements would be different, but more because they are not portrayed at all.

The realness of Lolita’s existence in the story as well as on the poster is

undoubtable. The question then is whether the representation of her that one is being

offered is real. In a discussion of that, the objects included in this poster, namely the

heart-shaped glasses that she wears and a lollipop she licks, represent crucial

constituents. These objects by themselves can also be a representation of childhood or

girlishness, however in the case of this poster, their purpose is different. Represented in

a subversive and provocative way, where Lolita’s captivating look in her eyes peeping

over the glasses while lustfully licking on her heart-shaped lollipop, these objects assign

her character a certain level of nastiness and corruption. They hint something that

belongs neither to a child nor to an adult, something childish and seductive at the same

time. What impact can thus such poster have on people looking at it? The driving force

of this artwork is without a doubt the focus on Lyon’s face. Its size in combination with

her look presents an immediate interest and lures people to not only look but to be

curious about who is this girl and what is her story. The above mentioned blurriness

also implies that on one hand she wants others to be interested and come closer, but will

yet not show anything else but her face.

Coming back to the representation of the realness of the girl in the center of this

poster, she surely is the person one sees, but whose is the perception of her? From the

audience’s perspective, it seems that Lolita’s tantalizing gaze is oriented directly at the

potential viewer, thus the promotional aims of this aspects were surely met. On the

other hand, however, thinking about the picture from the point of view of the story, new

66
interpretations open up. Humbert, being her closest companion for the prevalent time of

the story, who saw her as a seductress, flirtatiously licking her lollipop and peeping

though her glasses, is most likely the one who sees Lolita looking like this. She sure ate

lollipops and wore sunglasses, however, what these objects represent here is most

probably a version of herself seen through Humbert’s infatuated gaze, where these

objects as well as the child itself, become sexualized. Therefore, even though the photo

truly is Lolita as a character, and objects that may in some way represent her, the sense

of Humbert’s obsessive gaze and somewhat distorted perception of this twelve-year-old

is still present and notable.

The fusion of these ways of representation of both Lolita not being the society’s

ideal child, and also Humbert not perceiving her as the ideal stepfather would, are then

directly connected to the textual part of the poster. The question “How did they ever

make a movie of Lolita?” which is printed on the poster above Lolita’s face is a

reference to the production’s utmost struggle with producing this movie in such a way

that it would pass through the Production Code Administration and thus would be

morally, socially and culturally approved by the values of American society of 1960s.

Just as there is nothing explicit portrayed on this poster, and majority of the details and

features are only hinted, they are likewise only hinted in the movie.

For the premiere of Kubrick’s adaptation in Italy, the poster was remastered and

despite keeping some of the original aesthetical features, it looked completely different

and radiated different feelings to the audience. The central photo of Sue Lyon is still

included, however, it is much smaller in size and accompanied by eight other pictures of

the actress taken straight from the movie. On this poster, the viewer can definitely see

more of what kind of a person Lolita in this story might be. The pictures are various and

the whole artwork thus focuses on presenting the multi-facetedness of Lolita, or in some

67
way Lolita defamiliarized. One can see Lolita looking happy, absent-minded, careless,

desirable, lustful, angry or tired, thus there actually is a space for destroying the stigma

around her character and the stereotypical attributes that then and still now are being

assigned to her. Though one can still see Lolita in the dimension of being a precociously

grown-up seductress, it also encourages looking at her from different points of view and

minding the other parts of who she is, how she acts and what she may feel like; with a

special focus on her being a young girl. As Cooks and Triggs suggest in their essay,

some of these visuals have the aim “to show how notions of eroticism and femininity

are negotiated and at times subverted, offering a new perspective on the classic tale of

one’s man obsession with a teenage girl” (qtd. in Bertram 53). The special importance

not only for the film adaptation itself but for its connection point with the novel, has the

bright pink color that dominates this poster. It is not only a way of representing Lolita’s

girlishness, but also a way to connect this film to the original novel. Cooks and Triggs

pointed out the importance of the red and pink colors for the story and the

representation of it in different media. The 99 occasions in which the color is mentioned

in the book was thus not only orally and descriptively implemented in the completely

black-and-white adaptation, but also was kept as an integral part of the promotional

photographs and posters, such as the one photographed by Bert Stern for the original

MGM’s poster, as well as in the case of the remake for Italian cinema.18

The textual element of this poster is also very important for pointing at the

importance of seeing Lolita open-mindedly, as different people encountering her

throughout the story saw her. The poster quotes one of the initial passages of the novel

translated into Italian: “She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in

one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the

18
For the design of the poster, see the attachment 6.
68
dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita”19 (Nabokov 3). Here Humbert

stresses the fact that she only was Lolita for him, meaning that only he saw her as

exactly that version of the girl, which he presents to the readers of the novel. It also puts

the importance on the ways other people saw her, for which Nabokov uses different

versions of her name in order to differentiate between them.

When looking at the official poster designed for the second adaptation of Lolita

directed by Adrian Lyne in 1997, one sees a similar centeredness of the story’s main

character as in the MGM’s poster. Dominique Swain is lying on the grass in the garden

and reads a magazine, while Humbert stands in the background and observes her. The

scene recreates the moment when Humbert sees Lolita for the very first time. As the

young actress lies in the garden on the stomach with her body being relatively stripped,

from the promotional point of view she represents a decent eye-catcher for the potential

viewers. Compared to the previous posters, this one does not use the color red that

visibly and prevalently, yet still writes the title of the film in red. It, however, is

questionable, whether the aim is to symbolically connect the poster, and the film itself,

to the novel, or just to use red because of its quite obvious connotations with erotica and

sex.

Even though there are no specific objects used in the picture used for this poster,

as were the sunglasses and lollipop in the previous ones, Lolita’s leg that as she lies is

bended and points at the title of the film with the tip of her foot. The word “Lolita”

representing the title as well as her name is written seven times in a row, but only one of

those words is written in red. The rest of them are written in light gray almost diffusing

into the background. As Swain points her toes at the numerous Lolitas, it implies that

19
Originally used in Italian language as: “Era Lo, null’altro che Lo, al mattino, dritta nella sua statura, di
un metro e cinquantotto, con un calzino soltanto. Era Dolly a scuola. Era Dolores sulla linea
punteggiata dei documenti. Ma nelle mie braccia fu sempre Lolita.”
69
there is something special about that particular one which is red, which is somehow

different. It suggests that for Humbert, there may be thousands of potential “Lolitas”

presented in front of him and they would not be as special as this one.

Camera in connection with the scene that is depicted on the poster are the crucial

elements of analyzing this poster’s composition, aesthetics, and the role that it assigns to

the characters portrayed. Being much closer to the camera taking the picture, Lolita in

the foreground appears to be much bigger and noticeable than Humbert. That hints not

only her very obvious importance for the story as such, but also accentuates the

glorification with which Humbert sees Lolita in daily life and the way he describes her

in his monologues addressed to the reader of the book. Humbert of the picture is on the

other hand much smaller in size. One could perhaps not even recognize it is Jeremy

Irons portrayed on the photograph when not observing the poster closely. Moreover, by

being distant and inconspicuous, the poster’s composition stresses the voyeuristic nature

of Humbert’s relationship towards Lolita when he observes her doing not only activities

that may somehow be sexualized or seen as perverse, but also those mundane daily

ones.

By looking at both of the original film adaptation posters side by side, one may

notice that, giving a thought to it, they may both depict the same situation from the

original novel, even though each of them in a very different way. In case of the second

one, it is quite self-explanatory even if one has not yet seen the film and merely read the

book. In case of the earlier one, it is not as obvious and truly also a bit questionable. In

the novel, Humbert describes the situation of encountering Lolita for the first time

during the house tour given by her mother as: “…and then, without the least warning, a

blue sea-wave swelled under my heart and, from a mat in a pool of sun, half-naked,

kneeling, turning about on her knees, there was my Riviera love peering at me over dark

70
glasses” (Nabokov 25). A moment later he again describes Lolita’s eyes “blinking over

those stern dark spectacles” (Nabokov 26). Interestingly, from this very first one, until

the very last encounter of Lolita and Humbert, he never again describes Lolita wearing

glasses or sunglasses on any occasion in the novel. At the very end, where he comes to

her house and sees her after three years he writes: “Couple of inches taller. Pink-rimmed

glasses. New, heaped-up hairdo, new ears” (Nabokov 194).

Considering this fact, it thus seems almost undeniable that the MGM’s poster

really recreates the first time Humbert ever sees Lolita. Arguably, however, when

looking at the actual scene depicting this situation in the film adaptation that the poster

promotes, Lolita does not wear any sunglasses. Nor does she wear lipstick or licks a

lollipop. Moreover, when looking at origins of the photograph of Sue Lyon depicted on

this poster, it turns out that it is a part of a whole photoshoot done by a photographer

Bert Stern who took care of the visual representation of Kubrick’s adaptation outside

the movie itself. Cook and Triggs claim that, “some of Stern’s slides […] are rich and

sultry, using lighting to intensify the hues of red, yellow, and pink. Some of the images

of the teenage actress […] were published in Look in July 17, 1962” (qtd. in Bertram

53). Therefore, the attention that Nabokov brings onto the representation of red and pink

colors and which Kubrick managed to transform to his black-and-white film is here

again transformed into the art of photography. Stern thus more than anything else tried

to transform the aesthetics of Kubrick’s movie into a new media, rather than change it

and represent the same scene differently. Looking closer at the set of photographs

commissioned for the magazine, one sees that the photograph of Lyon used for the

poster is in its full size a photograph of her reflection in the car’s mirror.

Depicting the moment of their first encounter or not, the photographs depicted on

both of the posters are nevertheless a representation of very powerful moments for both

71
of the characters and the way their lives changed after getting to know each other. For

Humbert, the first moment of meeting Lolita represented a sort of closure, a way in

which sense came back to his life after a very long time. As he realizes that Lolita

immensely reminds him of his late love Annabel, he says “Everything they shared made

one of them” (Nabokov 26). This moment of realization was so powerful for him that he

characteristically calls the place where it happened “the breathless garden” (Nabokov

26). For Lolita, a lousy careless child, it most probably did not represent anything

important or powerful at the very first moment she saw Humbert. In the long run and

the following months and years, however, it undoubtedly was a crucial moment for

everything happening in her life that followed it. It had an irreversible impact on her

childhood, early adolescence and the ways in which she first encountered adulthood and

matters connected to it. The inclusion of this image on both of these posters where

Humbert’s passion for Lolita triggers thus serves as a very powerful one to be

representing the films on their posters, because it not only shows how enchanting she

was to him, but also how the films can also evoke such feelings in their audience after

watching them.

5.1.1.1 CONTEMPORARY APPROACH

The last graphic artwork that I will speak about in the section dedicated to posters

promoting Lolita’s film adaptations belongs to a different category than the previous

ones. It is neither an original poster for any of the movies, nor a remake of them, and

surprisingly not even a portrayal of some of the actors appearing in the movie. The

poster was created by a Polish illustrator and graphic artist Bartosz Kosowski in 201420

“for the exhibition organized by the gallery Spoke Art in San Francisco […] dedicated

20
For the design of the poster, see the attachment 7.
72
to the director Stanley Kubrick”21 (Oporska). The reason for discussing this poster in

particular and bringing it forth is mainly its completely different nature than the posters

discussed previously and its simultaneous ability to succeed in a competition. At the

exhibition, Kosowski’s poster for Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita “has been awarded a Gold

Medal in Advertising Category by the Society of Illustrators” (LCS) and thus “beat over

a thousand competitors from all over the world”22 (Oporska).

The question is, what is it then about Kosowski’s poster that made it catch such

attention and stand out from all the other illustrations presented? Comparing it to the

official film posters, it is naturally diametrically different. The situation of its creation,

however, is very different too, which is one of the reasons of these differences being so

dramatic. Previous posters, being the official representative of the films, work

specifically with the aesthetics already given and prescribed by the films. They still are

creative and depict the known scenes differently than one can see them in the film, but

there is an obvious connection, both thematic and visual. Secondly, the existence

differences may also be supported by the fact that all of these artworks were created in

different years with different standards for the graphic visualizations of film posters.

Kosowski’s poster, being the newest one created only 2 years ago, has also thanks to

that a more modern take and is less strictly bound to the particular film actors and

scenes.

The poster itself is in fact very minimal, both in use of colors and objects

portrayed. The stress is thus equally put on its thematic meaning, offering the people

seeing it a space for thinking about it, analyzing it and assigning it a meaning

themselves. In the center of the poster, consisting of only 4 colors applied on the paper

21
Translated from the original: “Plakat powstał w ubiegłym roku na potrzeby wystawy organizowanej
przez galerię Spoke Art w San Francisco. Ekspozycja była poświęcona reżyserowi Stanleyowi
Kubrickowi.”
22
Translated from the original: “pokonał ponad tysiąc konkurentów z całego świata.”
73
by the process of screen-printing, there is a large heart-shaped lollipop intentionally

exceeding the space of the poster and thus offering the viewer to see only a portion of it.

In result, the stick of the lollipop together with the stem of the heart being visible form

an illusion of girl’s legs and the private parts. It is questionable though whether it also

implies the imagined girl to be naked, or wearing underwear. However, since the whole

image consists of the hues of pink and red colors and the lollipop’s stick is visibly

inside of the see-through candy suggests that a girl also might supposedly be naked. By

hiding the naked woman’s body behind an artwork portraying lollipop not only serves

as a very eye-catching and thought-provoking piece that definitely makes one stop and

look twice. It also, by connecting this body with a lollipop specifically and the usage of

red and pink colors, stresses that the person portrayed is a young girl and a child, which

gives the whole thing another level on which one may perceive it.

The ambiguity and the time this artwork offers its viewers to spend looking and

it and trying to figure out what exactly the authorial intent might have been also is the

feature that makes it more interesting for the masses and makes it survive longer than

posters being figured out in a second. Kosowski, when asked about his opinion on

creating posters, said:

Movie posters take much longer to create than press illustrations, since
the latter have a different life. People just look at them and then the
newspaper usually ends up in the trash. That is the sad end of the
majority of press illustrations. Something else is going on with a poster
that someone decides to hang on the wall. One may look at it for one, two
or ten years. Therefore, it must be polished to the smallest detail.23 (New
Polish Design)

23
Translated from the original: “Plakaty filmowe powstają dużo dłużej niż ilustracje prasowe, ponieważ
te drugie mają inny żywot. Ludzie na nie spojrzą i gazeta najczęściej ląduje w śmietniku. Taki jest smutny
finał większości ilustracji prasowej. Co innego dzieje się z plakatem, który ktoś decyduje się powiesić na
ścianie. Może patrzeć sobie na niego rok, dwa lata czy dziesięć. Dlatego musi być on w najmniejszym
szczególe dopracowany.”

74
It is thus understandable how Kosowski thinks about his artworks, not necessarily in

contrast with other artists whose posters were discussed, which were also in ways

thought-provoking and worth spending time looking at. However, the ways of analyzing

them were different. With the previous two posters it was more about a connection of

the visuals to the adaptation itself and to a particular scene or a plotline represented. In

case of Kosowski’s poster, the analysis takes place much more significantly on the

visual level and the multi-faceted way of visual representation, even though the

knowledge of the story is essential for the analysis as well. After all, both of the original

film posters, and the one promoting Kubrick’s adaptation in particular, became iconic

not only perceived through their own medium, but also transformed into others. In the

case of Stern’s photograph of Sue Lyon, they were definitely the heart-shaped glasses

that got a worldwide attention especially because of its connection. The glasses then

gradually started to appear on many other posters, book covers, were used as a symbol

in the previously discussed music industry, and have also started to be sold as a fashion

accessory, which will be more closely looked at in the following chapter dedicated to

fashion.

5.1.2 BOOK COVERS

Moving towards the discussion of Lolita’s book covers, the analysis still remains in a

similar sphere of advertising of Nabokov’s story itself, however, also includes

additional aspects to be taken into consideration. First and foremost, there is a direct

quote of Vladimir Nabokov, frequently repeated and used as a major reference by many

scholars preoccupied with the issue of Lolita’s covers design. Nabokov said:

I want pure colors, melting clouds, accurately drawn details, a sunburst

above a receding road with the light reflected in furrows and ruts, after
rain. And no girls. Who would be capable of creating a romantic,

75
 delicately drawn, non-Freudian and non-juvenile, picture for LOLITA (a
dissolving remoteness, a soft American landscape, a nostalgic highway—
that sort of thing)? There is one subject which I am emphatically opposed
to: any kind of representation of a little girl. (Bertram)

The author thus straight-forwardly expressed his dislike of transforming Lolita from

verbal descriptions of the novel to an actual human being who should represent her.

Then there naturally emerges a dispute over whether this quote should or should not

serve as an ultimate guide for the illustrators and graphic designers composing different

covers around the world.

On one hand, the work itself naturally belongs to Nabokov, being the one

without whom none of these discussions would have existed in the first place. However,

the perception with which one looks at it should correspond with the one all the other

appropriations and adaptations are being looked at. When producing the first film

adaptation, for instance, Nabokov must have realized that in order to allow his

masterpiece to develop further, Lolita must at times be personalized, not only by

Kubrick back then, but also by other artists in the future. On the other hand, as opposed

to the well-known and oft-cited quote above, there is a video footage of Nabokov

himself talking about different book covers of Lolita years after its publication. The clip

is a part of a television programme “USA: The Novel” and shows Nabokov presenting

his own collection of different publications of Lolita, including different languages and,

of course, different covers. Despite his original wishes for a specific cover design, he

manages to look at these different covers neutrally and judge them with an emphasis on

the individual evolution of the book’s life, rather than basing it on his own stance and

opinion on the matter. In certain moments, he laughs at the cover of Lolita’s Turkish

translation24 where two people, man and a woman, are portrayed, as he is “not sure who

is older” (Troter 0:27 – 0:30), referring to the fact that the woman portrayed on the

24
For the design of the book cover, see the attachment 8.
76
cover seems to be in her twenties. However, as far as the other publications of Lolita he

picked up are concerned, he appreciated them even though women and girls were

obviously involved. When he picks up a French edition of Lolita portraying a young

blonde girl both in front and back of the book, he says it is beautiful, and one of his

favorite ones (Troter 0:39 – 0:54). By such gesture of the novel’s author, it shows that

assigning new meanings not necessarily in line with his former ideas and exploring new

spheres in which the story can be developed is considered to be natural.

5.1.2.1 VISUALIZING THE NYMPHET

Looking at Nabokov’s quote differently, there might have been some situations he

might have wanted to avoid when requesting not portraying a girl on Lolita’s book

covers. The artists creating them could also come to having a difficulty to resolve who

Lolita actually is. That specifically points at the distinction between what is presented to

the reader through the narrative synthesis of Humbert Humbert and what one would see

without it. The “reality” behind it, of course, not only does not exist, since the story is

fictional and the only way one can ever perceive it is through the perception of

Humbert, but at the same time throughout the book, Humbert himself often hints that

his narration is very far from objective. Only several sentences into the story, he states

that, “you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style” (Nabokov 9). The

way Nabokov makes Humbert expose himself at the beginning and by his extraordinary

straightforwardness with which he presents the story, it on one hand helps him to seem

likable to the book readers, and with his “bonding unreliability”, as Phelan describes it,

his “narration […] reduces the distance between the narrator and authorial audience”

(223). On the other hand, it also makes the reader more aware of the fact that there is

something else that one does not know. As Brownlee points out:

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 The distinction between Dolores Haze and Lolita is one that should haunt
any reader of the book. Lolita is a phantom in Humbert’s fever dream;
the girl, Dolores Haze, whom she resembles, is the frail, vulnerable child
Humbert’s obsession burns away. This same distinction has also haunted
cover artists. Which do you choose to represent? The imaginary
nymphet, the victim, the nymphomaniac, or something in between?
(Brownlee)

John Bertram who is the author of so far the most complex study on the matter, tried to

resolve, or at least come closer to the resolution of this issue with his “Lolita Book

Cover Project” in which he commissioned dozens of top designers and illustrators to

come up with new covers for Nabokov’s novel, and the subsequent publication of a

wider study of this collection titled Lolita: The Story of a Cover Girl.

The book consists of the presentation of the project itself, accompanied with a

number of essays dealing with a specifics of dozens of Lolita’s covers. What is

important in this kind of analysis where works of art are presented is the fact that

Bertram did not select the covers according to any aesthetic merits, thus one can truly

see covers that are beautiful, thoughtful and utterly ugly. Naturally, the beauty of such

selection lies in the fact that for each observer, different ones fall into different of these

categories. In the preface of the book, Bertram says that, “they are all fun to look at,

even the ugly ones” (12). What he also points out, and what I mildly touched on above,

is the depiction of the book’s nature. He says:

Part of Lolita’s power is in its extreme oppositions: Even Humbert’s

fanatically one-directional desire for little Dolly is made more delicious
by the sharp tonal oppositions in her ‘two-fold nature,’ the ‘tender
dreamy childishness’ and ‘eerie vulgarity, stemming from the snub-nosed
cuteness of ads and magazine pictures,’ the ‘exquisite stainless
tenderness seeping through the musk and the mud’ of her female being–
really, of any being. […] So how does one, one very normal one, put this
on a book jacket? How even to try?” (11)

Apart from the opposition that Bertram mentions and that is clear from reading the

story, it also entails other factors influencing the artist’s decisions when creating a book

cover. First and foremost, it is one’s understanding of the book, thus a personal take on
78
what is the essence, since there in fact is not any guidelines or a rule telling one that.

That is largely undermined by what kind of a person the artist is, what are one’s

intellectual, social or cultural predispositions for grasping the story, and of course one’s

practical artistic abilities in drawing, painting or graphic designing.

In Bertram’s Lolita Book Cover Project one may see covers literally of all kinds.

Some of them even seem that their authors did not have any clue or prior knowledge

about the novel. Others rely solely on a monochrome background presenting a quote

from the book, such as Philip Kelly’s “Oh, my Lolita, I only have words to play with!”

(102) or Peter Mendelsund’s25 and Isaac Tobin’s “lo. lee. ta.” (112, 129). As seen in the

latter example, the covers focusing on various Lolita quotations may not turn out to be

the ones getting the credit for originality and may often get unconsciously copied by

another artist. Other covers oriented at the presentation of words rather than pictures or

graphics are focused more on the typographical nature of writing than simply the act of

copying and pasting Nabokov’s own words. In these cases, they usually fall into two

categories. They either present a very childlike type of script, such as Johanna

Drucker’s cover (79) showing a pencil crayon artwork in a notebook with a playful

curvy letter shapes, hearts and animals, reminding one of the boring school lectures that

everyone has lived through; or they tend to focus on Humbert’s fountain pen script,

adult-like, sometime illegible and messy, reminding the reader of his obsessive note-

taking of the little girl’s life. One of the abstract book covers that got a lot of attention

for its thoughtfulness was the one designed by Jamie Keenan (101)26, also sharing

visual and meaning similarities with Kosowski’s poster.

Focusing more closely on the issue of portraying a girl, either a photography of a

real person in a drawing or painting, we get to the connection of Lolita’s book covers

25
For the design of the book cover, see the attachment 10.
26
For the design of the book cover, see the attachment 9.
79
with the feminist movement and essentially the role of a female being represented in

these artworks. As it righteously may be an authorial intent of the artist, or the publisher

who commissions the artwork to be created, to want a girl on the cover, there is still a

level on which the human value and dignity of Lolita sometimes lacks to be

acknowledged. Despite being a fictional character created by a novelist and consisting

merely of words, her role and interactions in the story create a net of different ties and

relationships, which reflect the real world and people oftentimes tend to somehow

merge them with it. In that dimension, both Lolita and Humbert are very much real, and

thus their roles in the story asks to be taken into consideration when creating an artwork

representing the work. A blogger Kieron Gillen wrote an article preoccupied with

thinking about why is the majority of the covers portraying a little girl, despite

Nabokov’s instructions quoted in the beginning of this chapter. On one hand, the artistic

freedom of the people creating the covers is a highly relevant reason. On the other, it is

known that covers for particular book are oftentimes not created very freely after all,

and the artists are instructed to do something that the publishing house desires. Gillen

claims that such publishers basically represent the patriarchal society which “is

essentially operating with the same delusions of Humbert Humbert”. They create what

is requested and eventually bought, and that in numerous cases still happens to be a

woman or a girl portrayed as a product and a sexual object.

After all that, which are then the covers that can be considered powerful in a

wider scale influencing different kinds of observers equally? Do they exist? John

Bertram, despite designing a cover of his own depicting “the pompous and paunchy

Nabokovian male at the lectern snipping portraits, and a girl with a saucy stance who

thrusts her hip at his tendentious scissor-wielding fingers,” (49) thinks that “the most

accurate Lolita cover from Nabokov’s collection may be the very first, the Olympia

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Press two-volume edition, […] an abstract block of mid-century Modernist green

implanted with funereal lettering and a thin, hopeful white stripe, locked within a

prickly black fence” (50). In the case of book covers as the one Bertram talks about,

however, most of the visual features are very subtle and everything a possible

disagreement may come down to are the color or a chosen font. In his statement, what

Bertram indirectly says is that a book that complex and multi-faceted as Lolita, possibly

cannot be represented by any cover presenting something specific, whether it is an

expression of colors or a particular painting, drawing or a photo. That, of course, is not

meant in a way of forbidding artists to keep creating new covers. He simply says that

unless it is a “clear” cover like the original one, artists and readers will never agree on a

specific one to be “the one”. That, after all, sheds positivity on the whole matter, since

diversity in many ways surpasses uniformity, which often tends to be rather

monotonous.

5.2 LOLITA AS A FRAGRANCE

Moving away from the visual representation, personalization and appropriation of Lolita

for the purposes of essentially advertising Nabokov’s story and its different

appropriations, in this subchapter I focus on a different field of promotion. The main

difference between not only approach but a completely different aim and starting points,

lies in the process of using Lolita for creating a whole new product. This means that

some of the features, themes or images are naturally kept in the final looks or design of

these products, however, their initial aim is not to directly adapt the novel, nor to focus

on its particular storyline and follow it. The particular products discussed in this

subchapter include the advertisements for Marc Jacobs’s perfume “Oh Lola”, Lolita

Lempicka’s perfume “Le Premier Parfum”, and Moschino’s heart-shaped glasses. To

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some extent, they all exploit the imagery and thematics of the book or its existing

adaptation for firstly creating their products and consequently also for promoting them.

On the other hand, there are products originating in spheres of selling predominantly

unconnected to literary works as their inspiration, thus having virtually nothing to do

with Lolita as a girl, image, or a story. For that matter, I will discuss the ways of using

Lolita in the promotion of an apartment on a real estate market.

5.2.1 MARC JACOB S’S “OH LOLA”

The two perfumes appropriating Lolita are the first ones I have stumbled across while

doing my research, most probably because of their slightly altered use of the girl’s

name. Moreover, the fact that actresses portrayed in them are sisters provided another

connection point. The first of the two advertisements focuses on the promotion of Marc

Jacobs’s perfume “Oh Lola” and portrays Dakota Fanning, who was 17 years old at the

time of its shooting. The photographs were taken by a famous photographer Juergen

Teller, who has worked with Marc Jacobs prior to this particular piece. By many, his

works are described as having a “raw, overexposed style” (Horyn) and thus definitely

do not fall into the spectrum of the “usual advertisement” that one sees presented in the

media. The advertisement for Jacobs’s perfume was no exception and shortly after its

release it came as a shock to many. In the photographs, Dakota Fanning is portrayed in

a girly soft-pink lace dress sitting in front of a pink background holding the oversized

version of Jacobs’s perfume flacon. In the main photo, considered as the centerpiece of

the advertisement, Fanning holds the perfume in between her legs, turning it, in the eyes

of some, into a phallic symbol.27 After several complaints from the advert’s viewers, the

photograph caught an attention of the Advertising Standards Authority. The viewers

27
For the original advertisement, see the attachment 11.
82
mostly complained about Fanning “being portrayed in an irresponsible and sexualised

manner” (Lidbury), to which the ASA reacted with a ban on the advertisement and an

official statement saying:

We noted that the model was holding up the perfume bottle which rested
in her lap between her legs and we considered that its position was
sexually provocative. We understood the model was 17 years old but we
considered she looked under the age of 16. We considered that the length
of her dress, her leg and position of the perfume bottle drew attention to
her sexuality. Because of that, along with her appearance, we considered
the ad could be seen to sexualise a child. (Lidbury)

After the advertisement’s ban, which hoped to bury it under the ground, ironically a

huge controversy about it arose. Journalists and writers kept writing about it, and even

though their articles were viewing Jacobs’s advertisement negatively, claiming that it

“reeks of creepy child porn” and its creators subjectively “defend it as ‘art’ and

‘freedom of expression” (Nelson 104), its popularity rose. To the contrary, Fanning

herself explained her look at the whole matter as: “If you want to read something into a

perfume bottle, then I guess you can. But it’s also like, ‘Why are you making it about

that, you creep?’ I love Marc and trust him, and we just laughed about it” (White). Lee

describes what Fanning roughly outlines as an imagined paranoia concerning pedophilia

and child abduction, and claims that in today’s society “the fear of being accused of

being a pedophile outweighs the fear of the threat of pedophilia” (2). He further claims

that people tend to overreact in the matters related to the fear of child abuse the same

way they do when they fear other situations such as terrorist attacks or alien abduction.

That is surely not undermining the concerns of people and authorities about children

appearing in advertising, however, it points at frequent judgements made on imagined

arguments overweighing real evidence.

Marc Jacobs himself, on the other hand reacts to the ban more frankly and

directly. When he says: “When we were speaking about who to use in the Oh, Lola!

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fragrance ads – I had recently seen The Runaways. Dakota was in it, and I knew she

could be this contemporary Lolita, seductive yet sweet” (Naughton), he directly

addresses its connection to Nabokov’s Lolita. The question is, whether the connection

to the novel and the provocative suggestively sexual nature of the photographs is

enough reason for a ban? The easiest answers out that one could come up with is a

confirmation that it breaks a specific rule or guidelines for advertisements’ look. That,

however, one could argue, is probably way too easy and prescriptive, and especially

when works of art are concerned, makes it hard to measure. That refers back to Marcuse

and his thoughts of restrictiveness of art widely presented in popular media today.

Various art forms, even those used for advertising purposes, require a certain level of

fluidity and non-conformity in order for them to really be art and, in the first place, to

arouse interest. Therefore, if “the truth of art lies in its power to break the monopoly of

established reality to define what is real” (Marcuse), does it not require to step over the

line of what people expect to see and go beyond what the Advertising Standards

Authority sees as “standard”? Juergen Teller said about the advertisement: “We wanted

to reduce it to get the most impact, so it is very simple and direct. There’s this beautiful

young actress with that beautiful skin and and and that great bottle, and everything is

pink, and the message is pretty straight-forward. It’s pretty clear what we want to

achieve” (Eosphaera’s channel 4:32 – 5:02). Neither him, nor Jacobs, deny that Fanning

was supposed to be Lolita. It would, after all, be pretty clear to anyone reading it from

the oversized bottle’s title. The issue for the creators is then, rather than denying the

inspiration in Nabokov’s Lolita – widely known for its controversy – or fighting the

various interpretations of its viewers in order to make the advertisement more

acceptable for regulating authorities, they focus on their own artistic freedom and to

some extent maybe an overt honesty and straight-forwardness.

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5.2.2 LOLITA LEMPICK A’S “LE PREMIER PARFUM”

Only a year later in 2012, Marc Jacobs’s advertisement was followed by another Lolita

inspired fragrance, starring another Fanning sister. It belongs to a French fashion

designer and perfume creator Lolita Lempicka (born Josiane Maryse), and it is named

“Le Premier Parfum”. Both of the advertisements share the vision of portraying the

figure of Lolita, yet each in a different way. The difference originates in a different

media in which these advertisements are created and presented. Even though there can

also be found a video from the photoshoot of Jacobs’s “Oh Lola”, it merely presents the

behind-the-scenes footage and was not used for promotional purposes. Advertisement

for Lolita Lempicka’s perfume, on the other hand, was meant to be created in the form

of video, thus works on a different mode of engagement and uses different tools for

delivering its message. The advertisement is created by a French music video director

and musician Yoann Lemoine performing under the stage name Woodkid. Both visual

and musical part of the advertisement were directed and created by him.

The video starts with the camera following a young girl walking in the forest. As

mentioned, the girl is portrayed by Elle Fanning, a younger sister of Dakota Fanning.

She is young, blond-haired, with an angelic face, and dressed in white top and white

shorts. Her appearance immediately evokes a certain innocence of the girl, as well as

her connection to the nature where she runs around. The camera features used in this

video, such as slow motion shots, soft 50 millimeter lens and bright, natural and slightly

faded colors, bring up the feeling of earthliness. And with the girl surrounded by all of

that, it gives both her and the environment a fairytale-like sentiment. The central theme

of roughly the first half of the video is undoubtedly childhood. The viewer can see the

girl carelessly running in between the trees, when the camera zooms out and one sees

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how deep and vast the forest actually is. The carelessness of a child this girl is forces

her not to care if she gets lost. The force which drives her reminds of something

animalistic, rather than her being driven by any given rules or reason. She climbs and

hugs the trees, one can see her hanging from a tree branch upside down, she bites her

nails, makes glasses out of her fingers, and delicately plays with her hair. One can

almost say she could not be more childlike.

In the midst of the video (Lemoine 1:10), the mood, simultaneously with the

music which was very light and calm, changes. The music gets more serious, the beat

gets faster, the drums are playing a significant role and it thus immediately appears to

be more dramatic. As far as the storyline of the video is concerned, one can also see the

girl quickly transforming from a delicate human being unaware of what she may

encounter in the forest, into the one that grabs the tree branches from the ground and

starts frantically running around, searching for something she can defend herself from.

At that moment, the girl, a mere child, starts to resemble Lolita from Nabokov’s novel.

Her concerns imply that she gains perspective of what a world, that this forest signifies,

can really be like. She wants to be prepared, self-sufficient, and cautious of a potential

danger – features the society usually sees as a sign of maturity. Lolita, with the death of

her mother and her relationship with Humbert is, just like the girl in this video,

experiencing an abrupt transition from childhood into adulthood. And for both of them,

it of course happens very quickly and at first almost unknowingly.

This change, or rather the borderline between the first and the second part of the

video, is marked by a moment of symbolic significance. The girl stands amidst the trees

and forest’s greenery when a frock of butterflies fly around her. Then, the camera

focuses on her eating wild berries off her hand. Both of these moments bear great

symbolism within them. Butterflies, because of their life cycles, are oftentimes seen as

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“a symbol of change and transformation” (Athanasiadis)28. This can, of course mean a

transformation of any kind, depending on the context used. Minding the different

natures of the two halves of this video, here they quite obviously mark the girl’s

transformation as a human, taking a next stage in her life. “Le Premier Parfum”, which

is the name of the fragrance, signifies the “premiere” – the onset of something new, a

change where a girl tries something for the very first time. “It focuses on the essence of

a first perfume: the awakening of desire” (BETC). In this sense, eating the wild berries

can refer to a significance of “forbidden fruit” that symbolizes desire to try something

new, to break a rule, but also to change eventually. In such case, the video not only

alludes to Lolita’s feeling of being left alone, without the only real parent and protector

she had, but also to Lolita’s first sexual experiences with Humbert. Shortly after the

video’s mood changes, the girl puts the tree branches she found in the forest on her

head, looks at the camera with an angry grin and pretends to be a deer. It can perhaps to

be in order to infiltrate in the habitat more natural for something else than she really is,

or to become something bigger and more ready for the world she finds herself in.

In a natural style, but with poetry without affectation, Yoann Lemoine

captures trouble and seriousness that mark these moments so special in
the fold of innocence and femininity. He described this exploration of
childhood troubles, which the girl wants to get out of herself, shaken by a
meeting, as a happy burst of femininity and desire in the territory of
adolescence, the advent of sensuality, the paradoxes that reveal the
strength and magnetic fragility of a girl. (CB News)29

The bottom line remains that she pretends to be a creature she in fact is not and tries to

embody something that is not assigned for her to be. That takes the story back to

28
Translated from the original: “symbole du changement et de la transformation”
29
Translated from the original: “Dans un style naturel, avec poésie mais sans affectation, Yoann Lemoine
capte le trouble et la gravité qui marquent ces instants si particuliers, à la pliure de l’innocence et de la
féminité. En explorant les démêlés de l’enfance voulant sortir d’elle même, bouleversée par une
rencontre, il décrit l’irruption heureuse de la féminité et du désir dans le territoire de l’adolescence,
l’avènement de la sensualité, les paradoxes qui révèlent la force et la fragilité magnétique d’une jeune
fille.”
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Nabokov’s Lolita precociously overstepping the line between childhood and adulthood,

and thus also trying to be something she is not.

In Greek mythology, a deer, which the girl first tries to impersonate, and in the

end meets in person, is an animal oftentimes portrayed on different sculptures or

artworks next to the goddess Artemis. She was considered to be a “deer-shooter” and

the one to be “snuggling young deer against her chest” (Budin 1), just as the girl in

Lolita Lempicka’s advertisement does in the very end of the video. In Homer’s The

Iliad, Artemis is the “roamer of fields” (376), a “glamorous huntress” (286), and the one

who “strikes down all the wild beasts” (95), which the girl prepares to do when she

protects herself with the branches. Athanasiadis claims that Artemis, which in her

opinion is represented by Fanning, sworn to “always keep her virginity” 30, the loss of

which is represented by the above mentioned scene with butterflies.

The video produced by Lemoine, which was created as a short 3-minute-long

film “ignores the codes of advertising that tend to focus on the essentials, on the subject

of the premiering perfume: the awakening of desire” (CB News)31. The product itself is

not shown in the clip at all, and that is something, as mentioned before, that might seem

interesting to those viewers and potential customers, who prefer more well-thought-out

advertisements that do not push the product forcefully right into their faces from

beginning till the end. It is true that, because they are sisters and look alike, both Marc

Jacobs and Lolita Lempicka use the same kind of girl for their advertisements, yet they

still differ in many ways. What they share is the naturalness of both sisters’ appearance

in the shots, though it must be noted that Jacobs’s advertisement presents a beauty much

more fabricated than Lolita from Nabokov’s novel possessed. In Humberts’ eyes, Lolita

30
Translated from the original: “de garder toujours sa virginité”
31
Translated from the original: “ignore les codes du genre publicitaire pour se concentrer sur l’essentiel,
sur le sujet même du premier parfum”
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was not conventionally beautiful, but rather tomboyish and bad-behaved. Both Fanning

sisters, many would agree, are conventionally beautiful, however, especially in the case

of Lolita Lempicka’s video, the styling as well as the environment of the forest, and the

focus on evoking a feeling rather than showcasing a product, made her seem much more

natural and common.

5.3 LOLITA AS A PRODUCT

Lastly, in this chapter I would like to briefly mention some of the other advertising

purposes, for which Nabokov’s Lolita was used. First, there was a campaign of the

high-end clothes brand Moschino, who created a collection of red heart-shaped

sunglasses. The design looked almost exactly like the sunglasses Sue Lyon was wearing

while being photographed by Bert Stern for the Kubrick’s Lolita’s film poster in 1962.

They also created a special package that comes with the sunglasses. It also is a heart-

shaped red latex box and a whole set is not only very girly, but a direct reminder of

Kubrick’s Lolita Sue Lyon.32 The idea of heart-shaped sunglasses quickly spread over

many brand and non-brand sellers and became massively popular. It is further discussed

in the next chapter devoted to fashion.

The second, and the final example of using features associated with Lolita in the

sphere of advertising is an offer of renting an apartment in Pittsburgh posted on a real

estate website Craigslist. Man named David Paola, who posted the offer paid a woman

named Kate Davis to dress up in a Japanese Lolita fashion style and pose in every photo

of the apartment included in the offer. It did not take long before the offer got viral, as

Paola most probably expected and which was also a reason for him to include this

woman in the pictures. He told the WTAE that he “wanted something that would make

32
For the product and its packaging, see the attachment 12.
89
people do a double take, [plus] it generates a lot of comments” (Berman 0:58 – 1:03). A

woman who saw the advertisement and was surprised with it said that “if their tactic is

to get people talk about it, it’s working” (Berman 1:04 – 1:07). To see Lolita, even

though it is a girl styled in a fashion trend originating in Japan and using very different

style than anything mentioned in the novel, in a promotion for an apartment, a sphere to

which the story is not connected whatsoever, it seems rather bizarre. Yet, the purpose of

the owner is very clear and judging by the popularity the offer got, his expectations

were met. Here, we are not dealing with anything that could be called appropriation, if

one is not talking about the style that the woman presents. It is a unique case of using

Nabokov’s Lolita merely because of its popularity, which the user hope will be

transferred to the subject he applies it to.

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6 FASHION

Thematically tying to the previous chapters about music and advertising, the thesis will

now focus on the ways Nabokov’s Lolita was introduced and represented in the fashion

industry as a fashion trend, or rather, a set of different fashion trends and their

interpretations around the world. The close connection to advertising is inevitable, since

the individual fashion items themselves are products that are either a subject of

advertisement before they are sold, or are later promoted by a community of its wearers.

Whether it is an intentional advertisement, which a producer of fashion items creates or

pays for, or whether it is a promotion created by individuals via social media or various

gatherings and events, a certain way of publicity is essential for a fashion trend to arise

and survive.

The connection between a novel written in 1950s and different fashion trends

emerging in the late 20th and early 21st century may seem unlikely and very difficult to

even exist. Because fashion, unlike for example film or literature, does not belong to the

media that more generally adapt and appropriate novels, such connections can

sometimes be neglected or perceived as indistinctive. Linda Hutcheon claims that such

minor media “are thus as important to this theorizing as are the more commonly

discussed movies and novels. […] Common denominators across media can be as

revealing as significant differences” (XIV). The lines connecting fashion industry and

Lolita thus undoubtedly exist, although their traceability may sometimes seem more

difficult, since there usually is an intermediate point, an element that the particular

fashion trend appropriates even before Nabokov’s Lolita. These are mostly sources

offering the creators of the fashion some sort of visual model that serves as an

inspiration for individual pieces. Therefore, what this chapter aims to convey is the fact

that the trends mentioned further in this chapter are not trends directly taking inspiration
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from what Nabokov writes in his novel, but appropriate either the ideas and themes

from Lolita, or more simply appropriate the visual representation of the novel that may

be seen in both of its film adaptations. The crucial difference between understanding

what a Lolita-inspired fashion means and how it is perceived is represented by two

different perceptions that the chapter further focuses on. The main difference observed

is the distinction between Western and non-Western understanding of how Lolita-

inspired fashion was created and what it means, on the basis of which I further divide

the chapter into the two subchapters dealing with these different perceptions

individually. In the first one, dealing with the Western perception of Lolita-inspired

fashion, the thesis focuses on the visual appropriation of both Kubrick’s and Lyne’e

film adaptations as well as the appropriation of the archetype of a nymphet. In the

second part, focusing on the non-Western, particularly Japanese and east-Asian

understanding of Lolita-inspired fashion, which rather than appropriating any

preexisting aesthetics referring to Lolita, they are mostly themes and ideas from the

novel itself whose presence in this fashion trend can be traced.

A crucial sphere in which this chapter differentiates from the two preceding it is

in what Hutcheon calls the modes of engagement, which are discussed in more detail in

the theoretical background to this thesis. Even though Hutcheon does not mention

appropriation in fashion particularly, she calls the mode in which the participant is a

part of the story’s world (XV) and experiences the it directly and kinesthetically (12)

the “interactive mode”. She says that, “although all three modes of engagement

‘immerse’ their audiences in their stories, usually only one mode is actually called

‘interactive’—the one that demands physical participation (usually called ‘user input’)

in the story” (XV). As mentioned earlier, there inevitably are overlaps between the

chapters in not merely thematics, but also in the modes of engagement. Because the

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individual spheres and media this work focuses on are in many ways interconnected,

one cannot restrict each of them to only one mode of user engagement. Thus, for

instance, one also finds the physical participation in the music industry done by the

artists that impersonate their made-up characters, through which they not only

physically live these characters’ “lives”, but also style themselves using fashion trends

adhering to either their personal take on what Lolita-inspired fashion means, or also

some of the categories that are spoken about later in this chapter. On one hand, there is

Melanie Martinez, who despite being an American singer, styles herself in to a

Japanese-Lolita-looking character; on the other there is Lana Del Rey that in many of

her music videos embodies a certain version of Lolita from both Kubrick’s and Lyne’s

film adaptations.

Before looking at the particular appropriations and different processes of their

creation, however, it is necessary to observe the ways clothes and fashion are described

in the novel by Nabokov himself, so that one can further see how his attempt to describe

these features transfers into the appropriations or not. Though fashion, style, or clothes

are not the themes that Nabokov would pay any special attention to, them being an

inherent part of every person’s daily life, Humbert naturally mentions and talks about

them in his descriptions of Lolita. However, the clothes, when being mentioned, never

serve as a central idea of any part of the book and their importance for the specific

passages as well as the text as a whole is, one could say, rather insignificant. In the

majority of the instances when Humbert mentions Lolita’s clothes, they are part of

Humbert’s voyeuristic, detailed and oftentimes lengthy descriptions of Lolita and her

body. The connection to her body is rather important in regard to the connection with

clothes, since the main purpose of him mentioning garments at all is to accentuate the

ways different pieces look on her young, beautiful, nymphic body. We can see a

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demonstration of that in several different passages, such as: “I felt the heat of her limbs

through her rough tomboy clothes” (32), or: “She was all rose and honey, dressed in her

brightest gingham, with a pattern of little red apples, and her arms and legs were of a

deep golden brown, with scratches like tiny dotted lines of coagulated rubies” (79).

Sometimes his descriptions of clothes are paired up with words expressing a more

explicit sexual undertone and thus serve as instruments for Humbert to explain his

desire for Lolita’s physicality. He mentions: “Full-skirted gingham frock. Her little

doves seem well formed already. Precocious pet!” (33) Later he speaks about buying

her pieces of clothing called “swooners” (102), a word that could not be found in any

dictionary and is thus one of many that Nabokov made up while writing his novel. One

of its interpretation may be that “Humbert is playing with the English language and with

the idea and appearance of school girls’ garments. There are no garments called

swooners, but Humbert’s list of purchases includes “shorts” and “all kinds of summer

frocks,” some or all of which Humbert finds sexy. In other words, garments to swoon

over if one is a pedophile with a fancy prose style” (Brown). Stemming from these

examples, one starts to see the crucial difference between the way Nabokov engages

clothes in the text and the way they may be differently perceived as a way of expressing

oneself, as fashion items with power to define the person without saying anything.

6.1 WESTERN PERCEPTIO N

6.1.1. INSPIRATION I N MUSIC AND CINEMATO GRAPHY

As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the Western perception of Lolita-

inspired fashion trends is predominantly oriented towards the two adaptations directed

by Stanley Kubrick and Adrian Lyne which therefore serve as major visual role-models

for perceiving the way Lolita looks like not solely in the fashion industry but also in a
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more general sense of the Western society’s mindset. One of the most popular and one

could even say a “statement object” representing Lolita in today’s Western fashion are

definitely red heart-shaped sunglasses, already spoken about in the previous chapters in

regard to Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation as well as Lana Del Rey’s style. The trend

originally portrayed on the poster for Kubrick’s film adaptation spread through various

media over the time. As the novel as well as its adaptations became more and more

popular, it also became profitable for the designers and fashion producers to transform

Lolita into wearable, and most importantly sellable, set of objects, which would in some

way represent the story, and would thus be appealing for its fans to buy. Kubrick’s

heart-shaped glasses that do not originate in Nabokov’s Lolita thus became a recreation

of the adaptation, being in a sense further from the work itself, yet representing it in its

newly established ways. Wearing the heart-shaped glasses gradually interested not only

regular people, but also celebrities like Pixie Lott, Katy Perry, Paris Hilton (Arthurs), or

even the American rapper Snoop Dogg. The so-called “look of love” (Arthurs) these

sunglasses expressed when worn was then also a sign of sexual suggestion. An image

with the glasses rather than without them, can thus today be considered by some as

inappropriate and obscene. The sunglasses themselves are not at the center of attention

in the discussion, and neither are any of the other particular products representing Lolita

in today’s world of style and fashion. It is rather the impact it may have on the thinking

of its wearers, or from a different perspective, the ones that perceive them.

Focusing on the younger group of people, one may find out that in individual

cases, the perception of wearing a Lolita-inspired fashion may vary significantly from

the ones that, for instance, the adult people have. A trend that has emerged especially in

the latest few years is the interest of this community of young girls in the visual and

stylistic aesthetics of Lolita, and in the portrayal of Dominique Swain in Adrian Lyne’s

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adaptation in particular. These group of girls can be found on various social media, such

as Tumblr, where they share either the dreamed Lolita outfits they crave for, or the

photos of them wearing these garments. The social platform that got my special

attention in regard to examining this issue is YouTube, where, especially in the recent

years, young people have started to set up channels through which they present certain

aspects of their lives. I chose several of the users whose channels are interested

particularly in Lolita-inspired fashion, or on “being Lolitas” themselves. For the

purposes of the analysis, the videos on YouTube serve as a great interest and an

advantage mainly due to their audiovisual nature and thus a very different presentation

of content than in photographs. Some of the aspects, as I found are thus better traceable

and more straight-forwardly interpreted in the form of video.

A 15-year-old youtuber Bethany Leigh uploaded a video called “Lolita

LookBook” where she presents the clothes she wears as a Lolita and the way she styles

them. It presents various patterned mini dresses, high-waisted shorts and skirts,

bralettes, and knee-socks, all very much reminding the 1950s-inspired fashion pieces

that Dominique Swain wears in the film adaptation. To complete the look of what today

might be regarded a “perfect pop-cultural Lolita”, Leigh wears various braided

hairstyles inspired by Swain and, of course, Sue Lyon’s heart-shaped glasses. The

individual hairstyles, either the most iconic braid crown or braid buns are covered by

many other youtubers in separate videos, such as “Lolita Hair&Makeup” by

Icashbeauty. Although she does not claim the source to be the book or either of the

adaptations in particular, one can kind of trace the inspiration from the film adaptations

to be most noticeable, and probably Adrian Lyne’s version of Lolita in particular is the

one Leigh wished to somehow recreate or, because it is her wearing the clothes in the

real life, to impersonate. In her “Lolita LookBook” she also herself recreated some of

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the concrete scenes from the film, such as Lolita lying down biting the apple, Lolita

swinging on a swing in the garden, and even includes some of the original film scenes

in between her own shots. The importance is also put on the recreation of specific body

moves that may more specifically be marked as childlike. In Lolita, Humbert talks about

“her legs carelessly highcrossed” (100) and describes the way “she had always been

singularly absentminded, or shameless, or both, in matters of legshow” (88). Both in

Lyne’s adaptation as well as in Leigh’s nymphet-like videos, this described way of

perhaps showing too much of the body simply because of the child’s unawareness of the

presence of a potential sexual subtext.

The discussed youtuber Bethany Leigh, is however only a mere fraction of those

that can be found online. Users such as SoBeautifulSoInsane, alittleless.sixteencandles,

or Nico Fawn are some examples of the others that offer content and fashion almost

completely identical to Leigh and one another. Many of the videos, such as in the case

of Leigh and Fawn, are even paired with the musical background of Lana Del Rey’s

songs appropriating Lolita. While they present the fashion items, she sings: “You can be

the boss, daddy / You can be the boss” (Lana Del Rey – You Can Be The Boss), or:

“My daddy’s in the trunk of his brand new truck / I really want him back, but I’m flat

outta luck” (Lana Del Rey – Kinda Outta Luck). In some cases, these girls even use

songs not necessarily connected to Lolita such as “This Is What Makes Us Girls”,

however, with Lana Del Rey being the biggest Lolita icon in the sphere of music

industry, it eventually creates a match simply because of her voice and fame.

The aspects that girls inspired by these fashion trends focus predominantly on

are those accentuating Lolita’s cuteness, childish clumsiness, but also in certain ways

femininity that may by a perverted male gaze be regarded as provocative and “sexy”.

There are several possible theories for which these specific aspects being or not in the

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center of the wearer’s attention. Firstly, there is generally not very many fashion trends

for young girls, whose origin lies in a specific piece of literature, a film, or a famous

icon. Secondly, one may argue that despite that being true, the fashion, as one may see,

appropriates the novel thematically, rather than visually. What nevertheless is still

present and in many cases crucial for young girl’s connection to fashion trends is the

glorified well-known identity of a non-traditional girl that it offers them to embody. The

reason behind the visual inspiration being drawn predominantly from the film

adaptations or perhaps the aesthetics of Lana Del Rey’s style, which are inevitably

connected with the films as well, may eventually be simpler to follow than expected.

Fashion, as a way of expressing one’s style or even personality by the choice of clothes,

is virtually inseparable from the visual aspect that the form bears in itself. Being both

visual, the journey from film to fashion is easier and thus also more expected to be

established, especially when compared to the inspiration being drawn from written

media such as literary works. After all, a similar process happens with many film

characters portraying iconic personalities, yet they are only rarely children of Lolita’s

age. Therefore, despite Nabokov sporadically describing fashion items in his novel, for

the reader or people drawing fashion inspiration from it, it is oftentimes the specific

themes, or the essence of the book that gets appropriated, rather than the author’s

specific words being transformed into clothes.

6.1.2 SEXUAL FIXATION AND THE BIRTH OF NYMPH

In regard to appropriation of the novel’s thematics and more particularly the

relationship dynamics of Humbert and Lolita, this set of fashion trends serves yet

another purpose. Young girls or women that are a part of the relationship paradigm of a

submissive girl and a dominant older man sometimes consider embracing this type of

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fashion as adequate for the expression of their Lolita-like girly, childish, yet seductive

selves. A youtuber called Nico Fawn, a 19-year-old, introduces her channel as:

“Welcome to my channel! I’m a nymphet and a little. Most videos are DDLG33 and

nymphet related” (Nico Fawn). In her videos she talks about stuffed animals, her love

for “anything that is small and sweet” (DDLG/LITTLE TAG 3:00) and she also

mentions her way of relating to Disney’s Peter Pan for never wanting to grow up. As

she mentions in one of her videos, she embodies the mindset of a 6-year-old child, thus

the fashion items she wears are only an outer representation of what she already feels

like mentally. With her desire to never actually grow up and be little and sweet forever,

she gets somewhat closer to the non-Western understanding of being Lolita.

According to the Western perception of the Lolita-inspired fashion while bearing

in mind the relationship dynamics of people impersonating the mentioned DDLG

structure, the fashion trends that one may examine here appropriate exactly the

dynamics of Humbert and Lolita’s relationship described in the book rather than the

actual fashion that Nabokov mentions throughout the novel. When Humbert describes

Lolita’s clothes, he pays attention to the way they work in connection to her body. The

primary interest of his thus is her physicality, rather than the particular shapes, colors, or

materials – features vital for the fashion expression. Moreover, because of the shift in

media from a non-visual to a visual one, the expression of girlishness connected with

cuteness and sexiness, which are aspects important for portraying these dynamics, and

which Nabokov’s Humbert expresses verbally, are here expressed with the help of the

fashion items themselves representing such features in the modern viewer’s perception.

A crucial aspect to consider when examining these videos are the frequent

occasions of using the term “nymphet”, and especially of the above-quoted Nico Fawn,

33
“Daddy Dom / Little Girl. DDLG, or dd/lg, is a relationship in which one person is the caregiver or
“daddy” and the other is childlike” (Urban Dictionary).
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who calls herself a nymphet and identifies with it. Although the original nymph and

nymphet are different terms in regard to their usage in Greek mythology and in

Nabokov’s Lolita, their definitions are connected and using the latter still brings out

connotations to the former. Humbert’s understanding of a “nymphet” definitely is

personalized and is modified for applying in the context of real world rather than the

mythic world of gods, goddesses and immortal beings. However, the mythic nature of a

nymphet is comparable to the one that a nymph represents. A nymph, existing within

the world of Greek mythology is divine, fairy-like, and by nature both mortal and

immortal, which makes her special. A nymphet, as understood by Humbert, is a girl

existing within the fictional version of real world of Nabokov’s book, therefore is real

and mortal. However, despite the girl herself being a real human being, her nymphic

nature is only assigned to her by her male counterpart, which makes her an “immortal

nymphet” in his own mind. The consideration of Nico Fawn’s nymphic existence is

rather different. In the eyes of her male counterpart and within the partner paradigm, her

nymphic nature definitely exists. When it comes to the mentioned Nico Fawn, as well as

to others wearing the fashion described, she is a nymphet in her own eyes, which alters

the nymphic archetype as known from mythology and Nabokov. Such condition also

naturally changes the roles assigned to the partners of the mythic paradigm. While there,

the power of seeing a nymph, hunting her and making her to enchant is the role of the

male, and in Nabokov the whole existence of a nymphet is completely unknown to the

girl herself existing solely in the male’s head, in this case the nymphet is the one

assigning this nature to herself and is also the one to acknowledge it. That, on one hand,

may be perceived as empowering, giving the girl the choice to see her for what she

wants to be, rather than giving this power to a man. On the other, it may also be seen as

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a new concept completely distinct from the archetype of nymph, whose understanding is

separated from the girl and exists on the abstract level exclusively.

6.2 NON-WESTERN PERCE PTION

Moving to a different way of perceiving what a Lolita-inspired fashion may look like or

how it may be understood, one moves to a whole different part of the globe to observe

it. Lolita fashion in Japan is unlike the one in Western countries always referred to as

“Lolita fashion” or “Japanese Lolita fashion” which then serve as terms which in either

of these forms is always particularly connected to the non-Western perception. The

fashion has existed for almost 40 years now with its first appearance in the late 1970s

(Younker). “[It] is a product of traditional Japanese culture, Western influence, and

modern Japanese pop and youth culture” (MementoMorie). When speaking about the

Western influence as quoted, what the author means is primarily the Western Victorian

fashion and historical Rococo, rather than the Western influence of Nabokov’s novel

that is examined further. Apart from being a fashion trend, Lolita fashion in Japan is

also perceived as a street-style subculture, which “expresses unique customs,

sensibilities and norms through dress and external presentation” (MementoMorie) that

thus naturally entails not only the side dealing with one’s appearance, but also certain

ways of living and the inclusion into a community creating the subculture. Simply

explained, a typical Lolita that one may have a chance to meet in Japan is “an adult

woman, usually in her late teens or early twenties, dressed like a doll” (Younker).

However, as Younker points out in her research, Lolitas in their middle ages are also not

that rare to find. In a more detailed description, this fashion trend presents fashion items

of an “extremely feminine appearance, usually including a bell-shaped skirt, frilly

blouse and headwear, and Mary Jane shoes” (MementoMorie).

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6.2.1 ORIGINS AND A DENIAL OF NABOKOV

With the choice of clothes resembling neither Nabokov’s Lolita not any of its

adaptations, one may ask why is this fashion trend and subculture being called “Lolita”.

Although many scholars dealing with its connection to the Vladimir Nabokov’s novel,

such as the quoted Younker, Atkinson, or Hinton seem to be deeply interested in the

topic, they deny the existence of any ties between Nabokov’s novel and Lolita fashion,

however, without offering any constructive counterarguments backing their critique.

The only statements that thus can be found regarding the trend name’s origin are non-

confirming non-contradicting vague statements such as “This is the real mystery here!”,

or “To an extent, it very well might have been [named by Nabokov’s novel]”

(FYeahLolita). In regard to the lack of relevant sources tracking the trend name’s origin,

the focus of this subchapter is not necessarily to prove the opposite to what these

scholars claim. The importance is put rather on the ability to find connection points and

thus acknowledge either visual or thematic similarities between Japanese Lolita fashion

and Nabokov’s Lolita.

The central thematic idea driving the ways aesthetics of this trend are formed is

the glorification of childish cuteness – “kawaii” in Japanese. Younker describes the

focus of this trend as emphasizing “the innocence, vulnerability, [and] sweetness” and

besides the cute girlish Victorian-inspired dresses they wear, this nature is also

expressed by a set of different objects such as pink hair bows, sippy cups, cookies,

teddy bears, tea sets, and many other objects completing their looks and reminding them

of a happy, even dreamy childhood. Younker points out that “cute” “has become the

new byword for Japanese culture” that screams at you from literally everywhere. In

reference to the earlier discussed, the imagery of the Lolita fashion best relates to the

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appearance as well as some of the lyrics of Melanie Martinez, who embraces Lolita in

both this cute Japanese way as well as more sexual Westernized perception. When it

comes to the self-expression, verbal or musical, Japanese Lolita, like Melanie Martinez

as well as Lana Del Rey, speaks in a nasal, high-pitched voice (Younker) and thus

adopts the way of speaking similar to a child. One of the reasons for scholars defending

Japanese Lolita by praising its separateness from Nabokov, is for them the

disconnection of the cute aspect playing a central role, from Nabokov’s sexualized little

girl. For understanding the accentuation of the “cute” element and more generally the

adult women trying to relive their childhood, is vital for understanding their purpose of

doing so. In Japan, the popularization of Lolita trend and subculture is directly

connected to the worsening in economic situation oftentimes referred to as the “post-

bubble Japan”, where young women, usually fresh university graduates, suddenly could

not find a stable employment and started drifting between “insecure” part-time jobs or

even stayed living with relatives regarded as some sort of “parasites” (Atkinson 20).

The adulthood, even though for most of these individuals only recently reached, thus

instantly became a burden, a stage of life marked with its inadaptability to their lives.

“This empty existence, created not only by the pressure to consume, but also through

the uncertainty that marked the lives of young people [drove them] to long for a place in

their childhoods that never actually existed” (Atkinson 31). The non-existence of the

childhood period these girls tried to relive was not marked by doing things or wearing

things that could not actually exist, however, it was rather an attempt to relive

something perfected. Thus if what these girls are doing is reliving a period of life they

are not socially expected to live at their age, they preferred to yield most out of the

experience. As Younker points out, “the reality is that Lolitas do not really care about

the authenticity of their nostalgia. They are dressing up to create a world they imagine

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to be happier than the real one” and because childhood for many is the life period where

one is taken care of, where one finds it appropriate to act carelessly, it became not only

ideological but also aesthetic source for the Lolita fashion. The embodiment of Japanese

Lolita’s childishness also gives these women a chance for “harnessing things that

society tends to look down on or deride as trivial – cuteness, girls’ culture, and the

feminine realm” (MementoMorie) and thus adds a positive feminist sense to the trend.

Compared to the perception of childhood as presented in Nabokov’s Lolita, it

seems rather interesting to observe the disparities and how they work out within the

given context. For Nabokov’s Lolita, the childhood in many ways means entrapment.

She hates being controlled by her mother and being told what to do, and generally

Nabokov accentuates the negative aspects of being a child rather than the positive ones.

Later, because of her frustration, the shift from childhood to adulthood and sexual

engagement with Humbert may seem expected and may also be a reason for a portion of

the audience to see Lolita in negative connotations of what happened to her in the story.

However, even though the perception of childhood within the context of Japanese Lolita

fashion is radically different, there is an important similarity between these different

understandings. That lies in the way of overlapping these differentiating stages of life

and is at the same time one of the most important features connecting Lolita fashion

with Nabokov’s Lolita. In both of these concepts, the participants view a certain stage

of life, whether already lived through or not, as a glorified version of it. The vision

seems more natural in the case of Nabokov’s Lolita, when fantasizing about future may

take dreamy or unrealistic turns, since anything in the future is understandably

considered uncertain. In case of Lolita fashion, the process is seemingly oriented

towards the past, which makes it seem stranger. When thinking of it as not of a past

experience, but rather an imaginary fantasy about a stage of life different from the one

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currently finding oneself in, about “a childhood that never belonged to them”

(Younker), the analogy might make more sense. As also Younker points out, Japanese

Lolita creates an “imaginary persona for herself where she is free from the pressures of

adult life.”

6.2.2 LOLITA COMPLEX

A phenomenon that followed the ongoing comparisons between Nabokov’s Lolita and

Japanese Lolita fashion led to many discussions and disputes over what is true, and

eventually led to an emergence of a phenomenon called Lolita complex demarked as

“rorikon” in Japanese (Atkinson xxxii). Lolita complex’s existence stems from the fact

of different interpretations of Lolita fashion and aspects related to it by the Western and

non-Western audience. The issue had was not at the center of attention until the aspects

of Lolita fashion started to be infiltrated into Western cultures perceiving it differently

than it was in Japan. Nowadays, many people in Western countries are familiar with the

Lolita fashion, particularly the United States, and one can find both its wearers and

observers. Because of a different moral and social backgrounds, and importantly also a

prior knowledge of Lolita concept being inseparable from Nabokov, many people from

Western countries ultimately understand the fashion trend differently. Lolita fashion

presents fashion pieces that are both very cute and childish, however, many of the skirts

and dresses are also very short, such as “the characteristic Japanese girl’s sailor-style

school uniform, which allows for occasional panty flashes” (Allison). The idea of

cuteness and its connection to childhood thus gets transformed into the sexualized idea

of a little girl. As Atkinson claims, “one way Lolitas are criticized, more specifically

within Anglo-American scholarship, is through wearing childlike feminine clothing.

Within Anglo-American society, childlike clothing is often associated with the

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sexualized male gaze and the Lolita complex” (xxxii). The scholars describing the

Lolita fashion on the opposite side of the spectrum tend to disagree with the Western

understanding of sexualizing Lolita fashion and claim that, “the Western representation

reflects its own cultural anxieties rather than being contained within the Japanese

cultural products” (Atkinson 55). Although what Atkinson claims is most certainly

right, reflecting one’s own cultural, social, or moral background into the works a person

encounters in any way represents the basis of any process of cultural appropriation.

With that, these differences refer back to the thoughts of Harold Bloom and his

“misprision” as space in which an individual cannot help appropriating as well as being

considered a thief of culture, or Kwame Anthony Appiah’s thought about usefulness of

different cultures viewed as separate entities. Younker draws a rigid line between two

takes on Lolita fashion, which “in the United States refers to a pre-pubescent vamp,

while in Japan refers to an adult who wishes to remain pure and child-like” (Younker).

The author uses these differences as grounds for her assumptions that the only aspect

making people connecting these two different Lolitas together is, in fact, its name. Prior

to that in the same work she quotes a 2006 research suggesting “that cute images

stimulate the same pleasure centers of the brain aroused by sex, a good meal or

psychoactive drugs like cocaine” (Younker). Taking that into consideration, Western

obsession with a precociously adult Lolita and the non-Western obsession with her cute

and pure counterpart, may share more similarities than first assumed.

The ultimate place where Japanese Lolita’s childishly cute fashion and

appearance unites with her sexual provocativeness are manga and anime – comics and

animations originating in Japan. It was predominantly these media, which after having

“entered the Western mainstream media in the early 1990s” (Hinton 55) gradually

became the source for not only fashion and aesthetic inspiration of many young girls

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and women, but also certain ways of interpreting them. Hinton points out that even

though anime imported into the West, the United Kingdom particularly, shortly became

unfavorable due to its “association […] with sexual violence against women and girls,”

it remained popular and predominantly the sex-themed pieces kept on being imported.

Much like the perception of Nabokov’s Lolita and its appropriations originating in the

West, the Japanese Lolitas also became in many cases objects of judgement. “The one

area that has caused the greatest concern amongst the Western media has been around

the depiction of ‘underage’ girls in sexual situations” (Hinton 56). Hinton reminds that

for the relationship dynamics of Lolita and Humbert, there has to be an older man with

an erotic interest in a young girl. He argues that although a large portion of the Western

audience may regard these women dressed in Lolita fashion as underage girls due to

their lack of knowledge of Japanese culture as well as their “corrupted perception”, they

“are actually 18 or 19 year-old high school girls” (Hinton 56). Further on he explains:

[In many cases the] character may appear to be a very cute teenage
school girl – and hence potentially a Lolita-esque character – […] the
meaning of Lolita (a young girl associated with sexuality and an older
man) becomes problematic if the key feature of the story is that the […]
character is in reality a 200-year-old demon princess, an alien creature of
indeterminate age and gender, or a robot just created in a laboratory.
(Hinton 56)

He thus implies that regardless of what age these characters seem to be judged by their

visual appearance, the attention must be paid to the fact that they are not only fictional,

but also unrealistic and out of this world. The element of fantasy is thus used as a

defense against people potentially comparing these characters and their partners to

Lolita and Humbert-like types of relationship. Coming back to the mythic nymph of the

ancient Greece, she is described as a divine creature with a nature of both goddess and a

mortal person. They are embodiments of passivity until their male counterparts make

them the enchantresses. Like most mythical beings originating in Greek mythology,

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nymphs and their characteristics do not resemble anything one may find in the real

world. In Nabokov’s novel, though Lolita is a real existing girl within the story’s world,

her nymphic nature only exists in Humbert’s fantasy. Therefore, the fact that some of

the Lolita-esque characters in Japanese anime are a product of fantasy and have

supernatural characteristics such as a girl trapped in a young-looking Lolita-like body

for 200 years as quoted, does not prevent the viewer from seeing the characters as being

a part of the mythological as well as Nabokovian partner paradigm.

Apart from the situation where Lolita’s fantastic nature does not necessarily

need to be an obstacle, but rather an element that may connect the two perceptions

together, what further connects them is its position within the the different industries

placing them into the regular viewer’s scope of interest. The dynamics of the

relationship between the Western industries ensuring Lolitas are at the center of

attention, which include advertisement as well as fashion, and Lolitas themselves are in

many ways similar to those between a nymphet and her male counterpart. The

advertising industry consciously places young girls or women into their ads and all over

mass media, the entertainment industries consciously import the specific sexually-

themed Japanese anime into the West, as well as the fashion industry exploits such

actions and uses them for importing and selling the Japanese Lolita fashion clothes. As

a reaction, mostly previously anticipated, these appropriations of Lolita imbedded into

the mainstream culture cause controversies because of their nature of sexualizing young

girls. Similarly as the nymphet seemingly enchanting the male and making him the

passive victim, Lolitas appropriated by the mainstream media are also often seen as the

“bad” ones, and eventually the target of the possible hate and judgement. Although

Hinton concludes by saying that the “key point in the examination of the Lolita complex

is that the term ‘Lolita’ itself is not a fixed and unambiguous term,” (56) the kind of

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ambiguity that he proposes is still merely an ambiguity of the term used, rather than the

ambiguity of having certain shared characteristics that may either originate in

Nabokov’s Lolita or in the mythological relationship construct of nymph as the

enchantress and her male counterpart as the self-proclaimed victim.

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7 CONCLUSION

The thesis’s main focus was directed towards the exploration of various spheres of

cultural and artistic representations of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita primarily within the

socio-cultural context of the United States, however including several artworks,

concepts and trends from another parts of the world as well. The research focused

primarily on the artists appropriating Lolita and thus borrowing a certain part – a theme,

a passage of the text, a visual from one of the film adaptations – and through their own

personal view and sense recreating the artworks into something new. The study of the

process of appropriation offers the researcher to find out the nature of a personal input

that an author gives into the work, and based on that to explore different ways of

reception of Nabokov’s novel, but also in order to observe different ways the ancient

myth of a nymph translates into the contemporary culture. On the basis of such analysis,

one can research further and learn about the whole cultural history of a particular artistic

work, whether the focus of the observation is on cross-spatial or cross-temporal

development.

The goal of this thesis was to focus the analysis on the works of artists produced

in the 21st century. The reason for that was predominantly to focus on the element of

contemporariness connected to fame and popularity through the artworks easily

accessible not only to scholars or art seekers, but also to the masses. The aspect of

popularity is important mainly because many works falling into the group of popular art

often get undermined because of its lack of depth, or lack of executive quality. The

works designated by such labels are thus considered as a part of the “low culture” that

exists, but generally not the group of works considered as the one helping to form

people’s opinion. One of the outcomes of this thesis’s analysis is the fact that even

appropriations which simplify the original source and reduce it to the obvious minimum
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can – as a reaction – have much bigger scope of influence in the society. To reach the

masses, the fact of being popular and well-known helps it a great deal. Therefore, rather

than letting the audience look for them in various institutions such as libraries or

galleries, these works attract the masses themselves. The power of such works,

especially when being directly connected to a novel so well-known as Nabokov’s

Lolita, can be immense. In this way these appropriations can influence people’s

perceptions and opinions on different matters, as well as may be at the onset of creating

something new and thus participate in the further cultural development.

In my thesis I have designated several different thematic areas that keep on

being connected with Lolita and later infiltrated the actual appropriations. From the

most obvious ones, such as a connection to pedophilia, and conflicts of moral values,

which have been topic of discussions related to Lolita for many decades, to the themes

that could not be found in the adaptations and appropriations earlier, at least not very

frequently, but are more and more emerging now. The most vital theme of this category

is the orientation toward Lolita as a girl, and as a human being possessing not only body

but also mind. That means that through the lens of many of the contemporary

appropriations, Lolita is no longer viewed merely as a distanced fairytale-like being that

her male counterpart creates. Because of that the topics that are directly and personally

related to her character, for instance, the struggle of balancing on the line between

childhood and adulthood, as a major theme referred to in the appropriations, gets

addressed. Closely related to that, one can also observe Lolita through the lens of

feminist theory as an empowered young girl, or a woman, depicting her struggles of

being under control of a man, desiring to achieve the state of freedom. By presenting

Lolita in this way, many of the appropriations give her a new voice different from the

one under the male’s regime. Under such circumstances, the character of Lolita in these

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appropriations thus goes against her archetypal nymphic origin, destroys its patriarchal

notions and introduces a whole new world in which she is the central figure. Moreover,

it challenges the roles within the partner paradigm of Lolita and her male counterpart, as

well as in more general sense, the position of a woman in a society.

The scope of the research encompassed by this thesis is naturally limited not

only by the space given, but also by the particular goals set for it to achieve. The

cultural analysis provided in this thesis is narrowed to the focus on contemporary

popular culture in particular. A major purpose behind this choice is closely related to the

two most traditional media which are used for adapting and appropriating, perhaps, the

most often – cinematography and literature. Even though there are films, short stories,

or even poems inspired by Nabokov’s Lolita, these fields had already been researched

numerous times more than areas such as music, advertising, or fashion, and thus serve

as a target for scholars and academics much more frequently. Nevertheless, it would

certainly be impressive to further complete this research by an expanded part perhaps

comparing the way Lolita, the girl’s image and novel’s thematics are portrayed in the

more traditional adaptation media. For this thesis, however, a specific focus on the

popular media and culture is essential not exclusively for its points at particular themes

included and expressed by the analyzed appropriations of Lolita. The major reason is

also to raise the awareness of these kinds of media, their great level of closeness to the

majority of population in many parts of the world, and for some, maybe still a hidden

but immense potential for influencing, inspiring, changing and creating.

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RESUMÉ (ENGLISH)

The main aim of this thesis is to provide a cultural analysis of Vladimir Nabokov’s

famous novel Lolita. Since the book was first published in 1955, it has not only

attracted many readers, but also a number of artists creating their works in various fields

of art. The work quickly began to serve as an inspiration for various adaptations and

appropriations. The main aim of this thesis is to focus on the contemporary

appropriations of Lolita created in the 21st century. The thesis is introduced by a

theoretical background presenting the thoughts and theories of several scholars from the

field of adaptation, appropriation, reception studies, and mythology such as Linda

Hutcheon, Julie Sanders, Janet Staiger, and Claude Lévi-Strauss. Then before the thesis

moves to its main body, the next chapter briefly introduces both film adaptation of

Lolita, which are further referenced in the next chapters. The works encompassed in the

main body of the thesis are divided into three main chapters according to the media that

they are appropriated in as well as the mode of engagement that they use. First, the

thesis focuses on the appropriations in the music industry and includes the works of

Lana Del Rey, Alizée, Melanie Martinez, Marilyn Manson, and Sia. The second main

chapter focuses on the appropriation of Lolita in the sphere of advertising and thus

focuses on various objects of promotion such as film posters, book covers, or Lolita

becoming an inspiration for fragrances. The last chapter introduces the appropriations of

Lolita in fashion industry with the focus on Western and non-Western perception of

what a Lolita-inspired fashion means. In the individual analyses, the research focuses on

the recurring themes or parts of the novel referenced in the appropriation. Moreover, the

thesis also focuses on the popular nature of the chosen works and tries to observe what

kind of impact their popularity has on the observer’s perception of the representation of

the novel as well as the character of Lolita.

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RESUMÉ (CZECH)

Hlavním cílem této práce je poskytnutí kulturní analýzy slavného románu Vladimíra

Nabokova – Lolity. Od doby, kdy byla kniha poprvé vydána v roce 1955, upoutala

nejen mnoho čtenářů, ale i celou řadu dalších umělců působících v různých oblastech

umění. Práce se rychle stala častou inspirací pro nejrůznější adaptace a apropriace.

Hlavním cílem této práce je zaměření na současné apropriace Lolity vytvořené v 21.

století. Práce je započata teoretickým základem představujícím myšlenky a teorie

několika vědců z oblasti adaptace, apropriace, studii recepcí a mytologií jako jsou Linda

Hutcheon, Julie Sanders, Janet Staiger, a Claude Lévi-Strauss. Ještě před uvedením

jádra práce jsou v další kapitole stručně představeny filmové adaptace Lolity, na které je

pak odkazováno v dalších kapitolách. Práce zahrnuté v hlavní části práce jsou rozděleny

do tří hlavních kapitol podle médií, ve kterých jsou apropriace vytvořeny, jakož i

způsob angažovanosti, který tyto média používají. V první z kapitol se práce zaměřuje

na apropriace v hudebním průmyslu a zahrnuje díla Lany Del Rey, Alizée, Melanie

Martinez, Marilyna Mansona a Sie. Druhá z hlavních kapitol se zaměřuje na apropriace

Lolity v oblasti reklamy a tudíž se zajímá o různé předměty propagace jako jsou

filmové plakáty, obaly knih, nebo postavu Lolity stávající se inspirací pro tvorbu

parfémů. Poslední z hlavních kapitol představuje apropriace Lolity v módním průmyslu

s rozlišením na západní a nezápadní vnímání toho, co móda inspirovaná Lolitou

představuje. Výzkum v jednotlivých analýzách popsaných kapitol je zaměřen na

pozorování opakujících se témat nebo částí románu zmiňovaných v apropriacích, a

taktéž na sledování populárního charakteru vybraných děl a způsoby, jakými má tato

popularita dopad na pozorovatele vnímajícího nejen znázornění románu, ale rovněž i

samotnou postavu Lolity.

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ATTACHMENTS

1. Lana Del Rey portraying Lolita

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2. Melanie Martinez styled in Japanese Lolita fashion in the music video for her song
“Carousel”

3. Evan Rachel Wood portraying Lolita in the music video for Marilyn Manson’s song
“Heart Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)”

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4. Official poster for the premiere of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Lolita in
1962

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5. Official poster for the premiere of Adrian Lyne’s film adaptation of Lolita in 1997

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6. Official poster for the Italian premiere of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of
Lolita

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7. Bartosz Kosowski’s poster for Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Lolita made in
2014

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8. Book cover for the Turkish translation of Lolita

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9. Book cover for Lolita designed by Jamie Keenan

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10. Book cover for Lolita designed by Peter Mendelsund

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11. Advertisement for Marc Jacobs’s perfume “Oh Lola” with Dakota Fanning
(photograph taken by Juergen Teller)

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12. Heart-shaped glasses with packaging as designed and sold by Moschino

131