The popular 1907–9 American newspaper comic strip character Fluffy Ruffles was an iconic embodiment of contemporary American femininity between the eras of the Gibson Girl and the later flapper and “it” girl. This article discusses Fluffy Ruffles as a popular phenomenon and incarnation of anxieties about women in the workplace, and how she underwent a metamorphosis in the European press, as preexisting ideas of American youth, wealth, and liberty were grafted onto her character. A decade after her debut in the newspapers, two films—Augusto Genina's partially extant Miss Cyclone (La signorina Ciclone,1916), and Alfredo Robert's lost Miss Fluffy Ruffles (1918)—brought her to the Italian screen. This article looks at how the character was interpreted by Suzanne Armelle and Fernanda Negri Pouget, respectively, drawing on advertisements and the other performances of Negri Pouget to reconstruct the latter. The article is illustrated with drawings and collages based on the author's research.
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Spring 2017
Research Article|
April 01 2017
From the New York Herald to the Italian screen: Fluffy Ruffles, la donna americana
Katherine Frances Nagels
Katherine Frances Nagels
Katherine Frances Nagels is an audiovisual preservationist and web developer based in Wellington, New Zealand.
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Feminist Media Histories (2017) 3 (2): 175–193.
Citation
Katherine Frances Nagels; From the New York Herald to the Italian screen: Fluffy Ruffles, la donna americana. Feminist Media Histories 1 April 2017; 3 (2): 175–193. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2017.3.2.175
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