“Betty Boop is one of the
most enduring and glamorous
sex symbols our time.
You will be relieved when
you can see your favorites.”

Leave it to Korean stationery to attempt an upheaval of beauty and social standards. Take this buxom, red-lipsticked, lascivious hitchhiker. She and her pixie cut may appear to be offering nothing but a near peek at her goodies, but really, she is shouting, “Enough of the rail-thin, straight-permed, modest, Oppa-please-take-care-of-me women! Give us curvy, independent hussies (see last issue) with cropped coifs who don’t mind taking rides from strangers!”

Calling the character a “glamorous sex symbol of our time,” the proprietor of this stationery company also writes, “You will be relieved when you can see your favorites,” tempting us to join its praise of the bootyful and hooker-heeled. It’s hard not to buy into the propaganda, especially when the model used has an especially large head, aiding many of us in identifying with this woman and contemplating throwing old body image ideals out the door.

SOURCE: Spiral notebook by Ccolzzi