I was sad to read of the recent passing of Diana Rigg. I’m sure a lot of my more mature readers will know her from her iconic role as Emma Peel in the Avengers. She was a 60’s fashion icon, bringing an edge of fetish into the mainstream. Her career was long and varied, with roles ranging from the gun toting Emma Peel to Shakespeare, and from marrying James Bond to hanging out with Kermit. More recently she was Emmy nominated for playing Olenna Tyrell in GoT.
There was no shortage of images I could have used for this post. There’s the iconic catsuit, the minimal super spy look, the 70’s jumpsuit and whatever the hell is going on here. In the end I went with a publicity shot from the movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It might not have been the best Bond movie, but this shot is beautiful. Thanks for everything Diana.
‘Whatever the hell is going on there’ is ‘A touch of brimstone’, the most fetishest episode ever of the original Avengers, in which the dynamic duo investigate a modern-day Hellfire Club and the saintly Diana ends up dressed as ‘The Queen of Sin’, wielding a whip.
The fetish element of the Avengers was quite deliberate, apparently. I read Patrick MacNee’s autobigraphy and he describes meeting a “Belted Earl” (oo-err !) who explains to him the delights of being whacked with a cane and reveals himself to be wearing drawing pin-studded leather underwear. And that particular episode was apparently the most-watched in history, which suggests that the Belted Earl was onto something there.
I had somehow found out about it when a teenager and (lacking a video player) I watched every week when Channel 4 reran the whole series. I did not know the name of episode or anything much about it except the crucial fact that it ended up with Diana in a spiked collar wielding a whip (younger readers, pre-Internet one could simply ‘not know’ things like that and have no obvious way of finding out). So each week I would be hoping desperately this one was it, eager for clues as to the likelihood of it (episodes set in submarine bases and suchlike were fairly obviously unpromising from the start, ones set in spooky old houses could retain the chance until nearly the end).
Of course, Diana was very watchable even when ‘only’ wearing a catsuit (or just for her voice and facial expressions, which for me define how a dominatrix should behave – amused half-smile and effortless superiority). Honor Blackman too, of course… less so the one who played Tara King, I am afraid.
And MacNee and the plots were worth watching too, which is just as well given how many episodes were not ‘A touch of Brimstone’.
I can definitely relate to the pre-VHS days of desperately hoping for a particular show or episode to show up and then frequently being disappointed. I remember watching what was probably the same Ch 4 run of the Avengers that you were watching, although fortunately I knew nothing about this episode. If I had I think the tensions each time might have been unbearable! I can just imagine the young Servitor’s frustration as they investigated stolen submarines or hidden missile bases. :-).
-paltego
I remember seeing this show when I was very young — probably 6 years old or so — during its original run here in the states. The campy Batman series was on at roughly the same time, with Catwoman, Batgirl, etc.
They actually had an episode about a female supremacist movement that was taking over the world, under the direction of a shadowy leader who issued her commands through a ventriloquist dummy. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen it, and I could be wrong here, but I think the twist was that the dummy was operated by a man. Which kind of makes sense — I have the impression that most female supremacist organizations with manifestos were created by men.
http://theavengers.tv/forever/peel1-25.htm
I’m pretty sure they knew what they were doing. In fact, I think the Hellfire outfit you mentioned was actually designed by Rigg. Wikipedia says that some of the clothes in the series were designed by John Sutcliffe, who published Atomage, one of the most influential fetish magazines of all time. I think Wikipedia is wrong about that — I heard that Sutcliffe did the clothes for a stage show based on the TV series. But I don’t have a reference and could be wrong.
Later on I tracked down episodes from various eras. The show changed a lot over the years — at first Steed was a supporting character who wore a trenchcoat, more of a typical police official, who helped the star, a male crime fighting doctor. It was a pretty straightforward crime show.
One aspect of the show that I think gets overlooked is that Steed’s clothing and accessories — the bowler hat, his umbrella/sword cane, etc. — were handled fetisistically in the same way as Mrs. Peel’s outfits. Steed was sort of the archteype for a certain idea of Britishness that popped up again in the Kingsman film.
I’m kind of reaching here, and this is another thing I don’t really remember very well. But I think Foucault talked about how hospitals were invented. A doctor used to be a guy, who would go to someone’s house. And if the patient were rich, that patient sort of treated the doctor like a servant. But in hospitals people wear costumes and there are rituals that create and reinforce roles — the rituals were invented in large part to allow the doctors to establish their own authority. Or, you know, when you go to the doctor now, you go to a desk and check in, and you sit in a waiting room, etc. There’s all of this power stuff wrapped up in all of that.
You can see this stuff all over the place — judges wear funny costumes, everyone stands up when they come into the courtroom, and that makes it clear to everyone that the judge is the most important person in the room, etc.
The Avengers was interesting because they used clothing fetishes to define their characters to a large extent, but the characters they defined weren’t really sexual. No one was having sex with anyone. But the clothes did a good job of letting you know who those characters were.
Kingsman was clearly very influenced by this. Although I think a lot of the British spy / secret agent / investigator shows tended to fetishize clothes and style more than their US counterparts. Plays into a sense of understated but stylish – highly competent but not showy. If you’ve read the original Bond books, there’s a lot of labels and attention to what we’d now think of a designer goods. The fact the heroes always look good and effortlessly fit in to the social situation probably speaks to the average British persons anxiety about not doing so and standing out.
Interesting that link you mention between Sutcliffe and the Avengers. This article would tend to bear out your thought that he might have been inspired by them, but wasn’t directly involved…
http://www.sealwear.net/english/about/history/
Thanks for the very thoughtful comment!
-paltego
I read somewhere that it was no coincidence that Diana Rigg’s name in the Avengers was Emma Peel, and that she was a divorcee…
Her full name was Mrs. Emma Peel. Sount it out. Miss Ess Emm Appeal. SM Appeal!
Ha! That’s great. I’m not sure if I totally buy that was there original intention, but it certainly fits pretty well with the show. Definitely had S&M appeal!
-paltego