Page Three (or Page 3) is a tabloid newspaper feature consisting of a topless photograph of a female glamour model, usually printed on the paper's third page. Women who model regularly for the feature are known as Page Three girls. "Page Three" and "Page 3" are registered trademarks of News International Ltd, parent company of The Sun tabloid, where the feature originated in 1970. Similar features are found in competing British tabloids and in other newspapers around the world.
On 17 November 1970, editor Larry Lamb celebrated the tabloid's first anniversary by publishing a photograph of 20-year-old German model Stephanie Rahn in her "birthday suit." Profiled from the side, sitting nude in a field with one of her breasts visible, Rahn was photographed by Beverley Goodway, who worked as The Sun's main Page Three photographer until his retirement in 2003.
Gradually, The Sun began to feature Page Three girls in more overtly topless poses, with their nipples clearly visible. Although these photographs caused controversy at the time, they are credited with the increase in circulation that established The Sun as one of the most popular newspapers in the United Kingdom by the mid-1970s. In an effort to compete with The Sun, the Daily Mirror and Daily Star tabloids instituted their own Page Three–like features under different names.
The Sun would often connect its Page Three photographs to topical sporting events. A model might pose in a short white skirt with a tennis racquet during the Wimbledon tennis championships, for example, or in jodhpurs with a riding crop during the Cheltenham Festival. From the 1970s until the mid-1990s, captions to Page Three photographs contained titillating puns and sexually suggestive double entendre about the models' lives or interests. Widely considered sexist, these captions were replaced in the late 1990s with a simple listing of models' first names, ages, and hometowns. The Sun reduced its use of sports-related costumes and props at this time, and also instituted a policy of featuring models with natural breasts only. Models with augmented chests, such as Jordan and Melinda Messenger, were thereafter "banned" from appearing on Page Three.
In 1999, The Sun launched its Page Three website Page3.com. The site features the tabloid's daily Page Three girl in up to four poses, usually including the photograph published in the printed edition. It also hosts an on-line archive of previous Page Three photographs, a "Page 3 Gold" section featuring models from earlier eras, and various other features.
Since 2002, The Sun has run an annual contest called "Page 3 Idol." Women aged 18 or older can submit their pictures, which are published on the Page Three website and voted on by the public. The winner of the contest receives a Page Three modelling contract. The 2004 winner, 18-year-old Keeley Hazell, went on to become one of the United Kingdom's top glamour models. The 2008 winner, 19-year-old university student Jenny Grant, committed suicide in the early hours of 13 September 2008. The 2009 winner is Kelly Hall; the 2010 winner is Lacey Banghard.
In 2003, Julian Jones made a documentary about Page Three girls, The Curse of Page 3, which examined the negative aspects of some Page Three models' lives, including addiction to drugs and involvement in abusive relationships.
Editors of The Sun have themselves periodically considered eliminating the feature from the newspaper. During her tenure as the newspaper's deputy editor, Rebekah Brooks (née Wade) had argued (on economic, rather than feminist, grounds) that printing topless photographs on Page Three damaged the newspaper's circulation by offending female readers. When she became the tabloid's first woman editor on 13 January 2003, she was widely expected either to terminate Page Three or to modify it so that the models would no longer appear topless. However, she retained the feature unchanged. Wade later wrote an editorial defending the feature against its critics, calling Page Three models "intelligent, vibrant young women who appear in The Sun out of choice and because they enjoy the job."
The Sun and other British tabloids have also provoked controversy by featuring girls as young as 16 as topless models, when it was legal to do so. Samantha Fox, Maria Whittaker, Debee Ashby, and many others began their topless modelling careers in The Sun at that age, while the Daily Sport was even known to count down the days until it could feature a teenage girl topless on her 16th birthday, as it did with Linsey Dawn McKenzie in 1994, amongst others. Although such photographs were legally permissible in the United Kingdom under the Protection of Children Act 1978, critics noted the irony of Murdoch's Sun and News of the World newspapers calling for stricter laws on the sexual abuse of minors, including the public identification of released paedophiles, while publishing topless photographs of girls whom many other jurisdictions would legally classify as underage minors. Controversy over these young models ended when the Sexual Offences Act 2003 raised the minimum age for topless modelling to 18 in March 2004.
Through the 1980s and 1990s tabloid newspaper Ojo regularly featured a centerfold of a topless or nude woman referred to as the "Ojo Girl" (Chica de Ojo). In the 2000s this practice was discontinued by the newspaper.
Jet Magazine, a national weekly magazine founded in 1951 that focuses on African American news and culture, has had a full page 'Beauty of the Week' feature since the 1960's. 'The Beauty of the Week' feature includes a photograph of an African American woman in a swim suit (either one piece or bikini but never nude), and information about the model's name, city, profession, hobbies and interests. Many of the women are not professional models and directly submit their photos to the magazine for consideration. The purpose of the feature is to promote the notion that African American women are beautiful.
Category:1970 introductions Category:The Sun (United Kingdom)
de:Page Three girl es:Chicas de la Página Tres nl:Page Three girl ja:ページ・スリー・ガール no:Side 3-piken fi:Kolmossivun tyttö zh:三版女郎This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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