Iconic Images: What Demi, Brittney, and Great Works of Art Have in Common

These images rocked our world during their day, and then became objects for parodying or copying, as are all strong images. (Think of Grant Wood's American Gothic, Robert Indiana's Love image, or Whistler's Mother.)
If you think that Demi Moore is famous because she can act, ahem, or because she's married to a man half her age, think again. This early 90's photo by Annie Leibowitz put her on the map, no doubt about it. Oh, she'd gained some notoriety before then and had a string of hit movies, starting with Ghost. And she was married to Bruce Willis. so they were a power couple. But then this Vanity Fair magazine hit the stores, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I adore Leslie Nielsen, a former leading man with a sense of humor who is not afraid to put himself out there.

Modesty becomes Johnny Vegas. Ya think?


Here's Brittney over a decade later in a blatant imitation of Demi's pose.

In the second iconic image, Richard Avedon photographed actress Nastasha Kinski with a snake wrapped around her nude body. This early 80's image became a popular poster, and was much parodied and copied, even recently, as with Ms. Raptor below.



The concept wasn't new, of course. A woman and a snake have been iconic images since time immemorial, as in this Renaissance fresco by Michaelangelo.

Brittney, copycat that she is, brought the image down to a spectacularly cheap showgirl level.

The person who combines all these iconic images best is Rembrandt. He drew his nude model with a snake and looking pregnant (she probably wasn't) about 400 years ago. Talk about setting a high standard!