This poster has acquired over the years a real status of icon of pop culture. It was broadcast only very briefly in 1943, mostly on the walls of arms factories where many women worked during WWII while the men fought at the front lines. It was not in fact rediscovered until late, in the 1980s, and has since been widely reproduced in various forms. It is always a good starting point for analyzing an image to start from the power of fascination that it exercises. What is it that makes this poster so appealing and attractive today?
American dream
The first one chose of course is due to the reference to this American golden age which takes place between the 1940s and 1960s and which saw the emergence of pin-ups, comic books and pop art, with their bright primary colors. (here yellow, blue and red) and their clean shapes crisp on plain flat. This is the great era of magazine illustrations with luminous covers to the glory of the American Way of Life, a minor art if there is one to which Norman Rockwell will give his letters of nobility. Besides, we are bathed here in full patriotic optimism as evidenced by the speech “We Can Do It! "And the posture of the young woman who seems by her gesture to tell us" look how strong I am "or" like We ("We") Americans are the strongest ". The model's face is also reminiscent of a pin-up and her makeup, like her hairstyle and bandana, evoke the rock'n'roll look of the 1950s before the hour. Finally, let us note the character's proximity to comic book superheroes, both in the plastic treatment, in the heroic posture and in the reference to comic book bubbles (as evidenced by the appendix under the text "We Can Do It ! ”).
Antithesis
The second has chosen who strikes and who calls in this image is its paradoxical construction. One has little the impression that the head and the body have been glued together and that the result is an effect of antithesis opposing a fine and graceful face and a robust and virile body. The rendering is quite disturbing even if it is not immediately obvious. This opposition of course refers to that which differentiates the masculine from the feminine in the collective unconscious. On the one hand, masculine harshness: war (the word "War" at the bottom right), the factory (the overalls) and strength (the muscles tightened); on the other hand, the feminine fantasy of the red scarf with white dots, the lipstick and the discreet but effective nail polish, and the mascara accentuating the volume of the eyelashes.
A feminist icon
Finally, the last point that could explain the attraction of this image over the decades, perhaps lies in what it suggests - probably unintentionally - in political terms. Recall that initially it was a propaganda poster to encourage women in their participation in the war effort, and in particular the riveters whose mission consisted, for example, in assembling the elements of the bombers using rivets. But there you have it, the attitude of "Rosie the Riveter", as she was later dubbed, encourages a speech here that goes far beyond the initial point. The fact is played out, it seems to me, mainly in the gaze of the model (painted in a slight low angle) who looks at us with determination and challenge (nothing to do with the languid gaze of the pin-ups). This determination on the found in the injunctive text written in capital letters and in this "We" which also seems to mean "We Women", "We can also do it" implies: "as well as men! ". And then there is this badge that Rosie wears on the collar and which represents the face of a worker (surrounded by the name of the factory which ordered the poster) and which appears as a standard. And finally there is this gesture located somewhere between the raised fist and the arm of honor that underlines the proud appearance of this worker with muscular arms, raised eyebrow and pouting pout, who seems to arrogantly challenge male domination in her all alone.
We understand that the image appealed to feminists who instantly adopted it at the dawn of the 1980s. But we must not lose sight of the fact that this is an afterthought interpretation and that, perhaps, -being, the workers of 1943 interpreted this poster in a completely different way, as one more attempt by the patriarchal power to motivate them in their laboratory, as a simple war propaganda poster in short as there were so many in the era.
