Helmut Newton’s Amazon Women
Mythical slayers of men
When Helmut Newton began photographing the world’s tallest, most athletic and sexually charged models, he was tapping into something the ancient Greeks had already mythologised, centuries before. According to ancient Greek mythology, The Amazons were all-female warriors of Asia-Minor. They were strong, fearless and experts at hunting and killing. In some versions of the myth, no men were permitted to have sexual encounters or reside in Amazon country, but once a year, in order to prevent their race from dying out, they visited a neighboring man-tribe for some hanky panky. The male children that would result from these visits were either killed, sent back to their fathers or pushed into the wilderness to fend for themselves; the females were kept and brought up by their Amazon mothers, and trained in agricultural pursuits, hunting, and the art of war. In other versions of the myth, when the Amazons went to war they would not kill all the men, but instead take some as slaves so they could, once or twice a year, use them for sex.
This elaborate back-story might partly explain why we are still transfixed at the sight of Helmut Newton’s Amazon women. We may admire the technical brilliance of his photography, but it is the startling sight of this rare sub-species of human, the winners of a DNA lottery that dishes out unfairly long legs, geometric cheekbones and perfectly symmetrical faces. In a previous life, these women could have spent their days hunting down men for sex or sport. Today, they get paid millions of dollars to stand around getting their photo taken, ensuring the mythology of the great Amazon woman continues for hundreds of years to come.
Text by Howard Collinge- The Unique Creatures
