On Iron Man's Pepper Potts and her shoes

[cimorene]

So, in the movie Iron Man, Gwyneth Paltrow plays Pepper Potts, his secretary. He's like a multi-million dollar businessman and she's a SUPER secretary. She does everything efficiently and she dresses in classy blue and grey and black, knee-length pencil skirts, suits, and Louboutin heels.

[Poll #1212697]

She's also got strawberry-blonde hair in the film and minimal makeup designed to look nude revealing charming freckles. Her clothes are not revealing; her hair is dressed down and wavy (no doubt artfully, but designed to look artless) or in simple twists, that kind of thing.

[Poll #1212698]

So the word is that somewhere out there is a story where someone gives Pepper - same character, remember - a pair of six-inch stacked heels. In red patent leather.

[Poll #1212699]

Nothing was said about a platform, mind. Six inch heels with a 2" platform, for example, would be approximately like 4" heels and therefore nothing that your average chav, stripper, Imelda Marcos, or Victoria Beckham wouldn't wear to the mall/baseball game/strip club. Without a platform, though - that's fetishwear, period. (Images for illustration: six inch stilettos with 1" platform; mj peep-toe stilettos with 2" platform; 6" patent stilettos without platform.)

[Poll #1212700]

Comments

As explanation of my answers...

[norah.livejournal.com]

"Gahhh," Tony wheezed.

Pepper pressed the sharp heel of her shoe a little harder into the dip above his collarbone.

"Ppp..." Tony tried, but he couldn't get the word out. He flailed one hand up ineffectually to bat at Pepper's calf.

"Mmmm." Pepper said, looking at him consideringly. "Tony, you shouldn't have. And when I say you shouldn't have, I mean really." She stared down at his face and moved her pointy, patent-leather-clad toe up to nudge at his chin until he was looking at her.

"Whatever possessed you to depart from your usual practice of letting me handle these little bonuses? And really, Tony, six-inch-stilettos?" He stared up at her, the shiny red leather accentuating his pallor. He swallowed, and then winced as the motion of his Adam's apple worked to drive the point of her heel further into his windpipe.

Pepper finally eased up, setting her foot back on the floor and watching dispassionately as Tony gasped for breath and struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. She could see where his expensive pin-striped suit had been smeared with dust from the floor, and thought idly about the dry cleaning run. Should have thought of that before she kicked him over as he knelt to buckle the ankle strap, but it had been satisfying. For more than one of them, it seemed.

She raised her eyebrows and moved her foot again, pressing it lightly over the bulge in his trousers and smirking when he gasped. "Oh," she said. "I see."

Tony grinned up at her, and she dug the heel into his balls, just heavy enough to be a warning. She felt him twitch under her foot, and the grin faltered.

Pepper reached up and let her hair down, shook it back, and then twisted it into a severe bun on top of her head. She wobbled slightly on the heels as she did so, and felt grim satisfaction at the faint touch of fear in Tony's eyes. "Mr. Stark," she said, "this was a very inappropriate gift to give an employee. I'm afraid you will have to be punished."

The grin returned.

She removed her foot and looked down at him in disdain. "Good evening, Mr. Stark." She turned on one glossy red heel and left, shutting the door decisively behind her and ignoring his plaintive, shocked, "Miss Potts!"

She went to the garage and fetched her car. This stunt was going to cost Tony, not just one, but several pairs of Louboutins. And maybe those nice Blahniks she'd been eyeing in the spring collection. She glanced down at her feet as she pulled the car out onto the long drive, and snorted affectionately.

Six-inch patent-leather stilettos. Her mouth quirked up at the corner. Had he honestly thought she would wear these? The buckle winked at her, and she punched down on the gas, taking the curves of the hilly drive with ease.

Well. Maybe if he asked very, very nicely.

She wouldn't return them just yet.

Re: As explanation of my answers...

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Ahahhahahah. BRILLIANT. And - exactly! *bookmarks the snippet*

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

To me, 4-inch heels are already fetishwear. Sorry, but, yeah -- they are only one step (OK, a big step, a mini-leap even) away from foot-binding. She can't run or even truly stride in them, therefor they are IMHO designed to cripple the walk.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Actually, Paltrow was wearing a pair of couture booties with a two-inch platform and six-inch heel on the promo tour for Iron Man (Not at all the kind of thing Pepper would wear, I hasten to underline), and she made the news because she couldn't walk up and down the exterior stairs into some building or other without her bodyguard half-carrying her.

But I believe a fair number of people do wear four inch heels. A three inch heel is generally the top range of normal footwear, but there are, like I said, shoe enthusiasts, women who feel the need to dress up all the time, women who claim to like high heels and never wear low ones... these wearers make 4" heels fairly widespread and they don't, I assume, consider them fetishwear. It seems that your argument - that they make it hard to walk or otherwise do many things - can be applied, in slightly smaller degree, to a hefty percentage of women's shoes, and for that matter to many women's clothes as well. Although the intent to cripple is built into these clothes, they run fairly free in society, their purpose and use largely unquestioned by most of the people who wear them. Can they then still be called fetishwear?

[droolfangrrl.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballet_boot

Trust me, some fool has to take it one step further.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhhhhh yeah. I've seen those somewhere before! They're so gross!

[darknessofme.livejournal.com]

ew ew ewww
i accidentally found some of those online when i was looking for pictures of dancers en pointe once.

[isilya]

I JUST CANNOT EXPRESS MY LOVE FOR YOU.

<33333333

But I really hope you don't catch any flak for this AMAZING post.

[isilya]

This is even discounting issues of anatomic impossibility and the fact that a six inch stack heel is going to look like this, with or without a platform!!!!

[isilya]

AND ALSO -- the fact that when the Real Gwyneth did actually wear six inch stiletto heels (with either the concealed patented Louboutin 1" platform, or a more obvious platform) -- it was outrageous enough that it hit major newspaper headlines for the entire publicity tour. And she had to have her bodyguard help her walk!

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I think it's the NOT ABLE TO WALK thing that hits me the most. Pepper's job involves driving all over the place, walking all over a large building, and using a staircase down to Tony's lab! The shoes are obviously impossible, even if by some accident of brain injury she happened to like them.

[overloved.livejournal.com]

greatest critique evers.

i've watched too much sex & the city not to know a louboutin when i see one.

[vellum.livejournal.com]

i'm only saying ew to the stacked part. i would be all over that like white on rice.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

You would wear a six inch heel? I mean, granted, with a nice covered, red heel, or even a molded heel, it could work for... an erotic halloween costume, or a stripper. But you still couldn't really run or even walk quickly in it.

[vellum.livejournal.com]

i've got about five pairs of heels i never intend to wear. they're just for display. i still like them.