Page Three (or Page 3) is a tabloid newspaper feature that originated in the United Kingdom in 1970 and still continues today. It consists of a photograph of a female glamour model, usually in a topless pose, and takes its name from the custom of printing the photograph on the tabloid'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, but similar features are found in competing British tabloids and in other newspapers around the world.
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When he relaunched the flagging Sun newspaper in tabloid format on 17 November 1969, Rupert Murdoch began publishing photographs of clothed glamour models on its third page. The first edition featured that month's Penthouse Pet, Ulla Lindstrom, wearing a suggestively unbuttoned shirt. Page Three photographs over the following year were often provocative, but did not feature nudity.
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."[1] Profiled from the side, sitting nude in a field with one of her breasts visible, Rahn was photographed by Beverley Goodway, who went on to work as The Sun's main Page Three photographer until he retired in 2003.[2][3]
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 partly credited with the increased circulation that established The Sun as one of the most popular newspapers in the United Kingdom by the mid-1970s.[4][5] 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, although the Daily Mirror stopped featuring topless models on page 3 in the 1980s, deeming the photographs demeaning to women.
The Sun was known for connecting its Page Three photographs to topical events, with an emphasis on sports. For example, a model might pose in a short white skirt with a tennis racquet during the Wimbledon tennis championships, 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 only featuring models with natural breasts. 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 approximately annual contest called "Page 3 Idol" that gives amateur models an opportunity to win a Page Three modelling contract. Women aged 18 or older can submit their topless pictures, which are published on the Page Three website and voted on by the public. The first contest, held in 2002, was won by Nicola Tappenden, modeling under the name Nicola T. The 2003 winner was Krystle Gohel, who modeled simply as Krystle. The 2004 winner, 18-year-old Keeley Hazell, went on to become one of the United Kingdom's top glamour models. The 2006 winner was Sam Cooke. The 2008 winner, 19-year-old university student Jenny Grant, committed suicide in the early hours of 13 September 2008.[6] The 2009 winner was Kelly Hall. In 2011, the contest was won by 18-year-old Lacey Banghard. The 2012 winner was 22-year-old Lucy Collett. [7]
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 drug addiction and involvement in abusive relationships.[8]
Page Three has often been controversial, particularly with conservatives and women's groups. Some critics consider it to be sexist, demeaning, and exploitative, while others regard it as softcore pornography that is inappropriate for publication in a national newspaper. In 1986, Clare Short, Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood, led an unsuccessful House of Commons campaign to have topless models banned from all newspapers. After her proposed bill failed, Short accused the House's predominantly conservative male MPs of not taking the issue seriously, remarking "If you mention breasts, fifty Tory MPs all giggle and fall over."[9] Short renewed her campaign against Page Three almost two decades later, in 2004, but found herself on the receiving end of an ad hominem attack by The Sun, which superimposed her face on a Page Three model's body and accused her of being "fat and jealous."[10]
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.[3][11] 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."[10]
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 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. Controversy over 16-year-old Page Three girls ended when the Sexual Offences Act 2003 raised the minimum age for topless modelling to 18.
Especially in the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung, the counterpart is mostly found on the upper part of page six or seven (sometimes even on page ten), but the feature has no specific name. In the new daily free newspaper Heute ("Today") there also appears a Page-Three-Girl; on Wednesdays, there appears a picture of a half-naked man.
The leader in circulation among daily papers in Bulgaria – Telegraph – has been publishing a picture of a topless girl on page three since 2006, obviously taking the idea from The Sun. The girl expresses "her" thoughts about the leading article on the page in a bubble. The pictures are being taken exclusively for the paper, mostly of amateur enthusiasts, and on few occasions even of a page designer working for the newspaper. Also leading sports daily 7 dni sport has been publishing a nude girl on last page since 1996. Pictures for the latter are mostly copied from the Internet.
There is a similar concept on the last page of Croatian daily newspaper 24 sata.
In 1976 the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet introduced topless models on page nine, referred to as Side 9 Pigen (the Page 9 Girl). The models were previously occasionally fully nude, but in 2006 a change in the newspaper's policy was made. This change required the girls to wear panties/knickers and made topless optional, which has caused quite a stir amongst the fans of Page 9. As partial compensation, "Ekstra Bladet" launched a website where the Page 9 Girls could choose to make a gallery for, and on this site (which is a pay-site) sometimes the model is fully nude, but it is rare.
In Finland, the daily Iltalehti features models known as "Iltatyttö" ("Evening Girls").[12] "Tähtityttö" ("Star Girl") is also published in the weekly 7 päivää.[13]
In some German newspapers, such as Bild-Zeitung, the equivalent is found on the lower part of page one (below the fold), and is thus called Seite-eins-Mädchen (Page One girl).
One of the main Italian weekly newsmagazines, Panorama, runs female nude models on its cover. However this tendency, strong in the Nineties, is now declining.
In Poland, the daily tabloid Fakt features topless models on the last page.
In Romania, the daily Libertatea features topless models at page 5, calling them 'Fata de la pagina 5' (meaning 'The girl from the fifth page'). When Averea was rebranded as tabloid Click!, the owner hired many people from Libertatea; this new concurrent got a very similar look to the original, including the topless girls, who are featured on page 3.
Australian tabloid newspapers have traditionally published a photo of a scantily dressed, but rarely topless, model on page three, often in a bikini.
The now discontinued Sydney afternoon tabloid The Sun called its page three photo (never topless) The Weather Girl.
Popular Brazilian newspapers such as "Meia Hora" and "Expresso" features daily sections, respectively called "Gata da Hora" and "Glamourosa" featuring topless models.
Canadian tabloid newspapers in the Sun Media chain such as the Toronto Sun, Winnipeg Sun, Ottawa Sun, Calgary Sun, and Edmonton Sun feature a daily "Sunshine Girl", originally on page three, although in the 1990s the Sun chain moved the feature to the sports section; while the Sunshine Girl is a daily feature, the Sunshine Boy feature only appears sporadically. The half-page, full-colour photo (some issues however use smaller and/or black-and-white photos) is of a woman in tight, revealing clothing, lingerie, or a swimsuit. Former Toronto Sun editor Peter Worthington has stated that the Sun will never run a topless Sunshine Girl. The Suns have occasionally run issues without Sunshine Girl features, usually resulting in complaints. Its website now features additional images of each model, plus video profiles. Sun Media publishes an annual Sunshine Girl Calendar featuring the more popular models. For years each Sun published primarily local models, with the occasional "import" from other cities; since the early 2000s the same Sunshine Girl feature appears nationwide.
The popular Chilean newspaper "La Cuarta" features every Friday a section named "La Bomba 4", in which a voluptuous girl appears topless.
The Indian newspaper "Mid-Day" features pictures of models (mostly in bikinis), known as Mid-Day Mates. Also in India, lifestyle supplements of leading newspapers like Times of India and Hindustan Times cover socialite parties and fashion show parties and feature them on Page 3, so they are commonly known as Page 3 photos in India. The term has also led to the term, Page 3 Culture, also depicted in Madhur Bhandarkar film, Page 3 (2005).[14]
The Mexican newspaper "Ovaciones" features a topless model on Page 3. Other newspapers as "La Prensa", "El Metro", "El Universal Grafico" also include photographs of female glamour models, sometimes topless.
Tabloid newspaper New Zealand Truth regularly features topless or occasionally nude women on page three of their weekly publication.
The weekly magazine Caretas publishes a photo of a topless or nude woman on its penultimate page as part of a feature of "amusements" (Amenidades). In the 1970s and early 1980s this practice was imitated by the satirical bi-monthly newspaper Monos y Monadas, which featured an image of a topless model on its own next-to-last page, called "La Calata" (lit. "the naked woman"), and sometimes mockingly augmented this by featuring a calato "for the ladies".
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.
The Afrikaans edition of the tabloid Die Son features page-three girls, although not in the English-language edition.
The American supermarket tabloid Weekly World News regularly featured a bikini-clad "Page 5" girl. Yes! Weekly, a local on-line and print publication in Greensboro, North Carolina, features Page 3 talent sometimes featuring men as well as women. FOCUS weekly entertainment paper in Hickory, NC, began featuring a Page 3 girl decades ago. Founder John Tucker did this as an homage to the British tabloid, as well as in appreciation for women of all types, sizes and ages.
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 beautiful African American women.
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