Well, well well! – cute is not a term you’d normally hear us using. We don’t go in for all this rating people on their appearance and we’re certainly not talking about ‘The Male Gaze’ when we refer to cute.
Cute is like a kitten; male/female or whatever – you just want to take it home and give it a cuddle. So who might we be thinking of today?
Let’s just rule a few people out. We can’t think of a single punkgirl who could be described as ‘cute’. Poly Styrene made a point of creating a look that was deliberately gawky and compelling.
Loads of punk girls deliberately went fierce just so that nobody could possibly think they were like a vulnerable little kitten; it stopped anyone thinking they could mess with you.
Chrissie Hynde, Pauline Murray, Gaye Advert, Siouxsie Sioux – also compelling to look at, but fierce, distant and no-nonsense.
We’d want Gaye, Chrissie, Pauline and Siouxsie on our team. Yeah, they look so cool, but they just don’t make it in the kitten-metric.
Debbie Harry was often described as cute, but the sexy, the smiling, the knowing looks on those pictures are something different from cute altogether.
So… after a whole host of searching, We’ve decided that the cutest punk award goes to…..
Pete Shelley. Not at all fierce, and quite like a kitten. It’s not sexism… it’s just that the punk girls had something to prove in their appearance, demeanour and music, whereas Pete Shelley could just be his real cute self. Unless you think differently….
