Amy Fisher was known as the Long Island Lolita. I think it’s like Watergate…it’s not just a hotel in DC anymore. Some names get associated with such notorious people or events that it’s impossible to separate them.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
Maybe some ad exec’s daughter is named Lola, maybe Lolita as a nickname?
[/QUOTE]
Lolita is short for Deloras.
I just had a morbid thought - would people be upset to see a bed set, same circumstances, and target market, named the Justine set?
For those who don’t recognize the name, Justine is the title character of one of the Maquis de Sade’s most famous works. Who starts off the novel as a 12 yo maiden.
[QUOTE=fighting ignorant]
In the translation I read, the character’s name was “Mulva” not “Dolores”
[/QUOTE]
The book was written in English (cite: Wikipedia).
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
There are whole swathes of people and cultures, in the Western world, who haven’t heard of many “famous” people, publications, movies, or incidents.
Really.
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That’s true, but there’s a concept in business called “due diligence”, that should mean the marketing people do research to avoid pitfalls like this. In a legal sense, this would generally mean that they make sure there are no legal obstacles like registered trademarks to the use of the name, but IMO if they did any reseach at all they would have spotted this. That’s why I think at least some people in the chain DID spot it and kept their mouths shut.
But I could be wrong, this is just me speculating.
[QUOTE=Wallenstein]
Well, if it was from a Chinese or Far Eastern supplier, I could see why “lolita” would sound just like any other girls name - a bit like the “nigger brown” sofa cushions.
[/QUOTE]
Naw, if it was from a Chinese supplier it would have been …
…oh, I can’t. Someone else will have to.
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
That’s true, but there’s a concept in business called “due diligence”, that should mean the marketing people do research to avoid pitfalls like this.
[/QUOTE]
True.
The article doesn’t say which country the bed was produced in. I wonder if it’s a country where the term really has no connotation at all, or one where the connotation is known but considered harmless in their culture.
But you’re right, despite this they should’ve done some better research anyway.
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
Rysto - Actually, the results, on the first page, aren’t too scary - Wikipedia articles about the book, and the 1962 movie, IMDB pages for the movies, a link to someone’s YouTube video which I am too chicken to view, an Amazon link for the book, a review and a Sparknotes site for the book. Oh, and a mention of an NYC Bar named Lolita.
Which is why I’m not going to go past that first page. :eek:
[/QUOTE]
Second page is just like the first page. Third page is more of the… oh, hello, what’s this, then? How to be a Japanese gothic Lolita? (Go ahead, you know you want to. Bizarre but inoffensive, in a “you have got to be kidding!” kind of way.)
Wonderful… here in PR, the nickname “Lolita” would tend to be associated with a nationalist revolutionary. But yes, in the English-speaking world the name has been somewhat ruined, not by Nabokov or Kubrick, but by every other source that decided to conveniently use the term to refer to the “nymphette” fantasy.
I mean just look at this page: the google-ads banner at the time I post this has defaulted to Katrina relief, which is what happens when their 'bot detects that the thread contains racy material!
To be fair, when someone at the office pointed this out to me on Friday, after a few minutes I realized he at least had the general idea that “lolita” is an inappropriate cultural reference vis-a-vis preteens but he really had NO idea of what was the actual deal (or origin).
[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
Second page is just like the first page. Third page is more of the… oh, hello, what’s this, then? How to be a Japanese gothic Lolita?
[/QUOTE]
I give up. In what way is Little Bo Peep gothic? Little Red Riding Hood I could see, but a sheep’s crook and gothic just don’t work for me.
[hijack continued]
[QUOTE=elfkin477]
I give up. In what way is Little Bo Peep gothic? Little Red Riding Hood I could see, but a sheep’s crook and gothic just don’t work for me.
[/QUOTE]
As the page itself says, the “gothic” there does not map to what we in the West call “goth”. It maps to a caricature of Romantic style in general, not just to its gloomier moods.