One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies was the music video shoot in Wayne’s World, the one where near-naked Tia Carrare plays guitar with a python writhing around her. I was a 12-year-old crushing on a babe in 1992, but the “hot woman handling a large snake” has been a pretty popular theme for the past century or more. The snake charmer was a star attraction at the circuses of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The female snake charmers were especially popular – they were presented as highly sexed and animalistic, coaxing these wild, dangerous animals into submission. I wonder how many wives pulled their husbands away from the snake charmer’s seductive gaze, worried that the scantily-clad woman was looking to handle their married pythons?
You May Also Like
Bizarre
Coulrophobia, or the fear of clowns, affects approximately 1 in 10 adults in the US. I don’t suffer from this phobia, but I do...
Bizarre
In the 19th and most of the 20th century, humankind’s obsession with all things weird and freaky could only be satisfied with a trip...
Art
In the early 1900s, when the circus came to town, everyone took the day off. The factory you worked at would close for the...
Bizarre
People have always been fascinated by the strange and weird, and this fascination found a thriving home in the circus sideshows of the past...