Fop
Fop was a pejorative term for a man excessively concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th-century England. Some of the many similar alternative terms are: coxcomb,[1] fribble, popinjay (meaning 'parrot'), dandy, fashion-monger, and ninny. Macaroni was another term of the 18th century more specifically concerned with fashion.
The pejorative term today carries the connotation of a person, usually male, who is overly concerned with trivial matters (especially matters of fashion) and who affects elite social standing. The term also appears in reference to deliberately camp styles based on eighteenth-century looks.
Origins
The word "fop" is first recorded in 1440 and for several centuries just meant a fool of any kind; the Oxford English Dictionary notes first use with the meaning of "one who is foolishly attentive to and vain of his appearance, dress, or manners; a dandy, an exquisite" in 1672.[2] An early example of the usage is in the Restoration drama The Soldier's Fortune, in which a woman dismisses a potential suitor by saying "Go, you are a fop."[3]
In literature and culture
The fop was a
Media of the twentieth century
In Thomas Mann's 1912 novella Death in Venice (as well as the opera by Benjamin Britten and the film by Luchino Visconti) a fop is derided by the main character, Gustave von Aschenbach; ironically so, as Aschenbach ultimately dresses in this manner himself. Some of the "bright young things" of the 1920s were decidedly "foppish" in manner and appearance, while, towards the late 1960s, male fashion became notably foppish in style, evocative loosely of the Georgian and Victorian eras. Pop stars often dressed in what might be termed foppish clothing, with the Kinks' song "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" (1966) capturing well the spirit of the time. While many characters from popular culture had a tendency to foppish appearance, e.g., Adam Adamant Lives!, the third incarnation of Doctor Who and Jason King, they tended not to exhibit mannerisms associated with fops. In Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I, in the French Revolution sequence, one of the king's court is referred to as "Popinjay". In popular series Blackadder the Third, Hugh Laurie portrayed George, Prince Regent as a distinctly childish fop in contrast to his shrewd and sarcastic butler E. Blackadder (played by Rowan Atkinson).
Media of the twenty-first century
Early examples of the fop in media of the twenty-first century include the hair-obsessed Ulysses Everett McGill (played by
In Channel 4's Vic Reeves Big Night Out, character Graham Lister regularly refers to Reeves as "the Fop". In Quentin Tarantino's 2012 slavery epic Django Unchained, Jamie Foxx's title character, when allowed to choose his own clothing for the first time in his life, chose a decidedly foppish outfit which immediately earned him the nickname "Fancypants".
In the 2007 video game Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Detective Ema Skye constantly refers to the prosecutor Klavier Gavin as a "glimmerous fop" due to the bling that he would typically wear and his obsession with his appearance. The term fop is also used occasionally to refer to other characters, particularly being picked up by Apollo Justice due to the detective's habit of saying it.
Other examples include Patrick Bateman, the protagonist of the novel American Psycho, and the clothes-obsessed Prince Kai in the book Firebood by Elly Blake (2017).
Fop rock
A more recent and minor trend is "fop rock", a form of
See also
References
- William Pitt Lennox, even described someone's public manner as "too coxcombical": Venetia Murray (1998) A Social History of the Regency 1788–1830.
- ^ OED, "Fop, 3." The original sense could also be used of women.
- ^ Otway, The Soldier's Fortune, iii.1.
- ^ John Franceschina, Homosexualities in the English Theatre: From Lyly to Wilde (Greenwood Press, 1997) ch. 6 "Beaux and buggers".
- ^ Robert B. Heilman, "Some Fops and Some Versions of Foppery" ELH 49.2 (Summer 1982:363–395) offers a long and varied list, p 363f.
- ^ "Listen to songs from the album Cream Of The Crust of the artist The Upper Crust". the-upper-crust.musikear.com. Archived from the original on 6 February 2015. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
- ^ "They Speak the Vulgar Tongue". www.juvalamu.com. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
- ^ "PRINCE IN PRINT". princetext.tripod.com. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
