Jane Porter and Dejah Thoris-- smart, beautiful, adventurous, strong and inevitably victorious in hand-to-hand combat-- sprang to pulp fiction life courtesy of Edgar Rice Burroughs.  They were ideal heroines who occasionally allowed themselves to be captured or menaced so their strong brave smart men, Tarzan and John Carter, could prove themselves worthy of being loved by such women.  And, for adolescent lads, Porter and Thoris dressed appropriately for their roles as perfect mates, especially with the latter's contempt for clothing of any sort other than the occasional necklace or bracelet...

Their creator was born in Chicago in1875 and left this world at Encino, California, in 1950.  Young Edgar Rice Burroughs hoped for a career as a military officer but was diagnosed with a heart condition while serving as an enlisted soldier in the Arizona Territory in 1897.  Discharged from the service, he drifted from low-paying ranch job to low-paying ranch job until he eventually became a pencil-sharpener wholesaler.  To supplement his modest income now that he had a wife and two children, Burroughs tried his hand at writing for the pulp magazines he loved to read.  His first published story came in 1912 and the $400 he earned for "Under the Moons of Mars" was the equivalent of nearly $9000 today.  Later that year, he published his first Tarzan novel.  Fame and wealth indirectly allowed him to semi-fulfill his youthful dream of military service.  In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Burroughs applied for and received permission to serve as a war correspondent...



Edgar Rice Burroughs



Bookplate, Edgar Rice Burroughs

Jane Porter became Jane Parker in the movies.  In this, she was just another person told by Hollywood studios to change their names if they expected to get work in that town...

Ms Parker made her film debut in the 1934 production of Tarzan and His Mate.  Portrayed by Maureen O'Sullivan, Jane Parker was one of the first characters to appear fully nude in a mainstream US film and one of the first to have clothes put back on her to appease the censors.  Several versions of the scene were filmed.  While O'Sullivan had no objections to being nude, the producers asked Josephine McKim (who had competed in the 1928 Olympics alongside Johnny Weismuller) to do the swimming portion of the "River Scene."  This version did not make it into US theaters but was "restored" for the 1986 re-release of the film...

Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane Parker, Tarzan and His Mate, 1934

As for the Warrior Princess of the City-State of Helium on the planet Barsoom (Mars), she is both the spiritual descendant of the legendary Amazons of ancient Greek tales and a male fantasy of the highest order. 

When Dejah Thoris first appeared in print in 1917, John Carter described her:

And the sight which met my eyes was that of a slender, girlish figure, similar in every detail to the earthly women of my past life... Her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme, her every feature was finely chiseled and exquisite, her eyes large and lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black, waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure. Her skin was of a light reddish copper color, against which the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect.

She was as destitute of clothes as the green Martians who accompanied her; indeed, save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked, nor could any apparel have enhanced the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure.

Cover art: John Carter rescues Princess Dejah Thoris

Folklorists and anthropologists are doubtful about the historical accuracy of the old stories about Amazons.  However, they point out traditional gender roles associated with hunter/gatherer and agricultural societies likely arose simply as a matter of convenience.  It "made sense" that the partner taking care of children would also maintain the living area while the other scrounged for food and battled intruders attempting to claim resources used to support the tribal group.  As societies became based more on trade and industrial production, these traditional roles became less useful or necessary.  By the 1970s, this disconnect between History and Current Realities fueled the Women's Liberation movement...

As Edgar Rice Burroughs penned the adventures of Tarzan and John Carter in the years just before and following World War One, the winds of change were beginning to blow a bit more strongly.  In the summer of 1920, women in the United States had won their battle to influence the outcome of elections.  The Age of the Flapper had dawned.  How do we reconcile our sexual desires with the roles we play in a transformed society was a question asked then and is one still unanswered...

Tarzan and His Mate, 1934, the River Scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPrWCCPADNs

Note: Images of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his bookplate and the description of Thoris are taken from "Wikipedia" articles on the writer and his character.  Cover illustration of "A Princess of Mars" is taken from Google Images without further information on source or copyright data.  Image of Maureen O'Sullivan as "Jane Parker" from "Tarzan and His Mate," 1934