Summary: Today's we will continue our consideration of shifts that take place in American popular culture in the wake of World War I. The bulk of our time will be spent considering the works of Lindsey and Evans and Ryan, along with the film, Our Dancing Daughters.. Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," Lindsey and Evans' popular self-help text, and Harry Beaumont's film address similar issues. All reflect the new generational consciousness of 1920s youth; all reflect the flapper's centrality as a symbol of the 1920s; and all reflect Americans' quest for new foundations on which to base American ideals of selfhood and social commitment in the wake of World War I. Utilizing Mary Ryan's essay and the magazine illustrations of John Held as well, we will continue to assess the limits of the would-be "revolution in manners and morals" that is generally associated with the 1920s and the flapper ideal.

Other questions to ponder:

To what extent to various cultural forms (literature, film, advertising, art) reflect and/or shape Americans' consciousness and experience in the 1920s? What are the precise relationships between mass cultural production and consumption? Does Mary Ryan's article offer a useful model for thinking about audience response to the mass medium of film? What are the limitations of Ryan's analysis?

How might we understand the relationship between "dominant" culture and various subcultures?

I. Introduction (review of some issues from last time)

A. Cultural stereotypes of the "Jazz Age" (see John Held images of the flapper)

B. Influence of larger cultural trends on 1920s "revolution in manners and morals":

1. pre-World War I bohemian cultural radicalism

2. working-class cultural practices, especially the development of a mixed-sex leisure sphere

3. persisting beliefs about marriage and the proper relationships between men and women

I. The Flapper: How Revolutionary Was She?

A. Physical attributes

B. Behavioral attributes

"I think a woman gets more happiness out of being gay, light-hearted, unconventional, mistress of her own fate, than out of a career that calls for hard work, intellectual pessimism and loneliness. I don't want [my daughter] Pat to be a genius, I want her to be a flapper, because flappers are brave and gay and beautiful."
--Zelda Fitzgerald

C. Complications and Contradictions of the Flapper Ideal

1. New behaviors not really new

a. drew on preexisting behaviors and practices of subcultural groups

b. difference: activities once on fringe became normative for middle class

2. The flapper and youth culture

a. new educational institutions facilitated "revolution of manners and morals"

"Are we as bad as we're painted? We are. We do all the things that our mothers, fathers, aunts, and uncles do not sanction, and we do them knowingly. We are not young innocents - we've got the dope at our fingertips and we use it wisely for our own protection."
--Woman Student at Ohio State University in 1920s

b. but not so revolutionary

i. reworked older, middle-class values

ii. enforced degree of conformity previously unknown

3. New ideas about sex were revolutionary, within limits

a. ideas formerly associated with sexual radicalism now widespread (consider Lindsey and Evans)

b. psychologists redefined "normal sex"

i. sexual expressiveness "normal"

ii. but must be heterosexual and marital

iii. changing implications of birth control

D. Flappers and the "Marriage Market"

1. New emphasis on centrality of romance and marriage

2. New courtship patterns leading to "companionate marriage"

a. different implications of companionate marriage for women and men

b. anxieties about marital success curbed flapper's new freedoms

c. also create potential pitfalls for the wife (e.g., Wife versus Secretary and similar narratives)

3. Growing commercial dimension to womanliness

1. femininity and consumer society

2. cosmetics

3. magazines

4. beauty pageants

"By 1921 the basic institutions of the American beauty culture had taken shape. The fashion and cosmetic industries existed. So, too, did beauty contests, the modeling profession, and the movies. All continued to expand during the following decades, building on increased affluence, the growth of the pleasure ethic, and the heightened sophistication of advertising.
--Lois Banner, American Beauty (1983)

II. Fitzgerald's Representation of the "Revolution in Manners and Morals" in "Bernice Bobs Her Hair"

A. Fitzgerald's depiction of the "jazz-nourished generation"

B. Marjorie and Bernice as representative flapper figures

1. Marjorie is frank, sexually adventurous, and fun-loving

2. She is also basically conventional -- unwilling to jeopardize her marriage prospects

3. Bernice and Marjorie's relationship represents female competitiveness for men

C. Fitzgerald's commentary on the absence of social commitment among American youth

1. the trivial takes the place of the consequential

a. Bernice's hair-cut likened to the execution of Marie Antoinette

b. her retaliation against Marjorie likened to a "scalping"

2. in Fitzgerald's story, the younger generation lacks all social commitment

a. young men are "temperamentally restless," afraid of "getting stuck"

b. Jim Strain and Ethel Demorest as figures for their generation

III. Lindsey and Evans

A. Exemplifies popularization of Freud (the unconscious, sex drives, concealment)

B. like Fitzgerald, Lindsey and Evans lend credence to the idea that a revolution in manners and morals has taken place

1. sex is newly central to individual fulfillment for men and women

2. Millie is a radical flapper type

3. birth control and premarital sex are sanctioned

C. BUT, there are limits to that revolution

1. sanctity of marriage, in a new companionate form, is preserved

2. Millie is still basically a "nice girl"

D. Like Fitzgerald, Lindsey and Evans reveal a world searching for new foundations on which to base its notions of selfhood and social commitment

IV. Conclusion

A. Post-WWI era witnessed a revolution of manners and morals

B. But it was a profoundly limited revolution -- one that might even be understood as a dominant-cultural containment of disruptive bohemian and working-class cultural practices

 

Questions to consider:

1) How revolutionary was the flapper as a feminine ideal in the 1920s?

2) What is the "companionate marriage"? How does it relate to birth control and sexual expressiveness within marriage?

3) How revolutionary is Diana's behavior in Our Dancing Daughters? Does the film reinforce the conventional dichotomy between good women and bad women? Who represents good womanhood in the film? Who represents bad womanhood?

4) In Lindsey and Evans' "Marriage on Trial," what kind of a flapper is Millie? Is she a good girl or a bad girl? What does Lindsey and Evans' characterization of Millie suggest about the sexuality of the flapper in the 1920s?

5) What lessons do we learn about extramarital sex from Bea's experience in Our Dancing Daughters?

6) What do we learn about changing sexual mores from the writings of Pruette and Lindsey and Evans? How did self-consciously modern Americans in the 1920s regard the sexual ideals and practices of the Victorian era?

7) How is the emergence of a commercialized beauty culture reflected in Our Dancing Daughters? How important are commercialized adornments such as cosmetics, clothing, and perfume to the flapper's appeal? Does Mary Ryan comment on the emergence of a commercialized beauty culture in "The Projection of a New Womanhood"?