I believe for the greater part of my life, if not all of it, I have lived in a bit of a time warp. I seemed to have always been a generation or so behind my contemporaries. I am 27 years old, which I am not the least bit ashamed to admit, and was born in 1986. But from the moment I came into the world, I was thrown back at least twenty years. I have very vivid memories from the earliest years of my life, of sitting on the floor in my mother’s bedroom, eating Cheerios right out the box and watching such television shows as “Batman”, “Get Smart”, “The Beverly Hillbillies”, “Bewitched” and “Gilligan’s Island”, all popular shows from the 1960s. I even watched “Dennis the Menace” which was filmed in the 1950s! I am the children of older parents. My father was 59 at the time of my birth and my mother was 35. My father was “Mr. Mom” as my mother was the “working stiff” in the family. And as a kid I naturally watched what my father watched, which was the likes of Charlie Chaplin, The Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy.
And to this day, I know I have interests that are extremely and vastly varied from my peer group. I don’t have much care for anything to do with popular culture now, outside of that tiny Hispanic Pixie, Bruno Mars, who is quite cute. I rarely pay attention. I am more comfortable with old classic films, and actually schedule my month around the film schedule of Turner Classic Movies. (TCM).
I have always been fascinated by old films. Just the other night, TCM showed one of my favorite silent films--a German masterpiece called “Metropolis”. I was as excited for this film as my friends would have been about the new Tyler Perry movie.
I generally watch movies from the silent era to the 1980s--skipping the 1970s altogether. For a long time, I wasn’t quite sure what exactly drew me to films by the likes of Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, and Joan Crawford.
It’s practically taken me a lifetime to figure out why and just recently my mind got the memo.
About a week ago, I discovered a fantastic website that scans of hundreds of old magazines, and I began reading my favorite--a very popular film/movie magazine called “Photoplay” that was at it’s height during the 20-50s. Never have I been happier than when I started to read this magazine. It covered the stars I held dear to my heart as their careers began, crested, and sadly, declined.
July 1926 cover with Dorothy Mackail!
In downloading the reading the first books--I pulled the latter issues from the year 1931--it dawned on me why I liked that era so much.
Ladies were ladies.
Not to say women aren’t ladies now, but it was very much apparent back in the 1930s. “Photoplay” was marketed to a mostly female clientele and in between articles on what Clark Gable did on vacation and what color Jean Harlow has dyed her hair, were numerous ads for hair, skin and makeup products, far more than you see in a magazine now. And they were arranged as articles, not just “Buy This Now!”
There were articles on not just dieting for plump and fat women, but body-building, weight-gaining meals for skinny girls. Can you imagine in this day and age an article about GAINING weight?
An underweight girl writing in for advice got this response:
Bessie: You are considerably underweight for you height. I think if you tried to gain weight, for a while, you would discover your whole figure will become more perfectly developed. Try eating fattening foods (!) drink milk and cream several times a day and get plenty of rest.
Every article I see now tells people to move, do this exercise, try this new piece of equipment. The only time a doctor advised me to relax is when I suffered heat exhaustion one day.
And this was advised as a “Dinner” for a woman trying to LOSE weight:
One Slice Cold Roast Lamb
Twp Heaping Tablespoons of Squash
Mint Sauce
One Tablespoon Green Peas
Medium Sized Tomato Salad
Mineral Oil or Vinegar
Two Small Biscuits
Half a Cantaloupe
One Glass of Skimmed Milk
How many women now would rather leap from the Empire State Building than do THAT?
(Just for the record, I don’t eat that much food in a DAY!)
((Although for the month of September I am adopting what I call the “Bette Davis Breakfast” which I read about her eating in 1932, regularly: It’s a cup of black coffee and a slice of raisin bread. I sweeten my coffee though. It’s just to prep for Fall and get the pesky five pounds I want to lose OFF. ))
Everything was aimed at making women dainty, and beautiful and helping them with catching a husband.
Do women nowadays even want to catch husbands?
To make the best of their curves. To HAVE curves rather than be moving sticks.
“Photoplay” even had a columnist who would tell girls what colors suited their hair, skin, and eye color the best. Even though, in 1931, it was targeted almost exclusively to white women, I could pull and take little bits for myself as a black woman. (They considered a “brunette” in those days to be a white woman with olive skin, black hair and brown eyes. My skin is just darker than olive. )
You just don’t see articles like that anymore. Telling women how to look their best, how to style their hair and what colors to wear and how to be popular with men without running out with open legs. How to flirt.
How to find a husband. You see more about how people are divorcing, rather than getting married. Or wanting to get married. It appeals to the old-fashioned woman in me I suppose. I would like to get married and be a mother to one or two kids. I would like to be pretty and have my husband happy to look at me and think he has a lovely little wife.
I don’t think I am a superficial person, its just in this day and age it does kind of bother me when I see some women who go out looking like what the cat dragged in and not seeming to care.
A woman doesn’t have to be decked out like she’s en route to a red carpet event, but I actually have moments when I look at other ladies and think, “My, what wonders a dab of lipstick would do for her” or “If only her clothes fit more properly.”
Perhaps women’s lib destroyed that bit of femininity in some women, I don’t know.
But I just like to try to accent my appearance as much as possible. Maybe it came from my younger years when I was fat and ugly and teased mercilessly over it. Maybe it is a way of ensuring I’m not teased, even as an adult. I don’t know, but I pause to take the time to do my make up, even if its for a run to the grocery store in jeans and a tee.
I’d rather have a man say “Hi Pretty Lady” instead of “Hey Lard-Ass” any day.
Is it such an awful thing to want one boyfriend, to want to know how to attract one and hold him with charm, rather than flopping through a line of nobodies? (And it would help if he had large, sumptuous lips like Marlon Jackson.) To attract some bumble bees, you gotta sprinkle on the honey.
What man wants an ugly woman, a woman who appears unkempt, and doesn’t look to care for herself?
I look away from men with saggy trousers, with their boxers peeking out, clean on a good day, with nappy kinky hair all over.
I don’t think I’m being a snob, but if I go hungry half the day and lose around 45 minutes of sleep a day to look good, my man should look halfway decent himself.
As terribly as I hate dialysis, I have my “face” on for it. Once I had to be there at 3 am. At 3 am before the cocks crowed, I was made up and waiting my turn.
I try to ignore the fact I am “ill” and try not to look “ill” by any means.
I don’t hate my appearance now, as some people would cry I put on makeup to hide myself. I am comfortably 165 pounds, down from 260 at my fattest. (And dieting off and on within a given month to maintain/lose.)
Without make up, I have my late mother’s face. And I think my late mother was a beautiful woman. (But every girl probably thinks her mother was beautiful) I will admit that, as I wore glasses from the time I was in the 3rd grade, I do have dark circles under my eyes. It’s a “flaw” I hide with a swipe of concealer each day.
Every so often I get compliments on my appearance, and it’s nice. And I see other women and wonder if they get compliments, would like to get them. It’s a kind boost to the mind and system.
But the most important thing, is I feel better about myself. I think I’m so drawn to the ladies of the bygone era because they looked like ladies. Sure they had a team of Max Factor stylists riding their asses, but I have seen pictures from that era of “normal” women, who worked normal jobs and had had normal families. They weren’t stars in any sense, were not rich and did housework themselves. And they still had their hair, nails and make up on, looking every bit as feminine as any Hollywood manufactured star.
Perhaps I’m backwards or a liability to women’s lib, but I want to be pretty. Does it really make a woman stupid if she powders her nose, applies lipstick and blush? I don’t think so.
I’m still as intelligent in jammies and Pond’s face cream, as I am with my face on.
I wish that there could be a return to femininity. There is a difference between being “feminine” and being “hot”.
I noticed all of the old ads used wording like “beautiful”, “alluring”, “dainty” , “enchanting” and “lady-like”.
There wasn’t a hot or sexy anywhere. Even at the mention of Jean Harlow and that woman was “sex” personified. (She was married and divorce twice before dying at the age of 26! And I can’t even get a damn date!)
Feminine is the kind of respectable woman that can be taken home to Mother. Not a woman who seems to only romp in the backseats of cars.
I don’t see that kind of respectability anymore. It makes me sad, because if I miss it now in 2013, what can I possibly say one day to my future daughter if it’s completely gone 5, 10 or 20 years from now?
It’s not backwards to be feminine, it’s more of…a privilege to a woman, I think. To take pride in herself and make what God gave them look its best. I think it shows a lady cares for herself.
And she has to care for herself, before anyone else will.
I just wanted to mention that, and I hope it makes some kind of modicum of sense.
(I like these old magazines immensely and may write more about them as I read through them. I’ve only loaded the latter half of 1926, all of 1927, and the latter half of 1932, as I particularly like films from those years. I‘ll load more soon, or as many was my USB flash drive will allow.)
AMEN!
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