How to be a Hepburn in a Hilton World

[cecil]

Exactly....HOWEVER, my mom told me that the night she and her sorority sisters went to see "The Graduate" they were so drunk, when they woke up in the morning their car was on the Alpha Chi Omega lawn with all the doors open and the keys still in the ignition. And this was major MAJOR scandal at the time. She still gets embarrassed talking about it.
And what's weird, is this story is really funny to me....even though drunk driving is nothing to laugh about. Perhaps it is because I know it was not the norm for her...or for alot of girls on campus back then. I suppose when it happens more frequently is loses the novelty and humor.
It seems like everything is just so darned serious now.

Oh dear!! lol
Oh I didn't mean to imply that it was ALWAYS like that, my mother has a few shockers herself, I just meant in general.

 

[cecil]

I think context is key in understanding how such things were viewed in the past -- there was plenty of salaciousness in the 20s, but it had a strong counterbalance in the popular culture of the time -- if you read the Saturday Evening Post or the Ladies Home Journal from, say, 1927, you'd be hard pressed to find any indication that such a thing as flapperism ever existed, except in the occasional cartoon or editorial tsk-tsking at it. The outrageous was outrageous then precisely because it *wasn't* mainstream -- the flappers *were* truly rebels seeking their own sort of liberation. But today, the outrageous *is* the mainstream, which, really, makes it less about being a rebel and finding one's own way than it is about doing what every other mall-crawling kid is doing.

That's the thing I admire about the so-called "modesty movement." Sure, there's people who try to turn it to religious/sanctimonious ends, but there's also a lot of thinking gals in it who see "going mild" as the ultimate act of rebellion against an oppressive culture.

Wow! I had noooo idea that that was the case with flappers. Crazy when you think that now when the average person thinks 'woman in the 20s' their mind will generally go straight to 'flapper'.

I didn't know that the modesty movement wasn't always inextricably linked to religion either. Forgive my ignorance but the whole modesty/abstinence pledges thing isn't as big here, and when we do here about it, it's a little sensationalised. Not saying that (the movement) is a good thing, or a bad thing, just different cultures etc. And no "Godless convict island" jokes, please! lol

 

[LizzieMaine]

Wow! I had noooo idea that that was the case with flappers. Crazy when you think that now when the average person thinks 'woman in the 20s' their mind will generally go straight to 'flapper'.

I think there was a geographic element to flapperism -- it was far more an urban thing than rural, because the mass media didn't penetrate the way it does today. You had three ribald tabloid dailies in New York during the twenties, but if you tried to sell them in Punkin Center, you'd end up in jail. The idea of a nationwide party-hearty culture in the '20s is mostly focused on New York, Chicago, Hollywood, and the other major cities -- the further you got from those urban centers, the less likely you'd be to run into real hard-boiled flappers. The most flapperish thing my grandmother, raised in a small Maine town in the '20s, ever did, was play basketball -- in a middy blouse and bloomers.

One of my close friends years ago was a lady who grew up in a well-to-do family in St. Louis during the twenties. She went to a very proper ladies' high school and college, and was most definitely not a flapper. She was such an innocent, in fact, that when she ended up an actress on Broadway during the thirties, and got propositioned by Tallulah Bankhead, she had absolutely no idea what it was all about. Somewhere I have her 1925 school yearbook, and all the gals have their knees properly covered.

I didn't know that the modesty movement wasn't always inextricably linked to religion either. Forgive my ignorance but the whole modesty/abstinence pledges thing isn't as big here, and when we do here about it, it's a little sensationalised. Not saying that (the movement) is a good thing, or a bad thing, just different cultures etc. And no "Godless convict island" jokes, please! lol

That's the element that gets the most publicity here, too, and the whole pledge-to-daddy thing does absolutely nothing for me, either. The "modest girls" I admire are the ones who simply decide for themselves not to do anything they honestly aren't ready for -- and basically, not to treat the decision to have or not have sex as casually as having or not having fries with their hamburger. The modest-dress thing follows as a way of not advertising something they aren't trying to sell.

It takes a lot of courage for a young woman today to take a stand like that, given the culture we live in -- and even more so if they don't have the excuse of being religious. My 18 year old niece is one of these women, and although she's made some decisions over the years that I didn't think were especially well advised, that one I fully support. I took the same stand myself, and I don't think I missed anything except a lot of headaches.

 

[Fletch]

Modesty in the Wendy Shalit mass-movement sense always struck me as being not so much religiously as socially conservative - an effort to reset the sexual revolution back to zero for at least some women, and only for women. Whatever there might be to recommend it for individuals, I would think any change in sexual morés that is so totally one-sided would only screw up the already tension-fraught relations between men and women even more radically.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Modesty in the Wendy Shalit mass-movement sense always struck me as being not so much religiously as socially conservative - an effort to reset the sexual revolution back to zero for at least some women, and only for women. Whatever there might be to recommend it for individuals, I would think any change in sexual morés that is so totally one-sided would only screw up the already tension-fraught relations between men and women even more radically.

There needs to be a similar movement for boys. Used to be, they had the Scouts or whatever to channel their youthful energies, but too many boys do grow up today without any idea that sex is or should be anything more than what cats do in the alley out back. Some intelligent, non-religiously-driven man ought to start such a movement, but of course no authority figure-type is allowed to say the word "sex" around boys nowadays without being considered a perv. Sometimes I think the only thing harder than being a young woman these days must be being a young man.

Failing that, I'm all for putting saltpeter in their cornflakes until they're 21. (Just kidding. Although it would have kept my idiot of a brother out of trouble.)

 

[Paisley]

I used to visit Wendy Shalit's website. (Shalit wrote the book Return to Modesty.) What turned me off about that site and a few others promoting more modesty and less raunch was the assumption that getting married and making babies was the only way for a woman to be fulfilled. Both of those things are fine, but they don't suit everyone.

A different site posted a blog entry about "Poor, poor M------------" who just turned 30 and was still single. The author was an academic, married too late to have children and seemed to regret it every day of her life, was afraid of turning into a bag lady until she had gotten married, and assumed everyone else felt the same way. This was all done on a site with the word "Independent" in its name, without a bit of irony.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I used to visit Wendy Shalit's website. (Shalit wrote the book Return to Modesty.) What turned me off about that site and a few others promoting more modesty and less raunch was the assumption that getting married and making babies was the only way for a woman to be fulfilled. Both of those things are fine, but they don't suit everyone.

A different site posted a blog entry about "Poor, poor M------------" who just turned 30 and was still single. The author was an academic, married too late to have children and seemed to regret it every day of her life, was afraid of turning into a bag lady until she had gotten married, and assumed everyone else felt the same way. This was all done on a site with the word "Independent" in its name, without a bit of irony.

Yeah, I think things like this tend to scare people off from anything that talks about "modesty," and it's unfortunate. I tend to walk away very fast whenever anyone starts telling me what I need to do to be "fulfilled," whether it involves having a house full of babies, working 90 hours a week, or carrying on all night with sailors. I've only done one of these, and I'm not at all interested in the other two.

But still, I don't think that detracts from the basic common sense of offering young women the idea that honestly being in control of their lives means not *having to do* something they may not feel ready for just because the culture tells them there's something wrong with them if they don't. I think that's the main worthwhile nugget in all this discussion. If you're being led around by the nose by the culture, and you think you're "independent," well....

 

[Paisley]

The book The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton has a guide to thinking for yourself, based on the Socratic method (p. 24 in the chapter "Consolation for Unpopularity." I’ve made up an example (in italics) to illustrate. It goes like this:

1. Locate a statement commonly described as common sense. To have friends, I must go along with the crowd, even if I’m not comfortable with it.
2. Imagine for a moment that, despite the confidence of the person proposing it, the statement is false. Search for situations or contexts where the statement would not be true. Can a person not go along with the crowd and have friends? Can a person go along with the crowd and still not have friends? If the crowd senses I'm a sellout, they probably won't like or respect me. Not everybody is part of the crowd. If the crowd wants me to do something I'm uncomfortable with, they aren't real friends.
3. If an exception is found, the definition must be false or at least imprecise. I can politely say “no thanks” without losing any real friendship. I can look for friends who share my values.
4. The initial statement must be nuanced to take the exception into account. I can have friends without being a sheep.
5. If one subsequently find exceptions to the improved statements, the process should be repeated. The truth, insofar as a human being is able to attain such a thing, lies in a statement which it seems impossible to disprove. It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what is.
6. The product of thought is, whatever Aristophanes insinuated, superior to the product of intuition.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I tend to walk away very fast whenever anyone starts telling me what I need to do to be "fulfilled," whether it involves having a house full of babies, working 90 hours a week, or carrying on all night with sailors. I've only done one of these, and I'm not at all interested in the other two.

I was wondering if that was you I saw in the Old Port when that last ship came in. lol

 

[Hestia]

If I have daughters I'll be far more likely to recommend The Consolations of Philosophy to them than any book suggesting that they choose a celebrity to emulate, whether that be Hepburn or Hilton.

If you're looking for style icons or acting tips, sure, Hollywood is a great place to look, but if you're looking for general rules to live by it's pretty lousy, no matter what decade you're looking in.

The book The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton has a guide to thinking for yourself, based on the Socratic method (p. 24 in the chapter "Consolation for Unpopularity." I’ve made up an example (in italics) to illustrate. It goes like this:

1. Locate a statement commonly described as common sense. To have friends, I must go along with the crowd, even if I’m not comfortable with it.
2. Imagine for a moment that, despite the confidence of the person proposing it, the statement is false. Search for situations or contexts where the statement would not be true. Can a person not go along with the crowd and have friends? Can a person go along with the crowd and still not have friends? If the crowd senses I'm a sellout, they probably won't like or respect me. Not everybody is part of the crowd. If the crowd wants me to do something I'm uncomfortable with, they aren't real friends.
3. If an exception is found, the definition must be false or at least imprecise. I can politely say “no thanks” without losing any real friendship. I can look for friends who share my values.
4. The initial statement must be nuanced to take the exception into account. I can have friends without being a sheep.
5. If one subsequently find exceptions to the improved statements, the process should be repeated. The truth, insofar as a human being is able to attain such a thing, lies in a statement which it seems impossible to disprove. It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what is.
6. The product of thought is, whatever Aristophanes insinuated, superior to the product of intuition.