Re: 1950's Story That Looks Most Like Now

In article <1125006232.687478.290110@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Dr. Dave <dtate@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>> It was a different world. I keep reminding people (for another
>> example) how all through the 1940s and -50s a woman wearing
>> glasses was automatically ugly, and brainy and therefore
>> undesirable, AND THEY DON'T BELIEVE ME.
>
>I believe you.
>
>Better still, Hollywood still believed this until at least the mid
>'80s, which ought to be recent enough for a lot of people who have no
>hope of remembering the real thing.
>
>The latest pure example I can think of is the film "Legal Eagles"
>(1986), in which the filmmakers expect the audience to see a
>29-year-old Debra Winger as plain and brainy, in contrast to beautiful,
>sexy Darryl Hannah. They accomplish this by having Winger wear
>glasses. (IIRC, she even eventually takes them off in a startling
>'revelation' of how pretty she really is...)

There's also the Spanish-language TV series "Betty la Fea"
("Ugly Betty") which, in order to have an ugly heroine, took a
beautiful actress and gave her not only glasses but an awful
hairstyle and makeup.

http://www.liderdigital.com/imagenes/noticias/foto1/betty_la_fea.jpg

But, says this reviewer, the show ultimately chickened out and
let the heroine become beautiful and married.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/06/01/betty/index.html
>
>> It wasn't quite peer pressure; it was a willingness to accept
>> authority.
>
>Peer pressure is just one kind of authority, and any widely-accepted
>authority gets rebroadcast as peer pressure anyway.

Mmmm, okay, I'll go with that.

>I think the part a lot of young whippersnappers can't really
>internalize is the complete unavailability of alternatives.

Except that if you have some brains, and are sufficiently
stubborn, you can make some alternates, maybe not as many as
available in happier climes, but some.

It simply
>wasn't an option to buy out-of-fashion skirts, because nobody sold
>them.

But given the qualities above, you can make them. (In the period
we were discussing, it took real guts to wear a skirt much
shorter than was in style. Not so much to wear a longer skirt.)

It wasn't an option to prefer (say) Thai food, because there was
>nowhere to buy it (or the ingredients to make it). It wasn't an option
>to drink good beer, because no good beer was available for purchase.
>Outside of New York City, there were seldom more than 4 television
>stations available in any one city, and no more than 3 or 4 different
>movies available to watch. (In the theater or drive-in; no tapes or
>DVDs or other home-viewing options.)

All true. Not that I particularly care for Thai food, beer, or
television, but your point is valid.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx
.

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