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Oh boy, I have it bad:
my mother: *scratches the pastry board with a knife, vigorously*
Susan: *jumps out of her chair and starts dancing Charleston*
I'm also slowly going through the YouTube's twenties-related videos, and I've noticed something funny: most people apparently see this era as some kind of a long-gone golden age of chastity, to which our tainted, bitter, experienced modern world can't even compare. Let me tell you, oblivious commenters of YouTube, that looking at a flapper and seeing a meek, innocent girl is one hell of a misinterpretation.
The 1920's, all the roaring craze they were, happened because people needed to release the World War I trauma. People didn't want to be moderate, serious and quiet, and that's why the twenties were like a ten-year-long festival, and not one of chastity. Flapper dresses barely covered knees (and uncovered them completely when you danced Charleston, for example ;)), which doesn't really sound outrageous from today's perspective - but ninety years ago people didn't have today's perspective; ninety years ago short skirts were seen for the first time in history, and it was a revolution.
The Victorians were chaste and well-behaved. The Edwardians, yeah. The flappers?
The flapper girls refused to wear corsets, instead putting on light, short, sleeveless dresses. They smoked cigarettes, drove cars, cut their hair, and wore make-up (earlier associated only with prostitutes). And took part in petting parties (which is something I was really surprised to learn. I mean, petting parties? And they say the sixties was when the sexual revolution begun!). And voted. All of these, as far as I know, for the first time in the known history.
Actually, to me, women from the twenties are more independent and modern and generally ass-kicking than, for example, those from the fifties (it's not that I don't like the fifties, or something - I do. But women were not free in this decade). To prove which, I'm posting this picture, that really tells more than thousand words:
*grin* How can you not love them? :DD It's easy for us, now, to be independent and oh-so-rebellious. Imagine what it was like with Victorian matrons still alive, kicking and putting out your cigarettes all around.
my mother: *scratches the pastry board with a knife, vigorously*
Susan: *jumps out of her chair and starts dancing Charleston*
I'm also slowly going through the YouTube's twenties-related videos, and I've noticed something funny: most people apparently see this era as some kind of a long-gone golden age of chastity, to which our tainted, bitter, experienced modern world can't even compare. Let me tell you, oblivious commenters of YouTube, that looking at a flapper and seeing a meek, innocent girl is one hell of a misinterpretation.
The 1920's, all the roaring craze they were, happened because people needed to release the World War I trauma. People didn't want to be moderate, serious and quiet, and that's why the twenties were like a ten-year-long festival, and not one of chastity. Flapper dresses barely covered knees (and uncovered them completely when you danced Charleston, for example ;)), which doesn't really sound outrageous from today's perspective - but ninety years ago people didn't have today's perspective; ninety years ago short skirts were seen for the first time in history, and it was a revolution.
The Victorians were chaste and well-behaved. The Edwardians, yeah. The flappers?
The flapper girls refused to wear corsets, instead putting on light, short, sleeveless dresses. They smoked cigarettes, drove cars, cut their hair, and wore make-up (earlier associated only with prostitutes). And took part in petting parties (which is something I was really surprised to learn. I mean, petting parties? And they say the sixties was when the sexual revolution begun!). And voted. All of these, as far as I know, for the first time in the known history.
Actually, to me, women from the twenties are more independent and modern and generally ass-kicking than, for example, those from the fifties (it's not that I don't like the fifties, or something - I do. But women were not free in this decade). To prove which, I'm posting this picture, that really tells more than thousand words:
*grin* How can you not love them? :DD It's easy for us, now, to be independent and oh-so-rebellious. Imagine what it was like with Victorian matrons still alive, kicking and putting out your cigarettes all around.
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