Girls Beware! …or…the dangers of babysitting.

The other day I posted the 1950s cautionary film for teens, Boys Beware, put out by the Inglewood CA school district. In it teen boys are advised on how to avoid catching the gay virus from older men (apparently it’s communicable by talking, as with a cold) & otherwise ruining their innocence. A quick browse on YouTube led me to the companion film, Girls Beware. I watched it as a lark, desperately hoping it would involve apple-cheeked home-ec students in poodle skirts being stalked by dyke babes sporting James Dean haircuts they’d given themselves with their square moms’ kitchen shears, but it went in another direction.

Each film tells the stories of 4 teens. 1 gets killed, 1 escapes after using common sense, 1 ends up getting under the stern thumb of the cops & their parents, & 1 boy story has a boy getting rescued by the cops, while 1 girl story has a girl also getting rescued, but after she’s raped as a result of her silly ways. Both films are aimed at mid-teens who by their nature tend to overestimate their own sophistication. Kids at these ages are grabbing at every possible opportunity for independent action with the non-discriminating snap of a dog being tossed chicken scraps. The filmmakers do their level best to nurture any doubts these kids might have about their own decision making abilities.

I’m appalled at the barely concealed messages about the roles of boys & girls. The lessons here are awful. Let me skip over the anti-gay slant for a minute here. The sexist slant makes me crazy.

The boys in the film are presented as sensible, good natured, naturally friendly, & above all – innocent. Even Mike, who is killed, (“later that night, he traded his life for a newspaper headline!”) was just getting a ride home from a stranger who’d played a little ball with him…I mean a little pick up on the court. Gosh, there’s no way to write that that’s not a pun, is there? He was offered a ride home, he took it. Is Mike’s judgment criticized? No! “The stranger’s friendliness dispelled any misgivings he might have had.” In other words, Mike did his best but it wasn’t enoubh to avert the finger of fate. Denny, hardworking young paper boy, also got into a stranger’s car, but he thought he was helping to catch a couple of bike thieves.

But don’t get the idea that getting into a stranger’s car is wrong! Jimmy is tired from baseball practice so hitches a ride home. The narrator, who identifies himself as a cop assigned to the juvenile squad, says hitchhiking is common & fun, everyone does it. There is a brief shot of a small town street with about 6 boys lined up, all hitching for a ride. A car stops for Jimmy, a car driven by a friendly older man. The film spends 5 of its 10 minutes on what could only be described as the courtship of Jimmy. After a few encounters, they are spending Saturdays fishing together, & going to putt putt golf; “Ralph took him many interesting places.” The striking thing here is I can’t imagine a 1950s girl being able to spend her Saturdays & afternoons away without the family asking where she is & who she is with. And really, all gayness aside, wouldn’t YOUR radar go off if a total stranger insisted on spending hours a week with you & showering you with gifts & money? Jimmy, lacking the native cunning of any comparable female or with even the sense of self-preservation god gave a squirrel, just doesn’t get it until it’s “too late”. The language gets vague here at about this point. All we hear is that Ralph expects things in return for his good treatment & we see them heading up outside stairs that lead to what looks like the 2nd floor of a motel. Or maybe Ralph has a bachelor apt. Anyway, Jimmy eventually tell his parents, Ralph is arrested, & Jimmy is released to his parents on probation. I don’t get that last part. I thought Jimmy was the victim. Unless the point is that if you let things go too far, you’ll be shamed & outed.

Girls Beware is a different book from the same library. Judy baby sits for a stranger & is found dead a week later. “Judy hadn’t done anything wrong but she was careless.” This is confusing, because being careless is doing something wrong because you’re just not thinking. Barbara, also babysitting, tells a knocking stranger to take his “my car broke down” woes next door then goes smugly back to her homework on the sofa. Sally & Elizabeth get hit on by 2 older guys at the movies, who offer them rides home. Sally is all for it but Elizabeth “decided it wouldn’t be right.” Sally, a petite blonde who looks like a child next to the 2 hulking guys, asks Elizabeth to lie, asking her to call her parents & say they’ll ride home with a friend’s parents. After the show, the boys reiterate their offer of a ride. Sally is single-minded & asks Elizabeth to call her parents with a different lie, that Elizabeth’s parents have taken her home. Later that night, Sally is found wandering near Lookout peak. “It is a night they’ll long remember. In fact, Sally may never be able to forget it.” The language is vague enough to create an unfocused fear in the sheltered kids that made up the 1950s audience, while more worldly viewers understand she was raped. Mary is flattered by the attention of a maladjusted loser who passes his time working at the malt shop because he can’t fit in with his own age group. He becomes more & more demanding. “Mary knew things were getting out of hand” but she doesn’t want to lose the guy or the prestige among her friends of having an older boyfriend. Soon she’s “in trouble” & has to go to her parents. She is removed from school & placed under the supervision of juvenile authorities, which is code for knocked up, no abortion, farmed out to a home till the kid is adopted out.

Look at the differences here. All the boys, dead or alive, were just being friendly, like Jimmy, or helpful, like Denny. Sally & Mary also become prey, but there is a strong suggestion they brought it on themselves. Mary gives in not only to the groping hands of what’s-his-name but also to the demands of her own ego. She likes having her friends see that she has an older boyfriend. Sally, too, enjoyed the movie intermission when all the other kids saw her with the 2 older guys. And Sally was easy. Jimmy had to be courted for weeks & plied with goodies & outings & then he didn’t want to hurt Ralph’s feelings as he had become fond of him; Sally is satisfied with an intermission snack & hour’s worth of flattering. She was eager to go out with the boys, willing to lie for it. Sally & Mary are impetuous creatures, they both fall into trouble because they want sex, popularity, excitement. Their film ends with a warning that kids who try to grow up too fast get into trouble. The boys, who are after all teens & are probably sporting erections 20 hours a day, are shown in a clean & sweet light, & their troubles come from being just normally friendly & decent. How can you fault that? Their film ends with a caution that they should not go off with an adult unless a parent or teacher says it’s ok.

The Victorians had a conflicting view of women: they were considered nearly ethereal, closer to heaven & fuller of pure impulses than men. As such, they were responsible for the making heaven at home, a place of shelter for the husband, a godly & peaceful home for the children. At the same time, women were viewed as beings just barely in control of their lust, greed, jealousy, & general harridan qualities. They needed the firm, wise hand of guidance as provided by husbands & fathers. Sally & Mary are inheritors of these attitudes. The films also say a lot about the freedom of girls versus boys. Sally has to lie to get a ride home, while Jimmy gets to spend his afternoons & weekends with Ralph & never is there the faintest suggestion that he’s covered his actions with a lie. From which we can infer his parents aren’t asking how he’s spending his time, since they’d surely freak out at his new friendship with old Ralph & all the gifts & such. Granted, Jimmy probably does have to report back promptly at night but you see my point.

It’s pretty much impossible for me to know what the takeaway would have been for kids back then. Their lives were so different. The message I hear is that gay men are killers. The message in the girl film puzzles me.

Teens beware! 1950s instructional film about homosexuality.

I’ve got a couple of great vids today. First is a little film made sometime in the 1950s by the Inglewood Unified School District of Inglewood, CA. It’s 10 great miinutes of cleancut high school boys being hunted & killed by those deadly foes, older gay guys. As the film cautions us…

“One never knows when the homosexual is about. He may appear normal. And it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill.”

I am particularly taken with the breezy music, reminiscent of a Doris Day film in which she’s picking flowers in her yard on a sunny day, or arranging her hats. The Inglewood District also put out a film for girls, & I was extremely eager to see how they’d handle the threat of horny women who tend who are overly fond of pants & severe blouses, but again, the villians were men. More on that in another post. I’m probably already past the attention span of today’s readers.

And for your more current viewing pleasure I have Steven Colbert verbally skinning yet another annoying politician, this one voting against a bill that would let gay people deal with the bodies of their partners after one of them dies.

We REALLY need to have civil unions be something other than religious unions. It is archaic that these things remain the same on the books & in people’s minds.

Square food, perfect kitchens.

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1954 Square Food

It is a gray afternoon here. Dull. Dull in a way that requires much more in the way of descriptive adjectives, but it’s so dull, you can’t be bothered. One syllable is all you can manage. “Man, it’s dull. Dark, too.” There you go, the verbal power of homo sapien in winter. Winter in Seattle can be like this, as we here are reminded about this time every year. We are fairly bright & cheerful during the fall. It can be lovely. We don’t get too much in the way of fall colors here but it does happen some. We go out & scritch around in the leaves with the kids. You & the child bring in bouquets of leaves in red & gold, all so lovely there on the sidewalk that you can’t stop adding to your pile. You bring them in & array them on the table, inordinately pleased at this simple inclusion of nature.

And then the days get quite short, & it’s dark, but there are the holidays to think of. Evenings of gay parties, festive times with friends & plenty of interesting snacks on the buffet table. Kids running around buzzing with anticipation. And then the holidays pass & we find ourselves facing the real winter. Dark, dark days. It’s 4:30 as I write this & very nearly dark. Cold. Cold in a way that is unlike the east coast. Not even freezing. But the cold is heavy with moisture & chills you slowly, almost without your noticing, like the breath of death. Like the calming exhalations of a detached nature deity, insisting with a certain implacability that it is time to bank our fires, it is time to eat heavy foods & we should sleep, sleep. Have some bread. Perhaps a short nap now, just for a little bit.

I went out today & got a space heater for the attic, my garret office. Damned cold up here. I plugged the heater in here at my desk, & it only took a couple of minutes for one of the 2 power strips to flip off. So now I’ve moved the heater to the end of the attic. Then, because I really need the heat here, I plugged in the floor fan at the other end of the attic, & I’m sitting here with my down coat zipped up to my chin, waiting for the heat to become tangible enough to let me comfortable putter on projects. And now some old images for your consideration.

The ideal 1934 kitchen according to GE. Many booklets of this era pictured the “ideal” kitchen. I absolutely love that pattern in the linoleum.

The modern refrigerator of 1934. GE promised it would enhance your life in uncounted ways, & the book worked hard to teach people to use this new thing – an always on non-ice-using ice box. The book cautions that you will not save money by turning off your GE in the winter & storing things on your porch. It says that the temperature in the GE refrigerator is steady, & food will keep for longer than it will out in the weather, & the savings will pay for the power & more. I remember being shocked to read this. That people would turn off the fridge in winter! I enjoy reading how many booklets from this era must actually teach people about new technology, new ingredients.

The