InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "MSG'D!!"

dr_hermes (dr_hermes) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-09-25 21:22:00

Entry tags:

char: captain marvel/billy batson, era: golden age

Captain "Skinny Dipper" Marvel
Yep, busted. WHIZ COMICS# 50. If he turns back, will Billy be nekkid too or will he have on that red sweater and blue pants outfit?

It's often a jolt to read old books and realize how society has changed in ways that we hardly notice anymore. Boys and girls up into their teens used to go swimming naked in the summer (not together), usually in secluded swimming holes and ponds on someone's property or in some semi-hidden bend of the river. No one thought twice about it. Kids used to shower after gym class as a routine, too, and I imagine that has been long dropped. Something happened in the late 1950s or so that made people more apprehensive than before about their children. Walking a mile or so to catch the school bus or to get home after school was normal, kids used to disappear all day on Saturday or in the summer to play, and parents trusted them not to get in too much trouble (and they didn't). At the beginning of POLLYANNA, we see a bunch of young boys jumping into the old swimming hole, bare as when they were born and that was a Disney film. Maybe that still goes on deep in the backwoods of the South or the Midwest today, but I doubt it.

era: golden age, char: captain marvel/billy batson

(Post a new comment)

	robogeek 2009-09-26 01:39 am UTC (link)
	At least two of those (showers after gym & walking over a mile to get home) were still around in the late 80's. Of course, that was high school. That's a very Rockwellian cover, really, although I believe not a specific reference. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-26 10:13 pm UTC (link)
	It does have that Rockwell feeling, doesn't it? I remember at least one POST cover with little boys running frantically, clutching their clothes in bundles. (Reply to this) (Parent)

kenn_el
2009-09-26 01:47 am UTC (link)

The barrel has the appropriate colors so we know who's inside, though! LOL! I grew up in a VERY small town, swimming holes and skinny dipping in the lake included. I hear it's developed now, which is sad. And gym showers? they probably aren't as much fun as mine were. I think technology possibly makes things less 'innocent' as well as the tenor of the times. Nice post, BTW.

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	bean_montag 2009-09-26 02:40 am UTC (link)
	And gym showers? they probably aren't as much fun as mine were. DO TELL, SIR. DO TELL. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	bluejaybirdie 2009-09-26 02:01 am UTC (link)
	I can tell you with absolute certainty skinny dipping isn't dead. It's just usually done in the dead of night in someone's swimming pool. Also, the showers at my school (which was built 6 years ago) are individual stalls with curtains. No group showers here! (Not that the coaches give us time for in-school showers anyway...) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-26 10:16 pm UTC (link)
	My group of friends went skinny dipping a few times up in the mountains, we were in our late teens and early twenties. One girl soaked everyone's clothing and tied them in knots, so they were really difficult to get back on. We didn't have cell phones with cameras those days, more's the pity. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	autolychus2 2009-09-27 01:27 am UTC (link)
	Oh, if I'd just had a cell phone camera in the late 80s, what a grand world this would be. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	mysteryfan 2009-09-26 02:03 am UTC (link)
	I love this cover! Where do you even find a barrel to put on if you're suddenly naked? I get that it's comic shorthand, but it's so very random now. I'm going to give you sad news: In a lot of school districts, there isn't much gym at all anymore. So no reason to shower. (Reply to this) (Thread)

dr_hermes
2009-09-26 02:18 am UTC (link)

Rain barrels were very common anywhere outside the big cities during the 1940s. You also see them around in photos of small towns from that era, where they were used for storing all sorts of supplies.

Sorry to hear about the decline of gym in schools. I imagine there's paranoia about kids getting a minor injury and the parents immediately suing everyone in the vicinity. Too bad, judging from the news, school age kids would benefit from more physical activity. But more time for texting.

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	bean_montag 2009-09-26 02:41 am UTC (link)
	Haha, more like the schools don't have any money. Sad but true. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	captaintwinings 2009-09-28 04:54 am UTC (link)
	Hey, you want sad, my middle school built a gym instead of a library. Couldn't afford both, I guess. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	tacobob 2009-09-26 03:10 am UTC (link)
	Reminds me of this Onion Article: "Why Am I The Only Homeless Man Still Wearing Pickle Barrels?" http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/why_am_i_the_only_homeless_man (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mysteryfan 2009-09-26 03:16 am UTC (link)
	I'm laughing and I haven't even clicked on the article yet. Love the Onion. Update!: Read it, laughed and laughed more. (God, the lingo!) Thank you! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	tacobob 2009-09-26 03:33 am UTC (link)
	:) And to make it more comic booky: The Hulk wrote this one for the Onion: "Why No One Want Make Hulk 2?" http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33980 (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mysteryfan 2009-09-26 03:17 pm UTC (link)
	Bwahaha. "Why no one appreciate daring vision of Ang Lee? Aaargh! Ang Lee genius!" (Reply to this) (Parent)

	mysteryfan 2009-09-26 02:06 am UTC (link)
	Oh, and hey! Quit putting down the South and Midwest! (I'm a Southerner) Although plenty of people do still swim naked. As bluejaybirdie points out, it's done after dark. I'll bet they do that in the Northeast, too. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-26 02:13 am UTC (link)
	Here now! I did not put down the South and Midwest in any way. Mentioning regional customs is not criticism (especially since you should be able to tell from the tone of the post that I regret we've mostly lost the freedom and innocence that saw skinny-dipping as harmless). (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mysteryfan 2009-09-26 02:15 am UTC (link)
	No offense taken! There's no font for sarcasm, sadly. I was really kind of joking with you. It was the 'backwoods' that made me want to tease you about it. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-26 02:20 am UTC (link)
	Oh, okay. It's hard to tell tone of voice without, well tone of voice. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mysteryfan 2009-09-26 02:22 am UTC (link)
	True! Sorry for the misunderstanding. And it's not so much fear of injury re: the PE cuts. It's lack of money (art and music are cut as well) and academic focus being thought to be more important--for state mandated testing. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-26 02:36 am UTC (link)
	Still sad to hear. You might think we'd cut back on almost anything before schools. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	darkblade 2009-09-26 04:24 am UTC (link)
	If only. Rarely do the people in charge of public funding look far enough ahead to realize what they are doing. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	kelseyg 2009-09-26 02:57 am UTC (link)
	re: Something happened in the late 1950s or so that made people more apprehensive than before about their children. Everyone became super fearful, baby boomers born in the 50s grew up and decided never to let their kids out of their sight. (Reply to this) (Thread)

dr_hermes
2009-09-26 06:40 pm UTC (link)

That's not an explanation. I think one explanation might be that society needs a Boogeyman to keep people fearful and easily controlled. From the Communists to the Satanists to alien abductors to sex offenders, there has to be a menace (whether real or not). Every night, CNN neglects news to show two hours designed to get the audience worked up and anxious over a missing child* or a particularly heinous murder.

____'
*Always a little girl, blonde and cute if possible.

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	kelseyg 2009-09-26 10:31 pm UTC (link)
	But that doesn't really explain why the boomers are, generally, so much more overbearing than previous parents. Helicopter parenting (calling teachers about grades, etc) can't be a reponse to fear but it's the same trend as not letting little timmy walk to the bus stop. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-27 12:18 am UTC (link)
	The Baby Boomers are mostly grandparents at this point. Whatever nickname the following generation received are carrying the trend still further. Maybe it feeds on itself like a snowball rolling downhill. It's paradoxical that the safer people get, the more anxious they are. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

autolychus2
2009-09-27 01:36 am UTC (link)

The simplest answer is that the "If it bleeds it leads" journalism dominates the media. As a former journalist, I can tell you -- if there were a murder or fatal car accident on the front page of our newspaper, it sold out. Period. People are more fearful because they want to be.

Almost all sectors of violent crime have gone down for decades. Some crimes are at all-time lows. And yet people, like my mother, who never locked their doors at night in the 70s, wouldn't think of doing that now.

Perception is reality.

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ada_c
2009-09-26 03:17 am UTC (link)

Ugh gym class... The original idea of giving kids physical activity was a good one, but it just became "sports class." Oh the horrors of yearly volleyball and baseball and the gym teacher mocking me. My school district actually had a gym "final exam" that was required for graduation, the questions were all about rules of different sports; totally ridiculous. Of course we didn't shower either, it would've been hard to fit in a 40-minute class period.

On another note, I think the world just became a scarier place. People were (rightly) worried about kidnappers and child molesters and kids getting run over. I think real small towns probably allow kids a greater degree of freedom. But no, there was no skinny-dipping when I was a kid. Of course we would've been hard pressed to find a swimming hole or a secluded area with some water source.

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autolychus2
2009-09-27 01:51 am UTC (link)

on another note, I think the world just became a scarier place. People were (rightly) worried about kidnappers and child molesters and kids getting run over.

And yet the statistics don't bear that out. Most kidnappers are by far (85%) still the non-custodial parent. We don't know our neighbors like we did when I was a kid and we fear the unknown.

You can't blame the media for giving you what you want. Take Columbine. Should it have been the national story that it was or a local tragedy. It was an anomaly. But we watched it, so we got more of it. Television news is geared to what will keep eyeballs glued to TV sets, not what's important. It wasn't always that way. Nightly news didn't pay attention to ratings until the early 80s. The news division was separarte. It was looked on as a public service. Were ratings important? Not as much.

But that's the world we live in.

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	aaron_bourque 2009-09-26 03:23 am UTC (link)
	Something happened in the late 1950s or so that made people more apprehensive than before about their children. Hmmm. I wonder . . . (Reply to this) (Thread)

	darkblade 2009-09-26 04:26 am UTC (link)
	I fail too see how Seduction of the Innocent would draw a connection between the corrupting influences of comic books and skinny dipping. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	autolychus2 2009-09-27 01:51 am UTC (link)
	LOL. Aaron, I salute you! Cheers! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	leikomgwtfbbq 2009-09-26 03:52 am UTC (link)
	The kids at my old high school still went skinny-dipping... in the lake behind my house at the time. My stepdad would see people stalking through our backyard and then go and order them back to their cars with a crossbow. Then again, like you said, I lived in the backwoods of the south at the time. XD I never had to shower at school, though. (Reply to this)

	his_spiffyness 2009-09-26 05:16 pm UTC (link)
	Yep, busted. WHIZ COMICS# 50. If he turns back, will Billy be nekkid too or will he have on that red sweater and blue pants outfit? Nope, Billy still has his clothes on during the story. He just has a heck of a time trying to recover his costume from a bunch of crooks. Every time he turns around there's another problem requiring the Captain's powers. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-09-26 06:42 pm UTC (link)
	Hah, I can imagine the situation. Cap was endearing when he was embarrassed. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ulf_boehnke 2009-09-26 09:52 pm UTC (link)
	It might be connected to the numbers of swimming pools and public baths. And the smaller size of swimsuits for both men and women, which were easier to put on and off than those old suits from the turn of the century. (It might be an urban legend, but I heard the bikini was invented because of cloth rationing during the war.) (Reply to this) (Thread)

dr_hermes
2009-09-26 10:11 pm UTC (link)

I think the bikini bathing suit came along well after the war. It was named after the nuclear bomb tests on Bikini Atoll. (The idea being that wearing one would affect people like a nuke going off.)

But that's a good point about public swimming pools. I have a vague memory that they greatly increased in number and popularity after the war, and wearing a suit would be required (as opposed to just jumping in the local swimming hole).

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nights_mistress
2009-09-26 10:53 pm UTC (link)

Well, the fifties was basically the result of a really traumatised population. I mean, you've got WWI, the Depression and WWII all within someone's lifetime, so there was a conservative whiplash. That conservativism plus the growing recognition that child sexual abuse was happening in the family meant that people did not want to know about it, or even imagine it happening. So in order to get back the idea of a safer world, society went super, super conservative and overprotective in the hope that if everything was controlled, then everyone would be safe.

Or at least that's what my learnings has taught me anyway.

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	dr_hermes 2009-09-27 01:05 am UTC (link)
	All good points, well put. The 1950s sometimes seem to me like a period of forced grins... "Everything's FINE, isn't it? Isn't life wonderful?" But it had such dark conflict just under the surface. (Reply to this) (Parent)