Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
I've been thinking of cromag's description of Thorne Smith as "subversive" in this post, and the more I think about it, the more apt I think his description is. Smith seemed to be on a gentle crusade to rock the status quo to its foundations. His was the "Playboy philosophy" decades before Playboy. His consistently ridicules the existing social norms and extols the virtues of being free from their influence.
Here's a typical example, enclosed in spoiler tags for length: |
I'm not so sure I think it's subversive as much as it's just one expression of the zeitgeist, but that we're more likely to impute stricter morals to our grandparents. What about the popular perceptions of the 20s, flaming youth, jazz, bathtub gin and the rest? Morality comes and goes. The Regency period was highly licentious followed by a period of religious revival, just as one example. I also think contradictory elements can exist in tandem. *cough*Now*cough*
Philip Larkin famously said:
Quote:
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
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but that's both true and not true.
I mentioned pre-Code movies. I think the morality implicit in those was of a kind with that of Thorne Smith's and that he wasn't an outlier.