I wrote a paper once discussing the effects of the horrors of war on soldiers, and the striking similarities between civil war diaries and memoirs from Iraq. These men were so changed that when they finally returned home they longed to return to battle not for some learned bloodlust or need for adrenaline under fire, but to be among those who had lived through it. They yearned for companionship with other men with whom they knew had experienced it, and wouldn’t even talk about it with anyone else. Which is why by 1900 Civil War vets from both sides would sit and talk at with each other at battle reunions to the bemusement of bystanders who were shocked at the camaraderie between the men wearing blue and the men wearing grey. I thought it strange that they would even want to return to the sites of battle at all. Hundreds of men descending on Bull Run, where so much blood was shed forty years earlier, just to sit in the fields and reminisce.


Today, people hike and bike and camp and drink wine all afternoon in a place where, a hundred and sixty years ago, these reminisces were made. Now people fight a war of words over proposals to build roads and power lines through these fields. So much has changed, but so much has not. Today, Jeffersonians want a co-op and an insurance pool—Hamiltonians want a public option. But I digress.


I mourned for Saturn because I felt camaraderie with him. I had fought my own war. Except that he won his, and I lost mine. He got his novel out. Mine is still sparse lines of verse…a few chords… a melody in the background of my dreams. One day I’ll finish it, perhaps, but so much has changed. I’m not sure I can get back there—or that I’d even want to. He had his Liz to push him away throughout, back into the pages of his book. My Liz was like his Cami, lifeless and surrounded by dead bees. And I have something so much better now—something worth writing about—if I can manage to keep it. Besides, this one doesn't feel like a war.


Much of what’s changed has been my own doing, and some of it was harder than anything else I’ve done. This thing that ends in May is keeping me from sleeping, but thing I gave up in January isn’t anymore. But I’m still too curt in my sarcasm, and I’m still too harsh when I mean to be funny. The din of a crowd can still put me on edge, and I still don’t like the man I become when I drink. I still have that terrible habit of waking up just before the alarm sounds, which is why I woke up at 6:22 today. I still harbor secrets, and feel like I’ll burst into tears at inopportune times. And I am still a master procrastinator, which is why I’m posting here and not reading about the historical significance of the ways different colonies celebrated the ratification of our constitution (some with 13 rounds of fireworks, some with 13 toasts—if you were wondering).


Sometimes I’m too cryptic for my own good.


And for some reason, today my cat smells like coffee.

Dear Toastie,

I still remember the first time I saw you, on Christmas morning almost ten years ago. My first thoughts upon unwrapping you were "geez, I don't eat toast!?! Grandma WTF?" but, over the years I grew to appreciate our relationship. You re-united me with childhood memories of Pop-Tarts and Eggo's, and later you helped me make english muffin pizzas. Sometimes I'd even stick a ceramic ramekin filled with butter on top of you, so that your toasty exhaust might melt it while I was popping popcorn.

But this morning, I woke up to find you non-functional. I discovered that you had tried to toast a tortilla, perhaps in hopes of expanding your cultural horizons... But Toastie, you didn't have to try to be something you could never be. I'd still love you, even if you could only toast white bread. I tried to save you Toastie, I did... but my prayers went unanswered. I succeeded in freeing the crushed tortilla from your innards after a twenty minute struggle, but alas, my efforts were all for naught. For now, you appear whole but you won't latch down. And if you won't latch down, you won't toast. I'm sorry Toastie, but you are no use to me anymore.

So it is with these few words that I bid you adieu, my faithful kitchen companion. You will be missed.



(And you know, my toast sure was tasty out of Mark's toaster oven!)

But it's a summer class, so shoot me!

The film is available streaming via Netflix, is anyone's actually interested in seeing it after reading this, it's paired with "Miss Lulu Bette"

As always, it's due today (4:30) so if you catch any grammar errors after that don't tell me about them!

=)

Why Change Your Wife?

Examining Divorce in the Roaring Twenties

The “Roaring Twenties” are typically thought of as a decade of excess. Speakeasies and jazz clubs drew both men and women with their indecent music and drink, rampant market speculation set the stage for the depression that would follow, and consumerism drove a marketplace fueled by installment plans and debt. The ideals of the era were well represented among the films being made by a still young Hollywood, but one film seemed to depict a culture of acceptable divorce. Why Change Your Wife? is an interesting, if cliché, look at divorce in the 1920s, and by comparing contemporary opinion with scholarly opinion and statistics, we can find a much better understanding of divorce and its acceptance in the 1920s.

The plots in Cecil DeMille’s films tend to be quite formulaic, and Why Change Your Wife? is no exception. The film opens with Beth and Robert Gordon sharing a marital spat over a seemingly trivial matter—Beth’s interrupting her husband’s morning bathroom routine by asking him to fasten the back of her gown. Thereafter we are shown scenes of marital un-bliss, culminating in Robert’s purchasing a negligee from a young and sexy salesgirl, Sally, which Beth promptly is disgusted by. Beth is portrayed throughout the first act as a frumpy, no fun, nagging wife who refuses to even dance the foxtrot with her husband, so it comes as no surprise to the viewer that Robert leaves her for Sally. Unfortunately for Robert, once married, Sally becomes a frumpy, no fun, nag of a wife. Meanwhile, Beth discovers her inner flapper and later wins the affection of a half dozen men while sunbathing at a hotel pool. The third and final act opens with a gown-zipping scene similar to the one that opened the film, except this time Beth and Robert have re-discovered their love for each other and are eventually happily re-married, leaving Sally to collect her alimony payments while wooing the affections of a violinist that had previously attempted to woo flapper-Beth.

            Contemporary reviewers and commentators were split over the film, with professional reviewers generally providing positive praise. Mae Tinée’s review for the Chicago tribune lamented over the plot in a cute, silly way, to encourage patrons to trek to the Randolph to see DeMille’s comedy—linking the plot to one of the director’s previous (and also popular) films: Don’t Change Your Husband.[1] The Atlanta Constitution’s review was much more congratulatory toward “the great” DeMille’s work, praising the film as “one of the most gorgeous and sensational pictures of its [sic] kind that has ever been seen upon the screen.” Much of their review focuses on the costumes and sets, noting their “lavish detail,” an interesting footnote on the consumerism of the decade.[2]

Contemporary commentators and opinion columnists took the opposite view of the film, however, writing satirical essays and letters to the editor mocking the film. One group in Los Angeles started a “Don’t Change Your Wife Club” wherein members would be admitted if they are currently married, have never been divorced, and are willing to leave the club if they do divorce within 5 years.[3] One Captain Leslie T. Peacocke penned a 30 line poem full of reasons to keep your wife (presumably lessons that Robert Gordon should have taken heed of before divorcing Beth in the first place).[4] One “positive” commenter noted that the film was a huge hit when shown in a prison theater, noting that “more than 50 bigamists” were among those in attendance, but they were “the butt of many jokes by the burglars, highwaymen, forgers, swindlers, and firebugs while the movie was discussed.”[5]

While the letter writing public was set against the film, it did well with more than the “bigamists in prison” demographic. The Atlanta Constitution’s review of Why Change Your Wife? noted that the film “is taxing the capacity of the big Forsyth theatre to the doors this week,” [6] showing the popularity of the film with the general movie-going public, who obviously were not as turned off by a divorce being central to the plot of the film.

That may be because divorce was surprisingly socially acceptable in the 1920s. As is typical in the years immediately following a war, the amount divorces in the United States grew profoundly in the years immediately following World War I, to match the amount of hasty pre-war marriages that occurred before and during the war.[7] The curious point is that the high divorce rates continued after the typical “post-war bump.” Roderick Phillips, a historian of divorce, noted that the amount of previously divorced persons marrying during the 1920s was twice the number of the previous decade. He also quotes a contemporary interview with a young woman on the social stigma of being a divorcee at the time as saying: “it would be much more exciting to be a divorcee than to be an old maid.”[8] While certainly some would have taken offense to the spectacle of a double divorce in a film, we can see that though expanded for comic effect, the ideas behind the plot of the film are not completely outside contemporary experience.

Scholarly opinion of DeMille’s films typically links several of his films from the period together, as many have essentially the same plot with minor adjustments. These films, unbelievable plots aside, essentially support the cultural perceptions of the era. DeMille’s brother reported that the films were “hailed with loud hosannas by the public of that day…”[9] Lary May noted DeMille’s films reinforced the protestant culture of the era, while still giving the moviegoer a fantasy experience. In his films divorce (already culturally acceptable, as discussed earlier in this paper) gave the characters in his films an “ambiguous freedom” from each other, and gave women a new-found sexual freedom, within a marriage of course.[10]

Why Change Your Wife? shows a fairly true to form, if sensational, depiction of disgruntled married life in the 1920s. Divorces were up, and divorcees felt liberated from their failed marriages. Women were expected to act empowered when single and out on the town, but they should settle down into a chaste, modest lifestyle once married. If you strip away the absurdities added for comedic value, DeMille’s film is an interesting look into divorce in the culture of 1920s.

Not only have I not posted anything here in forever, the last 2 pages are nonsense posts and pictures!

Thankfully, I have two essay ideas that I will get to ASAIFMMFP (As Soon As I Finish My Mother Fucking Paper).

(Or is motherfucking one word?)

Glee!

Make sure you get to 2:44 to see a GLAMOROUS performance of Amy Winehouse's Rehab...

I think this is my favorite new TV show!