Wednesday, October 7, 2009

7 October 1955 “A trip to NYC 1955, 21st.century Cheering, and Meat Buying”

 

I found this 25 minute video of two young college girls trip to NYC. It is interesting for the fashion and other things. I love how everyone wears gloves and hats and the main blonde girl has the most darling summer mesh gloves. This was obviously done by and for TWA, but interesting culturally anyway.

There is a bit when the girls see a parade and there are some girls in a ‘drill team’. To see their simple movements and long dresses seems so sweet and amateur compared to a cheer or drill squad today. What struck me, and again I am not a prude, is how over sexualized this type of thing is today.

So, as an example of the comparison of what the girls did in the parade in 1955 to today at a High School Cheer Squad.

I cannot believe how much like a strip club these moves are. I am not sure why it has become popular to have young girls be over sexualized. You would think that with sexual freedom one could stop focusing on it altogether, as ‘what is the big deal’. I just keep thinking if I were a parent and this was my daughter, would I feel pride? And for the girls themselves, rather than it being just fun for them, it is again about being sexy and ‘ready’ for boys. Women’s liberation here seems displayed in a way that is more about men ogling you as an object than any personal freedoms or fun. But, that is just my opinion. Maybe I am a prude.

Oh, I promised I would include the video on the return of nylon/stockings. It is sweet and I like the bit about Dior at the end. This is part of a film about post war world that Bob Hope Narrates.

Well, since we are planning on trying our VICTORY WEEK for next week, I have already noticed my own baking and cooking more this week. I like this, as well, because it makes me have more ‘realistic’ moments. I mean, I have not even started VICTORY WEEK yet and I am already noticing things about the amount of food I have compared to what I would have had during the war. For example, I used my entire weeks ration of butter yesterday to make a batch of cookies as well as a considerable amount of my sugar and flour.

I think what will make the VICTORY WEEK such a good test for me is that I can really feel, after it, how lucky I am to have so much available. It will also allow me to remember what it was to not have so much and to then not want to waste.

I have already, this year,  found myself using more of what I would have considered garbage or throwaway last year. Yet, there is always more realizations and more learning. For example, this morning at breakfast hubby and I had grapefruit. When we were done with it I realized I would not (were I lucky enough to have a citrus fruit) throw out that rind! I’d save it and use it to make marmalade. So VICTORY WEEK is going to be a good learning curve for me and this project.

I think if we can, we modern homemakers, not feel we have to ‘punish’ ourselves by using less, but to try and use much less to see how much we do have. The comparison will be good for us and help us to realize where we stand with food and that, yes, we can use less, consume less, spend less and be healthier and less wasteful.  All of this would make it easier to shop local, where it might be a little more than a chain, and still save.

I bet there are many two family incomers out there that could really cut back their food use/budget and maybe some thinks like expensive coffee drinks and allow one or both of them to work one or two days less a week. That would give more time to put into making your own and being less dependent and over time I bet they could become a one income family or two part time incomes. I honestly believe this! So, anyone out there wanting to try and become a single income family, these are the types of things we need to try. Unfortunately, just wishing it will be won’t make it happen, but to realize how much power you actually have in your own spending and abilities is a powerful tool to creating your life how you would like it to be! Apron Revolution, ladies!

Well, on the topic of food and food buying, I wanted to share this article on buying meat properly and not being duped by your butcher. It actually has some good info about meat that I didn’t know. Most of us just go to the local chain, never see the ‘butcher’ and just grab what is wrapped in Styrofoam and plastic. You can click on the image to make it larger and read the article.

meat article 1 meat article 2 meat article 3 meat article 4 meat article 5 Let me know what you think of the article and can we use the information today to shop wiser? I know you can talk and request things from the ‘butcher’ in a chain store. Our big Stop and Shop does have butchers, you just have to get their attention and then request things. I wonder how much their knowledge is diminished from the 1950s? Do they know or need to know as much about meat as a local shop owner or butcher?

I do not have all of my art things as yet unpacked, as they are awaiting me patiently in my future studio, but I did want to dash out a quick superhero. She will evolve and be better drawn in the future and might possibly be in a little comic strip now and again as the mood hits. I just had to draw the image of a homemaker with the apron as a cape and so thought I would share my little scribble with you.

 superhomemaker

31 comments:

  1. the nyc video was so fascinating! thanks for posting!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love that drawing!

    Thank you for all of the info. I often contemplate going to ring the bell at the butcher counter in our chain grocery. The husband and I were discussing whether butcher-y would become a lost art soon. There is a little meat/butcher store about 2.5 miles from my house that I may have to pop into now. There is also a vegetable/fruit store that is not a chain that I may have to investigate that is also about 2.5 miles in the other direction.

    You really make me contemplate many things.

    <3
    LPM

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, LPM if you are going to to the VICTORY WEEK challenge with us next week, you could buy your share of the items at those two places. I really would like everyone who wants to do it to buy as much locally as they can and then share with all of us what their allotment of weekly rations cost.

    ReplyDelete
  4. EWWWWW....I watched both the 1955 tour of NYC and the modern cheer dance and I think I just may be talking my daughter out of being a cheerleader. That was disgusting. It wasn't cute, pretty or fun. It was salacious and degrading. I couldn't even watch all of the modern "cheer" video. It turnd my stomach. No, 50sgal...you are not a prude. You just happen to have morals and understand that the value of a woman is not in her sexual value.

    I have to agree...why is it that girls are now more and more overly sexualized and treated like things. And why have we allowed a society to develop that just allows this and thinks it is acceptable????

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lorie-Doesn't it seem backwards somehow? I mean if we are to be valued equally (which I think we should be) we need to be valued as people not objects. Somehow the sexual revolution got mixed in with women's lib and really I think women are more degraded now with their need to be rail thin, but sexual and bare all more so than being forced into restricting corsets. We have merely replaced one for the other, except now we are expected to exhibit the traits men kept hidden in photos in books and at the office. Men will always be interested in seeing women, but do we, as women, want to teach the next generations that their value is in that appearance? Scary, non?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh and don't think it was an accident that I both showed the modern cheer video AND talked about how to purchase pieces of meat.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow, it's so enlightening to see the difference between those two videos! It proves once again that today's world is not perfect if we compare it to the past. If anything, I think a lot of things have gone bad. It makes me want to wear dresses and skirts every day! Not many women do it anymore. I find it sad that people are quick to dismiss the 50s...

    I mean, that cheerleading choreographer should be fired They are copying a music video, so not appropriate!

    I wish we had a local butcher. The meat places around here don't offer much at all and are usually full of pre-marinated meats.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes we most certainly did wear our white gloves. And put on a simple but pretty cotton dress, just to go downtown and look through the stores. :-)

    Memory Lane...

    Aunt Amelia

    ReplyDelete
  9. What fond memories you must have Aunt Ameila. I hope we apron revolutionaries can make some similiar memories for ourselves. White gloves, hats, dresses, petticoats...ahhh.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Being a cheerleader these days no longer means pepping up the crowd at games and showing support for the team...all of that is an afterthought now. The "meat" of being a cheerleader is to basically be a dance team just like in the video. The kids don't see it as being sexualized, because dance moves like that are normal to them. The sad part is, many parents see it as no big deal, too.

    None of the chain grocery stores here have butchers anymore, just employees wearing the white coats who restock the plastic wrapped meat that's been shipped in from God knows where.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ive recently read that the number of teenage girls in abusive relationships has gone up over the last couple of years. No wonder! And it makes sense why girls are getting pregnant at 14 and 15. If I were ever to have children, I would want them to dress old fashioned. Like the one post you posted awhile ago about teenage clothing and how their attitudes were better and the kids in the 50's looked more mature. I think some kids just look kind of trashy now. I think there is so much that people can learn from the past, but it almost seems like no one has a memory anymore!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Ah! She's so cute! Viva La Revolution!

    ReplyDelete
  13. that "cheer" video was just plain gross! i'm sorry, but no girl should be taught to pole dance at school functions. did you hear the catcalling and the ooohing w/all that rump shaking???? oh. my. word.
    never been a big fan of cheerleading, but that does it for me. nicely done putting it up against the meat images...
    i'll take the white gloves and ponytails ANY DAY!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I couldn't watch all of the cheer video, either. Those poor girls. They have NO idea.

    I was wondering--once you get your Super Homemaker drawn exactly as you want, could you make it a html button we could add to our blogs, linking back to yours?

    ReplyDelete
  15. I realized something earlier. I have been watching "hogan's heroes" and the Hercule Poirot mysteries, and Andy Griffith show on youtube lately. I then watched that sweet video of the ladies trip to NYC. Then I watched that cheer video and it was jarring. I was outright shocked. I have noticed that the longer we go without tv in our house and I watch only what I choose, the more offensive I find the modern culture.

    I am sure, 50sgal, you are experienceing this in spades compared to me. On my facebook I posted a video of a 1954 fashion show and then one of the fashion show last spring. It is grotesque how horrid the clothing is now, how SKINNY (as in sickeningly so) the models are. How miserable they all look. And, I saw more breasts than I ever care to see again, thank you. *sheesh*

    Yet, in the 50's video, the women are healthy looking, smiling. The clothing is stylish and pretty. Clothing that I would be proud to wear.

    Keep up the Apron Revolution!!!! We need to as homemakers take back this world andshake some sense into people.

    ReplyDelete
  16. btw - there are nearly 10,000 comments about that cheer video on youtube, and from the looks of it, not many are flattering...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Those poor girls is right! If my daughters were the type to enjoy dancing or cheering I certaintly wouldn't allow them to participate in something so trashy. How could their parents sit in the audience and feel pride? I was embarrassed watching from the privacy of my home. Just gross. And sad.

    S

    ReplyDelete
  18. Roxanne-I would be very proud to do that and honored, so yes.
    Lori-I understand. The more I am just part of the 'every day 1955' the more jarring and blarringly horrid are some things in the present. There are good things in comparrison too, but the bad seem to be about personal responsibility, attire and general self-worth. I find it odd that we modern people think we are so much more sophisticated and 'in touch' with ourselves today, when really I think we are somewhat sick as a nation.
    What is funny about the cheer video is I too did not watch the entire thing. The first few seconds were enough that I thought, "Well, this is horrible enough, I don't want to know what happens towards the end". I do wonder, do the fathers of these girls find it natural or fine that their daughters are basically 'stripping'. And as was said, the catcalls an such. This has NOTHING to do with school spirit and everything to do with enticing the already highly active male libido. What is really funny, is a teenage boy would probably be excited by ANYTHING a girl does, so add the oversexed clothes and atitudes that young girls need today and no wonder there is more pregnancy and abuse.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I have always loved dancing and was in a drill team in jr. high (70's). Our drill team was more like marching and military drills, not dancing.

    What jumps out at me about that modern cheer routine is that anyone could do it. The moves weren't difficult at all, just smutty. So, apparently, that was the response they must have been going for.

    Another thing...I HATE that song. At first it's a fun beat, but then you sing along and hear words here and there and decide to look up the words. Have you ever read the lyrics to Apple Bottom Jeans? Ick.

    It is surprising that the combo song and nasty moves would get an approving nod by a school district. Puuleease.

    Kris7

    ReplyDelete
  20. Kris7-is that the song, apple bottom jeans? What in heavens does that mean? Perhaps I don't want to know. Exactly, no about intricate moves or even just fun choreography, more about, here's my ... I honestly can't believe that everyone of their parents were happy or proud of that routine, but I suppsoe they must have been, for there it was. It is sad that once we have opened the can of worms the innocence can't really be brought back. We can't suddenly think Santa is real again, sad, really.

    ReplyDelete
  21. My friend Crystal was captain of her cheer team in high school (around 2001). She was horrified when I showed her the video. Apparently in competitions they used to have rules prohibiting overly sexual moves/choreography.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I wonder if I just happened to find a bad school or if things have changed that much in under 10 years. Honestly, I went to youtube, typed cheerleading, that was the first video to come up and I thought, "Wow" so I used it. I am trying not to see to many contemporary things so I didn't look at a ton of videos, if anyone else in the 'future' wants to do a youtube check I would interested to see if that is the norm or out of the norm, but none-the-less, it is there and is rather shocking, non?

    ReplyDelete
  23. Great to hear that phrase again in the first video here, when the young lady on the telephone says: “He's the most!”. Keep up the good work!

    I am, &c.
    Alexander Dyle

    ReplyDelete
  24. I've been following your blog for a while and really enjoying it. Learning so much. I was born in 1952, so much of this is familiar to me.

    I loved that TWA video. The wholesome, cleanness, the sweet innocense, etc. I thought it was cute that no matter what dress, Sally always had the same hair ribbon. I particularly loved the dress she wore to Coney Island. Now that had style!
    A recent trip to stores in the US (we're missionaries out of the country and return to the US for 8 weeks in late summer) left me scratching my head. Where are the dresses? Where are the styles? There is no real style to anything. Tank tops, t-shirts and jeans. I'm not opposed to any of them in the right setting. But I can remember growing up in a suburb of Detroit and wearing dresses everywhere. Shorts and denim pants were for playing ~ NOT for going to the store.

    There are NO words for that other *cheerleading* video. Pure disgust! Those poor girls. But where were the parents? Don't they see their daughters practicing these moves at home? Or, are they too busy to take notice?
    Such sadness.

    I'll take the sweet innocense of the 50's! Thanks for the walk down memory lane. I am learning so much from your blog!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Excellent post! I agree that sexual liberation had some bad side effects. I think today's hypersexualized culture, PARTICULARLY its presence in mainstream children's culture, does more to objectify girls than anything in the past did. Yuck. Have you seen those awful Bratz dolls?

    If only we could just be people.

    ReplyDelete
  26. SO true, and also true about the lack of style. I have had company for the past two days and will post tomoorrow, so sorry for that. I have some interesting points to make, though and great new recipe for cabbage!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Well, first of all, you sure are a good artist! I love the drawing!

    I agree that two-income families can definitely cut back! What do those of you who work say about your husbands? Would they go along with this cutting way back so that you could stay home? Would they WANT you to be able to stay home?

    My husband isn’t a big cutter-backer for one, and though I have debt of my own that needs to be paid off, I really think that he would still want me to work to continue helping with the household expenses. I am curious to hear what others have to say.

    The dance…Absolutely appalling! How sad that the parents AND the school district allow pornographic smut in a school and performed by kids. And, I DON’T feel sorry for those girls—they know what they’re doing, and they’re lovin’ it.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Again, I am a little behind with your blog but are working on it. :)

    No, you’re not a prude – I feel exactly the same way. I’ve never seen anything like it, and you would never see such a thing in Denmark for sure. We’re the country that made G-strings for kids unlegal. I’m happy that parents in Denmark will not allow and will never feel proud seeing their kids dancing like this. Ough! And I’m definitely not a prude, I tell you, but you have to differ adults from kids.

    I loved the free nylons movie. :)

    ReplyDelete
  29. A fabulous gift idea that any mom & grandma links of london sale would be glad to accept is a mother's ring. There are countless styles to pick from london links charms and every one permits each of a mother's children's birthstone to be placed in the ring so mom & grandma can remember her children wherever she goes.Jewelry links london bracelet that is personalized or engraved makes great jewelry gifts for mom. You can have a particular word or meaningful expression engraved inside a ring, necklace or bracelet links of london earrings to demonstrate to your mother the depths of your feelings.Stylish watches are an additional idea for great jewelry gifts for mom. Your mother sweetie bracelet needs a stylish watch to go with her favorite outfit and perhaps even a few to go with her entire wardrobe.Another example of mom's & grandma's jewelry that makes a great gift is mother's earrings.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Dear 50sgal,

    My mom has been telling me about your blog for a while now, and today I finally got some time to drop by and see for myself. I'm honestly inspired by your dedication to this project of yours. You're doing a very amazing job, and I love reading what you've written. The 50s were a very interesting era, and I've had an interest in them for quite some time, though my personal conviction is the 30s and 40s. How I love the Andrews Sisters. I will let my mother, Mary R., know that I commented. Thanks again for this inspiring blog.

    Sammy

    ReplyDelete
  31. Hey 50sgal,

    My mom has been gettin on my case for a while to check out your blog, and I've finally had time to stop by. And let me say I am truly impressed! As a fan of the 50s already I must say I am SO inspired by your dedication and your brilliance! I've read a few of your earlier posts and it's so interesting to read. I honestly dont know how you do it. If I didn't have my "futuristic" technology I dont know what I'd do. I intend to keep my eyes on this blog and look forward to many more interesting stories from 1957.

    Your Fan,
    Sammy

    P.S. My mom is Mary R. She says the two of you have talked a few times. She speaks very highly of you and your blog.

    ReplyDelete

 Search The Apron Revolution