A source of inspiration

I recently stumbled over a source of inspiration for writing stories set in a certain period. The site at http://www.fawcettcomic.com/mary.php has old (very old) Mary Marvel comics. The series began in 1945 (continuing on for a few years) and features Mary Marvel - sister to Billy Marvel and part of the Marvel family (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Family for more on the characters).

Her age is a bit elastic, but she's generally a teenaged girl. Sometimes she's in high school, sometimes in college, sometimes she working as a reporter - continuality wasn't all that important for comics back then. And no, there isn't a lot of spanking in the comic books. While there is some, most of it is off the slapstick variety; Mary throwing a shoe or something a teenage villainess and nailing the girl in the backside - that sort of thing. There's occasional threats of spankings (usually aimed at small children) or a kid with pain stars coming its bottom, but that's basically it as far as spankings go.

No, the inspiration is in the setting found in those books. Those comics were a product of their times and whenever Mary Marvel catches a criminal without catching him red handed... Now remember, she's a superhero who has caught lots of crooks and saved the city many times AND has the Wisdom of Solomon, and when she interferes with a messenger who's part of a criminal ring or any other adult male (the crooks are usually adult males or that teenage villainess) who isn't actually committing a crime at the time, the reaction of the authorities is "What's a girl like you interfering with a grown man doing his job?". She then either presents hard evidence or is told to stop bothering the man.

Because a teenage girl's word can't be taken over that of a grown man - even if she is a superhero who has saved the city several times. If she lacks proof, then the cops ignore every word she says and usually apologise to the crook on Mary's behalf while telling her to go away and stop bothering the man.

That's the inspiration. The sexist and ageist attitude of the time is perfectly captured in those comics. Superhero or not, when Mary Marvel isn't believed she has no choice but to obey the voice of authority (the unbelieving police) and back down.

Because that's what teens were expected to do back then - blindly obey authority. And, to a lesser extent, women were expected to do the same (unless they were professional women).

Of course comics like these aren't the only things that show previous generations. The Mad Men TV show is wonderful at capturing the sexism of the early to mid 60s - and that show has several scenes of kids being put in their place (usually verbally; I've yet to see a spanking on that show) but these comic capture the condescending "adult males are in charge of the world" attitude in a way that not even Mad Men can project. Perhaps because their audience were the children who wouldn't find the police taking Mary Marvel's side in any way plausible.

I'd throw something in about the attitudes about visible minorities, but I've yet to find one in those comics. Yes, they were completely and totally excluded - which is probably statement enough about the attitudes on minorities of any type.

That said, I'm not sure I can write a believable 40s or 50s story. The attitudes are just so completely alien to how we live today that few people would find it plausible - anymore than Jackie Kennedy's granddaughters could watch Jackie being interviewed a First Lady and accept that their strong willed grandmother once said the words in that interview.

Goodgulf

I hear your message, Goodgulf and I have discarded all the settings of the past because of the attitudes of the past. Racism, sexism, blind faith in institutions who did not have our interests in mind when children were abused and adults only always knew best. No one ever asked adults to account for their actions and children were never taken seriously when they complained. Many of your objections are stereotypes, but stereotypes are based on reality. There is nothing to do but look forward and smile pleasantly when a fundamentalist mentions submitting to one's husband or a patronizing lecherous fool smiles and says "don't you be worrying your pretty little head."
islandcarol

Perhaps I'm having trouble understanding this because I'm a product of that time frame, therefore I grew up so steeped in that culture that I can't imagine anyone not understanding it.

That said, how is writing a story set in the 40/50's different from writing in any other different time frame? For example, we read many Victorian-setting stories here at the LSF. It's simply up to the author to correctly "set the scene" by defining and describing the world where the action is taking place.

Yes, IC, I understand your desire to shuck the attitudes of the past. However, in the world of spanking fiction, the past is a rich and fertile ground for stories. Why? because in years past spanking and corporal punishment were culturally accepted disciplinary tools. That's it. When you write a story set in 1895 about girls being "taken to the woodshed" for swimming in the creek, it's believable. It happened. A contemporary story needs to go to greater lengths to explain/justify why a spanking occurs because normally in these times, it is no longer culturally acceptable.

That doesn't mean that your characters need to be narrow minded condescending bigots. Example: I think Hank, in "Tumalo Bend 1895" is by all accounts a good father and a fair minded man. But he is a product of his times. And that is what makes the story work.

I'll continue to use historical settings in various periods, but it's not because I yearn for them to return. It's because those settings provide such great fodder for stories.

Guy

To me the difference comes from it being a relatively recent period. There are people who remember and more who have heard stories about what it was like growing up then. It's easily to for people to notice when the setting is off... Yet because it is recent we tend to project our modern values on to those times.

With the Victorian setting, most times it is a faux Victorian setting that is modelled off of books that Richard Manton wrote than having much to do with the actual Victorian or Edwardian eras.

Goodgulf

And some of us were closer to that period as well. Before the huge cultural revolution of the '60's things, in America at least, and in the South at least, were very very different with respect to institutions like schools, camps, and ,yes, prisons where deference to authority was a cultural norm. Also look at the popular culture---when was the last time you saw a wife over her husband's knee in a coffee advertisement because she bought the wrong brand? (This ad has been floating around on the internet for years in case you haven't seen it). It's been awhile. I wrote about this in a tongue-in-cheek way in an earlier essay here, but it's true. Spanking was an accepted form of discipline in homes and some institutions until the mid '60's. I don't argue that that's a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes I think it's a mixed bag. But in terms of FICTION it is much more believable to envision, and write about, a scene in this time period.

The farther back in time you, BTW, the more research you'd have to do to make it seem real. Many "historical" writers make huge mistakes and have anachronisms in speech, dress, culture and everything else. I couldn't write a "regency" era romance. I know too little about it. But the '50's? I was there. So I saw it. Or heard first hand accounts. And they happened.

A good example of getting it wrong is the HBO drama Magic City. It's a good show, but they didn't get a 1959 vibe to it. They have the cars and the clothes, but modern attitudes play too big of a role.

Set in 1959 Miami, when a powerful state politician expressed segregation views I got the impression that he was being humoured because he was a powerful politician - when in that time and place segregation politics were accepted politics (and the law). Today expressing that view would be a worse form of political suicide than feeling up Miss Iceland in public (he does that too - trying to get his finger inside her), but back then saying trash like that (even if he didn't believe it - many non-racists courted the racist vote) would help get him elected.

And when it comes to religion... There's a Jewish boy dating a pre Vatican II Catholic Latino girl and no one seems to think anything about it. Not his family, not her family. Today, no one would really care about it. Back then society would judge them. Before Vatican II Catholics weren't supposed to associated with non-Catholics (that would just be encouraging their sins) and dating outside of the faith (whichever faith you were born too) could get you shunned at best and someone might end up tarred and feathered (or dead)at worse. If her Cuban father took a belt to her over her relationship, well that would be ugly but more acceptable to many in that age than her dating outside her faith.

And him being her father and her being unmarried and living under his roof - few people would judge him if he beat her. Even those who did would be judging him for raising a daughter that he had to beat at her age.

Don't get me wrong - Magic City is a nice show but they didn't capture the era. They did only a slightly better job of it than the people who did the latest Alice In Wonderland did with Victorian England (their version had more fantasy in it than Wonderland did). Which is why that show lacks the magic of Mad Men or Boardwalk Empire - both of which capture the feel of their respective eras.


Watching old movies, reading old books, viewing old comics - all of those things were products of that society and reflect how things were. Even something in like The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (one of Shirley Temple's last films) you can hear a high school girl being told "Susan, I am still strong enough to take you over my knee and give you the lambasting I sincerely believe you deserve". Or see a woman's opinion be dismissed out of hand (or simply not offered) because a male would know best.

It was a different world to that of today, and it's a hard world to write in.

Goodgulf

The principal male character in that series who the audience knows as Don Draper is the son of a prostitute, and initially he takes the name (Whitman) of the man who raised him after his mother dies young. Isn't there a flashback scene of his boyhood where he gets belted for something - not graphic but implied - before he moves out? I only saw the series on television so the details are very hazy. It is scene from the first series, in which his adoptive father is killed in a barn by a frightened horse.

It is a fantastic, creative TV series in which such shortcuts in character development are necessary to get Draper's past roughly sketched in. Occasional suspension of disbelief is a small price to pay for the brilliant recreation of the middle class values of the sixties. In later series Betty tries hard to get Don to give their daughter a spanking (literally, not figuratively) because she is growing rebellious; Each of their attitudes are the consequence of their upbringing: Don's unwillingness comes from his own experiences. Betty's family experience is that a spanking would be good for the children if they won't listen. That bullying strictness is her character flaw, Draper has lots of his own.

It doesn't explore spanking or family discipline very directly but the whole series (in UK we are some years behind US and I think there have been five series on BBC) is really all about it under the surface. That 'do as you're told or else' pervades all the relationships between the generations. The collapse of authoritarianism is why the changes of the sixties are correctly referred to as a revolution, because everything became unrecognisable during ten amazing years.

Finally I don't wish to post this without declaring that I have always been opposed to the abolition of corporal punishment and to the wave of demonisation that has carried sway since abolition. Although Betty Draper is not a model parent she has something in common with my own parents, who would have quietly approved if they had been told that I had earned and received the cane. It was an unremarkable part of those strict times. Good riddance to the petty authoritarianism, but now we have replaced it with tyrannical abolitionism instead.

The main character has talked about how getting spanked just made him want to kill his old man - on the same episode that he refused to spank his son.

And there have been kids getting hit. Blows to the face. In one case, the person doing the hitting wasn't even a relative and when the boy's father got the details he asked the kid if the boy was straightened out or needed more (the original hitter had practically talk the man out of giving the kid more). In another case, mother delivered a full on face slap to her daughter.

There haven't been any spankings shown (if I remember right, the scene in the barn was hitching up horses, not using leather on the kid), but the "do as you're told or else" attitude runs through the show. All the kids know that if an adult decides that enough is enough then that's it. The attitude applies almost as strongly to wives and girlfriends as it does to the kids. Sometimes the men don't take no for an answer; there has been at least one date rape and several girls who seemed pressured into doing thing for men.

In short, it captures the attitudes of its day.

Goodgulf