Judge, 1920-04-17 · page 10 of 36
Judge — April 17, 1920 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life—The Complex: Judge Magazine Satire This page satirizes movie tropes and their influence on American attitudes. The top section—"A Six Reel Thriller"—shows six sketches of a man's face with varying expressions, illustrating how silent films exaggerated emotions for dramatic effect. The main article parodies what movies taught audiences to believe: that villains have narrow faces and Charlie Chaplin mustaches, that foreign aristocrats wore monocles and came to marry American heiresses, that detectives look square-jawed and crude, that rich women lounge constantly on Louis XIV furniture, and that millionaires' libraries resemble cluttered warehouses. The accompanying cartoons mock domestic absurdities—a butler's formality, a wife hiding from a boyfriend, a cook's whiskey theft. The satire targets how cinema created false stereotypes about class, nationality, and behavior that Americans uncritically accepted as reality.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
acres Om ee oe and chiffon, and smoking perfumed cigarettes. y That all men who have «: narrow heads, eyes, noses. ‘ | waist-lines, mustaches | (Charlie Chaplin variety), y and Rolls-Royces are vil- | lains, and should be treated | as such by self-respecting gurls. ‘That ninety-nine per aon cent. of the foreign peers who, before the war, over- ran this fair land of the brave and home of the free wore monocles, were gener ally broke, came here with the sole purpose of marry- ing money, and _ buried their upper lips in elevated or inverted hirsute adorn- ments—clevated, if French, Russian, or Prussian; in- verted, if English or Scan- dinavian. hat detectives are square-built, lantern-jawed persons, who wear ill-fitting derbies and smoke big That a bachelor apartment is not a bachelor apart- cellarette and (b) a screen, closet, a | ° \ “iv <3 YS sr | | } oA | 4 r - ~\\ | | i] | | | | | | Drawa by G. BR. Ixwoor as a A Six Reev Turitcer Life—The Complex vho wear black stogies right in the poller. And what the movies have taught us about it.) HAT parlor maids (the kind that persist in ment without (a) showing the Baron into the drawing-room right in the middle of Reggie's big scene with Clarice) are always pretty and have the appearance of being just about to pose for a hosiery advertisement. That all handsome men are heroes That all heroes are handsome men. That all heroes dress like the figures in the spring catalogues ‘That wrist-watch, tort. and a heliotrope handkerch constitute the regulatic every typical Willie Vanill That chandeliers were invented for incbriated gentle- men to hang hats, shoes, and long silk stockings on. That about the funniest thing that can happer fat_man is to have a ripe custard pie placed in siidden juxtaposition to his map, to be knocked out with a gran piano, or to have a bucket of steaming soup poured down his collar That high-class butlers and footmen invariably carry their arms as though their coats were far too tight in the shoulders That women of wealth spend eighteen out of every twenty-four hours lolling about on Louis XIV chaise-longues in post-impressionistic bou- ite Fev qe A le Freque doirs, swathed in from forty y can’t sec to sixty vards of silk, lace se-shell glasses, spats, of carried in the sleeve marching equipment of y Poca Resus your way to toa herce hate 1 of the Mec or adjoining room for somebody's erring wife to hide behind or in. That all artists have intrigues with unhappily married women. That the idle rich are surrounded principally by a) butlers, (b) cocktails, (c) limousines, and (d) illicit love-affairs. That the first thing a man does on the famous morning after is to howl lustily for a big pitcher of ice-water, drink the contents at one gulp, tie the ice on his head with a towel, and throw the empty pitcher at Jarvis, the impeccable valet, when he brings in the breakfast tray. That to be a genuine millionaire of the first water a man must so fill his library with furniture that it looks | | || like a cross between a storage Hl warehouse and a midsummer furniture sale. A Line Drawing VY arke—Don't you think Gabson / has a slight touch of vulgarity? { Lane—Oh, decidedly so, He's } the kind of a man one might ask to one’s home, but never to one’s | club. } Easily Solved Ne “The cook says she will notify «> 2 the authorities that we have whiskey.” 1 “Don’t worry, dear. After she » has been here another week, there won't be any of it left.” comicbooks.com