Judge, 1921-01-29 · page 7 of 32
Judge — January 29, 1921 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "A Paradoxical Mate" Analysis This is a short story illustration, not political satire. The cartoon depicts a scene from Mary Grannan Bonner's fiction about Margaret Cropsey, who is dissatisfied with her appearance despite being married to Billy, a good man who loves her. The satire targets **women's insecurity about beauty** and the cosmetics/beauty industry. Margaret visits a beauty parlor with a motto promising transformation ("Welcome and Success!"), seeking treatments and massages to improve her looks. The story mocks how women pursue expensive, ineffective beauty treatments despite having loving husbands who don't care about their appearance. The joke is the irony: Margaret has what matters—a devoted spouse—yet pursues beauty industry promises that waste money and effort on "plain as all that" reality. This reflects early 20th-century anxiety about female vanity and emerging beauty commerce targeting women's insecurities.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
1g Sous Corse urs Sea-Sick Seot (aft lief at the rail) Eu, M. \ sevvoya \ NERAVAGANCE TH pryot A Paradoxical Mate merely good-looking and clever, am anit By Maey Gaantaw Bonar M ARGARET CROPSEY adored her Billy. tle was not in Deanty’s footsteps but he was not unmindful of beauty’s * “ r nd rect us spender but he was her hus! tioning Margaret made her | here was one cloud in an otherwise cloud si ‘ Over the entrance of the ji . could be beautiful. Not that Billy had ever n yms where plain features were disearded and { pm wtisfaction r looks. Ne 1 he s acquired she read the motto: ever ind Success! Kut when sh And you'll really make me beautiful?” she asker It’s Oh dear, I Billy had 1 easy to do?” ‘ b Oh, beauty doesnt count for anything. You're htt s assured by Madan Why vour ] 1 when vou get out of here vou'll b t The way she wa was not a beautiful wa nicd her inference that beauty had neve ch such as she had heard se Even Billy ‘ claimed her for its own she was plain k of Billy Cropsey’s beautiful ck Wellman’s wife. People spok she knew. as “such a nice girl’ or “such a sensible she neede sige, Or a treatment for the Ii only people could they said it was someth people spoke of ‘ tever had at home. She felt that hand 1 That is—to pay for it! She ha I that What wouldn't she do to possess it! For Billy 1 beautiful woman. Not that he walked plain g comicbooks.com