Judge — December 19, 1925 — page 19: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a **reader participation contest**, not a political cartoon. Judge magazine presents a black-and-white photograph showing what appears to be women in an interior scene, then challenges readers to caption it—to guess "what has just been said?" The example captions reveal the contest's satirical humor: they feature working-class or "modern woman" dialogue with period slang ("cockeyed world," "dearie"), including references to alcohol ("Where in hell's the gin?") and sarcastic jabs at masculinity and magazine quality. The **prizes are deliberately absurd and satirical**: the "first prize" (an acre in Miami) appears legitimate, but the lower prizes devolve into worthless items—a fountain pen, old calendar, and empty liquor bottle. This mock-serious descent into joke prizes satirizes typical magazine contests. The piece mocks both **Prohibition-era anxieties** (casual drinking references) and emerging **20th-century "modern woman"** culture with frank, slangy speech. Readers were invited to submit their own captions for a contest that was itself partly a joke at the magazine's own expense.