Life, 1927-02-03 · page 33 of 35
Life — February 3, 1927 — page 33: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a satirical cartoon titled "The Poor Fish" by Bill Sykes, depicting a social commentary on male behavior and chivalry. **The Cartoon's Point:** A woman with a flat tire receives help from multiple passing motorists—except the first one (accompanied by his wife), who pretends not to notice. The woman and her male companion hide behind a billboard while strangers assist. The joke satirizes male hypocrisy: men readily help an attractive woman in distress, yet the one man who *should* help (her actual companion) shamefully avoids the work, letting strangers do it while he hides. **The Satire:** It mocks masculine pride and the performative nature of chivalry—men help to appear noble, but avoid genuine responsibility. The woman's refusal to let the first motorist help suggests she's complicit in or amused by the deception. The page also includes a humorous essay "What This Country Needs" about replacing nickels with wooden ones, plus period advertisements for cigarettes, soap, and hair treatment products—typical Life magazine content.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Poor Fish (Plural) vik E (going flat): Pssss-slslsIlllll. Boy (in white flannels): Darn! Gint (beautiful, but not dumb): Oh, go ahead and swear. Boy: I'm thinking of my trousers. Gin: T have it, Go behind that billboard; I'll change the tire. (Ie does so, but she doesn’t.) Finst Passina Morontet (married but alone and seeing beautiful girl with flat tire): Need any help? Ginut Oh, thank yous VD. M. (stopping): I'll have it fixed in a jiffy. Seconp To Seventu Passina Mo- toutsts (either single men or mar- ried men traveling alone): Can't we help? Gint (smiling): Oh, I don’t want to trouble you. S. T. S. P. M. (as one): It's no trouble at all, (Fienti Passina Motorist, ae- companied by his wife, drives by without stopping.) I. P.M. (lowering jack): That didn't take long. Girt: How can I ever thank you? S. T. S. P. M..(together): Don't mention it. (They drive off.) Girt (to Boy): Yoo-hoo, yoo-hov. Boy (to Girt): Have they gone? (He emerges from his place of con- cealment, gets into the car, smiles admiringly at the Girt, and drives away, careful not to overtake any of the poor fish ahead of him.) Bill Sykes. What This Country Needs WOR the first time in my life, per- haps, I am going to do it. I am going to make a statement beginning “What this country You see, I am a mild man who has never had any marked pas- sion for airing his ideas on anything. I accepted Prohibition with a smile, and female suffrage with a grin. 1 make out my income tax report with- oul a murmur. But now I want to come out flatfooted for a radical re- form. I want to see a change in our coinage system, What this country wooden nickels. n the design of the present fiv--cent piece, keep the Indian and th buffalo—I don’t care—but dis- card the alloy of nickel and copper substitute wood. Once the me- nickels are called in, the wooden ohes, being legal, will be- come common; people will use them, give them, accept them. And thus there will be no whimsical signifi- cance in the remark, “Well, don’t take any wooden nickels.” What this country needs is better and brighter farewells. Tupper Greenwald. | KEEP YOUR SKINYOUNG | Tedious treatments unnecessary if the soap used for daily cleansing is Resinol MEN -— Stop Falling Hair! i] GLOVER’S will cleanse and stimulate the a 1 ff and healthy Free Book, “H Hair and a Healthy Scalp.” | contains practical methods of saving your hair before you are entirely bald. Write De 2 ‘119 FMD Ave. SMOKERS MASTER.-LITE fiir rybedy Marvels Wow M Lights bay No Wind Can Blow it Out ven ens nro gt mre, ete mete anolere Seiios fehecss eatin bine ho Boke. Somes AGENTS MAKE BIG MONEY Selling to Consumers and Dealers Masterlite Mfg. Co., "Reefer Gis comicbooks.com