Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, September 1921 · page 34 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #27 — page 34: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical editorial criticizing censorship hypocrisy. The piece mocks San Diego police for raiding a theater showing "Adam and Eve," a South American film they deemed obscene for exposing "feminine anatomy." The satire's point: authorities apply arbitrary moral standards to cinema while ignoring nudity accepted elsewhere. The editorial notes that classical art (the "Aphrodite of the galleries") displays nude figures without censorship, and beachgoers expose themselves freely. Yet the same authorities crack down on film. The headline—"The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet"—suggests moral authority (the "bull," or official decree) matters more than force, implying this censorship represents arbitrary power rather than legitimate protection. The referenced Carpentier-Dempsey fight was a major 1921 boxing match, establishing the magazine's timeframe. This reveals 1920s-era debates over film censorship and moral regulation during the early cinema era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
32 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Whiz Bang Editorials “The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet.” TIAJUANA is a small town in Mexico just across the border from San Diego. It is the Havana of the west coast. The other day a theatre had just opened up to show the films of the Carpentier-Dempsey fight when the building caught fire and burned film and all. It was a tough day for the movies also in San Diego, for the “cops” at a nearby beach resort chose the day for raiding a playhouse that was screening a South American film called “Adam and Eve.” According to the police there was an undue exposure of the feminine anatomy in the case of Eve. Mebbe so! We have not had the pleasure of seeing this tid-bit. But, it must have been some exposure if it had anything on the Aphrodite of the galleries and the halls of sculpture that are accepted as the product of “Art” and held immune from the incongruous draperies of Gothic prudery. On our bathing beaches, too, everything goes on and off, and more than mere legs is visible