Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, January 1922 · page 16 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #29 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical complaint about the sexual double standard in 1920s entertainment. The writer contrasts what's happening on the New York stage—a "strip cupid" poker game where six women remove clothing while audiences applaud—with film content, noting the stage faces no censorship while cinema does. The satire targets the hypocrisy: dramatic theater producers are "getting away with anything" in terms of nudity and sexual content, while musical comedy producers (an older entertainment form) are constrained. The writer sarcastically claims not to support censorship while clearly criticizing that stage productions can display near-naked women personifying "Art" without consequence. The reference to "little Rollo" suggests a family-friendly film context, emphasizing the contrast between what children might see on screen versus what happens in live theater. The piece mocks the unfair competitive advantage drama has gained through increasingly explicit content, at musical comedy's expense.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
14 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Although the husband finally succeeds in capturing his demi-wife in her boudoir and thereupon starts out to—well—anyway the real incident of the piece is the aforementioned strip poker party, where a half dozen film fillies discard garment after garment in a game designed to be thrilling. It isn't a mere strip poker party but a "strip cupid" affair, the first to arrive at the cupid state to be the winner—or loser. The game progresses until it is a mere matter of a card's turn who is to be cupid when, of course, the thing is ended. This, then, is the state of the New York stage at this moment. Meanwhile, film fans see life on the screen through the eyes of little Rollo while, just around the corner, six young women are in the act of taking off their pink envelope thing-ums while an appreciative audience applauds. Not, of course, that we're for censorship anywhere. But the New York stage producer seems to be able to get away with anything. It is making it awfully hard for the musical comedy producer. Years ago he reached a certain limit in bare revelations and now the drama comes along and wins away the tired business man. Of course, the musical comedy maker isn't giving up without a fight. Now and then he has an inspiration, as when, in the new Greenwich Village Follies, he reveals a lady to personify Art dressed exclusively in