Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1922 · page 17 of 67
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #32 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical piece from Captain Billy's Whiz Bang attacks the artistic communities of La Jolla and Laguna Beach, California, contrasting them with Hollywood's reputation for scandal. **Key targets:** - Del Carmen and Sarah Andrews, who had an unconventional ocean wedding, emblematic of artists wanting to be "different" - The Laguna Beach artist colony, depicted as bohemian and morally loose (everyone allegedly in love with their best friend's spouse) - Their aesthetic: sandals, sloppy clothes, no haircuts—coded as libertine **The satire's point:** Hollywood studios and the Motion Picture Producers' Association are trying to rehabilitate Hollywood's "modern Babylon" image by deflecting blame onto coastal bohemian communities. Whiz Bang cynically suggests they should literally redirect scandal accusations elsewhere rather than reform. The joke targets both the artistic pretension of bohemia *and* Hollywood's hypocrisy—simultaneously mocking unconventional artists while exposing the industry's PR manipulation. The implication: everyone is scandalous; Hollywood just has better publicists.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 15 town. La Jolla has this week confirmed some of our suspicions in the bathing suit marriage which took place when Del Carmen and Sarah Andrews plighted their serious (?) troth in the trough of the ocean. Artist like, they just wanted to be “different.” Of course you wouldn’t think an artist who paints with a brush could be as lowbrow as those Hollywood actors, but you just ought to be in on some of the parties staged down at sneaky little Laguna Beach. An artist colony (many of them people of national reputation, too), resides there permanently in a little world of their own. Judging from several little Bo- hemian affairs visited by Whiz Bang’s official chaperone, we would judge that everyone’s in love with best friend’s wife, and best friend doesn’t even care! Sandals, and loose sloppy clothes and no haircuts usually travel with freedom of thought. That’s why it’s hard to believe that some of Hollywood’s most athletic, healthiest, best groomed and best clothed actors are seeped in sin! The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Motion Picture Producers’ Association have just joined forces to combat magazine and newspaper propaganda tending to paint Holly- wood as a modern Babylon. Whiz Bang sug- gests the simple expedient of throwing loads of mud at somebody else (perhaps Laguna or La Jolla), thus diverting the scandal hungry