Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, July 1922 · page 46 of 67
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #35 — page 46: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes contemporary debates about changing women's fashion and behavior in 1920s America. A French character, Rene Callay, critiques American women's short skirts and low necklines as immodest by European standards, yet simultaneously calls them prudish for not reciprocating male attention. He dismisses their "fluency of movement" compared to French women. The magazine responds playfully, inviting debate. The second section mocks extreme bohemian fashion via Greenwich Village "art models" wearing scandalous bathing suits—socks rolled down, tight trunks, and implied brassieres (alluding to ancient queens). The satire targets post-WWI cultural anxieties: women's increased workplace participation, the "flapper" style with shorter hemlines, and bohemian rejection of Victorian modesty. The magazine uses exaggeration to simultaneously mock both prudish foreign judgments and America's avant-garde fashion experimenters.
📄 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 45 tiously. The girls are there—and so are the beads—if you care to notice 'em. Which reminds us of the comments of Rene Callay, a wealthy young Frenchman, upon clothes and American girls. “Such short skirts and low bodices!” he said. “In France it would not be possible. She is not a woman, neither is she a man. She is in banks, offices, even the stock-yards. And yet with all her participa- tion in men’s fields, she is still a prude. “She treats mere man like a dog instead of reciprocating his gifts. Your American women —pardon, monsieur—they have pretty faces and ankles, but not the fluency of movement that French women have. “You Americans have become more polished since the war. But you do not know how to play. You do not know how to tease and be teased!” Rene may be right but, if he will page Whiz Bang’s New York representative, we’d like to debate this fluency of movement thing with him. * * * AND the new bathing suits! Coney Island saw two the other day that took its breath away. They were sported by two Green- wich Village art models and consisted of socks rolled down to three inches below the knees, trim little tight fitting trunks of white em- broidered with blue birds, and a set of things that the Queen of Sheba and Cleopatra used to