# Unexpected Different Attitudes In Older Works **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 7, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178 "2019-06-07T19:16:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/61 "2019-06-11T12:09:59Z")
If you really want a shock, going back less than a century gets you into amazing casual racism. The internment of people Japanese descent during WWII seems like an obscure, hidden thing, but it was very obvious and visible at the time. I was surprised, upon watching the 1943 _Batman_ serial to see tat it opens with a segment praising the US govenment’s wise decision to round up all the Japs: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-ethnic-stereotypes-of\_b\_111426 While researching a turn-of-the-century amusement park, I found that, contrary to my initial assessment, they actually had African Dodgers. there. If you don’t know what the African Dodger is, have a look: > **[African dodger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_dodger)** > > African dodger, also known as Hit the Coon or Hit the Nigger Baby, was a carnival game played in the United States of America (USA). In the game, an African-American man would stick his head through a curtain, and attempt to dodge objects, such as eggs or baseballs, thrown at him by players. Despite the obvious brutality of hitting someone in the head with eggs or baseballs, it was a popular carnival game from the 1880s up to the 1960s. The victims often suffered serious injuries. A Popular Mech... > **[The African Dodger](https://ameripics.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/the-african-dodger/)** > >   Most readers have likely heard of the Los Angeles Dodgers. And if you are old enough, you may remember the Brooklyn Dodgers. (The Dodgers were a Brooklyn, NY, team until they moved to the we… I was appalled to find that they had “African Dodgers” set up at things like church bazaars, or that local newspaper praised young girls for their accuracy in pitching balls at the Dodgers’ head. All of which is to say that throwing baseballs at the unprotected head of a black man was seen as not only perfectly natural, but actually praiseworthy. There’s a very slight justification for people not getting completely outraged – but only a tiny bit. The balls weren’t really baseballs – they were smaller and lighter. But they were still hard balls pitched directly at someone’s head. And apparently some people brought their own “real” baseballs. Or pitched rocks. There are records of severe injuries from this. Eventually, the practice died out. Within a decade it was outlawed in Massachusetts. Even before that, carnivals started substituting something less lethal – what we today call the Dunk Tank started out as a more humane replacement for the African Dodger. That it was originally only black people sitting on the seat of a Dunk Tank, taunting the players to throw baseballs at the target (in lieui of their head) is shown by early advertising for the tanks, which were called “chocolate drops”. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/62 "2019-06-11T14:28:49Z")
In general, otherwise decent and intelligent white people uncritically believed that blacks were degenerates only kept from erupting into savagery by the constant vigilance of our brave, noble police. :smack: Hopefully that’s all that needs to be said or race alone would take up this entire thread. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/63 "2019-06-11T15:11:07Z")
All of this is interesting stuff. However I did expect these different attitudes, I lived through a lot of them, mostly it seemed perfectly normal at the time since it was reinforced in entertainment and current events. But it is still uncomfortable to see how long the struggle continued, and so many issues no where near resolution yet. There different attitudes now that we’ll see in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/64 "2019-06-11T15:15:28Z")
For me, all the racism talk sort of veers from the original topic of the post - I don’t find racism (or sexism) in older works _unexpected_. Whereas the first time I heard about the total disregard for littering in older days, I was surprised. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/65 "2019-06-11T15:26:12Z")
Mad Men played with this idea, by having the characters do things that would have been normal at the time. For instance, the family goes on a picnic and then throws all the trash in the bushes (in a public park.) Or the children run into the living room playing “astronaut” with their mother’s dry cleaning bags over their heads. She flips – because they are messing with her dry cleaning. She isn’t at all concerned with them having cling-film bags on their heads. Or the time a minor character’s foot is damaged by a lawn mower. “Poor guy, he can’t work in an advertising agency any more. Oh well.” ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/66 "2019-06-11T15:50:59Z")
OK, not quite on target here but something that was worth a laugh out of me when I read it. Prentice Alvin, by Orson Scott Card (might have been the earlier Red Prophet but I’m not sure) It’s set in the first two decades of the 1800s. One of the older women characters wants to adopt a mixed race small boy. She and her husband were abolitionists and had rescued him when his mother died getting him away from being enslaved. So far, so good. Arguing against adopting him, her husband says something like, “Look at him, what about when he grows up? Is he going to want to vote?” She replied, “Oh nonsense. He wouldn’t try to vote anymore than I would!” BOOM, baby. A book published in 1989 throwing a smackdown for the reader about how things have changed. Caught me right by surprised and made clear, to some extent, just what changes have occurred. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/67 "2019-06-11T16:12:19Z")
Just the opposite: _Under the Gaslight_ from 1867 was the first play to have someone tied to the railroad tracks. Only it’s the hero who’s tied, and the heroine who rescues him at the last moment. And the hero puts in a plug for woman’s suffrage, too. > [@Under the Gaslight](#): > > _ **Snorkey**._ Here—quick ! (She runs and unfastens him. The locomotive lights glare on scene.) Victory! Saved! Hooray! (Laura leans exhausted against switch.) And these are the women who ain’t to have a vote! ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/68 "2019-06-11T18:10:14Z")
Phillip K Dick’s _Man in the High Castle_ is filled with casual racism. I’d like to think he wrote it this way simply to show how bad things were in Japanese occupied California. I also wonder if anyone would be brave enough to do that now. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/69 "2019-06-11T18:21:40Z")
> [@Tzigone](#): > > For me, all the racism talk sort of veers from the original topic of the post - I don’t find racism (or sexism) in older works _unexpected_. Whereas the first time I heard about the total disregard for littering in older days, I was surprised. Honestly I really did find the casual racism in Robert Heinlein’s _Farnhams Freehold_ shocking. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/70 "2019-06-11T18:42:10Z")
> [@](#): > > Honestly I really did find the casual racism in Robert Heinlein’s Farnhams Freehold shocking. Fair enough. Can’t say I’ve read it. I think _Stranger in a Strange Land_ is the only Heinlein I have read. I was in high school then, and didn’t care for it. Remember almost nothing about it now. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/71 "2019-06-11T18:48:11Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > In general, otherwise decent and intelligent white people uncritically believed that blacks were degenerates only kept from erupting into savagery by the constant vigilance of our brave, noble police. :smack: > > Hopefully that’s all that needs to be said or race alone would take up this entire thread. The OP did say that they didn’t want this thread to be about racism or sexism: " I’m specifically excluding things like racial and gender issues here" ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/72 "2019-06-11T19:32:32Z")
> [@gkster](#): > > I’m reading a 1954 book by Enid Blyton, one of the most prolific children’s authors of the mid 1900s. > Twins, seven years old, are being sent unaccompanied on a 5 hour train trip. > > "“I’ll tell the guard to come and have a look at you now and then,” [mother] said. “You’ll be quite all right, because you don’t have to change anywhere. Eat your sandwiches when you see a clock on some station pointing to half-past twelve.” I think my mum travelled about 400 miles by train by herself at the age of 10 once in the 50s, being picked up at the far end. It was apparently not out of the ordinary. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/73 "2019-06-11T19:39:36Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > A few years ago I decided to watch the movie _Car Wash_, released circa 1976, just to see what it was like. I never expected it to be any sort of great masterpiece of course, but it was somewhat amusing, and it was actually a pretty good insight into the culture and attitudes of 40+ years ago. One scene that was unexpected for me was when a male customer goes to pay for his car wash, starts flirting with the young woman working the cash register, and asks her out on a date. Now every woman I know in my age group (I’m 39) who’s worked in the service industry has told me they find it extremely annoying when men try to hit on them while they’re at work and would definitely not agree to go on a date with a random customer. Maybe if the guy was a regular who she’s gotten to know over time, but certainly not someone she’s never met before. But in the movie, the cashier acted flattered and excitedly said yes to his request for a date. Later on in the movie she’s excitedly telling her coworkers that she has a date tonight. I genuinely found that surprising. I don’t think that is necessarily an accurate representation of reality. No doubt the writers were clueless men who had no idea how such conduct made women feel. It’s the reason such attitudes and such ignorance is so ubiquitous. It dominated our media for decades. We’ve grown up watching these movies convincing us that girls loved it. They probably never did. Men are only now just starting to realize it. Look how many people think girls appreciate “cat calls” as compliments. I’m sure there are plenty of movies–written by men of such mindset–who wrote their female characters to appreciate a nice _compliment_. Your cashier example is just one of countless examples of unacceptable conduct that was never received the way it was depicted on the screen. Remember in Revenge of the Nerds, when he pretty much rapes the girl on the Moon Walk through deception, and she fell in love with him for it? Yea, there’s no way a woman wrote that script… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/74 "2019-06-11T19:58:03Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > In one 1930s cartoon Popeye, mistakenly believing that Swee’Pea has been naughty, prepares to administer discipline by picking up a stout piece of wood. This early [Dennis the Menace](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kVANKeGfBGU/UEAjJbqichI/AAAAAAAAB0I/fn8O4zHgFG4/s1600/dennis3.jpg) comic strip would be shocking today. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2019, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/75 "2019-06-11T21:26:10Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Arguing against adopting him, her husband says something like, “Look at him, what about when he grows up? Is he going to want to vote?” > > She replied, “Oh nonsense. He wouldn’t try to vote anymore than I would!” Nitpick - it’s when she wants to send him to the new town school, and the school board shows up and strong-arms her into not doing so. The book’s actually got a lot of quite nuanced portrayals of different possible responses to institutionalised racism - good, bad and kinda-sorta-maybe-good. There’s also the town drunk who “didn’t much like Black folks, but couldn’t bear to see any wild thing cooped up” and therefore becomes a staunch Underground Railway participant ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/76 "2019-06-12T00:17:48Z")
[I can’t plug in these new plugs! What’s the deal? - The Straight Dope](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/170/i-cant-plug-in-these-new-plugs-whats-the-deal/) (1983) Coincidentally mentioned in [Favourite outdated columns](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=876877) I just can’t take a joke? I’m getting old? We’re more self-rightious now? For whatever reason, the joke about killing obnoxious kids doesn’t amuse me, yet I would be surprised if Cecil was actually trying to offend at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/77 "2019-06-12T00:29:15Z")
I _think_ that Heinlein in _Farnham’s Freehold_ was trying to cast a light on real-world racism by reversing the roles, in order to make real people more sympathetic to the plight of black folks. He failed pretty spectacularly at it, but I think that’s what he was trying to do. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/78 "2019-06-12T01:11:23Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > Remember in Revenge of the Nerds, when he pretty much rapes the girl on the Moon Walk through deception, and she fell in love with him for it? Yea, there’s no way a woman wrote that script… Which is a good segue into another one I thought of. Years ago I was reading an anthology of sci-fi/fantasy short stories that someone had given me, I think published in the 1970s. I don’t remember the title of the story and I most likely gave the book to Goodwill by now so I can’t go and check, but here’s the basic plot. The two heros were in some sort of plane crash in some sort of pseudo Middle Eastern setting (or a romanticized Western version of the Middle East, really). They wander into a village, and the village elders, I guess as a show of friendship or hospitality or whatever, offers up a nubile young woman for them to have sex with. The twist was that she turned out to have some sort of weapon hidden in her elaborate hairdo, so even though she was naked she could pull out a weapon and attack them. Just the idea of a culture where it’s apparently the norm to show hospitality by offering strangers a young woman for their sexual pleasure reads more like some male nerd’s fantasy than any sort of plausible society. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > This early [Dennis the Menace](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kVANKeGfBGU/UEAjJbqichI/AAAAAAAAB0I/fn8O4zHgFG4/s1600/dennis3.jpg) comic strip would be shocking today. When I saw Dennis the Menace without noticing the post you quoted I thought this was going to be about the time the cartoonist, Hank Ketchum, tried to add a black character to the strip. Except his black characters were all drawn like something out of a 19th century minstrel show, and he apparently couldn’t understand why people found that offensive. > **[When 'Dennis the Menace' Created a Racial Controversy](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dennis-the-menace/)** > > Rumor: The portrayal of a black character in a 'Dennis the Menace' cartoon prompted outbursts of violence and apologies from newspapers that published it. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/79 "2019-06-12T02:32:32Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > I don’t think that is necessarily an accurate representation of reality. No doubt the writers were clueless men who had no idea how such conduct made women feel. It’s the reason such attitudes and such ignorance is so ubiquitous. It dominated our media for decades. We’ve grown up watching these movies convincing us that girls loved it. They probably never did. Men are only now just starting to realize it. Look how many people think girls appreciate “cat calls” as compliments. I’m sure there are plenty of movies–written by men of such mindset–who wrote their female characters to appreciate a nice _compliment_. Your cashier example is just one of countless examples of unacceptable conduct that was never received the way it was depicted on the screen. Remember in Revenge of the Nerds, when he pretty much rapes the girl on the Moon Walk through deception, and she fell in love with him for it? Yea, there’s no way a woman wrote that script… Pretty much the only part I remember from **Car Wash** was Mona’s entrance scene. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/fps14tiIMpg/hqdefault.jpg "Car Wash TC sees Mona") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fps14tiIMpg) It’s only 20 seconds long, but for some reason it’s been imprinted on my brain for the past 40 years. Heaven knows why. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178/80 "2019-06-12T09:27:49Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno;21692871.. Look how many people think girls appreciate "cat calls" as compliments \[...](#): > > Yea, there’s no way a woman wrote that script… 1. I have known women who appreciated cat calls. 2. I have known women who had rape fantasies (and I have read writing by others) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unexpected-different-attitudes-in-older-works/835178.md?page=5)