Friday 29 May 2009

259 - American Unisex 3: Mad Magazine


Mad, October 1973
“Standards Rewritten for the Liberated Woman”, by Frank Jacobs

And this is the standard “Mad” effort, where I once again decry “Mad” in the ‘70s as a bunch of clapped-out, senescent farts who are so behind the times it’s the only thing funny about them. This effort being only 6-7 years late. Hell, even “Monty Python’s” – “I’ve heard of unisex, but I've never had it” dates from 1969. Although this goes beyond unisex, or even effeminacy, to suggest more of transvestism, since the female figure is also throwing away bras and undergarments. So quite what the writers of “Mad” think they’re parodying is another matter. One or two similar extravagant gay figures crop up in American sitcoms in the mid-‘70s, but usually American sitcoms of the period are too busy trying to present homosexuals as just like everyone else to go after this stereotype from a Jack chick cartoon
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2009/02/224-jack-chick-gay-blade.html
- and even that was a couple of years earlier.

No comments: