Written by Joshua Zeitz and published by Three Rivers Press in 2006, the book A Madcap story of sex, style, celebrity and the women who made America modern is a chef-d’oeuvre piece of literature concerning the rise of ‘flapper’ in the 1920s.
Unfortunately, the contemporary generation of students, who were mainly born in the late 20th century, has no clue of what a flapper means. Conventionally, a flapper underscores a paradigm shift where women started agitating for their rights, thus leading to a sexual revolution.
Women abandoned most of the practices that their mothers and grandmothers applied in their lives. The book majors mainly on the distinguished and perhaps maverick individuals that delineated the ‘flapper’ ideology. Among these people were Zelda Fitzgerald, Lois Long, and Colleen Moore.
This paper is a critique of arguments and theses advanced by Joshua Zeitz coupled with highlighting how the author uses facts to make his point in the book A Madcap story of sex, style, celebrity and the women who made America modern.
Analysis
To highlight the thesis of sex revolution in the 1920s, Zeitz divides this masterwork piece into three distinct sections where he tackles different issues surrounding the ‘flapper’, which makes it easy to navigate through the book without getting lost.
The central theme in this book is to explore the rise and progression of flappers in the 1920s. In other words, the book highlights the birth of the fleshy party girl in the American context characterized by unorthodox way of living like conceitedness, hedonism, and inebriation.
Zeitz achieves this theme by doing intensive research to come up with real life examples of how the flapper lived. He starts by quoting from the all-time favorite writer, Scott Fitzgerald, of the illustrious The Great Gatsby, which shows how the author carried out in-depth research into the subject.
At one point Fitzgerald protests, “I know nothing about flappers…The idea that I am in any way interested in the number of knees on exhibition at the Biltmore lobby is extremely distasteful to me. You’d think I invented bobbed knees. I deny it” (Zeitz 2006, 48).
However, Zeitz maintains that Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, is the epitome of the ‘flapper’ thing due to her husband’s writings, which in effect makes Fitzgerald the inventor of the ‘bobbed knees‘ even though he denies it.
Therefore, Zeitz is not afraid of controversy and he does not want to come out as a populist, but he says it as he sees it, which is one of the strengths of this book.
After introducing the Fitzgeralds and their midwifery role in the birth of the ‘flapper’, Zeitz moves on to explore other women who accepted the idea of a flapper. He tackles Eugenia Kelly, Coco Channle, and Colleen Moore together with the booze-loving Lois Long.
The book carries critical information, which might not be found anywhere else in one volume concerning the rise of the modern American woman in the 1920s.
The compilation ultimately produces a one-stop material highlighting the changing face of feminism in the 1920s and the transition from the conventional Victorian whimsies to the empowered American woman, who could dress the way she wanted, date the person of her choice, spend the night partying and show up at work drunk the following day, and determine her future.
One of the many issues that I learnt from the book is that the winds of the American woman sexual liberation started blowing strongly in the 1920s and it never died as characterized by the rise of Paris Hilton among others.
The author once again becomes controversial by stating that the ‘flapper’ wave was not just a fashion trend; on the contrary, it was a capitalist move to make profits out of the confusion and agitation.
Zeitz notes, “The pioneer merchants of cool invented the flapper for fun, for profit and for fame…In branding and selling her, they inaugurated that curious, modern cycle by which popular culture imitates life and life imitates popular culture” (2006, 9).
By deciding to give such controversial views, the author invigorates the book and stirs the reader into viewing the entire issue of women rights from another perspective.
However, inasmuch as the book is a masterpiece, it has its weaknesses. The first part of the three sections of the book is written with mastery as ideas are arranged systematically.
It starts by ushering in a key player in the making of the ‘flapper’ mentality, explores her before inviting the audience to other players who emulated the key player and ultimately closing with the pioneer person to make a complete account of events.
Unfortunately, the second and the last segments are poorly structured with mixed ideas. In addition, the pictures used in the book are placed haphazardly and they do not necessarily add any information to the pages where they are placed.
Finally, the author concentrated so much on ‘white-flappers’ without the mention of the contribution of the minority groups in the flapper campaign.
Conclusion
Zeitz’s book highlights the birth and the rise of the American flapper in the 1920s.The author uses facts to back his claims by giving real life examples of the people who pioneered the flapper campaign including Zelda Fitzgerald.
The author chooses controversy, which enlivens the book. However, the second and the third sections are weaker as compared to the first one in terms of structure.
Overall, the book is interesting and a worth read especially to the contemporary students who know very little or nothing about the rise of ‘flapper’ in the American society.
Reference
Zeitz, Joshua. 2006. A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity and the Women Who Made America Modern. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.