The “modern” America was born in the 1920s, leaving the old Victorian culture behind. This is portrayed in the movie “It,” which is conveniently based on the decade of the 1920s. This paper shall be exploring how the film industry has been able to provide important insights that properly capture how culture has evolved over time, shaping people’s views on what American history represents. It also looks at the major cultural shifts that have occurred over time and specifically from the old and conservative Victorian culture to modern, free-spirited, and more tolerant America.
“It,” a classic movie based in the late 1920s, is a story about a young girl, Betty Lou Spence, who works in a grocery store as a saleslady. She is infatuated with her boss, Cyrus Waltham, Jr., and makes a calculated move to ensure that she wins him. Her colleague sales ladies are laughing her idea off, and it amazes them when finally Cyrus takes note of Betty and ends up gaining a lot of interest in her. The story later takes a new twist when she is caught in a compromising situation by a journalist, holding a baby while in a row with a social worker who wants to take the kid away. The issue of single parentage, then uncommon phenomena, is brought into a sharp focus when Cyrus deserts Betty after learning of the kid and thinking that it had been fathered by his friend Monty.
This movie is a clear and vivid representation of how far American culture has come. The issues revolving around women’s sexuality, gender relations, consumerism the dynamism of morality are brought to the surface in a purely ingenious manner.
The Victorian culture is so-called as it refers to a British Queen who lived in the 19th century and had a great influence on the world reigning cultures then. Victorian culture revolved around family life devotion, private responsibility, morality, and good manners (Victorian Culture and History n.d). It was highly conservative, and public scenes involving anything depicting sexuality in a loose manner were highly frowned upon. Men and women were supposed to behave in a certain manner befitting the term: lady and gentleman. It had ascribed society’s gender roles distinct for both men and women.
This is the culture that was very dominant in the then British sphere of influence and colonies such as America and had no great advocation for consumerism and gender independence as evidenced today. It is a culture that was dominant from the days of the American civil war to the start of the First World War; it had a great impact on the political and cultural settings of America by then. This, however, was to undergo a radical change in the early 1920s after an emergence of a more self confident population. The movie “It” captures this change in a phenomenal way.
The Victorian culture represented the highest morals possible to a society such that many practices common today were frowned upon by the majority of the people. Ladies were supposed to sit back and be approached by men. In the movie, Betty’s friends are laughing off the idea that she could be infatuated with Cyrus and the fact that she could even consider making it known to him. We see her struggling with this infatuation for a time till she decides to go out with Monty, Crus’s friend; in a hotel that he was to be dining in. This is a major shift from Victorianism that advocated for sexual conservatism in girls. This was later to change in modern America, where people have reconciled to the fact that women too can pursue men without any inhibitions in the society. Betty finally succeeds in wooing Cyrus, who opts to leave the lady friend he was seeing and acknowledged Betty’s efforts. Betty possesses a lot of “it,” which basically refers to a person self-confidence and hence the title of the movie, “It.” In addition, too, she has extremely good looks coupled with a natural sex appeal. This is most definitely what drew Cyrus to her and leading to him losing interest in his then-current girlfriend.
New dimensions regarding sexuality are brought into the scene by the then society standards. “It” can be said to have introduced a sexual revolution in the movie industry, much to the consternation of Victorianism. Becky reveals to us much of her legs and finally kissing Cyrus, the love of her life. She is unrestrained by the then perceived moral demands and standards put forth by society. This is a movie that back then was considered to be sexy and highly provocative and not in line with the expected standards. This, however, as history and future trends were later indicating, was a sign of the sexual explosion that was to take place by the end of the 1920’s.
These were the days when everything was viewed from a highly moralized angle fueled by religiosity influenced by evangelism (Himmelforb Gertrude, 1995). Sexual scenes were considered private matters that had no use being brought into the open. Betty’s behaviors were considered ethically unladylike in those days, but again the world would come to see more of these in the coming days. The Victorian era was fast coming to an end, and America was starting to open up to new values, and social settings brought forth by modernization.
Segregation of society along racial and class lines was a core characteristic of Victorianism. Social classes were based on wealth and heredity; social mobility was next to impossible. Interactions between the social classes were not common as people more often than not chose to marry people they perceived to belong to the same social status. Betty is a saleslady of humble background and dreams of dating the son of a rich tycoon, Cyrus. She is competing against a more affluent and urbane, Adele, who is depicted as snobbishly rich who every day is struggling to fight for Cyrus’ affection.
The Victorian culture used to frown at this relationship, and so are the majority of the characters in “It,” thinking that Becky does not stand a chance of marrying Cyrus. By the end of Victorian culture, we see more interactions across the races and social classes in the pursuit of personal happiness and fulfillment.
As aforesaid, Victorianism had allocated strict roles to each gender. The women of this period were supposed to live in the confines and comforts of their home, maintaining their families and ensuring strict adherence to the then family values and morals. They had few or no rights to own property and could be divorced anytime from marriages. This, however, would change at the end of the First World War, where we see women starting to follow specified career lines, especially as nurses during the First World War. Betty and her friends are working in a grocery store and not tending to their homes as would have been the norm. This is a trend that was to take root in America by the end of the 1920s and the Victorian dictated gender roles would be slowly disregarded as women sought more fulfilling careers in life. No longer were women to be expected to tend the homes and act as guardians of family values and morals (Howe, 1976), Betty is presented as a woman with dreams and ambitions who does not let anything stand in her way, either in her career or in her fight to get the love of her life, Cyrus. She emerges as a free-spirited individual that is not ready to kowtow to the Victorian demands and societal standards. This is what is later to define the so-called “modern” America. A society characterized by individual freedoms and liberties that would see individuals living their lives as they thought better, paying little attention to cultural and societal dictates, exercising little restraint as they sought to maximize utility.
This period would also see the commercialization of essential things like entertainment and fun joints, done through advertisements intending to capture the youth and the working class. This marked the start of consumerism in America, where people became spendthrift with trends in consumption changing tremendously. Dance halls, cosmetic products coupled with new fashion trends in clothing, music, and speeches were the order of the day. There was more attendance to movie theaters and dance halls, especially by women, as movies became more open to sexual scenes and could go to the extent of “simulating intercourse,” as Gary S. puts it (2000,40).
There was more toleration of sexuality, and young people could attend dances and movies with no chaperons. This was evidenced in many cities in America, which began to open more fun facilities to accommodate the American’s thirst for entertainment. The Victorian culture was also characterized by more involvement of the government in people affairs with strict demands for people to adhere to the crown’s laws. Americans, in the 1920s, were starting to yearn for more space and individual freedoms in society and wanted to see more diminished government involvement in their affairs. Civil rights movements and feminist movements were starting to make headway with strict demands that would see society, especially women, being given recognition in American politics. This was in line with the changing trends that had seen more recognition and accommodation of the emergence of liberated women. Betty, to a certain extent, conforms to this liberated and modern woman image. This is seen in her exuberance and confidence with no apologies for the existing norms (Peiss, Kathy 1986).
“It” accomplishes more than what many movies have been able to do. It is able to capture the history during the transitionary period from Victorianism to the “modern” America. Through its lead characters, Becky and Cyrus, it is able to present images as they had not been presented before, focusing on controversial issues like gender, sexuality, single parenthood, and its unacceptability in those times. In addition, consumerism and the introduction to popular culture are also captured in the movie.
References
- Victorian Culture and History.
- Robert D. Aguirre, 2004. Informal Empire: Mexico and Central America in Victorian culture. Minnesota. University of Minnesota Press.
- Himmelfarb, Gertrude, 1995. The demoralization of society. From Victorian virtues to modern values. New York: Knopf
- Howe, Daniel Walker, 1976. “Victorian culture in Victorian America.” In Victorian America. Philadelphia, university of Pennysinia.Press
- Gary S. Cross, 2000. An all consuming century. Why commercialism won in modern America. Columbia University Press.
- Peiss, Kathy, 1986. Cheap Amusement: working women and leisure in turn-of-the-century New York, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press
- Victorianism, 2007. Answers.com US History Encyclopedia. Web.
- Lynd, Robert S. and Helen Mevell Lynd, 1929. Middletown: A study in contemporary American Culture, London.