The Anthropology Of Ourselves Flashcards
What could we potentially call the aristocracy the face of in 20s 30s?
The face of mass culture
What does mass culture make the aristocracy into?
Celebrities
What does Lord Monomark control in Vile Bodies?
Controls what is published from behind the scenes - satirizes the large media owner
What is their a blurring of lines between after the war and why?
Because a lot of heirs have died out and aristocracy suffering during the war moneywise, they began to blur the lines between upper classes and aristocracy and let new money people in
What is a perfect example on the Northfield Ordnance Survey which reveals the struggles of the upper classes?
Manor house became a hotel
Who were generally the protagonists of Hollywood films?
Rich upper class people
What challenged the political power of the aristocracy?
Mass democracy of Britain and the politicians shift to focus on everyone not just the rich
What does Patrick Balfour in Society Racket suggest Society is?
Superficial, he calls it ‘a fiction’
What does the newsreel showing the spectacle of debutants reveal?
The importance of Society, seen as the pinacle
If the aristocracy hadn’t eroded what had it done?
Transformed
What two things could the advertising on the Bystander Magazines 1938 jacket reveal?
Either that the magazine needed more advertising because it wasn’t selling enough magazines, or that more people were wanting to advertise with the magazine because it was popular
What quality did readers who read gossip columns like The Bystander have?
Aspirational
What was the private lives of the aristocracy up for in 1920s 30s?
Consumption
What does Voyeurism mean?
It is the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions usually considered to be of a private nature
What gets blurred in depictions of the aristocracy in Society magazines?
Public and private - public advertising of really private parts of people’s lives - somebody’s daughter died in one extract
What does showing the private lives of the aristocracy do to their status?
Brings them down to the level of everyone else
What happens to the figure of the gossip columnist in the 20s 30s?
Increases in popularity and comes to stand in for society racket - a way of satirising Society
Who is hovering behind the dominance of our idea of the Bright Young Things in 20s 30s?
Gossip columnists, they are creating this image
What critiques and fear arise after Vile Bodies is produced?
Fear around gossip columnists and critiques of the aristocracy and Society
What other notorious figure does the popular press make accessible through their sensationalised stories?
Criminal lives
Why are Josephine O’Dare’s second accounts of 20s 30s Society likely to be truthful?
She has nothing to lose, not bound by loyalty because she is of the working classes, fresh out of prison and needing money
What did Josephie O’Dare threaten specifically?
Heirarchy of the aristocracy/their power to differentiate themselves from other classes
What did Vile Bodies and Society Racket’s publications open the door for Josephine O’Dare to do?
Criticise the aristocracy
Who does Josephine O’Dare sue?
Every newspaper that prints a story of her in 1926 and 1927 for libel
What is an ongoing concern with interwar journalism?
Private law, right to a private life
What do readers of newspapers and interwar journalists suddenly become more interested in?
Human interest stories
What do readers of newspapers feel they have the right to?
The right to know, the right to the truth
What does Josephine O’Dare become a metaphor for?
Modern, dangerous women
What kind of narration is valued in 20s 30s news stories?
First person testimony, focus on personal experiences
How did O’Dare go from Hereford farm to front cover of Bystander?
Easier to cross boundaries, appearing to be self made like others in Society, less focus on lineage post-war
What did O’Dare emulate in order to social climb? What does this show?
The style, front surface of the aristocracy she wears the correct clothes, correct manner - shows it is all surface
What does Sarah Newman in ‘Gentleman, Journalist, Gentleman-Journalist’ (2013) use to offer new insights into professionalisation of popular journalism in post war Britain?
Diaries and private and professional correspondence of interwar gossip columnists
What kind of time was it for newspaper readership and content in 1920s?
Time of rapid change
How many of the population over 16 years old read a national newspaper every day in 1939?
69%
Why does Dan LeMahieu in Culture for Democracy (1988) say new features in newspapers were designed?
To appeal to readers on a personal level and incorporate a world they recognised
Also what does Dan LeMahieu in Culture for Democracy (1988) argue ordinary stories became in 20s 30s journalism?
dignified, and turned into mystery and adventure romance
What did gossip columnists receive that reveals their popular celebrity status?
Hundreds of fan letters from ordinary fans expressing admiration
What were critics such as Queenie Leavis concerned with in the popular press in 1930s?
Americanisation and levelling down of the content
What did critics such as Tracey deem the gossip columns as?
Temporary, calling them a “stunt” and “a circulation raising device” contrasting them to more respectable forms of journalism
According to her memoirs, how did gossip columnist Lady Eleanor Smith’s colleagues treat her at the office?
Unwelcoming and standoffish
What did people often say gossip columnists were doing?
“Playing at a newspaper career”
What two things did Dan LeMahieu in Culture for Democracy (1988) credit for allowing a more visually appealing newspaper?
New editing techniques and faster, cheaper printing technologies
What had the newspapers experienced growth during?
WW1
From the mid 1920s how did columnists like Castlerosse and Lady Eleanor Smith place increasing emphasis on their upper class status, placing them on a level with the subjects they talked about?
Used their full titles, presented a lifestyle equivalent to their subjects dominated by wealth, leisure and luxury
Where did Patrick Balfour go to lunch?
The Ritz (of course!)
What does Sarah Newman in ‘Gentleman, Journalist, Gentleman-Journalist’ (2013) argue Balfour avoided any direct reference to in his gossip column? What did this achieve?
Avoided any direct reference to his employment by the press or daily structures of his working life, and it meant the reader had a direct insight into a gentleman rather than a journalist’s lifestyle
Other than gossip columns, what kinds of articles were becoming a more persistent feature of the national press?
Opinionated and emotive articles on society, culture and politics
Who was Patrick Balfour’s father?
Scottish judge and Earl of Kinross
What was Patrick Balfour’s fathers two main concerns in late 1920s?
That his son’s work as a gossip columnist might have an effect on his developing profession as a journalist, but also that it might impact on his own and his family’s reputation amongst elites
What did Patrick Balfour’s father say when Patrick became “Mr Gossip” in the Daily Sketch in 1931?
“Surely your mother and I have suffered enough”
What was Patrick Balfour’s father concerned there was no clear boundary between?
His son’s public, working and private life
Would Patrick Balfour literally write anything and everything in his column though?
No there were things he urged in private correspondence people to keep quiet about - selective
How did Patrick Balfour change in late 1930s?
He began to think he was to good for most newspaper gossip columns and wrote cultural pieces instead.
What does Sarah Newman in ‘Gentleman, Journalist, Gentleman-Journalist’ (2013) argue Balfour’s change of heart about gossip columns reflects?
A broader shift in attitudes towards Society and their social life in the 1930s
When was Josephine O’Dare convicted? When was she released?
Convicted 1927, Released 1930
What does Matt Houlbrook in ‘Commodifying the Self Within’ argue accounts of O’Dare’s life can be read as?
The dangers of an Americanised popular press
What does Matt Houlbrook in ‘Commodifying the Self Within’ argue Josephine O’Dare’s life stories echo?
The rags to riches narratives of romantic fiction
What does Matt Houlbrook in ‘Commodifying the Self Within’ argue Josephine O’Dare’s iconic image was defined by?
Studio portraits through which she claimed society status
What concerns surrounded the use of ghost writing?
To do with Americanisation, threatened integrity of British journalism
Associated with fantasy and deception what does Matt Houlbrook in ‘Commodifying the Self Within’ argue the ghostwriters role was assumed to be?
To generate vast quantities of ‘trashy and inauthentic writing’
What resulted in newspapers’ relentless search for sensational material and disregard for importance of viable facts?
Threat of bad publicity and expense prevented the ordinary citizen from using libel to protect their reputations, there was nothing people could do about it
When did Patrick Balfour write Society Racket?
1933
What does Patrick Balfour show that was described by Waugh in Vile Bodies as being common among gossip columnists and writers?
“Black Misanthropy”
What does Patrick Balfour term the 20s as in relation to feeling that after the war people needed freedom?
‘Final Fling’
What does Patrick Balfour refer to world war one as in Society Racket?
‘Four years of Slavery’
When was Vile Bodies written? By who?
1930 and Evelyn Waugh
What does Vile Bodies satirise?
The bright young things - decadent young London Society between ww1 and ww2
What does Waugh’s title Vile Bodies mean?
A literal translation of latin phrase ‘corpus vilia’ which means a people fit only to be the object of experimentation
Why did Waugh not call the book Bright Young Things?
Thought the term had become too cliche
What does Vile Bodies say about libel cases that isn’t picked up on so much in the readings?
“Younger generation allowed their cases to be settled in court then threw a party with the proceeds”
What does Vile Bodies say gossip columnists have?
A black list of people their not allowed to talk about so have to talk about the non-entities
What does Mr Chattybox create in Vile Bodies?
People to talk about, invents people
What is funny about Mr Chattybox inventing people in Vile Bodies?
People then pretend to know them, say they have been seen with the not real person
Who ultimately controls what goes into the gossip columns in Vile Bodies?
Lord Monomark, the newspaper editor
What divide does Vile Bodies also play out interestingly?
Generational divide
What does the film The First Court of the Season show?
A gathering of debutants to enter Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen, many people gather to see these debutants enter the palace even though it is bitterly cold.
What does Josephine O’Dare say she could have had hundreds of?
“husbands with never a query about my forebears had I so desired”
When did the issues of Reynolds sell out? What story was in it?
Josephine O’Dare’s “story”
What was coming to the fore particularly in the 30s and spreading paranoia in the rest of the world? Clue: economic crisis
Radical new political ideals like Socialism, Fascism
What did the conservative government try to do to stop the rise of socialism?
Address the needs of the people
What book did George Orwell write that reveals the extent of poverty in industrial Britain?
The Road to Wigan Pier
What is Orwell trying to shift in The Road to Wigan Pier?
Perceptions of the people
Why does Orwell choose to go to Wigan and Barnsley to write The Road to Wigan Pier?
It is the problem area of the 1920s - An industrial area after an era of economic hardship, most affected by the recession, wanting to shock people tell a particular story, it has the biggest contrast to his own life
What did George Orwell want to make visible in The Road to Wigan Pier?
A social world that most of his peers wouldn’t be familiar with, immerses himself and the reader in the community, giving real detail about the story.
Why couldn’t the people of Wigan and Barnsley make their own lives visible?
They didn’t think it was hat bad, assumed it was ordinary, takes someone coming in from the outside to see how bad it was, also appeals to other well off socialists, Orwell writes from a position of power
What line from The Road to Wigan Pier suggests Orwell is writing for a well off audience?
“You will know from when your working in your garden”
Is Orwell an ‘understanding outsider’ or voyeuristic?
Complex in between - Does understand its not about ‘moral failings’ but economics, but does show middle class privilege quite a lot
What is the name of the Victorian form that proceeds The Road to Wigan Pier?
‘Slumming literature’
What is the way Orwell describes the poor similar to?
Descriptions of Africa, anthropology of Africans and ‘primitive peoples’
What does the two part book structure mean Orwell can achieve?
First part mobilizes sympathy, the second gives the solution
What does Orwell give in The Road to Wigan Pier that makes you feel you are there with him?
Intricate detail
What does Orwell not give to the people of Wigan and Barnsley?
A sense of self or an individual voice, no individual identity, just one set of people
How does Orwell understand class in The Road to Wigan Pier?
Flexible notion of class which is socio economically controlled BUT is also about social and cultural patterns of life ie. a man can act and speak like a gentleman but may not be able to afford servants etc.
What sense does Orwell associate with class?
Smell - comes down to bodily functions - thinks class is that engrained that it is in who you are
How does Orwell envision the working class mans body?
Romanticises and idealises it, strong and masculine a bit homo-erotic