February 03, 2005
Sacrifice Your Morals on the Altar of POPULARITY: Turn Into a Little Tramp Viper Like Marjorie
Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" is a snapshot of a scene from the 1920's that has a pretty significant point even in contemporary times. Marjorie is the ultimate female chauvinistic pig, except of course, for the fact that she's female. She collects boytoys like some girls collect Barbies and switches boyfriends like some guys change underwear. I'm not exactly sure if that made sense or not... but you get the point. And then here comes sweet, feminine, innocent Bernice and the little tramp viper cousin of hers injects poison into her mind, seducing her to the dark side of femininity, getting all the attention she desires, but sacrificing every feminine and moral virtue that she holds dear on the altar of POPULARITY. Okay, maybe that's a little extreme, but look at it. Marjorie is an airhead, simply telling the guys what they want to hear, reduced to a shell of a woman by relying on 'lines' to protect her popularity, and in style foreshadowing the antics of Britney Spears and co. she has to keep doing more extreme things for attention, the latest in this case being turning five cart-wheels in succession during the last pump-and-slipper dance (Which in the twenties was naturally scandalous).
Under her cousin's watchful eye, Bernice starts down the slippery slope of immorality. She even says at one point, "I think it's unmoral... but, of course, you've either got to amuse people or feed 'em or shock 'em." Now, the issue in this case is bobbed hair, big deal unless you're my beloved relatives and take a literal interpretation of 1 Cor. 11. The bigger deal is of course, that Bernice is compromising her morals. And for what?!? So she can be accepted by a crowd of people that will soon forget her or at least reject her again as soon as she can no longer titillate them... When she comes back again, will she have to do 6 cartwheels to one up Marjorie? The fleeting nature of being 'in' is not worth what Bernice goes through or what we do today in order to be popular.