Entertainment Through the Ages

I recently visited the DeGoyler Library in Fondren. Unbeknownst to me, and most likely the majority of the SMU campus, DeGoyler has an extensive collection of rare photographs. Their massive collection contains over 500,000 railroad photographs.

Along with their collection, DeGoyler has included one of the first stereo viewers. For those who are unaware, stereo viewers are stands with lenses and a bar attached at the front where you place a card with two images on it. The way stereo viewers work is "each picture is taken from a slightly different viewpoint that corresponds closely to the spacing of the eyes. The left picture represents what the left eye would see, and likewise for the right picture. When observing the pictures through a special viewer, the pair of two-dimensional pictures merge together into a single three-dimensional photograph." They were an extremely poular source of entertainment before television, and radio were available. 

We consider our society to be one that thrives off of shock value. Many say that we are no longer entertained by normal everyday scenarios, we must see something inappropriate, we are desensitized. We think that times were so much simpler, so much more appropriate, so pure two generations ago. I thought so too until I saw the images in the stereo viewer at the library.

I was shocked when I l watched the story take place on the cards. I considered the story incredibly inappropriate for the time period (1881-1939). It showed a woman leaving her house to go shopping and kissing her husband on the way out. The next set of cards showed the couple's maid kneading dough with a devious look in her eye. Next, the husband and the maid are showed embracing in a passionate kiss. Then the Mrs. walking in the door with her shopping bags while the husband reads the paper at the table. As the woman puts her bags down she is in shock. The last card shows her husband with white flour hand prints on the back of his jacket. 

I think this means that our society has always felt the need for such entertainment. Even before visual means, stories were told with equally inappropriate content. Now that does not mean that I don't think our generation insists on being more inappropriate, because it certainly does. Today the maid would be dressed in a scantily clad uniform, and they certainly would not be kissing. However I don't think we should be blamed for being the source.