ligayasjoys.bsky.social
CAT-holic Pawrent | Asian | 18+ only | No false positivity | MNL-KCK | ACAB | Enjoys obscure fiction, Asian pop & street culture, and the arts: performing, fine, literary, animated, practical, and martial | Death by overcute XOXO
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And beware of circular reporting! While researching THE KISS, I found books that cited multiple sources only to discover that once I chased them down, they were all derived from The Chap Book.
So many silent era "facts" are like this: looks like a lot of sources, really isn't.
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There's a long conversation to be had about the infantilization of affluent women during the era, the extreme modesty views of various religious sects, and how these somehow infected public perception of the whole Gilded Age but just for today:
Movie kisses and piano legs were fine, guys!
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While we're here, the myth that Victorians covered their piano legs out of modesty started out as satire aimed at Americans (who were not ruled by Queen Victoria, having fought a few wars to settle same)
www.atlasobscura.com/articles/vic...
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But the perception of a prudish past works so well, who needs facts?
"We may have problems but at least we're not offended by a glimpse of ankle!" on one side
"They were so moral then that they were shocked at this kissing movie, what a clean past!" on the other
And actual 1890s people were like:
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Was someone somewhere in the 1890s offended by THE KISS? Sure, you'll find someone offended by anything if you look hard enough. (side eye at the Star Wars fandom)
But widespread scandal? A mainstream censorship demand? (Some sources even claim there were some backed by high clergy.) No.
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But none of this fits in with modern perception (and you see this attitude as far back as the 1920s) that the 1890s were so sexually repressed that some light and intentionally goofy pecks between a middle-aged couple would cause a scandal.
So, they reverse engineer to make it work, truth be damned
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In fact, THE KISS set off a cinematic kissing craze. Studios would regularly engage dancers to twirl a bit for the camera and then, in order to get their money's worth, had them kiss too. The earliest movie kiss between Black performers was captured this way.
Now THAT is a kiss!
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Film historian Charles Musser places the first rumbles of American film censorship in 1897, a year after THE KISS was released, and it specifically targeted the warmer peepshow machines on Coney Island.
Subsequent censorship movements, which didn't take hold until the 1900s, targeted movie violence
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The Chap Book item from 1896 complains that audiences are subjected to the horrors of the May Irwin Kiss ("she's not attractive! waaaa!") while being denied the pleasures of a European leg show. Hardly a cry for censorship there.
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But modern people view their Gilded Age counterparts as naive prudes, so the myth stuck.
ALL sources claiming THE KISS was censored cite of of two sources: a satirical item in the comedy magazine The Chap Book, and A Million and One Nights by Terry Ramsaye, which cites The Chap Book.
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May Irwin and John Rice were starring in the musical comedy THE WIDOW JONES, about a middle-aged woman finding love, and THE KISS was a reenactment of the final scene.
"Did they find THIS sexy back then?" is a common modern scoff and the answer is, no. It was always meant to be funny.
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Every source on film censorship I found claimed THE KISS was the first movie censored, so I dug into old newspapers to find raging condemnation.
Instead, I found effusive praise, accounts of audiences roaring with laughter and some complaints that film wasn't sexy enough to be called "THEE Kiss"
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Between this and my spouse programming my Youtube to show frog bottoms, I will forever be held captive by these amphibians! (They are cute though.)🐸