G rated: 1908

CONTEXT:

The Mayor turned so pale at this that the Constable had to thrust a banana into his mouth to restore his courage.

--From The Magic Pudding--

I can't tell if it's better that this sentence is illustrated or not. And what does it mean that these two characters (both portrayed as rather weak and/or effeminate) are stuffing themselves with bananas while everyone else in the book is eating pie and the occasional egg?

Are these bananas just bananas?

Children's literature: 1918

Smoking:

Violence:

Murder!:

--From The Magic Pudding--

Civilization ended shortly after this book was published.

Chidren's literature: 1888

Why no scholar familiar with recent advances in the ethnological, philological and sociological sciences had undertaken to prepare a comprehensive account of the origin and achievements of the Aryan race until the task was taken in hand by Mr. Charles Morris, it would be hard to say....

...To the student, Mr. Morris' book is a necessity, and it should be in the library of every cultivated household. There could be no more broadening and stimulating reading for the boys and girls just growing into maturity.

--From Good Housekeeping--

Here's an excerpt from the book (just so there's no misunderstanding):

The one perplexing problem of America is the Negro. Between him and the white the race-antipathy seems too strong for any great degree of amalgamation ever to take place, while the mulatto has the weakness and infertility of a hybrid.

What's especially creepy is how Good Housekeeping gives the book a glowing endorsement without really saying what it's about. They didn't publish an excerpt, just the names of some of the book's chapters. If it wasn't for the use of the word "Aryan" over and over again, I would have thought it a droll work of anthropology.

You have to wonder, if everyone thought these ideas were good enough to compliment, why they wouldn't express them more openly.

Homoeroticism: circa 900

His face shone like the moon at its full and he seemed as if he had just come from the bath, with his rosy cheeks and flower-white forehead and mole like a grain of ambergris, even as says the poet:

Within one mansion of the sky the sun and moon combine; With all fair fortune and delight of goodliness they shine. Their beauty stirs all those that see to passion and to love: Good luck to them, for that they move to ravishment divine! In grace and beauty they increase and aye more perfect grow: All souls yearn out to them for love, all hearts to them incline. Blessed be God, whose creatures are so full of wonderment! Whate'er He wills He fashions forth, even as He doth design.

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

That was one man describing another man. It sounds homoerotic, but it was just how straight men acted. It's kind of like what Kenneth Anger (my obsession this weekend) was able to capture in Scorpio Rising:



Anger says in the director's commentary that he was surprised at what the guys in the motorcycle club he was filming did and that they made it seem more queer than even he thought it was.

Another similarity, in both the poem above and the movie, God makes an appearance.

Throwing someone under the bus: circa 900

If through a servant misfortune befall thee, Spare not to save thine own
life at his cost. Servants in plenty thou'lt find to replace him, Life for life never, once
it is lost.

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

It was what servants were for. In some circles today, this is wisdom.

Women in the media: circa 900

...I am head of my family and mistress over men and slaves and servants. I have here a ship laden with merchandise...

An independent business woman.

"O sister, what wilt thou do with this handsome young man?" "I purpose to make him my husband," answered I; and I turned to the prince and said, "O my lord, I have that to propose to thee, in which I will not have thee cross me: and it is that, when we reach Baghdad, I will give myself to thee as a handmaid in the way of marriage, and thou shalt be my husband and I thy wife."

And not afraid to ask a man to marry her either.

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

A good man: circa 900

After a while, they said to me, "O sister, we desire to marry again, for we can no longer endure to live without husbands." "O my dear ones," answered I, "there is no good in marriage, for now-a-days good men are rare to find; nor do I see the advantage of marrying again, since ye have already made trial of matrimony and it has profited you nothing."

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

Now-a-days?

Prozac: circa 900

Morn struggles through the dusk; so pour me out, I pray, Of wine,
such wine as makes the saddest-hearted gay!
So pure and bright it is, that whether wine in glass Or glass in
wine be held, i' faith, 'tis hard to say.

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

Do people take too many pills? Well the pills aren't the problem and the practice isn't new.

Female sexuality: circa 900

So for fear of the genie, they lay with her one after the other, and when they had done, she bade them arise, and took out of her bosom a purse containing a necklace made of five hundred and seventy rings, and said to them, "Know ye what these are?" They answered, "No." And she said, "Every one of the owners of these rings has had to do with me in despite of this Afrit. And now give me your rings, both of you." So each of them took off a ring and gave it to her. And she said to them, "Know that this genie carried me off on my wedding night and laid me in a box and shut the box up in a glass chest, on which he clapped seven strong locks and sank it to the bottom of the roaring stormy sea, knowing not that nothing can hinder a woman, when she desires aught...

--From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night--

We didn't invent it, and in comparison to this, we sound like we're in the closet about it.

Transexuals: 1904

Before:

After:

--From The Marvelous Land of Oz--

The main character of the story is a boy named Tip, who is really a girl magically trapped in a boy's body.   Tip doesn't even think he is a girl, but agrees to be turned into one at the end of the story.

There is also another character who has been calling Tip "father" throughout the story and expresses some confusion before the sex change occurs, but immediately accepts it once it has been completed.

Just a typical children's book.