1920s Flappers Essay

“Many women rebelled against the images society had painted for them” (Gourley 5). This quote was taken from Catherine Gourley, and it is an important thought to keep while researching the film Bare Knees. During the 1920s many women did rebel against what they were supposed to be, they did not want to be what society had told them too. Many women started rebelling because of World War One and the 19th amendment, and after World War One ended, a new woman emerged. The flapper became a well-known symbol for women who have gone through war and now just want to party. During the 1920s, flappers where looked down upon because of how they dressed, acted, and because they worked. Through this research paper, the main question will be to find out

how this film handles its underlying message. The film Bare Knees, not only addresses the shorter length of women’s dresses, it also, without the viewer noticing, conveys the underlying message regarding the link between the lengths of women’s dresses and their sexuality. To better understand this link, one must understand the time period of the 1920s and even before that.
To greater understand what a flappers is and the messages surrounding them, one must take an in depth look at the culture of the Roaring Twenties. Specifically the culture before the 1920s, and look at the effect World War One had on the women of the 1920s; also, one must look at the effect the 19th amendment had on women. “The period opened with a national desire to forego serious world affairs in favor of fun, fads, and fashion…” (Wukovits 9). As this quote suggests, men and women of the 1920s wanted to forget world affairs, World War One, and they just wanted to have fun. Women winning the right to vote in 1919 with the 19th amendment, allowed them to want to be treated equally and enjoy the same freedom men did. “‘Whether there was freedom and a new chance for all— and there was not—there existed an erroneous but cheering belief that there was change ahead. The openness of the future and the accessibility, as it seemed, of success produced a froth upon the surface of society’” (Sagert 12). The New Woman: Changing Views of Women in the 1920s, explains that women gaining the right to vote also had an impact on how they acted, it somewhat strengthened a woman as equals of men. With this new sense of equality, women were beginning to break away from tradition. The new woman was more likely to be in saloons smoking and drinking, but women’s most notable liberation was the sexual independence many women enjoyed (Freedman 373). World War One and the 19th amendment were two of the reason women wanted to rebel against societal norms, but what exactly made a woman a flapper?
“Society’s change in attitude toward sexuality and gender roles during the 1920s gave women a greater sense of freedom.

Women began to dress and act in ways that before had been considered improper”(Wukovits 15). According to the quote from the book, The 1920s, society was changing it conception about roles, especially those concerning women. This change allowed women to define themselves from something that was different then what had already been done. Thus, the flapper was born. According to Kelly Boyer Sagagert’s book Flappers, a flapper was a woman, or young woman, who wore short dresses, bobbed their hair, cursed, drank, smoked, and petted. According to Dictionary.com, petting is defined as kissing, caressing, and other sexual activity between partners that does not involve sexual intercourse. By using Sagagert’s definition of a flapper, one can see that she rebelled against the norms of society. Even in the film, Bare Knees, it was apparent that there were two types of women. Billie was the textbook definition of a flapper, she smoke, drank, bobbed her hair, and wore short dresses. Her older sister Jane, on the other hand, was the more traditional type; she listened to her husband, did not drink or smoke, and never wore short dresses. What classified a woman as a flapper in the

1920s?
The film, Bare Knees, is more than about women in short dresses; it has an underlying message. That message is that the short lengths of women’s dresses linked towards their openness in expressing their sexuality. The film also suggests that these women were looked down upon because of the certain things they did. One of the things they did was wear makeup. “Rouge, lipstick, mascara, and perfume- none of these artificial paints and fragrance had a place on her [traditional woman] dresser top” (Gourley 59). When a woman wore makeup, it meant that she was trying to attract the attention of a man, which was not something good girls did. One can only come to the conclusion that Billie has a job, because she is a single woman who lives on her own. According to Setting a Course if women had jobs or were working they were not at home to take care of the family. This issue and the one regarding their sexual freedom was one of the main arguments regarding the flapper, and it is subtly brought up in the film. The film, Bare Knees, makes this message known through use of intertitles and the characters action.
Though use of dialogue and action, the film conveys its message of women’s free expression of their sexuality and how the men were trying to repress it. There were many instance in the film were the dialogue, intertitles, showed this. One example was when Jane’s husband, John, disapproved of Jane wearing perfume for fear that that she would attract the attention of another man. John then went on to say that a man only likes a woman to wear perfume when it is on any other woman but his wife (Bare Knees). “While the husband grappled with more broadly defined responsibilities as a lover, companion, and breadwinner, the wife faced the challenge of being beautiful and interesting” (Brown 105). Although this quote might have been true of other couple in the 1920s, this was not the case in this film.
Women like Billie, who exposed themselves were considered to be troublemakers. She is considered at troublemaker because of the fact that she is flapper. In the film, John calls her a savage. At the same time, Jane, her older sister, tells her, “Young lady, your bare knees and back are going to get you in trouble”(Bare Knees). Billie is looked down upon in the film because she is a flapper and is supposed have no morals in her. Later on in Bare Knees, the viewer finds out that Jane is the woman with low morals because she is cheating on her husband, with his best friend Paul. At the end of the film, Billie eventually marries the man, Larry, who pursued her for the entire film. According to the journal, The New Woman: Changing Views of Women in the 1920s, the flapper would, in a couple of years, become a housewife with children. This statement goes along with how Bare Knees ended in a marriage between the youthful flapper, Billie, and the respectable, traditional man, Larry. The director, Eric C. Kenton, might have done this to appease the audience because even though the culture was more liberated, there were still things they could not show or had to be careful of showing in films; also, this might have been done to show that even the wildest flapper can be tamed though marriage (The Hays Code).
The Roaring Twenties was a time period filled with changes in society. The majority of these changes had the most impact on women who were just beginning to break away from their more traditional counterparts. Women abandoned these societal norms and became the most recognizable element of the 1920s, a flapper. The First World War had a profound effect on the changes that faced women and society, because after World War One ended, women and women wanted to forget the tragedy of the war, and they could do that by partying often. The ratification of the 19th amendment allowed women to enjoy greater freedom in voting, but it also opened women’s eyes and made it apparent that they wanted the same opportunities as men enjoyed. A flapper was a young woman who wore shorter dresses, but she also did things traditional women did not do, like wear makeup, smoke, and drink. The film, Bare Knees, was about more than women in short dresses, it was about the newer freedoms women enjoyed, one of the new freedoms was sexual liberation. Although, the film neither denies nor supports the flapper it does say that the flapper can be tamed though marriage, and it is just as likely that a traditional woman ends up being immoral. This was made clear though the films use of intertitles and the actions of its characters. Bare Knees was a film made in 1928 that neither accepted nor denied the flapper, but it did make the message clear that women can be either.