Slicing Americana
Balko, Radley
Say now, though, that Walton has not put together a pro-smoking book, and that he has tried to be even-handed. In a chapter called "Armageddon Time," he quotes from the 1962 report by the Royal...
...Smokers simply declined to give up the weed, no matter what it cost them...
...The heyday of each of his subjects was the 1950s, an era no self-regarding, tenure-seeking associate professor could risk exploring without invoking Betty Friedan, sexual liberation, and the coming counterculture...
...And so Hurley sullies his pleasing history with his uninspired, learned conclusions and lessons: Diners, bowling alleys, and trailer parks adjusted their marketing strategies to accommodate the emerging white middle class, encouraged the misery of women, fostered hatred and oppression, and otherwise put a Ward and June Cleaver face on the bloody hell of the real 1950s...
...Euphemistically referring to the post-riot looting in Watts as a "sudden acquisition of consumer commodities," Hurley concludes that "ransacking shops represented justice to a community that had been shortchanged by a consumer culture__Plundering stores was not just about acquiring new consumer commodities, it was like sticking a knife into the belly of an oppressive beast...
...Freud's warning that "sometimes a cigar is only a cigar" is not there, but Kipling's "And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke" is...
...In a chapter called "Armageddon Time," he quotes from the 1962 report by the Royal College of Physicians of London—"The number of deaths caused by diseases associated with smoking is large"—and from the American Surgeon General's report of 1964, which, he says, is "generally agreed" to be more scholarly than the British report—"The risk of developing lung cancer increases with duration of smoking and the number of cigarettes smoked per day, and is diminished by discontinuing smoking...
...Faber and Faber, 334 pages, £17.50 Radley Balko Slicing Americana ANDREW HURLEY'S DINERS, BOWLING ALLEYS, AND TRAILER PARKS: REDEFINING THE GOOD LIFE IN POSTWAR AMERICA For two hundred seventy pages, Andrew Hurley offers a charming history of three uniquely American institutions—the diner, the bowling alley, and the trailer park, sweetened with anecdotes and fascinating tidbits about the customs, architecture, and evolution of these institutions...
...whatever you think about smoking, you most likely can find something in Walton's book to amuse you...
...This writer fell from abstinence, and lit up a Lucky midway through his third paragraph...
...Hurley is far more fatuous, however, when drawing conclusions about race and post-war consumerism...
...For instance, Hurley tells in grand detail how these institutions adopted marketing plans that appealed to the upwardly-mobile ambitions of the new middle class without offending their values...
...When he began his research, Walton says, he thought smoking was on its way out, but found the evidence indicated otherwise...
...The riots, drug culture, free loving hippies, and feminists may have attracted the cameras, but by and large America in the 1960s was plugging along pluckily in the suburbs...
...Though Hurley concludes his study with little more than predictable leftist editorial, he does deliver a mostly charming slice of 1950s Americana...
...When Hurley writes that "the women's movement and the counterculture shattered the myth of the happy suburban family," he's misleading...
...You may also find deep in an otherwise not very interesting Charles Lamb poem the immortal lines: "For thy sake, tobacco, I/ Would do anything but die...
...I suppose he couldn't help it...
...He may be right...
...Michael J. Hurd's latest book now available from finer on, bookstores and amazon.com THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ¦ April 2001 89 Exactly why manufacturers would engage in marketing strategies to keep women at home when the manufacturers wish primarily to enslave them in dead-end, low paying jobs remains unasked and unanswered...
...To Hurley, however, these accommodations are part of some grand scheme to oppress and belittle women: Under the pretense of promoting family togetherness, they asked women to feel good about their role as self-sacrificing martyrs...
...But a "central premise" of his book, Walton writes, is that smoking is a "more complicated, perverse and, above all, mysterious activity than that...
...Then he ruins it with 64 pages of pretentious, academic PC claptrap...
...so is the note from the Starr Report on Bill Clinton's misuse of a cigar in the Oval Office...
...Lamb was a serious smoker...
...Diners, in an effort to switch from servicing truck drivers and factory workers to newly affluent families, altered their interiors to mimic the family household—the exposed grill turned into a separate kitchen and owners hired motherly waitresses to bring dinner to the family...
...No matter...
...Mini-vans, home computers and microwaves alone undermine the notion that the suburban family is an anachronism to modern marketing...
...Basic Books, 416pages, $27.50...
...Now he thinks smoking is here to stay...
...It spread around the globe with lightning speed, even when it was punishable by torture and death...
...Academics like Hurley take joy in dispelling what they see as the myths of the 1950s through idealized recollections of the 1960s...
...Yet Hurley's history, like the underlying reality he tries to capture, does not actually support the conclusions he draws in the book's remaining pages...
...All of which seems like smart and natural market-based responses to changing demographics...
...It's Time To Kick Yourself (out of the nest) Dr...
...Certainly it is a pleasurable activity, but that's not enough to explain its appeal, and neither is the usual reason put forth by the zealots.They insist, in courts and in Congress, that clever advertising turns teenagers into smokers, and so by the time they're adults they're addicted, and that's all there is to it...
...Outside the home, manufacturers had a vested interest in maintaining sexual inequality so they could hire women...at wage rates far below what they would have to pay to men...
...And when he writes, "Never again would the vast majority of Americans rally round the happy suburban family as a model for appropriate consumer behavior," he's simply wrong...
...Bowling alleys seeking to fill lanes with women's leagues during the day installed daycare centers and grocery services, so as not to interfere with the responsibilities of matrimony and motherhood...
...So, what is there about smoking that makes it so enticing, even with the health risks...
Vol. 34 • April 2001 • No. 3
