ohsochewy is on the right track, but today's “PC glasses” are not seeing the whole picture. This is a very unusual ad because, as Paul Fussell points out in his book Wartime, married couples were almost always a handsome young commissioned officer and his red-lipsticked bride. Only enlisted men were shown alone, as receiving gift packages from home (“Oh, boy! Milky Way!”) or stretching out (alone) on the new percale sheets during furlough.
It would be literally inconceivable for the man of the house to be shown doing housework unless he were 'merely' enlisted. Even Norman Rockwell hewed straight to that convention: His famous painting of the GI happily peeling spuds in the kitchen at home is a play on what enlisted soldiers did, and amusing in that regard… but he is an enlisted man, not an officer. Sure the 'mean ole sarge' is doing the windows. Hah, hah… You'll never see his CO doing any such thing.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-07-18 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-19 01:29 pm (UTC)Yes and no (http://community.livejournal.com/vintage_ads/2090131.html?thread=17155987#t17155987).
no subject
Date: 2010-07-18 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-19 01:02 pm (UTC)It would be literally inconceivable for the man of the house to be shown doing housework unless he were 'merely' enlisted. Even Norman Rockwell hewed straight to that convention: His famous painting of the GI happily peeling spuds in the kitchen at home is a play on what enlisted soldiers did, and amusing in that regard… but he is an enlisted man, not an officer. Sure the 'mean ole sarge' is doing the windows. Hah, hah… You'll never see his CO doing any such thing.