Category:
1960s

Think of her as your mother

American Airlines ran this ad in magazines in 1968.



The ad became notorious enough to eventually attract the attention of academics. The following analysis comes from “‘Think of her as your mother’: Airline advertising and the stewardess in America, 1930-1980,” by Peter Lyth in The Journal of Transport History (Oct 2012):

while the headline... says ‘mother’ the illustration suggests something rather different. Traditionally American motherhood is, stereotypically speaking, wholesome and fairly innocent, yet the look on the model’s face is neither especially innocent nor entirely wholesome. Indeed, as Kathleen Barry has pointed out, her ‘atypical stare and casual posture conveyed smoldering sexuality rather than maternal concern’. ‘Mother’s world’ is about housework and children, it is not supposed to be erotic—indeed, the worlds are usually separate—yet the expression on the model’s face is alluring and flirtatious. The associations here are more complex than the headline and body copy would suggest, so that the word ‘mother’ in the headline both invokes and denies the associations of motherhood. This ‘inner contradiction’ between copy and illustration is a rhetorical device used constantly in advertising to play on the opposition between appearance and reality, to create in effect double meaning or paradox. The paradox... is that the illustration shows us an attractive female model, but the copy asks us to ‘Think of her as (our) mother’. These jarring ideas create the appeal of the advertisement; the inner contradiction makes us take notice. However, paradox also means that apparent difference conceals real similarity: she may be attractive and alluring, but she is also your mother.

It also inspired some copycats, such as this 1971 ad from Southwestern Bell:



However, not all American Airlines stewardesses appreciated the ad:

The Nashville Tennessean - Jun 29, 1968

Posted By: Alex - Thu Oct 03, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Advertising, Parents, Air Travel and Airlines, 1960s

Twiggy Board Game



Details here.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Oct 02, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Celebrities, Fashion, Games, 1960s

Follies of the Madmen #445



Yes, it's perfectly safe to drive your one-ton car on the same surface as the 150-lb iceboat.

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Sep 22, 2019 - Comments (6)
Category: Business, Advertising, Daredevils, Stuntpeople and Thrillseekers, Death, Sports, 1960s, Cars

Project Rulison

Sep. 10 was the 50th anniversary of Project Rulison, which was an underground nuclear test conducted in Rulison, Colorado. Its purpose was to determine if a nuclear bomb, detonated underground, could be used to release natural gas.

The answer was, not really, because the bomb will radiate the gas, making it unusable.

But what gave the test extra weirdness was that a handful of protesters tried to stop it by placing themselves on top of it. As an article on CBS Denver notes:

They believed the scientists wouldn’t actually detonate the bomb if people were inside the closure area above, they were wrong.

The protesters survived, but I'm assuming they must be the only people to have ever been directly on top of a nuclear explosion who lived to tell about it.

An article on vice.com offers a few details about what it felt like to be in the blast zone:

"There was this great rumble, and we were lifted about six or seven inches off the ground," he recalls. "There were a whole bunch of tremors reverberating through the ground. People down below described seeing ripples flow through the earth, like a rock that had been tossed in a pond."

Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 19, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, 1960s

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Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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