The Ideal(ized) Woman and the 1950s
By Sophia Cetina (2022)
American romance comics from the early 1950s had a skewed perspective on the ideal woman and what it meant for this archetypal woman to lead a fulfilled life. Most always, these endings included marriage—after some form of superficial obstacle was resolved. This report will center on the learnings from Glamorous Romances, a serial magazine featuring brief romance comics that result in happy endings for heroines, in specific combination with messages on bettering a woman’s self. Abundant miscommunications and misunderstandings accompany self-conscious heroines searching for romance. Ideal romance in the early 1950s was conceptualized as featuring an ideal woman, which reflects on historical context (the aftermath of World War II) and contemporary tropes on what it means for a girl to live happily ever after. Glamorous Romances often characterizes these findings as maritally focused and one-dimensional (as character Marly solely seeks out men who are “big game”¹), which sharply contrasts with modern textual understandings of the freedoms and mobilities associated with a woman’s happiness. To pave this argument, one must first understand the framework of 1950s romance comics (specifically Glamorous Romances). The next step is to uncover the historical context for these traits. How was the ideal woman represented, and how did she get her ideal life (which in Glamorous Romances included marriage and a husband)? On a broader scale, these stories promulgated societal understandings of what it meant for a woman to have an interesting and fulfilled life. Lastly, a look at recent satirized comics will extend the understanding of the 1950s originals, as one considers how recent woman-created media answers the question, What does it mean for a woman to lead a fulfilled life? differently.
1950s Romance Comics and Glamorous Romances
Romance comics in America in the 1950s are often considered overly dramatized and filled with sobbing heroines.² This is, in part, true, but it is more interesting to pay attention to how these women are portrayed in terms of what they want, how they achieve that goal, and the relationships that they will enter in order to reach their aim (which is most often love/marriage). Melodrama aside, 1950s romance comics shed light on how a woman’s version of success was made to seem relationship-based, as opposed to fiscal, professional, or societal.³ Simon and Kirby’s romance comics, which were first published in the late 1940s and carried on to the 1950s, contain genre work peddling accounts of “true love.”⁴ Love wasn’t to be found in work; it was found in a man, in a home, and in, eventually, children.⁵ This tended to lead to misunderstandings and delusions, as some female protagonists would, for example, blindly follow the wrong man until the right one appeared, or, in some cases, follow not enough or even too many men. In all cases, life wasn’t proper until the proper man entered a woman’s life. One famous cover dates from the March 1954 issue of Young Romance, in which a woman declares, “Don’t try to be noble, honey! I don’t care if you never walk again! I love you–I’ll never leave you!”⁶ Meanwhile, the nurse in the side panel shakes her head and thinks, “The little fool! Can’t she see that he’s fallen in love with me!”⁷
1950s romance comics thrived, and although there were various forms of plot ideation (man-chases-woman vs. woman-chases-man, for example) and genre variation, the messages mostly remained brief, and the same. Glamorous Romances, in turn, perpetuates the fantasy of a woman who is not like other women. She becomes less promiscuous, and more domestic, she supports her beau, often blindly, and her past has culminated to her future goals of the age-old phrase marrying well.⁹ In fact, marrying well is deemed incredibly important to the heroines of Glamorous Romances.¹⁰ This raises concern about authentic goals and motives, when much of a woman’s personality is adapted to fit the goal of a man. Consider the story title “His Kind of Girl.”¹¹ The other women surrounding Dorrie, the heroine, are mean-spirited and judgmental (they lack the potential she has to be a great wife), but are still able to find dates and spend time with men.¹² Dorrie feels pitiful and self-referentially considers herself broken and plain; she equares her worth with her ability to find a successful man to call her own.¹³ She is a college student and works at a doctor’s office. The doctor she works for becomes the object of her affections, and at first, he considers Dorrie just like other (college) girls: “I guess you have to stay home sometimes. You college girls have quite a reputation for partying and dating. I don’t know how you do it. When do you do your studying?”¹⁴ Dorrie, in response, is too shy to say that she’s too shy to get dates; she allows the misconception to bloom until the doctor himself figures it out.¹⁵ This heroine suffers from her nature at first: although she is timidly shy, she still desires a man but cannot find the tools to actualize that goal. She will be teased by others and get no dates, and it takes a man’s actions to change her discontent with life to satisfaction and fulfillment.¹⁶ Ultimately, her connection with a man-figure is what reconciles her personality and goals, and allows her to receive her version of a happy ending.
According to Glamorous Romances, the professionally unambitious woman (“Why…I never dreamed of starting a skating career!”¹⁷) will eventually be rewarded for her (lack of) actions. All it takes is the discerning eye of the right man to find her potential and appreciate her beauty (since promiscuity and confidence are shamed).¹⁸ Until then, however, this poor female must wait. Worse, she may even associate with an unkind boyfriend before her true husband comes along. These types of stories appear repeatedly in Glamorous Romances. A sense of continuous waiting pervades many of these comics, with the cycle being stopped by a man. This trend propels the belief that a woman’s fulfillment comes from a man’s entry in her life. Moreover, even the shyest woman is rarely found unattached. Whether or not the right man has come along yet, or even if he has, and the heroine has not realized it yet, the constant backdrop of maleness (paired with an obsessive focus on relationships) creates a stifling effect in Glamorous Romances.¹⁹ A woman is portrayed as incapable of simply being happy on her own. Romantic pairings even occur in immediate succession (a woman with a bad boyfriend will leave him and subsequently link with the right man), leading to the notion that a woman without the presence or thoughts of a man does not exist in Glamorous Romances.
In “Fame Crazy,” Emma has a delusional fianceé named Chuck who attempts to stifle the heroine, calling her “nagging” and invalidating her skills when she is offered a job.²⁰ He says, “I always knew there were bigger things in store for me! And it was pretty swell of him to include you just because we were engaged!”²¹ Until the heroine is enlightened by her skating instructor (who happens to be an eligible, rich, and fairly social man), she is stuck dealing with the dramas and hardships provided by her fianceé. When she comes to her senses and leaves her fianceé for her skating instructor, there is a moment of self-deprecation. The self-effacing comment that occurs after the crisis reveals the denigrating, male-dependent nature of a protagonist in this type of love comic; “I almost made an awful fool of myself,” Emma declares.²² Her new paramour was thankfully there to guide her along the way.
Many Glamorous Romances heroines also follow the trope of artifice in which a woman attempts to be something she is not in order to get where (and whom) she desires. However, she will nonetheless retain intrinsic potential throughout this process, and as with the shy heroines, all it takes is a tasteful man to get her on the right track (“Oh Ellen, you’re cruel! Dorrie’s really pretty! But because she’s shy and self-conscious she can’t get dates”).²³ By the end of this type of story, the woman will have realized her value, beauty, and strength. Since this sense of personal fulfillment aligns with her relationship with a man, however, it is problematic.
Historical Context and the What it Promotes
In the years following World War Two, marital bliss and escapism/fantasy carried over to romance.²⁴ The timing of Glamorous Romances speaks to a complex cultural moment in the United States in which many women left the financial and social independence of the wartime years, and re-enter more strictly domestic roles.²⁵ This post-World War Two audience began to consume media with an emphasis on love and lightheartedness, and the role of women had been critically altered to fit a more romantic, matrimonial role. Problems presented in the stories were rooted in misunderstandings and simple complications that could all be solved with the power of true love.²⁶ The 1950s romance comics, in turn, are characterized by exaggerated dramas, severe expressions, and saturated colors that match the shifting historical context in their emphasis on love.²⁷ Their plots are dramatic and unrealistic, but result in inevitable marital bliss. These identifiable features are consistent throughout 1950s romance fiction.²⁸ A post-war context, however, does not mean that these works are considered by scholars to be truly contemporary or feminist.²⁹ Magali Cornier Michael’s Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post World War II Fiction focuses on distinguishing the boundaries between contemporary and postmodern media.³⁰ This complicates the argument of a woman’s fulfillment in that Michael explores the distinction between media made to influence women and media made to uplift women.³¹ 1950s romance comics lack feminist traits (female independence and the effective presence of female friendships, for example), and the representations of a woman’s purpose make for a more grim notion of female accomplishment.³²
Feminist writing, unlike postmodern writing, has been more largely defined by female writers and women’s issues.³³ In contrast, postmodern literature is guided and influenced by male writers.³⁴ Looking at Glamorous Romances, one can more thoroughly understand that stories involving women don’t necessarily champion women, and that female fulfillment is more subjective and less linear than these comics tend to claim.³⁵ Glamorous Romances comics are both the evidence of the change of women’s daily life and the answer for how this cultural shift from work to home progressed. They give insight into society through these romances, since the content is tailored towards a population that searches to place idealism in relationships and ideal women, for princes and white knights to unite, in the aftermath of a deadly and horrifying war.³⁶
Glamorous Romances and Tropes for Women, Continued
Allow us to look at Glamorous Romances stories with this extra context. Specifically, it is important to pay attention to how these conflicts are resolved. The foundations have been described for some of the facets of the ideal woman, tying into the fantasy of being quote-en-quote not like other girls. This representation is part of a post-war culture that deeply prioritizes the individual woman finding her place, but mostly through relationships with men. In “His Kind of Girl,” heroine Wendy Schuyler embarks on a cruise for the purpose of meeting an “attractive, well to do, eligible young man.”³⁷ At first, she wears costumes and pretends to be a rich woman; she doesn’t succeed, gets exposed by the classic mean girl, then subsequently marries the handsome sailor who sticks by her side—the guy who was there all along. Despite her initially going astray in artifice, he sees her intrinsic value: “I tried to put you in the same class with the other girls I’ve met with the same ideas, but you aren’t really like them, Wendy! You’re just fooling yourself!”³⁸ Of course, readers are shocked and pleased to learn that he is actually wealthy, and not a mere poor sailor (“My dad owns this steamship line…”).³⁹ His front of a sailor was an adventurous and professional venture, while her self-portrait of subterfuge is described as, deep down, “just a little orphan on the make.”⁴⁰ Wendy’s moment of self-deprecation is just like Emma’s from “Fame Crazy”; both women verbally tear themselves down while their perfect paramours do nothing of the sort.⁴¹ Upon union with their men, however, the issue dissipates. Essentially, readers of Glamorous Romance consume media about women that are one-of-a-kind, yet may change themselves in pursuit of a man or a personal goal having to do with a man.⁴² One can begin to question the presence of ultimate happiness, wondering if these women are truly ideal and emotionally satisfied. Ultimately, readers may begin to wonder, is this what happiness really is?
Modernity and Satire
The tropes of Glamorous Romance and other similar romance comics can be observed and re-observed to probe at the concept of female fulfillment. A modern form of text sheds light on the themes and takeaways of the dramatic early 1950s romance comics: the satire. The perfect frame of reference for the ideal woman, then and now, is Jeanne Martinet’s satirical re-published (and revamped) comic tale Truer Than True Romance: Classic Love Comics Retold! This satirical text features a selection of tear jerking 1950s romance comics, and repurposes them in a contemporary, humorous light. This satire adds a previously absent sense of self-referentiality and awareness to the comics. It features the undercurrents of the question, is the ideal woman the same in real life as in a romance comic? For example, there is a twist on a title called “In Favor of Love.”⁴³ This title becomes “My Heart Said Yes, But My Therapist Said No!”⁴⁴ It is a fantastic reference point for the stories of Glamorous Romances, which in effect limit the woman’s parameters for a happy life to the topics of men and relationships, as opposed to broadening and uplifting her sense of self. The original plot of “In Favor of Love” is the following: “Alice is torn between a man with a secure financial future and a handsome marina bum. No surprise, she chooses the handsome marina bum in the end, only to discover that he is independently wealthy (of course) and has his own boat.”⁴⁵ At its foundation, the discovery of wealth and dilemma of men calls to mind many Glamorous Romances stories. Specifically, the plot is similar to “His Kind of Girl,” in which the presumed pauper actually has a wealthy father that can support the couple; the woman is rewarded for her lack of “greed.”⁴⁶ Mention of the therapist, however, adds a layer of consciousness to this tale; it is no fairytale, and a real (not necessarily ideal) woman would presumably have other percolating issues besides which man she is going to be with.⁴⁷
Jeanne Martinet also opens readers’ understandings of the many references to female foolishness that arise in early 1950s romance comics, especially in Glamorous Romances. In the original comics, female characters are repeatedly referred to as fools, often by themselves, which creates a more denigrating and subversive effect. Martinet, however, uses the concept of a fool as a satirical note to make fun of how the ideal woman was displayed in the old comics. She transforms the 1950s tale “Summer Heat” into the ironic and iconic story “Too Dumb for Love.”⁴⁸ The original plot goes: “To make him feel better, the postal worker decides to write him a letter pretending to be his girlfriend. The boy is angry at first at this trick but falls in love with the postal worker anyway.”⁴⁹ Martinet’s heroine, instead, declares, “Ohh! I am too dumb to live!” The comedic reference point segues to a more realistic ending for this revamped story. As the couple embraces at the story’s end, the postal woman considers, “It wasn’t exactly like my dream, but sort of…”⁵⁰ Therefore, in addition to making light of the 1950s comics, Martinet also gives the heroines a bit more agency—enough to seemingly realize that Hey, this stuff might just be a tiny bit laughable or Is “love” actually the truest win? Ultimately, female happiness is imbued with more self-awareness in this satirical text, which makes happily ever after seem a lot more complex than marriage, the end.
Conclusion
As exciting and enjoyable as it is to “Return to the tear-stained, melodramatic heyday of romance comics,” it is important to acknowledge the misguided pressures they placed on the ideal woman, and locate where they fell short.⁵¹ The early 1950s American romance comics have an imperfect and incomplete perspective on the “ideal woman” that limits her potential to relationships, her goals to men, and her hopes to love. While love is certainly enough to aspire for, the harmful archetypes of a woman in love or in search of love pervade the stories of Glamorous Romances in addition to many other published romance comics and texts. A post-World War Two audience engaged with a very specific version of a woman, absorbing notions about what it meant for a woman to be her best self, and live her most satisfactory life. The answer to that question of fulfillment is ultimately subjective. It is a rapidly evolving concept and there is no set archetype for women that can present this notion in a story.
Notes
- Which Way, My Heart?” Glamorous Romance, August 1951.
- Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics (Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books, 2012).
- Sheila Hardy, A 1950s Housewife: Marriage and Homemaking in the 1950s (Stroud: History Press, 2012).
- Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics (Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books, 2012).
- Sheila Hardy, A 1950s Housewife: Marriage and Homemaking in the 1950s (Stroud: History Press, 2012).
- Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics (Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books, 2012).
- Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics (Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books, 2012).
- “Young Romance.” Wikiwand. Accessed April 2, 2022. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Young_Romance.
- Glamorous Romances. May 1952.
- Glamorous Romances, February 1954.
- “His Kind of Girl.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- “His Kind of Girl.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- “His Kind of Girl.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- “His Kind of Girl.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- “His Kind of Girl.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- “My Dreamed-up Romance.” Glamorous Romances, April 1951.
- “Fame Crazy.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- “I Risked My Heart.” Glamorous Romances, February 1954.
- Glamorous Romances, August 1952.
- “Fame Crazy.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- “Fame Crazy.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- “Fame Crazy.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- “My Dreamed-up Romance.” Glamorous Romances, April 1951.
- Lori Rotskoff, Love on The Rocks: Men, Women, and Alcohol in Post-World War II America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
- Sheila Hardy, A 1950s Housewife: Marriage and Homemaking in the 1950s (Stroud: History Press, 2012).
- Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics (Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books, 2012).
- Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics (Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books, 2012).
- Lori Rotskoff, Love on The Rocks: Men, Women, and Alcohol in Post-World War II America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
- Magali Cornier Michael, Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
- Magali Cornier Michael, Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
- Magali Cornier Michael, Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
- Magali Cornier Michael, Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
- Magali Cornier Michael, Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
- Magali Cornier Michael, Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
- Magali Cornier Michael, Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
- Magali Cornier Michael, Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
- His Kind of Girl.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- His Kind of Girl.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- His Kind of Girl.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- His Kind of Girl.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- “Fame Crazy.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- Ace Comics. Complete Love. Ace Magazines, May, 1956.
- Jeanne Martinet, Truer Than True Romance: Classic Love Comics Retold! (New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001).
- Jeanne Martinet, Truer Than True Romance: Classic Love Comics Retold! (New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001).
- Jeanne Martinet, Truer Than True Romance: Classic Love Comics Retold! (New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001).
- His Kind of Girl.” Glamorous Romances, August 1951.
- Jeanne Martinet, Truer Than True Romance: Classic Love Comics Retold! (New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001).
- Jeanne Martinet, Truer Than True Romance: Classic Love Comics Retold! (New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001).
- Jeanne Martinet, Truer Than True Romance: Classic Love Comics Retold! (New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001).
- Jeanne Martinet, Truer Than True Romance: Classic Love Comics Retold! (New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001).
- Michael Barson, Agonizing Love: The Golden Era of Romance Comics (New York: Harper Design, 2011).
Bibliography
Ace Comics. Complete Love. Ace Magazines, May, 1956.
Ace Comics. Glamorous Romances. Ace Magazines, April, 1951.
Ace Comics. Glamorous Romances. Ace Magazines, August, 1951.
Ace Comics. Glamorous Romances. Ace Magazines, August, 1952.
Ace Comics. Glamorous Romances. Ace Magazines, February, 1954.
Ace Comics. Ten-story Love. Ace Magazines, September, 1951.
Barson, Michael. Agonizing Love: The Golden Era of Romance Comics. New York:
Harper Design, 2011.
Hardy, Sheila. A 1950s Housewife: Marriage and Homemaking in the 1950s. Stroud: History
Press, 2012.
Michael, Magali Cornier. Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.
Martinet, Jeanne. Truer Than True Romance: Classic Love Comics Retold! New York:
Watson-Guptill, 2001.
Rotskoff, Lori. Love on The Rocks: Men, Women, and Alcohol in Post-World War II America.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Simon, Joe, and Jack Kirby. Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance
Comics. Seattle, Washington: Fantagraphics Books, 2012.
“Young Romance.” Wikiwand. Accessed April 2, 2022.
