I've started working with vintage ads in my painting and collage work.   It's a pretty big change from what I was doing before, but I was getting a little bored with the zombie-ish/sad figures.  

I was ready for a change.  I found these old ads and got excited about them, so here we are. 

These ads just make me LOL my little heart out.  This really isn't the style anymore.  It's like comparing an episode of Leave It to Beaver to Game of Thrones.  And you think, man, shit is crazy different now! 

These poor women are required to be shockingly perky and really  happy.

I don't approve.  I want to say-- I don't do perky.  All smug like some cool kid on TV.

But I can be pretty up and bouncy.  I am excitable.   So that would be a lie.

However.  My mouth tends to turn down when I'm thinking or just kind of not engaged. Which leads to a level of somewhat permanent bitchface.  And people are always telling me to smile!  Or asking me why I'm mad when I was just thinking about what to cook for dinner.

It's fucking irritating.  SUPER irritating.  I don't owe you an expression of emotion that makes you feel more comfortable.  If you are some rando, I frankly don't give a shit how you feel about me.  And I would invite you to keep it moving.

A few additional scattered thoughts-- 

--An idea about how women's bodies are turned into fat cash by capitalism, which sells us everything, even our "proper" emotions.  

 --It makes it a little creepy to look at these women when they can't look back.   

--I like the fortune cookies because the things they say are so banal.  

 --These images are from the  (so-called) golden era of America that so many conservatives want to drag us all back to.  Funny how when they reminisce about how awesome every thing was back in the 50s, early 60s, or before- they really only mean for them, the White Dude Nation.  I don't know about you, but I don't exactly pine for a time before I could legally have my own money or had to look in the Women Only section of the job ads. (Where all the shitty jobs were.)

 --We are so scared of China now.  It is interesting to me to take a so-called Chinese thing, the fortune cookies (which aren't even Chinese) and integrate them into these ads from post WWII America.  The fortune cookies came packaged in some Chinese language newspaper, and I've been using that too in my collage.

--Goddamn, these ads are white.  They are the whitest fucking thing I've ever seen.  I haven't been able to find a single one with any people of color in it.  Except one.  For Aunt Jemima.  And HELLS NO I'm not using that. 

And now-- the weirdest goddamn ad I've found so far.

What in the name of holy FUCK is happening here??  I promise you, this ad looked like creepy fucksticks before I did anything to it.

OMG.  What is happening ??  It's too weird.