gender nonconformity--9/4/26

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Today's selection-- from Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins by Caitlin McGurk. In the 1920s, The New Yorker’s brilliant and prescient editor Harold Ross and one of its most highly regarded cartoonists Barbara Shermund made a very concerted effort “to appeal to a diversity of metropolitan types–including queer readers”:

“Ross was thinking broadly about cosmopolitan readership, and wanted the ideas solicited by gag men as well as cartoonists to appeal to a diversity of metropolitan types–including queer readers. In letter dated June 21, 1928 from Ross to one of Shermund's cartoonist contemporaries, Gardner Rea, he sent edits along for some submitted artwork that he found ‘unpleasant,’ nothing, ‘we are especially anxious to please the fairy trade.' Whether the artwork (the piece which he was referring to is unknown) contained something demeaning toward homosexuals is unknown: but this offhand comment is enough to indicate that there was a known queer readership, possibly among the investors as well.

“If he was thinking about appealing directly to queer readers by then, it seems that within her first full year of contributing cartoons, Shermund was already doing so on her own accord. This can first be seen as early as her tenth captioned contribution to the magazine, appearing on July 31, 1926. We see two pretty young gentlemen in arms standing in a park and chatting nearly nose-to-nose with one another, observing a third character in the foreground dressed fairly androgynously, wearing a tie and knickerbockers, smoking a cigarette–with only long eyelashes as a possible indication of gender. Their conversation goes, ‘What is that, a boy or a girl?’ ‘'A girl.’ ‘How can you tell?’ ‘The sex appeal.’ The androgynous character stands seductively, with bedroom eyes and a slight smirk, gazing directly out at the reader with a sense of enjoyment at being observed. The punch line, which is that ‘the sex appeal’ is the giveaway to what her gender is, reads as particularly ironic coming from the two speaking figures who themselves read as effeminate as she does virile.

“Shermund's nod to the emergence of gender nonconformity in the women's style of the day would have been spot on for what she was witnessing in certain circles, though it was far from reaching mainstream acceptance. No negative judgment is clearly cast by any of the figures, all of whom read as queer. At the time, smoking, for women, was something done at home or in company indoors. It was not only considered vulgar for a woman to do so in public–it could invite citation or warning from police. Further, our character appears to be taking pleasure in their ‘unchaperoned’ smoke, breaking countless taboos of the time, and reveling in it. For a woman in the mid-1920s, smoking alone in public, dressed so androgynously, was a bold demonstration of feminism and queerness.

Cover of The New Yorker issue for October 3, 1925, by Shermund

“A few months later, on October 2, 1926, we see another cartoon from Shermund that delights in gender contrasts. In a ranch scene, a burly cowhand is shown on the ground, partially risen from having been thrown, presumably, by the unbroken steed that is bucking behind him. He glares up suspiciously at a rather fey observer, a thin young man, fashionably dressed in riding breeches with a fitted sweater and cap. The foppish gentleman with huge, eager eyes leans over him, hands raised in mincing excitement as he enthusiastically blurts out, ‘My dear fellow, you've no idea how picturesque you are!’ The cowboy's facial expression says it all–suspicion, perhaps some disgust, and offense at the flowery comparison or very experience of being perceived by this effeminate individual. The disparity in their expressions and body language is a delight. The otherwise dominant and masculine rancher is cast to the ground by the horse in a vulnerable position as the young man leers over him not just excitedly but confidently–he feels no need to hide his effusive admiration.”

author:	Caitlin McGurk
title:	Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund
publisher:	Fantagraphics
date:	Copyright 2024
pages:	63-67