THE 1920s VERSUS THE 2020s

     To begin with, my parents were born  in the 1920s and grew up during the Great Depression, so I do have a personal interest in this time period. 

     The 1920s was the jazz age in which American music and dance was the go in Australia and elsewhere.  Radio was king and kids would crowd around their family at night to listen to their favourite radio programs.

     The Great War had come to an end in 1918 and so the 1920s was a time to look for a better way to live and a way out of future conflicts in which millions of lives, the world over, are affected either by death or horrific injury. 

     In 1919 there was a treaty signed by the Germans that would eventually result in a Second World War but this war was in the future. For now, in the 1920s, there was the desire to enjoy one's self and seek out new freedoms.

     The League of Nations had been born and so there was hope that another full scale world war would never eventuate. 

   

     In Germany and elsewhere there was cabaret. Young women in black, calling themselves Vamps, made the night life something special. Skirts rose and there was a general feeling of elation at least in western style countries, a desire to get away from past miseries such as war in the trenches and in the air. 

     This was the silent film era where you had stunt flying and comedians such as Charlie Chaplin making audiences laugh. 

     Life was not so good in China, especially in Shanghai. Meanwhile, in Japan, there was a British airman teaching Japanese airmen how to handle take-off and landing on aircraft carriers. There seemed little harm in this since the Japanese had been the allies of the British during the Great War. 

        In the USA, during the 1920s, there was a ban on drinking alcohol that resulted in criminals finding new ways to make money. Speakeasies came into being. Meanwhile, in France and elsewhere in Europe, black entertainers, such as Josephine Baker, became popular, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote Tender is the Night and also The Great Gatsby.

 

     Photography became more popular in the 1920s as cameras became more affordable to the average person. Also cars became less expensive to buy and to run. Swimming was more popular than ever. There were rock pools and trips to various beaches. There was also more travel by train. There was also the beginnings of television. An experiment conducted in the 1920s resulted a single image being transmitted through the air and received. 

     Forms of communication were improving. Mail could be sent via air. People were more and more likely to have  phones in their homes and there were stores selling records.

     It is strange to think that a hundred years ago there was more freedom and less censorship than in our 21st Century. People seem to have been more open back then to new ideas. What's more, opinions could differ. People were looking for new ways to express themselves in the arts. Ancient Egypt came back into vogue.

     Not long ago, we celebrated the end of the First World War. The Lighthouse at Kiama was decked out for this celebration. So what did we get out of an end to a terrible war and a decade of relative peace? There was optimism back then in the 1920s. Is there much optimism now, at the beginning of the 2020s?  

     In the 1960s and 1970s there were movements in the USA, the UK and Australia against the Vietnam War. It was make love, not war. The notion appealed to me at the time. With the war over though, the young people who had protested against it didn't seem to know what to do next other than find a way to make a living, marry and raise a family like their parents had done. 

     Then, in the 1980s, AIDS brought an end, once and for all, to the free love movement. Those who had dreams of living like Hippies were then out of luck. Today we have a virus that threatens us all. And yes, there was the Spanish Flu a hundred years ago that killed a lot of people and had Australians masking up. Maybe we are due for something like that every hundred years or so. Regardless, are we better off now than we were back then? There are better ways today of combating disease. We also have new ways of communicating with one another as well as brand new censorship in the form of political correctness. 

     Political correctness as well as reverse racism began in Australia in the 1990s and has been going strong ever since. This stifles creativity and so gives so-called Reality shows their opportunity to spread like weeds. Television today has suffered greatly from this as well as the notion that we must cater for all in any and all historic drama. I have on occasions made fun of this very idea. Yes, there have been examples in the 20th Century of bad casting such as John Wayne in the the 1954 film The Conqueror where he played the role of Genghis Khan. Even so,  what is happening right now with this inclusion bias is distortion of history and historical events for political point scoring. 

Will we soon be over this corona virus crisis? Yes, in Australia, by the end of the year, hopefully, with fingers crossed. I have had my first jab and will soon have my second one. 

     Is there a chance political correctness, Reality shows and the distortion of history on television coming to an end?  No! Not a chance in  Hell! But there is still some creativity out and about produced by free thinkers.

          If you haven't already, please check out Dragon Queen. Science fiction available through Amazon.