Wapsi Square Forum

GWTW was set in the American South during the Civil War. It was quite common for servants to dress their mistresses, especially helping with laces on corsets.

Just Old Al wrote:

Dave wrote: With any luck at all, you'll avoid the more distressing manifestations (e.g. uncontrollable quoting from "Gone With The Wind" and its sequel - known as "Two-Rhett syndrome").

Sarge....deal with this before I do. It is not gonna be pretty if I do.

What makes you think I will be any more subtle?

Actually, I think Sarge might be a bit more vicious, since he's besmirching the honor of the great novel of the antebellum South...

Alkarii wrote:

Dave wrote:(Dave places a fairly expensive set of collectable "Gone With The Wind" commemorative plates into the Pun Jar)

I'd never seen that movie, and I never read the book, so I don't know the context, but of you look at the plate at the bottom left...

As noted, Mammy (the large black female slave) is cinching Scarlett's (the vixen) corset TIGHT as part of her getting dressed up preparatory to a party. This produced the hourglass figure that was the height of fashion back then. Also painfully compressed the internal organs and made it hard to breathe deeply. This isn't even all that extreme; some women used winches to pull those laces and REALLY constrict their waists.

Human fashions and standards of beauty are not always rational...

Dave wrote:(Dave places a fairly expensive set of collectable "Gone With The Wind" commemorative plates into the Pun Jar)

If they're that expensive, why are you leaving them laying around on the stairs???

lake_wrangler wrote:If they're that expensive, why are you leaving them laying around on the stairs???

Oh, having them survive the obvious risk just adds to the collectable value! To get the top price, you have to be able to prove that you'd stored them in a place where the kids could have come running through, kicked them over, and broken chunks off of the rims of the plates.

They're Chippendale, you see.

(Dave places a complete "faux-antique furniture distressing" toolkit in the Pun Jar... hammer and small nails, a length of rusty chain, scraper, propane torch, and several jars of inks and stains... even though he strongly suspects that somebody is going to take these implements right back out of the Jar and then head in his direction with an evil gleam in their eyes.)

Oddly enough, the forum for 21st Century Fox is currently discussing a woman in her bedroom grasping a pole while someone tugs on corset strings.

(permalink to the comic page in question, valid beginning sometime Monday 12/19/2016)

Warrl wrote:Oddly enough, the forum for 21st Century Fox is currently discussing a woman in her bedroom grasping a pole while someone tugs on corset strings.

(permalink to the comic page in question, valid beginning sometime Monday 12/19/2016)

Amusing, no?

--FreeFlier

(I find out about the Strangest Things when I come here...)

Oh, I already guessed what it must have been. I just couldn't resist the joke.

Some of those damn corsets would break a person's ribs. Thankfully corsets are not commonly worn that way anymore. I'd rather not have to worry about snapping a woman in half with a simple hug. (Although, wouldn't that mean that the corsets worn these days are actually bustiers?)

EDIT: After zooming in on that part of the picture, I can actually see the lacing. Before that, it looked like the servant was wagging a finger at her, about to hand out some "discipline.". Granted, I still knew what it had to be, because I'm pretty sure that Gone With The Wind doesn't have any naughty scenes like that.

eee wrote:On the other hand, if going to college meant separation from Nadette, you'd think Atsali's anxiety level would be much higher...

"Separation" is relative here. In the Para world, there are so many ways to instantly get from here to there, including a detour through the Library, that there really is no such thing as a "long-distance relationship". Basically, if the two of them want to get together for lunch at a bistro in Paris, they can do it nearly as easily as if they were both living in the same apartment in Paris.