It would also help if aircrew uniforms did not become so fashionable during the World Wars.
I like the look of capes and sometimes I'll drape my jacket over my shoulder and walk around with it like a cape.
When I wore my jacket like that in high school(mid 1980s Canada), my social studies teacher told me to "Wear that jacket like a man!", and pretty much made me put my arms through the sleeves.
So there's possibly an anti-homosexual bias in the contemporary aversion to capes. Plus, I think there's a bit of xenophobia in there as well: in popular representation, capes tend to be associated with vampires, who are usually portrayed as swarthy semi-orientals, along with other, vaguely foreign, bad guys. Even the typical persona of the caped and top-hatted magician has faintly exotic echoes.
And FDR wore a cape at Yalta, not his finest hour in the view of the kind of person who hates swishy men and scheming Eurasians.
When I wore my jacket like that in high school(mid 1980s Canada), my social studies teacher told me to "Wear that jacket like a man!", and pretty much made me put my arms through the sleeves.
So there's possibly an anti-homosexual bias in the contemporary aversion to capes. Plus, I think there's a bit of xenophobia in there as well: in popular representation, capes tend to be associated with vampires, who are usually portrayed as swarthy semi-orientals, along with other, vaguely foreign, bad guys. Even the typical persona of the caped and top-hatted magician has faintly exotic echoes.
And FDR wore a cape at Yalta, not his finest hour in the view of the kind of person who hates swishy men and scheming Eurasians.
Superman and Batman (among others) wouldn't be wearing capes to look different. (Trying to imagine the Batrenchcoat.) (1)
As far as no capes because they are dangerous, that only applies if one is a Super (or Super wannabe.) (2)
Certainly less grandmothers would have smoked themselves to death in that case.It would also help if aircrew uniforms did not become so fashionable during the World Wars.
Perhaps have the cape as a 1970s fashion fad (perhaps popularised in the UK by Jon Pertwee's Doctor, and then have it spread).