What PODs could make it more acceptable to drop f-bombs or for women to be topless?
Make America less fearful of “profanity” and “nudity”
- Thread starter darklordoftech
- Start date
Off the top of my head I'd say cancel the Louisiana Purchase.
Having a large nominally-French territory in North America not only curtails some of the "this county is insufficiently puritanical to my tastes, I'll head West and try making a New Jerusalem... again" that amusingly did happen, it also provides a nice place for folks unhappy with the British in Quebec to move to and join the Acadians who went before.
The mere presence of someone on the borders neither Anglo-Saxon nor someone you think you can just kick around (France was still considered quite favorably in America and not a trade relationship you wanted to endanger by throwing your weight against their last substantive colony in the Americas after the Haitian Revolution) will scuttle the idea of Manifest Destiny and the 'divinely ordained mission to civilize the continent' that fueled a lot of the ideas about American Exceptionalism, seen at its most belligerent with ideas of 'America is God's Gift to the Planet' I see pop up from time to time across the 19th and 20th Centuries.
For bonus points the neighboring country will be French and likely to retain strong connections with the homeland to maintain their cultural identity for as long as they can.
Having a large nominally-French territory in North America not only curtails some of the "this county is insufficiently puritanical to my tastes, I'll head West and try making a New Jerusalem... again" that amusingly did happen, it also provides a nice place for folks unhappy with the British in Quebec to move to and join the Acadians who went before.
The mere presence of someone on the borders neither Anglo-Saxon nor someone you think you can just kick around (France was still considered quite favorably in America and not a trade relationship you wanted to endanger by throwing your weight against their last substantive colony in the Americas after the Haitian Revolution) will scuttle the idea of Manifest Destiny and the 'divinely ordained mission to civilize the continent' that fueled a lot of the ideas about American Exceptionalism, seen at its most belligerent with ideas of 'America is God's Gift to the Planet' I see pop up from time to time across the 19th and 20th Centuries.
For bonus points the neighboring country will be French and likely to retain strong connections with the homeland to maintain their cultural identity for as long as they can.
Have a TV watershed like most places.
Finagle the PG-13 rating differently.
Have the outcry over moral panic be focused on violence instead of sexytimes (yeah yeah, it’s all tangled up with racism, but it’s possible)
Finagle the PG-13 rating differently.
Have the outcry over moral panic be focused on violence instead of sexytimes (yeah yeah, it’s all tangled up with racism, but it’s possible)
Yeah, I'll concur that it would take an early POD - one that would make the colonies less of a "dumping ground" for nonconformists, including Puritans, Quakers and the like. Less of a religiously-minded population could butterfly away things like the periodic "Great Awakenings", the "Burnt-Over Districts" in upstate New York that gave rise to some of the more uniquely American forms of sectarianism, etc.
Interesting thing is though that in some ways the religiosity of Americans in the 1800's has been a bit exaggerated - many people were essentially "unchurched" and had no church membership or religious affiliation... hence the popularity of things like circuit riders and camp meetings, to bring the "backsliders" home to Jesus, as it were.
Cavaliers, the sworn enemies of the Puritans, also played a big role in founding America. The Cavaliers were the ones who colonized the South and were the perpetrators of America’s Original Sin. The Puritans didn’t own slaves. Also notice how the Puritans didn’t celebrate Christmas but today conservative talking heads fearmonger about liberals waging a “war on Christmas” and say, “Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays”. I think that comedians have exaggerated the influence of the Puritans and people wrongly assumed that those responsible for the 1980s Satanic Panic were descended from the Puritans.
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Umh, actually, no.
From wiki:
One of the things the codes mentioned did was allow the Puritans to enslave Native Americans.
From wiki again:
And, of course, many of the ships involved in the triangle trade were owned by puritans.
marathag
Banned
Keep the '20s roaring by not having a Great Depression, but have SCOTUS do different here
The Supreme Court had already decided unanimously in 1915 in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio that free speech did not extend to motion pictures,[10] and while there had been token attempts to clean up the movies before—such as when the studios formed the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI) in 1916—little had come of the efforts.[11]
The Supreme Court had already decided unanimously in 1915 in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio that free speech did not extend to motion pictures,[10] and while there had been token attempts to clean up the movies before—such as when the studios formed the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI) in 1916—little had come of the efforts.[11]
Just some random possibilities. Not sure how possible they are, or what (or how far back) the PODs would be in order to bring them about:
- the religious "Great Awakenings" which periodically recur in US culture don't happen in the 20th century. The US follows a trajectory more like Western Europe or Canada in religious observance, so that by the late 20th century, the bulk of the population still nominally identifies as "Christian" but there is no huge, organized religious right influence in politics (with the accompanying "moral panics").
- no Hays Code to establish censorship in Hollywood. Pre code movies were quite more liberal compared to what came afterward.
- no Comics Code Authority (established after yet another moral and political panic in the Cold War Era 50s). So some of the edgier comics of that era, like Tales from the Crypt and other EC Comics owned by William M. Gaines continue publishing, and get even more edgier as the Sexual Revolution and counterculture of the 60s hit.
Put all this together, and you will probably end up with an USA where sex and nudity (and casual swearing in TV, movies and comics) is not seen as so shocking. The culture is probably closer to Western Europe or Quebec than the modern US.
That too, would be interesting. Marx and Engel predicted Communist Revolutions would first occur in mature industrial economies such as Germany or the UK, not the relatively backward, agrarian, and socially very conservative Russia or China (and every other subsequent communist revolution took their lead from those two). As it was, there was a brief period in 1920s Russia where homosexuality was decriminalized and where communists openly discussed things like abolishing marriage and even bourgeois concepts like monogamy. But all that ended when Stalin took over, and sexual liberalism and LGBT rights were dead, and never brought up again until the USSR fell.
But what if Communist Revolution actually happened where it was supposed to (According to Marx)? In an advanced industrial economy with a more libertine attitude towards sexuality such the US in the 20s. And yes, the US was sexually much more libertine than Czarist Russia or Warlord Era China. In an American Communist Revolutionary State, a Stalin type figure might have a much tougher time turning back the clock to heteronormative, monogamous, social conservatism.
Just a thought. Not sure how one would actually get a Communist Revolution in 1920s USA, or if it would indeed be socially progressive.
National healthcare implemented would help. If it's less possible to ruin people for minor infractions bc healthcare isn't tied to employers, there's less ability or incentive to keep various social norms enforced since the prudes wouldn't have the sociopaths assisting them in witch hunting people for various issues. Yeah, you'd see a TON of difference by the culture of volunteer witch hunting being defused.
This means social media witch hunts would be a creepy chinese/south korean thing and not a western thing without the US being such a haven for volunteer witch hunters to both create it's own western version("cancel culture") and exprot it.
This means social media witch hunts would be a creepy chinese/south korean thing and not a western thing without the US being such a haven for volunteer witch hunters to both create it's own western version("cancel culture") and exprot it.
Just have wardrobe malfunctions till you get use to it.
https://www.theonion.com/u-s-children-still-traumatized-one-year-after-seeing-p-1819567718
https://www.theonion.com/u-s-children-still-traumatized-one-year-after-seeing-p-1819567718
I don’t see many women going around topless. Except possibly some who are mentally ill. Maybe if they have a tank top or bra of some sort on? Gives their body better support, plus it is less likely children see. One of the biggest things of all this is exposing half-nude adults to children, which I doubt many would be comfortable about. I know some might think the treatment for how men and women are seen for being topless is different, but when not on the beaches how often do you see a guy without a shirt on? And more importantly, what do you think about them?
In Canada, women have the legal right to go topless for well over 20 years now, but as far as I can tell, it is what you might call a dead-letter right: I have never seen a woman exercising this right on an everyday basis, nor has any woman of my acquaintance ever mentioned doing so.
Granted, I never go to the beach, but even so, if it were a common sight there, I think it would be more talked about.
Granted, I never go to the beach, but even so, if it were a common sight there, I think it would be more talked about.
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Have you ever visited a provincial town in the UK on any day where the temperature gets above 14C?
Town centres across the nation are filled with fluorescent white bodies covered in identikit tribal sleeve tattoos as men who look like smack addicts breaking in a pair of arms and legs for Ghandi mutter about "sun's out, guns out".
He was slandered by the press as raping someone to death. How does this relate to this?