MovieChat Forums > Summer of '42 (1971) Discussion > Were people that innocent in '42?

Were people that innocent in '42?


Teenagers didn't know how to have sex and buying condoms was such a big deal? Wasn't sex with a minor illegal as well back then?

reply

They weren't innocent, but lets face it it was practically the dark ages in terms of information.

reply

[deleted]

Your right...kids do grow up way too quickly today. All sorts of information is in there face today whether it be TV or the Computer. Very Sad...

reply

Kids do have access to a lot more sexual information today, and a lot of access to electronic technology. However, in general, kids and even people in their twenties and thirties are far less mature now than they were several decades ago. Continuous screen time and information overload do not add up to sophistication.

reply

Amen to that. You are so right.

reply

You need to watch Kinsey for a more thorough understanding of the average Americans knowledge of sex during this time frame.

reply

I saw that movie when it came out in '71, at 16. And things hadn't changed that much for teenagers between '42 and '71. It wasn't at all then like it is now.

reply

"I saw that movie when it came out in '71, at 16. And things hadn't changed that much for teenagers between '42 and '71. It wasn't at all then like it is now."

True enough, but I taught high school and middle school health ed (02-05), and although these kids are exposed to SO MUCH, SO YOUNG, b/c of cable, the internet, etc., you have to remember, they still process the info as children. If you knew some of the wacky questions I got during our sex ed unit, you might rethink how much kids actually understand:-)

"God did not make us, we made God."
- Christopher Hitchens

reply

rrb is right. It was very different then (1942 - 1971) and not a bit like it is now. Love and lovemaking has been replaced by sex without love. There was a time when sex was called making love and was reserved exclusively for that one person with whom you were in love. Unfortunately, nowadays, having sex with someone is meaningless and is no more than like shaking hands. Pity. They'll never know what they're missing.

A man stood on a corner asking each female passing by if she would like to have sex with him. Nine out of ten would slap his face. But, that tenth one .....

reply

No matter what arguments you might hear to the contrary, society was much more cautious back then. People were brought up to understand the seriously negative consequences of premarital sex (STD's, pregnancy) .... because the welfare state did not exist back then. If you had a kid, it was YOUR responsibility. No child welfare programs, no WIC programs, no public housing, no food stamps, no child care to help while you finished high school, no nothing.

So, human sexuality was always there.... the temptations.... but particularly the women were much more careful unlike today. And, you might notice, the era was a LOT more calm, a LOT less violent, a LOT more enjoyable. Today, with all the "freedom" young people have..... they're "free" to fall into the worst decisions of life.... because..... they're "free" and they have "rights." Yep. "Freedom" to fail. And that is what so many do today. They fail.... because they don't want to be "boring" ..... but they don't realize that the early life of youth is permanently lost once active sexuality gets going. A string of 'boyfriends' and a couple of babies..... and say goodbye to the innocence of youth.

reply

And, you might notice, the era was a LOT more calm, a LOT less violent, a LOT more enjoyable.


No it wasn't, it was the middle of WWII.

Nobody gives one taken

reply

The book is, according to Raucher, an accurate depiction as what happened to him and his friends that summer (he admits that there were a few more boys with him other than Oscy, and that he combined all of them into Benjy). So it would seem that he and his friends were that naive.

It makes a great deal of sense: No TV or movies to give them ideas, and no pressure on their parents from schools or public interest groups to tell them about the birds and the bees by "x" age. Kids found out either from older siblings or when their parents were good and ready, or, in the instance of many girls of the time period, they didn't find out until a guy showed them.

reply

lol.

What does WWII have to do with civilian society? Please explain yourself :) !!

The movie was about CIVILIAN life.

reply

Bob--loved your comical prior post on those people with their "freedom" and "rights"! Even the quotation marks are funny! Almost as good a satire as Steven Colbert.

reply

Thanks. :)

Those of us who make it through the turbulent times of youth do so because we LISTENED to older people who warned us of this or that.

Those people who screw up are almost always the same.... they IGNORE advice from older folks.

Of course, its a little different today. The youth has to figure out which adults have the good advice and which adults are the morons. It used to be that the standard advice was "stay in school and keep good grades" and " never get pregnant until marriage" and " find a job, any job, and do it well until you can move into an even better job" ...... but thats just "uncool" advice now. So, the kids follow the morons of Hollywood and do everything opposite. And they fail. And then, too late, they find themselves in a bad life... debt, unwanted kids, arrest record, tatoos that label them as trendy but unintelligent, etc.

I just wish life WERE like it once was. Kids just don't realize how nice it was.

I even picked a boy up recently to help him get out of the hot sun as he was waiting for a bus. The first problem was that he didn't even want to walk the mile & a half to the local mall. He was WAITING FOR A BUS IN DIRECT HOT SUN. :) But when I dropped him off, he did say 'thanks'.... and then... he was amazed when he realized something. He said, " HEY! You're pretty nice. My mom told me everyone used to be like you." And I told him... his mom was right. People used to treat one another nicely. And people used to accept their economic status in life without sniveling that "its not fair" and demanding what they couldn't earn themselves. And we all did it without the morons of Hollywood leading the way... because we used to snicker and laugh at the stupid stunts Hollywood "stars" pulled.... like getting married six times.

reply

Now, I think every generation, once they age a bit, looks at the youg folks coming up and thinks they're a bunch of screw-ups who don't appreciate things like we did. I grew up in the 80's and am tempted to feel that way sometimes when I see what's on TV or try to have a conversation with my kids.

But, the fact is young people then, young people now are just tying to get by as best they can. It makes no sense to blame everything on Hollywood Morons--especially when you are posting on IMDB, which celebrates the output of Hollywood. It also makes no sense to treasure the good old days when pregnant unmarried girls had to hide out, live in shame, risk a dangerous abortion, or get married to somebody way too young. And, girls don't get pregnant all by themselves. Teenage sex is a bad idea. It was then. it is now. But the fact that young people had fewer resources to help them out is nothing to cherish.

I understand your point that people don't appreciate things when it is simply handed to them and they feel they have no responsibility, but this is not something modern-day teens invented, nor Hollywood Morons. Young people are finding themselves unable to get a job that pays enough to feed a family, so they just may sign up for a tour in Iraq.

Kids today are just as good as kids ever were, and they did not create the world they inhabit. Some kids ignore good advice, but that's nothing new, either. Flappers were a lot of trouble, drinking illegally in mob-speakeasies. Heck, I think President Bush wasn't an ideal teenager a generation or two later.

reply

Teen pregnancy today is far, far greater than it ever was in the past.

Violence today is far, far greater than it was in the past.

Street murders, drive by shootings of today is an every day event... not so in the past.

Nice looking young women scar their bodies with tatoos..... not so in the past (except street types).

So much for modern "resources" to help them. "Resources" is nothing but a code word to keep ineffective public programs funded. People did just fine in the past without the so called, current "resources." And people of the past did well by listening to older parents, relatives and family friends... not bureaucrats.

Kids today are no different than they ever were? I suppose the mob of dozens of youths, some masked, that raided and stomped through the mall in San Francisco a few days ago was something that has happened all along and in the past? No, sorry. It didn't and if/when it was attempted, the leaders were sent to prison fast.

As for posting on IMDB on this subject, well, the posts have to do with a movie that was set... IN THE PAST... and as such, its valid. This site does NOT celebrate anything. Its a discussion board. And, we get to point out that, yes...... Hollywood has more than its share of morons who lead miserable, but monied, lives... and pretend they have the answers... when they are merely tripping and backsliding trying to find their way :)

reply

I'm at 21 year old male who just watched the film. I was also a little surprised about the lack of information the kids had regarding sex. Hermie was 16 I think according to what he told the man at the drug store. At 16 I think most kids are juniors in high school. The major concern these boys had regarding having sex was becoming fathers. It also seemed as if the kids didn't even know what an orgasm was.

I think today at 16 kids know a lot more about sex, but they also know a little more about the negatives that exist today. I don't think sexually transmitted infections/diseases were discussed as much in the past as neither Hermie nor his friend brought that up. Of course it wasn't until the 80's when HIV/AIDS was identified (I think) and people made aware of it.

With respect to what some of you are discussing regarding teenage pregnancy and violence: I think these things have always existed. It is a different time now and things may appear worse to you regardless of how you use the statistics. Statistics have to be interpreted, and it's not always easy. The violence you see may be a result of poverty which is probably also greater today than it was before. Also today, the gap between the rich and poor is greater. I think violent racial crimes are probably down compared to the 40s-70s and now. You can't just generally use one event committed by some youth in San Francisco and say all of today's youth is like that. Today's youth is probably also more involved with community service, starting businesses, and helping non profit organizations with projects.

There may be a higher percentage of teenage pregnancies but the reason for this is cultural and not the result of bad kids these days or the kids knowing too much. I find it amazing that even though we may know more, we still are choosing to make decisions that put us at risk for becoming teenage parents. Maybe teenagers are more optimistic or less fearful of becoming parents at a young age. Maybe a certain group of teenagers are now facing different challenges than before and it puts them at a higher risk for teenage pregnancy.

reply

Teen pregnancy has been going down in the US for many years.

Saying "violence is far greater than it was in the past" could be true, but it depends on what you mean. Life in the lower east side of New York for an immigrant, or for black sharecroppers a hundred years ago was incredibly violent.

Street murders are terrible right now. I live near Chicago and hear about them all the time. It is alarming. But the murder rate per thousand people in the U.S. is far lower right now that it was during the Great Depression. We are just exposed to so much more information at any given time it overwhelms us.

Drive-by shootings and school shootings sicken me, too. But, berating the youth of America isn't going to make them stop. And, still, the average life expectancy of an American is better than it used to be, though it is still terrible for an African American male.

I don't like tattoos at all, but it's a free country. It's not our job to judge a man or a woman by that sort of thing.

"Resources" is a code word for . . . resources. You can't pull yourself up by bootstraps that aren't there. Businesses are closing everywhere, good jobs are in China. It's hard to even get a telemarketing job here now. People need resources.

Sure, kids are different now, just as our culture is different. But, I meant that human nature overall has universal tendencies that transcend time. There are elements of "Hamlet" that ring true for a young person today despite centuries of distance.

And, yes, I hope people can trust their parents, relatives, and friends for good advice over bureaucrats or talk radio hosts.

I love history and nostalgia and Americana, but it just isn't true that things were better in the past. Twenty years ago none of us could have even dreamed of getting on a computer and reading about or discussing "Summer of '42" or anything else. In the summer of '42 millions of Jews were being exterminated and thousands of Americans were fighting and dying to keep our country free because some psycho got control of Germany and Pearl Harbor was attacked. And, if you had an infection in the summer of '42, you probably couldn't get any antibiotics that would do much good. And, teens got pregnant. They just had to get married, too.

Finally, IMDB is indeed a celebration of film. A person who does not like films would have little use for this site. And, a whole lot of the world's films are connected to Hollywood in some way. So, while it may be convenient to tear apart Hollywood--I do it too, sometimes--it is worthwhile to acknowledge that in the end, they must also be doing at least something right every now and then.

reply


Street murders, drive by shootings of today is an every day event... not so in the past.


Tell that to someone who lived in New York or Chicago in the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s. Mafioso were gunning one another down on street corners and in running gun battles. Further south the likes of Bonnie and Clyde and Baby Face Nelson terrorized the land.


Nice looking young women scar their bodies with tatoos..... not so in the past (except street types).


You'd be surprised. thefedoralounge.com, a website dedicated to retro fashion, has plenty of members who can tell you their surprise to find out that their perfectly nice, civilized grandmothers had tattoos. They may be more common amongst the average girl today but they were by no means restricted to "street types" in the past. The average girl simply kept them covered.


So much for modern "resources" to help them. "Resources" is nothing but a code word to keep ineffective public programs funded. People did just fine in the past without the so called, current "resources."


The New Deal, for one. The massive public works program that was put into effect in the 1950s to stabilize the economy and help re-integrate soldiers back into civilian life following the war, for another.

Kids today are no different than they ever were? I suppose the mob of dozens of youths, some masked, that raided and stomped through the mall in San Francisco a few days ago was something that has happened all along and in the past?


Since you seem knowledgeable about California, and history, you should know about the Zoot Suit Riots, a far worse occurrence that was so violent and uncontrolled that it required nearly the whole of the LA Police to reign in. By proxy, you should also know about the Sleepy Lagoon Murder, which also breaks your presuppositions about a time which didn't exist.

I urge you to find and procure a copy of the book "New York Noir." It is a photography book documenting violent crime in New York and California from the 1930s to the end of the 1950s. Many of the cases seem ripped from today's headlines.

reply

BartlebyScrivener_ Check your history dates. The New Deal was instituted by FDR to get people back to work in the late 30's when we were coming out of the Depression.


The New Deal was a series of economic programs passed by Congress during the first term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, from 1933 to his reelection in 1937. The programs were responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call the 3 Rs: relief, recovery and reform. That is, relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.

reply

Young people are/were/will be always the same. C'mon, some things change but teens were teens in every century. There were student riots in Europe in '60s and sexual revolution in 80's. In the beginning of the 21th century youngsters too were more open to sex, drugs etc. It has always been this way, basically every 20 years new generation of people appears and challenge the rules old ones had set. And then there is "when I was young, teens were different..."... As I mentioned, 60s and 80s is a clear example, 20s and 40s- two world wars, there were no young people of both who returned from the wars and died fighting... Though there were young women's suffrage movement and then too old people said "Young women where much more intelligent and well-behaved back in a day".

Times change and people too but really the change is not that big. I was born in 1988 and reading books about youngsters 20, 40 or 100 years ago and watching movies about punk movement in 80's and student revolution in 60s I understand that nothing in this life really changes. Like they showed old newsreels in cinema in my country and I was in that cinema and the ex-president of my country (from 1930s) appeared in one of the reels on the screen and said "The world economic crisis has begun. We must search for solutions to overcome it" and everyone in the theatre laughed...

reply

Just a few pages of a book called "My Secret Life By Walter" will clear up any illusions about young people and their outlook on sex a century ago. I think it was published in 1884 and contains about 1,200 uses of the F-word and a few hundred other "nasty" words to describe private parts and private acts. A very early example of Too Much Information.

reply

Back in the early 40s, in which this movie's story takes place, kids that age were extremely curious about that magical thing that only grownups do and you can couple that with the raging hormones adolescents and teenagers naturally experience during normal growth stages and the longing to be 'more grown-up' so they might have a chance to fit in with a grownup society and do grownup things.

There were indeed STDs in that era, as the many government-announcement warning posters draped on the outsides of buildings in many cities were there to constantly remind everyone in the town to abstain from unprotected sex, as many of our troops figting the war were sexually active, as so were many civillians.

But back then and up until about the early 60s we, the American people, had very strong morals and these morals were dutifully passed on to following generations as best as parents knew how. Sex was the ultimate no-no, that is until there was a committed relationship established, vows were made and medical checkups with the appropriate tests and screenings were completed to show proof that it would be safe that the two engaged in the relationship to jump into the sack with each other. Those morals and guidelines made the act of having sex something really worth working and preparing for and when they got past all the hurdles, that was their reward for going through proper chanels.

Then came the 'Free Love' movement to carry us from the 60s, thru the 70s and into the 80s (when all the morals our fore-generations had tought us as a human race went out the window), and all the STDs that got dragged along with it, nevermind the incredibly sharp upturn in the occurrences of teen pregnancies, then AIDS and HIV. Did that wake people up and slow people down and re-evaluate the benefit of morals? A little bit but not enough.

But things are handled differently these days than then (the 40s). Back then it was the fear and good guidence instilled in youth by vehicle of high-standards and morals. Government didn't need much of an intervention program as strong parental morals took care of that. In the 60s and 70s not many people gave a darn anymore about who was having sex with who and it was free-for-all in many mertopolitan communities. These days the Government has stepped in bigtime to set traps for folks making attempt at pre-marital sex. It's on the news pert-near every night and it's depressing to observe that the morals that our forefathers tought garner virtually no respect as just a few decades ago, hence the need for intervention and it's a shame that we as an American people had to let things progress to this point.

Yes, things did seem much simpler a few scant decades ago because in many instances they were indeed. Those morals ensured folks to have and maintain a much more simplified, yet respectful attitude toward sex and when it came the right time for information, people got it from a common and proper source.

reply

Yeah, it was a real paradise back then, grandpa. You could pay women less than men and they’d accept it. You could make racial slurs without reproach. You could harass queers and no one said boo. Sexual ignorance and guilt were the order of the day.

I know people romanticize their youth when they get old, but you might at least show an iota of intellectual integrity when doing so.

reply

"People used to treat one another nicely."

Cept the black folks.


Really though. If you think that certain things today are worse than 60 years ago, sure that's your opinion. But if you think we have made no progress in the past 60 years (since the time you were young) then I have to ask, is that really the fault of today's youth?

reply

rrb

you're a real ballbuster. get invited to many parties?

reply

LOL!

Given the screed I responded to, you'll have to be more specific in your objections.

reply

[deleted]

[deleted]

My parents graduated high school in the mid 1950's. That not quite 1942. But not far different either.

There were the "bad girls" who would put out for just about any guy. My mom to this day doesn't know how the alleged "bad girl" in her school never got pregnant. Perhaps her reputation was far more rumor than fact? Maybe she did get knocked up and new how to get an abortion?

As for my dad, he went to a strict Catholic school. But there was a girl who had a bad reputation. Whether she lived up to that reputation is a different matter.

But they knew what sex was. They knew what it could lead to. They weren't totally ignorant nor the most elightened.

reply

[deleted]

"And, you might notice, the era was a LOT more calm, a LOT less violent, a LOT more enjoyable."

not if you lived in the south. you could be beaten or lynched at any time (if people didn't like you for whatever reason).

Father Time to Baby New Year; "Don't worry. No matter how much you make a mess of things, you'll always be thought of as The Good Ol' Days!!" -from a cartoon by Al Capp

reply


that has contributed to this freedom of which you speak. The Pill!



The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. Samuel Beckett

reply

Watch the 1971 film "The Last Picture Show" starring Cybil Shephard and Jeff Bridges. It is set in the year 1951 (not too long after '42)

In one scene, the two of them, teenagers, make love for the first time in a motel room, and are completely ignorant as to what to do. Even afterwards, they're not sure that they did it the right way.

reply

speaking as someone who was a teenager in the early fifties I would say we were very naive very uninformed and very simple minded - there were always rumours about"bad girls" but only rumours - I was never lucky enough to meet one; contraceptives were hidden in the back of the drug store and I don't think the owner would have ever sold them to me if I had asked; I knew nothing about how female "functions" worked ( "I'm having my period" meant nothing to me - maybe I was particularly stupid) sex was bad (and that made it good) and my only source of knowledge was older teenage boys who dispensed such useful advice as a girl can't get pregnant the first time she has sex). There's more but that's enough.

reply

I was a teenager during the mid '70s, and still heard that stupid bit of information, along with "she won't get pregnant if you do it standing up"..????? Apparently, sperm can't swim upstream!

reply

I had forgotten this bit of information - but yes that was gullibly accepted as the truth by stupid young teenaged boys

reply

Yes. Remember...

There was no internet and no home video - porn not readily available and mostly for "perverts."

Before the Sexual Revolution when women weren't really expected to enjoy sex.

Before AIDS when selling condom was considered encouraging sex.

reply

Yes, people were that innocent.

reply