{"product_id":"posing-a-threat-angela-j-latham-9780819564016","title":"Posing a Threat: Flappers, Chorus Girls, and Other Brazen Performers of the American 1920s","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA lively look at the ways in which American women in the 1920s transformed their lives through performance and fashion.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNew definitions of American femininity were formed in the pivotal 1920s, an era that vastly expanded the \"market\" for sexually explicit displays by women. Angela J. Latham shows how quarrels over and censorship of women's performance -- particularly in the arenas of fashion and theater -- uniquely reveal the cultural idiosyncracies of the period and provide valuable clues to the developing iconicity of the female body in its more recent historical phases.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough disguise, display, or judicious appropriation of both, performance became a crucial means by which women contested, affirmed, mitigated, and revolutionized norms of female self-presentation and self-stylization. Fashion was a hotly contested arena of bodily display. Latham surveys 1920s fashion trends and explores popular fashion rhetoric. Resistance to social mandates regarding women's fashion was nowhere more pronounced than in the matter of \"bathing costumes.\" Latham critiques locally situated contests over swimwear, including those surrounding the first Miss America Pageant, and suggests how such performances sanctioned otherwise unacceptable self-presentations by women.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLooking at American theater, Latham summarizes major arguments about censorship and the ideological assumptions embedded within them. Although sexually provocative displays by women were often the focus of censorship efforts, \"leg shows,\" including revues like the Zeigfeld Follies, were in their heyday. Latham situates the popularity of such performances that featured women's bodies within the larger context of censorship in the American theater at this time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Angela J. Latham\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 081956401X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780819564016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Wesleyan University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/28\/2000\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 217\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.74lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.99h x 6.00w x 0.62d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 04\/15\/2000 pg. 1512","brand":"Angela J. Latham","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46250450485503,"sku":"9780819564016","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_c344d649-b598-48b9-9aa8-320cda3218a7.jpg?v=1729600357","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/posing-a-threat-angela-j-latham-9780819564016","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}