the flappers
“(...)"Flapper"— the notorious character type who bobbed her hair, smoked cigarettes, drank gin, sported short skirts, and passed her evenings in steamy jazz clubs, where she danced in a shockingly immodest fashion with a revolving cast of male suitors.” |
One of the first high profile celebrity flappers was Colleen Moore, the star of Hollywood's first big flapper hit movie, Flaming Youth.
Moore separated herself from the typical conservative Hollywood actress of the time by becoming a leading lady rather than a supporting role to the leading man. Moore unwittingly ushered in the era of Hollywood starlets with Mary Pickford, Clara Bow, and the flapper queen, Louise Brooks following in Moore's footsteps. Moore famously feuded with other up and coming actresses, namely Bow, who actually feigned illness to get out of a staring role with Moore when treated poorly. Flapper culture wanted it all. We can't forget that the 1920's came directly after one of the biggest atrocities in the history of mankind, "the war to end all wars", World War One. America and the world had lost it's innocence. |