Small Talk: Dinner at Red Lobster

[HyeChaps]

Back in the day, as a young newlywed, I hosted a Tupperware party.  What else happened that day?  Mr. Tupper died.  I swear.

[kay1864]

11 hours ago, HyeChaps said:

Back then, it was all about protesting the cancellation of TOS.  I still have my tribble.

Omg I might have been at that same 1974 Star Trek con. Was it the one in New York?

I still remember during the masquerade (where David Gerrold was one of the judges) there was a Klingon doing the Tribbles bar line about “Wait, there’s one Earther who’s not soft, and that’s Kirk”, only he said “and that’s Gerrold”.

“He may be a swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of being a writer…but he’s not soft.” 

At that point, David (who I suspect was tipped off in advance) got up from the judges’ table, and went up the stairs to the stage yelling ”Lemme at him!”, with a couple of guys holding him back.  

Good times. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by kay1864

[Driad]

In a previous century, I made myself a T-shirt that said KLINGON ROLLERBALL TEAM.

[HyeChaps]

7 hours ago, kay1864 said:

Omg I might have been at that same 1974 Star Trek con. Was it the one in New York?

I still remember during the masquerade (where David Gerrold was one of the judges) there was a Klingon doing the Tribbles bar line about “Wait, there’s one Earther who’s not soft, and that’s Kirk”, only he said “and that’s Gerrold”.

“He may be a swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of being a writer…but he’s not soft.” 

At that point, David (who I suspect was tipped off in advance) got up from the judges’ table, and went up the stairs to the stage yelling ”Lemme at him!”, with a couple of guys holding him back.  

Good times. 

Yes it was New York.

I have a memory of being at a panel and Gerrold complaining that someone said of him that he "couldn't get laid".

I also remember that Scotty had on lots of makeup.

[kwnyc]

I also attended a Star Trek con in NYC during the run of ST:NG. Brent Spiner spoke and was wildly applauded. (He also came from a NYC theater background, so the theater kids were there.)

I attended a Chiller Convention in Jersey, because I was working on an article about one of the attendees, and during the day got to have lovely chats with June Lockhart, Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith!) and a couple other fan favorites. Saw James Doohan at breakfast with a very young child (his late-in-life kid?) and also heard people discussing how the guy who played Pugsley on the original Addams Family had gotten thrown out of the con, compete with a "do you know who I am?"

[Bort]

On 1/28/2022 at 7:14 AM, zoey1996 said:

My mother was conservative about makeup, leg shaving, etc., and I had hairy legs long after classmates had started shaving their legs, and I was teased/bullied about it. 

It’s funny, I didn’t even ask my mom, I just did it myself. 

But just last year, my cousin and I were talking about how she wasn’t yet letting her daughter shave her legs because she felt that it wasn’t necessary because her hair was so light and you couldn’t see it anyway. Then we were watching the kids swim in the pool and I pointed out that you could see her leg hair when it was wet and that my cousin might want to rethink it because she might get made fun of when she’s swimming with friends.

[peacheslatour]

My mom taught me to shave my legs as soon as I started my period, so around eleven. Nowadays I think it's an outdated social construct.

[Tom Holmberg]

2 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

My mom taught me to shave my legs as soon as I started my period, so around eleven. Nowadays I think it's an outdated social construct.

"Adam Ruins Everything" did a segment on this, which leads me to suspect its still a thing.  Younger girls might want to conform to what their peers are doing.  Older young women might go their own way on the issue.

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, Tom Holmberg said:

"Adam Ruins Everything" did a segment on this, which leads me to suspect its still a thing.  Younger girls might want to conform to what their peers are doing.  Older young women might go their own way on the issue.

I must admit, I would never have the courage to go out unshaven. But lately, I don't go anywhere so I just don't bother very often, Plus I got one of these beauties. 

[Bort]

Yeah, I started using an electric razor when I got older. Given that it’s winter, I don’t bother with the leg shaving but once summer comes around I will. I honestly don’t know any woman who forgoes it completely. Any bare legs and the hair comes off. Frankly, some of the more chia pet guys I see around, I kind of would appreciate it if they took a trimmer to it. I don’t like being shed on.

[Bort]

Since there seems to recently be confusion, I’m going to quote the opening post for this topic:

On 2/28/2019 at 4:44 PM, kariyaki said:

The Small Talk topic is for:

• Introductions
• Off-topic chatter
• Having virtual tea with forum buddies

This is NOT a topic for actual show discussion. When you want to talk about the show:

• Figure out the nature of the topic you want to talk about
• Look for an existing topic that matches or fits

[theredhead77]

On 1/28/2022 at 1:04 PM, kariyaki said:

It’s funny, I didn’t even ask my mom, I just did it myself. 

But just last year, my cousin and I were talking about how she wasn’t yet letting her daughter shave her legs because she felt that it wasn’t necessary because her hair was so light and you couldn’t see it anyway. Then we were watching the kids swim in the pool and I pointed out that you could see her leg hair when it was wet and that my cousin might want to rethink it because she might get made fun of when she’s swimming with friends.

Even the blondest blond hair is visible and will be a target for bullies. Source: my younger self. My mom put me through so much torment because she was uncomfortable with me shaving. But she was apparently OK with me being bullied for not shaving.

[possibilities]

I don't understand why a parent would be uncomfortable with leg shaving. Are there parents who don't let their sons shave their faces?

[Bort]

Given that high schools tend to have a facial hair policy (mine did not allow it), parents can’t have qualms about boys shaving. If it starts growing in, they have to.

[possibilities]

I have never heard of a high school with a policy about facial hair! This must be either a regional thing or else a generational thing. 

[Bort]

Well, to be honest, I have no idea if a facial hair policy is still a thing, as I have no children and no idea what school rules are. But mine was high school in Texas in the 90s and yeah, no facial hair. They had a tendency to not allow distracting fashion choices and I guess bad, skimpy, teenage goatee attempts fell under that umbrella. We also weren’t allowed to have distracting haircuts (i.e. mohawks) or unnaturally colored hair (i.e. blue, pink, etc).

[possibilities]

It's interesting. My high school in the late 1970s/early 1980s, in upstate NY, had a dress code, but it was way less strict than that. I can't even remember the details, but I remember that there were all kinds of looks around, and I don't recall anyone getting into trouble over it.

I think you had to wear shoes, and a shirt, and basically it was like the rules for retail businesses that say things like "no shoes, no shirt, no service".

[SusanM]

14 hours ago, possibilities said:

I don't understand why a parent would be uncomfortable with leg shaving. Are there parents who don't let their sons shave their faces?

I wonder if, at least for some, it's age related?  I've seen girls as young as 10 wanting to shave their legs but it's the rare 10 yr old boy who needs to shave a beard.  I wonder if as the girls get older that parents relax a bit about this issue?  

[Bort]

32 minutes ago, possibilities said:

It's interesting. My high school in the late 1970s/early 1980s, in upstate NY, had a dress code, but it was way less strict than that. I can't even remember the details, but I remember that there were all kinds of looks around, and I don't recall anyone getting into trouble over it.

I think you had to wear shoes, and a shirt, and basically it was like the rules for retail businesses that say things like "no shoes, no shirt, no service".

My high school was ridiculously strict about the dress code. No midriffs, no shorts, no skirts above the knees, no open shoes, no suggestive material on clothing. I got sent to the office for wearing a Miller lite tshirt, which I get they might not like. But also once for wearing a Bart Simpson tshirt. Yes, really. The Simpsons were brand new and it was right smack in the middle of the whole Bart Is A Bad Influence controversy.

[Driad]

My middle school's female bullies were a bit more subtle than the ones in this episode. They would ask the victim "How often do you shave your legs?" or "How often do you wash your hair?" Whatever answer the victim gave was wrong. They would say either that she was a slob, or that she was obsessively hopelessly concerned about her unattractive appearance. They got me once and after that I ignored them.

[theredhead77]

17 hours ago, possibilities said:

I don't understand why a parent would be uncomfortable with leg shaving. Are there parents who don't let their sons shave their faces?

I stopped trying to figure out my moms logic years ago and her memory is pretty bad now. She forbid me from reading Sweet Valley High but had no issue with Flowers in the Attic. SVH covers were too risque. It was literally judging a book by its cover.

[Tattooeddancer]

17 hours ago, possibilities said:

I don't understand why a parent would be uncomfortable with leg shaving. Are there parents who don't let their sons shave their faces?

I feel like for some reason leg shaving is more sexualized in people's minds than face shaving. I'm surprised my mom insisted on me shaving mine as early as she did given how hyper religious she was, but outward appearances and "fitting in" were important to her in some strange ways.

Also, and sorry if this is TMI, but I had to get an emergency appendectomy the day after my 14th birthday (my GP called appendicitis right away and sent us to the ER, where the doctors kept trying to argue I was having a bad period), and the person who prepped me for surgery called my parents in to "warn" them that I was shaving my bikini area. And then asked me in front of them exactly why I did it. So freaking weird and not what I needed when I was in the worst pain of my life.

[peacheslatour]

On 1/31/2022 at 1:43 PM, kariyaki said:

My high school was ridiculously strict about the dress code. No midriffs, no shorts, no skirts above the knees, no open shoes, no suggestive material on clothing. I got sent to the office for wearing a Miller lite tshirt, which I get they might not like. But also once for wearing a Bart Simpson tshirt. Yes, really. The Simpsons were brand new and it was right smack in the middle of the whole Bart Is A Bad Influence controversy.

Wow. I don't remember my high school having any rules about what we wore. This was in the days of no bras, micro mini skirts, ripped jeans, halter tops, boys with hair down to their asses. Nothing. Of course we were in a liberal area.

[Yeah No]

When I got to my Jr. high school in September of 1970 it didn't allow girls to wear pants.  I'm pretty sure most public schools in NYC didn't allow it at that time.  However my class was quite affected by the women's lib. movement that was becoming huge in the media at that time and we petitioned to be allowed to wear pants.  When the school administration turned us down we took matters into our own hands and designated a day that we would all come to school dressed in pants.  I'll never forget it.  It was the first moment in my life that I truly felt liberated.  Most girls came to school in pants and anyone that didn't soon did.  The administration had no choice but to back down and from then on I don't even remember there being any real dress code at any school I attended after that.  In fact the very next year I attended a school dance dressed in opaque tights and "hot pants", which were a little longer than the adult hot pants but still pretty short.  Several other girls there were also wearing them and no one blinked an eye.  The times they were a 'changin'.

[SusanM]

I went to Catholic schools and in elementary school the girls had to wear a uniform - blue tunics and white blouses.  The boys could wear whatever they wanted.  My first introduction to the way boys and girls get treated differently.  I was not impressed.  By high school though it was pretty hippie go free free (to quote a character from another sitcom).  I imagine there must have been some rules but if there were they either weren't being enforced or the rules were so unlikely to be broken that it was never an issue.

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, Yeah No said:

When I got to my Jr. high school in September of 1970 it didn't allow girls to wear pants.  I'm pretty sure most public schools in NYC didn't allow it at that time.  However my class was quite affected by the women's lib. movement that was becoming huge in the media at that time and we petitioned to be allowed to wear pants.  When the school administration turned us down we took matters into our own hands and designated a day that we would all come to school dressed in pants.  I'll never forget it.  It was the first moment in my life that I truly felt liberated.  Most girls came to school in pants and anyone that didn't soon did.  The administration had no choice but to back down and from then on I don't even remember there being any real dress code at any school I attended after that.  In fact the very next year I attended a school dance dressed in opaque tights and "hot pants", which were a little longer than the adult hot pants but still pretty short.  Several other girls there were also wearing them and no one blinked an eye.  The times they were a 'changin'.

We had a sit in about it in the principals office when I was in sixth grade. I guess that would have been about 1968 or 9. We didn't get to wear pants that year but by seventh grade we were. It's so ridiculous.

My mom backed me all the way. She and her business partner owned two boutiques for women's clothing.They did not sell dresses or skirts. Only pants, tops and boots. They opened in 1965. 

Edited February 1, 2022 by peacheslatour

[shapeshifter]

19 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

We had a sit in about it in the principals office when I was in sixth grade. I guess that would have been about 1968 or 9. We didn't get to wear pants that year but by seventh grade we were. It's so ridiculous.

My mom backed me all the way. She and her business partner owned two boutiques for women's clothing.They did not sell dresses or skirts. Only pants, tops and boots. They opened in 1965. 

So cool about your mom's friend!
In high school an outsider girl was suspended for wearing culottes (almost pants).
The next day I, with my top-of-the-class GPA, wore culottes. 
That was pretty much the end of that nonsense in a climate where we waited outside at the bus stop in 20 degrees below freezing.
But I still feel like the other girl was treated unfairly and wouldn't blame her for resenting me if she did.

[SusanM]

2 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

That was pretty much the end of that nonsense in a climate where we waited outside at the bus stop in 20 degrees below freezing.

You just reminded me, the school I went to thought they were making a major concession because they "let" us wear snow pants or regular pants to school under our tunics, but we had to take them off as soon as we got into the building.  In Quebec.  In the winter.  I still get angry remembering the way they acted like they were doing us a favour.

[Bort]

The high school my brother’s kids went to, they were only allowed to wear a shirt with a collar. No tshirts, unless it was a college tshirt. That was for the boys. I have no idea what the girls rules were because my brother only had sons.

[Tom Holmberg]

13 hours ago, SusannahM said:

You just reminded me, the school I went to thought they were making a major concession because they "let" us wear snow pants or regular pants to school under our tunics, but we had to take them off as soon as we got into the building.  In Quebec.  In the winter.  I still get angry remembering the way they acted like they were doing us a favour.

Same rules in the Chicago suburban HS in the 1960s. Also they made girls kneel in the hallway and their skirts had to reach the floor.  No culottes.  Boys hair couldn't touch their collars.  Boys could only wear collared shirts. 

[peacheslatour]

17 hours ago, SusannahM said:

You just reminded me, the school I went to thought they were making a major concession because they "let" us wear snow pants or regular pants to school under our tunics, but we had to take them off as soon as we got into the building.  In Quebec.  In the winter.  I still get angry remembering the way they acted like they were doing us a favour.

One of the main reasons I pulled my son out of private school was the rule that girls had to wear skirts. One day I was there for something or other and I went outside during recess. The girls were all sitting demurely in the swings, monkey bars, etc. The boys were playing soccer, running and jumping and having a blast.The girls were sitting there watching them. I realized that they were holding the girls back from realizing their full potential. Teach them young that they are not full participants. How are they supposed to compete with men in the business world if they've already internalized that they are merely decorative?

[Tom Holmberg]

I'm pretty much opposed to dress codes because they are usually totally random (no culottes? Really? What's the deal?) and discriminatory. In HS we couldn't wear sandals, so I took an old pair of penny loafers and cut them up so they were pretty much open on the top and sides (but we still had to wear socks).  And no shorts, even though that was pre-airconditioning in schools.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Tom Holmberg

[theredhead77]

I think the only dress-code my high school (1990s, OC, CA), had was no bandanas (gang affiliation) and no exposed belly buttons. I think they tried to ban Doc Martens because of something to do with the lace color and white supremacy but I wasn't wearing Docs and didn't pay attention.

[Tattooeddancer]

I think this is the right place to mention that I had a dream last night that Annie Potts, Lance Barber, and Raegan Revord all announced that they wouldn't be returning for the next season (the show intended to write George and Missy off as exploring the world together on a fishing boat, but hadn't made plans for writing off Meemaw yet). I asked in my dream "I know it's called Young Sheldon, but is there a show left if none of those three show up?"

Also, it's been discussed in other threads so I thought I'd throw out that I started college young. Not Sheldon/Paige young, but at 15. And the social dynamics were weird. I tried to keep my age a secret, and mostly I succeeded, but there came a point where the other students would go out for beers and invite me and I had to be like "..."

I tried to hold on to the friends I had that were my age, but they kind of resented me for starting college while they were starting high school (not to mention that I was dating a 20 year old with a car and apartment when I was 16). If I were Paige and I had a friend like Missy (weirdly, my best friend who resented me the most WAS named Missy), I would have held on for dear life.

[shapeshifter]

18 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

But I get it that this show lives in an alternate universe where shoulder pads never existed, LOL.

I think maybe Mary has worn a church dress with a bit of shoulder padding, but this reminds me of a teal (of course) 2-piece suit my mom had given me (we were the same size) when she and my dad moved to a tropical climate in the late 80s. It was much nicer than anything I owned, so I saved it for special occasions. Heh, I saved it so long that I got it out to wear to a wedding and realized the shoulder pads were now totally ridiculous looking. They were sewn into the seams of the outer fabric and the lining, so they weren't something that could be snipped out. 

Fortunately there aren't too many pictures of me back then, but there's one with the weirdly teased bangs.

 

[SusanM]

I remember taking out the shoulder pads of any dress or blazer I happened to buy that had the darn things.  My shoulders were already broad enough thankyouverymuch!  With regard to clothing, I admit I find it perfectly plausible that Mary and MeeMaw are wearing clothes they've owned for years, not so much because they may not have money for new clothes but because I am still wearing clothes I bought at least 10 years ago and will probably wear them until they disintegrate.  I loathe shopping for clothes and once I get comfortable with something it's all I want to wear.  On the other hand it's a bit jarring to look at old photos and realize I am wearing the exact same outfit.

[Yeah No]

Well, today anything goes but back in the time of this show women were generally more concerned about looking current and somewhat stylish whether that was their preference or not.  Case in point, most women were still wearing pantyhose.  I know a lot of women aren't like that now, but I'm still like I was 30 years ago and follow fashion trends as much as my budget and my figure will allow, which is admittedly becoming more difficult.  But little things, like retiring outdated prints and fashion cuts and wearing old things in a new way make a big difference.  I'm still wearing my selection of pull on stretch jeggings that I've been wearing for at least 7 years now because that's what's comfortable and looks the best on me, and I doubt I'll be rushing out to buy wide leg fly zip jeans or midriff teasing crop tops any time soon, but I try to add a few updates here and there where possible.  Oh, and I have gotten new (with tags) pairs of those stretch jeggings over the years, even though they've been discontinued thanks to EBay and Poshmark.  At my age, when something works I run with it.

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

I think maybe Mary has worn a church dress with a bit of shoulder padding, but this reminds me of a teal (of course) 2-piece suit my mom had given me (we were the same size) when she and my dad moved to a tropical climate in the late 80s. It was much nicer than anything I owned, so I saved it for special occasions. Heh, I saved it so long that I got it out to wear to a wedding and realized the shoulder pads were now totally ridiculous looking. They were sewn into the seams of the outer fabric and the lining, so they weren't something that could be snipped out. 

Fortunately there aren't too many pictures of me back then, but there's one with the weirdly teased bangs.

 

I haven't seen the dress with the shoulder pads, I'll have to keep my eyes open.  Back then everything had them even women's T shirts and pajamas, LOL.  It was ridiculous.  I appreciated them, though because I'm pear shaped.  I keep wondering when they'll make a comeback.  Everything does, it just comes back reinterpreted.  Like the high waisted jeans with the tops tucked in and belts are now.  That was a no-no for a long time.  Unfortunately with my stomach that's not a look that would flatter me right now.

You could probably have a tailor take the shoulder pads out but it probably would cost more than it's worth.

[kwnyc]

On 4/3/2022 at 12:56 PM, Tattooeddancer said:

Also, it's been discussed in other threads so I thought I'd throw out that I started college young. Not Sheldon/Paige young, but at 15.

I did, too. But I was tall, so people just thought I looked young. And back then, the drinking age was 18, so I used to say I didn't get carded once I hit 5'9". My parents did not let me live at school freshman year, but I was allowed to move into the dorms in my second year. (Also, you are not ready for full-time work when you graduate at 19. My parents let me figure out what I was going to do for about a year after I graduated.)

[shapeshifter]

4 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

Well, today anything goes but back in the time of this show women were generally more concerned about looking current and somewhat stylish whether that was their preference or not.

Very true. But also, in rural areas fashion trends were often a year later than in NYC or Chicago, which meant there was less reason for those of us in the sticks to try to keep up with new trends --although I think there was an awareness that when something was outdated in our remote town, it was Really outdated.

 

 

On 4/3/2022 at 12:56 PM, Tattooeddancer said:

Also, it's been discussed in other threads so I thought I'd throw out that I started college young. Not Sheldon/Paige young, but at 15.

7 minutes ago, kwnyc said:

I did, too. But I was tall, so people just thought I looked young. And back then, the drinking age was 18, so I used to say I didn't get carded once I hit 5'9". My parents did not let me live at school freshman year, but I was allowed to move into the dorms in my second year. (Also, you are not ready for full-time work when you graduate at 19. My parents let me figure out what I was going to do for about a year after I graduated.)

I had no senior year and went to the sprawling campus of UIUC 3 hours from home 2 weeks before I turned 17. I put a crease through the birth year of my student ID and proceeded to binge drink at the bars. That was over 50 years ago, and the negative impact it had on my life has never entirely left.
Growing up is hard.

[shapeshifter]

But speaking of shoulder pads, here’s Minnie Driver in an interview with Seth Meyer (yesterday?) in a dress with very vintage looking shoulder pads. The pattern of the fabric is gorgeous:
https://youtu.be/cEBRic1LT44

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by shapeshifter

[possibilities]

I honestly do not think anyone I knew in the 1990s was wearing panty hose in a daily basis. This must be something that varies from community to community. But also, I honestly do not think Mary is the kind of person who would keep up with fashion trends. There are a lot of people who stick to keeping things simple, modest, and more or less classic. Haircuts, also, are the kind of thing that some people change with the trends and other people don't. I mean, you don't see beehives anymore. But there are lots of people who have been wearing their hair long and un-fancy like Mary, and have been doing it for decades. And for sure, George's look is the timeless gym teacher uniform for work or leisure. I see his outfit to this day.

[Bort]

2 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

But speaking of shoulder pads, here’s Minnie Driver in an interview with Seth Meyer (yesterday?) in a dress with very vintage looking shoulder pads. The pattern of the fabric is gorgeous:
https://youtu.be/cEBRic1LT44

 

I don’t think there are shoulder pads there, just a poof to the sleeve where it attaches to the shoulder.

[Yeah No]

17 hours ago, possibilities said:

I honestly do not think anyone I knew in the 1990s was wearing panty hose in a daily basis. This must be something that varies from community to community. But also, I honestly do not think Mary is the kind of person who would keep up with fashion trends. There are a lot of people who stick to keeping things simple, modest, and more or less classic. Haircuts, also, are the kind of thing that some people change with the trends and other people don't. I mean, you don't see beehives anymore. But there are lots of people who have been wearing their hair long and un-fancy like Mary, and have been doing it for decades. And for sure, George's look is the timeless gym teacher uniform for work or leisure. I see his outfit to this day.

In the 90's I worked in the corporate world and back then when women wore a dress to work, which was a lot of the time in that setting, they wore pantyhose or tights 100% of the time.  Not to do so was completely taboo.  Corporate offices back then were still pretty formal.  Pants were worn but they were dress trousers.  Jeans were not allowed.  In fact jeans were not allowed as late as 2016 in my last company, but I was wearing less formal pants.  I have no idea if that's changed.  I know a lot has changed with the pandemic.

The thing that has always irked me about Mary is that they dress her in a style that was more like the 1950s than even the 80s, so this goes beyond just not following fashion trends.  I'm a clothes horse and can date TV shows down to the year or close just by looking at how people are dressed for a few seconds, so I'm pretty aware of what people wore in different eras.  Brenda is more current than Mary is.  Any woman on that show is more current than she is.  I get it that they're trying to make her look very conservative but I think they're overdoing it.  And if I may say this, later Mary was not that rigid about her attire.  I just feel like everything about Mary at this point is completely insufferable and overdone.

15 hours ago, kariyaki said:

I don’t think there are shoulder pads there, just a poof to the sleeve where it attaches to the shoulder.

It is a poof sleeve but those shoulders look a little big and high too so there may be a shoulder pad under there.  It's hard to tell.

[shapeshifter]

18 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

It is a poof sleeve but those shoulders look a little big and high too so there may be a shoulder pad under there.  It's hard to tell.

I suppose the ridge that sticks out past the natural shoulder could just be some really stiff interfacing.

[possibilities]

What people wear in the corporate world is not the same as what people wear at home or in the job Mary has, though. And certainly people who are "clothes horses" are going to be much more interested in changing their look than people who aren't. I really think that this kind of thing varies a lot. I don't think Mary has ever worn jeans, that I remember, and if she did, though, it would to me signal a huge shift in her personality. I think they really are making a point about her being set in her ways, and also that she's trying to resist "the modern." I think that is a deliberate choice for her character and not the same thing they are doing with other characters.

So I agree they want to make Mary look conservative, but it's also true that in rural areas and small towns (where I've spent most of my life), trends are often way behind what goes on in cities, and these things also vary from one region to the other within the country.

I remember in the 1990s where I worked at the time (in retail, in a small town) I had a conversation with someone higher up in the organization, about how a particular person there wore shockingly more make up than anyone else in the entire place. Everything about her look was just way different than the rest of the people on staff. And the person I was speaking to said "it's radically different than not just the staff but also the customers and everybody else in town." We weren't upset about it, it was just genuinely surprising.

She probably would have fit in more in another context, but she looked like she'd walked in from another planet. I never spoke with her about it directly (we didn't ever have a direct interaction about anything because we worked in different areas), but it was extremely noticeable.

Mary is a little off from other people on the show, but not THAT far off, if you compare her to, say, Peg (who also works at her church), and she doesn't look out of place with her book group, at least not to my eye.

I think everything a tv show does with costumes and sets is deliberate, so I have no doubt they are doing this on purpose to say something about her character, though.

[Yeah No]

42 minutes ago, possibilities said:

What people wear in the corporate world is not the same as what people wear at home or in the job Mary has, though. And certainly people who are "clothes horses" are going to be much more interested in changing their look than people who aren't. I really think that this kind of thing varies a lot. I don't think Mary has ever worn jeans, that I remember, and if she did, though, it would to me signal a huge shift in her personality. I think they really are making a point about her being set in her ways, and also that she's trying to resist "the modern." I think that is a deliberate choice for her character and not the same thing they are doing with other characters.

So I agree they want to make Mary look conservative, but it's also true that in rural areas and small towns (where I've spent most of my life), trends are often way behind what goes on in cities, and these things also vary from one region to the other within the country.

I wasn't making any comparison between what people wore back then in the corporate world and Mary's attire, so I don't know where you got that.

I am very well traveled and have been all over the country many times especially in the '80s and '90s so I am very well aware of what women were wearing everywhere at that time.  And nobody was dressing like Mary, maybe not unless they were over 80.  Those belted dresses she wears are straight out of the 1950s or early 60s and even the most outdated person in her age bracket didn't wear them, especially in a rural area where people were always more casual.  But I already get what the show is trying to do, I just don't see it as very realistic.

I remember when I used to visit my inlaws who for a while had a house in rural PA up by Scranton I used to get looked at like I was a "city slicker" by the women, who all dressed much differently than me.  But even they didn't dress anything like Mary.  Same was true when I went down South to visit my grandfather.  And I was always hyper-aware of what everyone was wearing.  More so than most people, I guess.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Yeah No

[Bort]

57 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

I was always hyper-aware of what everyone was wearing.  More so than most people, I guess.

That may be the key there. I am ultra oblivious about what people are wearing. In my own milieu and traveling elsewhere. I just… don’t care, thus I don’t pay attention.

[Welshman in Ca]

I remember having to buy a suit for a wedding (could have been mine) and even that had shoulder pads sewn into the fabric.

[EtheltoTillie]

On 1/22/2022 at 11:31 PM, kay1864 said:

Omg I might have been at that same 1974 Star Trek con. Was it the one in New York?

.  

Good times. 

Oh wow a good friend of mine went while in high school. She recently showed us her badge, which she found when cleaning out her deceased mother’s apartment. These were early Trekkie days. My cousin got married at the Star Trek exhibit at the Las Vegas Hilton. They wore uniforms and everything. 

[HyeChaps]

Mary wore jeans that day she blended in on campus.  She looked great.