It may have even gotten your Father LUCKY
Keep Up the Tradition – Lucky Tiger Company

We all know what it means when somebody says, “I hope I get lucky tonight.”

While researching the brand of hair tonic a sexist pig woud use in my novel in progress, I came across some ads for Lucky Tiger hair tonic that were (apparently) “OK” to run in the 1940s and 1950s but (no doubt) might cause a bit of social media flack today. Here’s one example from 1949:

And another from the 1950s:

So, the man here is just back from Africa after killing numerous animals for sport, and the first thing he does is use this hair tonic to prey on women. Needless to say, all the women in the Lucky Tiger ads I found were just delighted.

I don’t think women in “real life” had much in common with the women in these ads even though it was common in those times for “a man to pursue a woman until she let him catch her” (or so they said). Looking at ads like these, it’s obvious that patriarchy fueled our purchasing decisions as well as our view of ourselves and the opposite sex.

Even though high school and college-age individuals see the 1950s as ancient history, the deeply ingrained attitudes of that “ancient history” continue to impact men’s and women’s roles today. I can’t imagine how women seventy years ago reacted to these ads–along with all those happy housewife commercials that made cleaning the house look like fun.

Today, things are different, but not different enough.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of two contemporary fantasy novels, “The Sun Singer” and “Sarabande.”