Girls who wear glasses

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, Jessie Fauset, Mary McCarthy, and Dawn Powell began their careers by writing for magazines that defined new urban lifestyles, modern roles for women, and sophisticated humor. These magazines such as Vanity Fair and the New Yorker were called the smart magazines, and the ideal of the smart connoted wit, modernity, attractiveness, and chic. Valorizing smartness meant an investment in materialism and elitism, as the newest in products and ideas was promoted and encapsulated in magazine advertisements and articles. In terms of feminine stereotypes, smartness represented a kind of intelligence that was sexy rather than intellectual, glib rather than probing. At the same time, however, smartness could be energizing and anarchic. Ironic narration allowed these writers both to inhabit a smart persona and to draw attention to its contradictions. I argue that these writers dramatize the tension between the problematic social messages associated with the smart style and the opportunities for cultural critique offered by wit and irony. In so doing, they promote the literary value of satire and suggest the shortcomings of the growing mass media.