Professor Burt's session on love and desire in the Penny Press was fascinating. I always wondered what intrigued people to read gossip or watch (now a days) reality TV that just seems so over the top ridiculous and this is why...the Penny Press. Who knew that something that costs as little as one cent would turn into something worth billions today?
The first Penny Press was "The Sun" in New York City in 1833. There were many advantages to this brilliant idea including that it was aimed at the working class, used language that the average person could understand, was sold for a penny, spoke of love, murder, crime and scandal and appealed to everyone's emotions. Most importantly this paper and the many to follow covered gossip.
Women and men during this period were divided into two spheres; the domestic and the public. The women filled the domestic sphere by staying home, caring for the husband and the family and tending to household needs. The men were the bread winners bringing home the dough to support the family and sometimes, without the wife's knowledge had other women on the side. This life, in my opinion, seems absolutely brutal and boring. The goal of the woman in a relationship was to master how to please a man while a man had the freedom to do as he pleased. If a woman wanted to succeed in life she must follow "the rules" and this idea meant that a woman was to wed and create a family and serve a husband, but not to be single and promiscuous. I am sure that some women defied the rules of society and those would have been great articles to read in the Penny Press.
The Penny Press dramatically covered love stories and love stories gone bad, after all, that is our favorite kind of love story! I love reading about love spoiled by hatred, jealousy, adultery or abandonment. These are the stories that crime shows like CSI and Criminal Minds base many of their episodes on. Why are those appealing? I think we have such an unrealistic of what love is and what love should be. We constantly desire something more, someone more, someone better. We aren't content with what we have because there is better to be had. Well, that is cynical and bitter, but it makes for a good story that can suck you right in. This is what the writers of the Penny Presses all around the nation wanted...a good story. In this story the authors knew that they could write in segments which would automatically prompt a ready to purchase another copy. It was a business scandal, but a triumph for the men and women writing stories, gossiping and digging up the latest dirt on the neighbor in town. The Penny Press gave many their few minutes of fame whether it was for the better or not.
Novels, shows & movies dive into what we want to consider uncharted territories. These can't be true, god awful, but terribly addicting stories that some people could never imagine. It's a money market, a scheme, but a very good one at that. These stories make us suspicious of our other, make us think "what if" and make us wonder...is there truly any way to love another without meeting fatal consequences whether it's in real life or written in the paper?
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