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The Museum of Menstruation and Women's
Health
Ad for Kotex
menstrual pads
Unknown magazine, 1940s-60s, U.S.A.
Boozing it up, ad after ad
Tom Hall, who illustrated this ad, painted many ads
in mid-20th century American magazines, three of
which you see below.
Like Jon Whitcomb's
and Irving Nurick's
people, among others, these Wasps - white
Anglo-Saxon Protestants - reflected the people who
would buy these goods. They're movie-star pretty.
Kotex hoped that if these ideals bought Kotex, I -
er, not me, a guy - could too!
Parenthetically, - actually, it's the bigger chunk
of this page - look at the expressions on their
faces. Women and servants please the men, even in
the Kotex ad. The booze flows, doesn't it?
Tom Hall lived from 1908-1965.
I thank the
anonymous donor for the Kotex ad!
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Below: Although the "gentleman"
looks as if he's had enough,
the lady diverts attention from menstruation
and from the swastika
on what looks like a towel right below her elbow.
For most
people, swastikas
and menstruation occupy
dark corners.
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Below: Again, a hand calls attention
to a dissipated face in another Hall ad.
Lady: Have
we met?
Gentleman:
Uh, no. Can I have your beer?
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Below: Are the faces the same?
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Below: So, is this the same
man in the other two Hall ads? Hall,
like many commercial artists, often
used the same model. Christian Leyendecker
(below right),
for example, used his live-in boyfriend to model
for some of his paintings in an earlier part
of the 20th century. |
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Below: As luck would have it, flip
the Kotex ad over and these hotel bell hops
supply PM,
Perfect Mixer, - for whiskey? - to
occupants of a room. PM reflects backwards in the
ad's mirror.
Someone else painted the ad, not Hall.
Again, florid faces. Hmm, maybe they're
gawking at what the guests are up to in this
run-up
to the "Mad Men" decades.
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