Vintage novelty booze flasks could be found in pretty much every kitsch loaded gift shop back in the day. This particular one that I came across (and before anyone gets mad at me, no I did not buy it) originally hails from the touristy Bagnell Dam strip area of Lake of the Ozarks MO, a place where I spent practically every summer as a kid in the 70's and early 80's. So here we have it, flimsy art slap-dashed on the front with a lame drinkers gag meter on the back... they clearly sold a million of these things with a wide variety of artistic interpretations of the stereotypical "drunk injun" caricature too. Google it and you'll see what I mean, --from Ft. Lauderdale beaches to tourist trap ghost towns of the wild west-- I even spotted one HERE online that appears to have actually been sold on a Cherokee Indian reservation in NC.
First the Japanese spies and now this? It's a trend!
ReplyDeleteThe best thing about this is how it's a tourist trap item but it's not actually made for any specific tourist trap -- you just get the generic "fire water" part and then slap a sticker on it!
I'm sure there are versions with a sombrero and a big black mustache, too.
ReplyDeleteI remember so much stuff like this from my childhood visiting Tweetsie Railroad and Gatlinburg, TN. And also Maggie Valley and other, somewhat seedier, borderlands around the NC Cherokee reservation--which I remember as a wonderland of rubber tomahawks, feather headdresses, and cement pits with chained bears people would just throw trash into. And I feel like I was protected from a lot of the worst these places had to offer!
I remember most of these horrible places fondly myself, but I'm glad they're in the past. Seeing their evidence now is always both nostalgic and troubling. I sort of wish somebody would make a very realistic television show about a seventies roadside attraction with an eye toward freaking the zoomers out. So problematic! But also I'd be freaked out by it now, too. I wouldn't want the show to be amped-up genre stuff like Carnivale or a season of American Horror Story. But I wouldn't want to see it playing the sanded-down idolization tune of a Stranger Things, either. Maybe something along the lines of Mad Men? But with tattooed carnies and mill housing instead of three-piece suits and Manhattan penthouses?
Your comment Mr. Cavin made me think back to an Antiques Roadshow episode, where an African American collector showed off his collection of black stereotype items from the 50's and earlier. His goal was to educate the audience, not shame or talk down to the viewers, of the views and concepts the public had back then.
ReplyDeleteThose who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and while looking at caricatures from decades ago can be uncomfortable, we need to view history the way the British view Cromwell,
truthfully, warts and all.