As we have considered the monocle, the lorgnette, and the pince nez, I suppose we should get around to plain old everyday eyeglasses. Spectacles, you might say. Cheaters, as once they were known.
As someone who has worn glasses for, oh, a good twenty years (I know 1963 was a while back, but there must have been twenty GOOD years in all that) I am shocked and grieved, but hardly surprised, to see the role played by glasses-wearers in postcards of the comic variety. They are generally a) old, n)unattractive, and/or c) slow on the uptake.
Maybe it’s all been a plot by the makers of contact lenses, but glasses belong to the irate wife, the irritable parents, and the bystander with mouth hanging open at what the hero with free-range eyes is doing in the cartoon.
In fact, it is only the exceptional postcard which even lets someone wearing glasses deliver the punchline. (And here, for example, it’s based on someone not understanding an expression used by someone else.)
The person with glasses who gives us the worldly wisdom is sadder and only mildly wiser, the sort of person things happen to.
Maybe we associate glasses, as we discussed while studying the pince nez, with people in authority, and it’s more fun to see the dignity of someone wearing glasses under attack.
Schoolteachers are certainly a symbol of authority, and they frequently have a pair of glasses with which to look down that autocratic nose.
Mom or Dad, being both figures of authority AND older than our protagonist, are obviously key candidates for glasses in a cartoon.
I was curious, at first, about why so many people with glasses (besides sunglasses) seem to turn up at the beach. I suspect it’s because older people in bathing suits are supposed to be funny from the outset, so why not slap spectacles on them while you’re at it?
There’s a lot going on in this postcard, for example, but making the straight man small, balding, and bespectacled at least provides a good reaction shot (if you can tear your eyes away from that remarkable bikini.)
You hardly ever find a person wearing glasses who is the clever wise guy in a postcard. And, after all, in this one he’s pushed his glasses back on his forehead, perhaps to help show he’s not one of those slow-brained dubs you see in the other cards.
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