How “Cool” is the Beatnik?1

Mass media coverage of beatniks or fringies conditions us to ostracize the “hipsters” as contemptible pawns of their affected chess mania at best and as lazy, pill-and-sex-addicted “no-goodniks” at their worst. One glance at the individual, the sources maintain, should suffice to brand him as a “sandal scandal.” Whether sandaled or bare-soled, the scandal remains. It encompasses skin-tight pants covering the lower body with due accentuation of essential bulges. Girls may dress in male garb. The front fly may promise the ultimate of masculine hope and emancipation or it may appeal as “butch” to the borderline homosexual male. The pants stop prematurely where they should not, frequently without belt and anchored miraculously by only the spirit of the century. Shirt or sweater forms the transition from the low-riff to the all-important high raff of hair which is grown and charitably employed to camouflage both face and distinction between male and female. The garments are old, inexpensive and often torn, with the obvious implication that clothes are unimportant and utilitarian only; one has better and more important things to do than heed fashion.