Vicky's Gone Wild

By: Bootie Cosgrove-Mather

This column was written by G. Tracy Mehan III.

Historian Gertrude Himmelfarb famously argued that America was one country but two cultures. One culture reflects older concepts of republican virtue. The other is more reflective of the counterculture of the late 1960s. Evidence of this great divide can be found in communities throughout the country.

I live in the suburbs of northern Virginia, a purplish area within commuting distance of Washington, D.C. Socially, it is a patchwork quilt of government employees, active and retired military, high-tech workers, lots of lawyers, and down-home, native Virginians here and there. Although, nominally, part of a red state, this very affluent area reflects the one-two dichotomy described by Himmelfarb.

On a recent visit to my local Borders bookstore, I was dawdling at the table containing new non-fiction. There was a copy of The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyricson the opposite side of the table, just out of my view.

A little girl came up to the table and exclaimed to her father, "That's a scary book!" Her father, probably in his late 30s or early 40s, sought to reassure her: "That's not a scary book, honey. That's the Grateful Dead." The child seemed unconvinced, but chose not to argue with the voice of authority.

I waited until the father and daughter moved on, before circling around to take a look at the book. The volume sported a macabre graphic typical of albums, T-shirts, and other paraphernalia marketed by the Dead for decades. In this case it was a skeleton wearing half a jester's outfit while sitting on a stone wall tuning a mandolin. A solitary crow was perched, attentively, on the ground nearby.

While hardly a Dead Head, I enjoy most of the music of the Grateful Dead. I even attended one of their concerts, oh, 100 years ago. Still, theirs was a lifestyle not my own. Now, as the father of a not-so-little platoon, I am more inclined to foist J. S. Bach, U2, or Johnny Cash on my brood rather than the Dead or Jefferson Airplane.

A NOT-SO-SECRET SECRET
That little girl's spontaneous exclamation, based on a childlike intuition, was exactly right. The cover on the book, with its skeletal logo, represents a figurative and, possibly, literal death wish, given the lifestyles celebrated by these denizens of cultural liberation — rampant drug abuse being but one such manifestation. The father's soothing response to his daughter's dead-on insight was an attempt, albeit unconsciously, to socialize the child into a worldview which celebrates unabashed personal autonomy over most forms of self-restraint.

This epiphany occurred last week, the same week that Tysons Corner Center, northern Virginia's contribution to wretched excess and one of the biggest malls in the nation, opened a new addition. Right there amidst the new restaurants, a 16-screen theater, Baby Gap, Talbot's Kids, and other outlets targeting young families and teenagers, were new window and floor displays, compliments of Victoria's Secret, entitled, "Backstage Sexy." According to the local NBC affiliate, it featured "bare-bottomed mannequins in provocative poses and suggestions of bondage." They were tarted out with rhinestone garters, fishnet stockings, and feathery thongs.

There were also two female mannequins lounging on a bed (one was removed after the first wave of protests). The Washington Post described a scene in which "one scantily clad female mannequin crawling toward another who reclined on a left hip and leaned back on both hands." All this was in immediate proximity to hordes of teenagers who were mall-walking in the newly expanded shopping center.