June 11, 2020 • 35 mins
It's one of those iconic 'you know it when you hear it' sounds - the two-note whistle made famous in old Tex Avery cartoons and multiple films of yesteryear. But what is the wolf whistle? Where did it actually come from, and how did it go from being such a popular trope to something (thankfully) so rare in the modern day?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always for
tuning in. Just thinking a lot about creepy oldies music recently.
Do you guys remember that song, Hey They're Little Miss
riding Hood. Hey They're a little Red Riding Hood. Anyway,
I'm bad, I'm bed as soon as you said creepy,
and I knew what we're doing, Ben, I knew it
(00:49):
was going to be that song. Yeah, I'm no, by
the way, and he's like, you sure can't, good yo,
or everything that a big wolf could want, followed by oh,
we're not talking about how exactly today, we're talking about
more of a whistle, the infamous wolf whistle also known
(01:12):
as a cat call, which I always thought was interesting,
like maybe there's a there's something to be unpacked in
the differentiation between a wolf whistle and a cat call. Uh,
I don't know. But it all started in this incredible
movie that I have not seen in its entirety, what
it's called Have That, To Have and Have Not, which
is a romantic kind of drama thriller from um which
(01:35):
I believe was one of the earliest debuts of of
the incredible Lauren bacall Um, and she and Humphrey Bogard
appeared across from each other in multiple films. But there's
a scene where, um, you know, they're just kind of
like the sexual tension is just killing you. It's it's palpable.
You can cut it with a knife. And uh, she
(01:57):
gives him a kiss and he said, well, what did
you do that for? I don't know. When we play
the clip, you know, you don't have to act with me, Steve.
You don't have to say anything, and you don't have
to do anything, not a thing. Oh maybe just whistle.
You know how to whistle down? Just Steve, you just
(02:20):
put your lips together and slow. You know, I've got
to say from her description it sounds a little more
simple maybe than it is, because a lot of people
struggle with whistling. But I've got to ask our super producer,
(02:44):
Casey Pegram Casey, you know, we didn't want to give
you the nickname wolf Whistle for this one, and you'll
see why. But have you have you? Have you seen
to have and have not? I believe I have. Yeah.
I think it's Howard Hawks movie, and I'm pretty sure
I thought at some point in college. But it's been
a while. Did you learn to whistle from watching it? No? Um,
(03:05):
I've never been able to do that whistle. I can
do regular like tuneful whistling pretty well, but the wolf
whistle completely aids me. Oh but that's the thing though,
This is this is where it gets funny. She says,
put your lips together and blow, uh, which you know
the wolf whistle as I think about as where you
put your thumb and forefinger exactly. I don't know how
(03:25):
to do that. I don't even understand what it does do.
Is it just intense? I guess you got to modulated something,
but I don't know. I feel like it just sort
of is like a little booster for a regular whistle.
I don't know. But again, um, this scene really did
because you know, he does the whistle sound. You hear
that in the clip, and the wolf whistle is all
about the pitch modulation. It's all about the we we
(03:48):
you know, that's it. And uh, it was that archetype
that kind of created the model of what was a
very fashionable thing for a while. It was a sign
of like, hey, good looking, you know, it's on a
flirtatious or whatever. But it wouldn't be terribly long before
it became uh incredibly um, maligned and in poor taste
(04:12):
and something that we think of now today. The idea
of cat calling is right up there with any other
form of sexual harassment. Uh. It is not okay, um,
and it's something that women don't want to have to
deal with, no question about it. But you know, back
when Bogey did it, it was kind of cute. It
was it was portrayed as you know, an aspirational, cool
(04:34):
thing to do, kind of like how spoken cigarettes was
portrayed for a long time. UM. But I like your
point about the sexual harassment. We have to set that
out in the very beginning. We are a history show.
But right now in lu Bush's domain of France, politicians
are seriously considering a bill where they're gonna find people
(04:57):
uh ninety euros if they're caught wolf whistling because they
want to try to combat sexual harassment. And then I
believe there's even a British politician who's saying, let's crack
down on this on cat calling people, wolf whistling on people. Um.
And you know, if you ask anybody, it's it's around.
(05:18):
It's been around. But I think to your question, Noll,
and I love the way you did the pitch there.
The question is how did this become so charged with meaning? Well,
I mean I think it's sort of like a pop
culture trope kind of thing. You think about it in cartoons,
you know, you think about it in like tech savory cartoons,
or you know, stuff from the fifties and like the
(05:39):
Bogar movie, Like that is the period that I think
of that particular version of it, But it goes farther
back than that, a lot farther. Um. It you know,
was around in ancient Rome, for example. Uh, the idea
of men hissing at women, that's that's definitely a little
sinister um or whistling at them in a similar way,
(06:02):
you know, not necessarily the same two tone kind of structure,
but it definitely was a thing. Um. There was a
comic playwright by the name of Claudis who wrote a
play called Mercator in two inter BC, and he refers
to a young woman saying that when she passed through
the streets, all the men would look at her, leer, nod, wink,
(06:23):
and whistled. So you know, if that's not just literally
describing what a cat call is that I don't know
what is Yeah, and you know this always thinks I've
always been mystified by the motivation for cat calling or
whistling to people in general, Like, is there ever anybody
who's gonna like when they're eighteen, they're gonna say, oh, mom, dad,
(06:46):
how did you meet? And they say, well, one day
I was walking down the street, living my own life,
and your father, who was who was pretty drunk, whistled
at me and said, hey, hot stuff, you know you
look your your butt looks like too bobcats in a
tight sack fighting. And next thing you know, we're married
(07:07):
in Vegas and here you are and we were so happy.
We're so happy together and we love you so much, right,
and thank you for asking about our origin story. Um. Yeah,
it's something that yeah, no, exactly, Ben, Like, it's like,
what what are you after with this? It's just a flex.
It's a weird flex. It's a way of saying, hey,
(07:28):
look at me, exercising some form of control over you.
It's a way to make people uncomfortable, um, and to
kind of exercise some form of dominance. Uh, in my
in my opinion, and it certainly feels that way in
the Roman version of it, where it's a group of
men with a lone female passing through the streets and
(07:49):
them trying to exercise some kind of control over her.
Certainly there's no sense that they went after her tried
to physically harm her or rape her or anything. But
you know, enough alcohol and enough ill will and horrible
nous that certainly would be an escalation of something like that.
So that's part of it too. There's an implication of hey,
we see you, and yeah, you better be careful or
(08:11):
we might do something about it. You know, somehow have
that power over a person. It's interesting, you know we're
mentioning uh, mercator merchant because for still scholars are debating
whether or not that's the first mention of whistling used
in this way. It may depend on translation. But there's
(08:33):
another theory to the idea that this again very distinct
whistle may have its roots in maritime history, that it
may have come from sailors trying to communicate at sea. Yeah,
they had a certain type of horn or like a
pipe I guess called a boatswain's pipe that would make
what was referred to as a general call. That was
(08:54):
a way of communicating at sea, and you know, you
think of sailors being away, see with no women around,
they get back to you know, sure, and they're let's
just say, feeling a bit deprived of the company of women,
therefore perhaps acting a little let's say thirsty, um, and
you know, behaving poorly towards women, whether involving alcohol or otherwise. Uh.
(09:20):
And again, I'm sure there are plenty of you know,
very polite sailors that would you know, just court a
woman in a any much more gentlemanly fashion. But it
certainly was rife for these kinds of rumors that Okay,
the general call is where this came from, was a
way of getting sailors attention, for trying to get each
other's attention, and they some historians believe that when they docked,
(09:43):
they would do the same thing to let each other know, Okay,
we got a live one here, we were spotted an
attractive lady. This is controversial. There's an article in The
Independent which kind of explains why politicians have been considered
oring doing a band of this sort. Uh. A lexicographer
(10:04):
Grant Barrett has one problem with this um wolf whistle theory.
It's that as far as he can tell, it's not true.
Historians at Britain's Royal Navy and its National Maritime Museum
UH said that they had never heard of this before.
They thought it would be unusual that sailors would take
(10:27):
a specific call used for emergency situations to leer at women,
but nol. We found the We found a collection of
the varying whistles and calls that sailors use, and there
is one that sounds a lot like a wolf whistle.
Right well, dude, I mean to me, it strikes me
as being like the equivalent of like an air traffic
(10:49):
controller using like hand signals to like signal a woman,
you know, is interested in a woman, like bringing out
his lighted like lightsaber baton thing with this like orange
vest on doing exactly that's the word. Uh, this would
be very similar because this would have been like a
a pretty I don't know, sacred has maybe taken a
(11:09):
little too far, but these were sounds that they were
allied on for safety, and we're very specific to different
conditions and you know, different navigational um maneuvers that they
would need to make, etcetera. So the idea that they
would have taken one of a lexicon of these sounds
and use that on land to kind of leer at
(11:31):
a woman. Just doesn't make a lot of sense, though
there is one of them that does resemble that classic
wolf whistle sound that we heard Humphrey Bogart do. Let's
let's hear that one real quick. It's for the maneuver
of turn two. Okay, I mean yeah that I can
see why you would think like people would think that.
(11:53):
It makes sense to me. It's logical, right, it does.
And I have to run through the rest of these
because they're all so cool sounding. We've got a judah
temps call all hands, you know that one bill at
heave around mess call im assuming that's food past the
word piping the side. I like that one um secure
general quarters, which I guess would mean stay inside sweepers.
(12:15):
And then we've got turned two, which was our wolfie sound.
And then these are these are a series of veers.
Maybe you can fill me in on this spinner offer
some conjecture that's V I E R S. And there
are four varieties eight side boys, four side boys, six
side boys, and two side boys. And again you can
find all of these at archive dot org if you
(12:37):
are in the maritime industry. I'd love to hear whether
these are still in use. Uh, and you know, to
tell us more weird stories about life on the boat
and what's up with them boys, that's what I want
to know. We're always concerned with them boys. There's one
(13:00):
question we have not addressed in this. If it did come,
you know, from a maritime source, if it whatever its origin,
maybe how did it become called a wolf whistle? John Lucas,
who penned a Brief History of whistling another very specific
experts exactly like the guy for whistles. He has his
(13:26):
own theory and it is this. He said, he was
talking with an elderly shepherd and the shepherd, you know,
was also an expert in hurting sheep. And this guy
told him that he trained sheep dogs and he has
a bunch of calls for the sheep dogs, and that
(13:46):
one of those sounds exactly like a wolf whistle. And
then John Lucas apparently said that's kind of politically incorrect,
and they said, no, no, no, it's it's kosher. It's
from Albania, that's right. Um. He explained that in the
mountains of southern Europe, Shepherds have used this tone the
two notes for centuries to communicate with their dogs and
(14:10):
let them know whenever wolves appeared. You can train a
dog to respond to a particular set of tones. We
know that you can make them drool when you blow.
Wasn't that a whistle a bell? That was a bell
with the Pavlov dog situation. Yeah, so again you can absolutely,
like you know, condition a dog to respond or to
be aware of what a certain sound means. And the
key was and honestly, as a sort of a sound nerd,
(14:34):
I guess modulating sound causes it to carry better. So
if you have like the high low, it gives you
these like two opportunities to catch the sound kind of
if that makes sense. I'm not being super scientific about it,
but this this proved to be true. It would carry
for miles uh and and especially in the open planes
of like you know, pastures of sheep, grays and lands
(14:56):
or what have you. Um, And so there we go.
I feel like we can put that one to bed
as well. So this wasn't a wolf whistle per se.
It was more a whistle, not a whistle that a
wolf would do. A wolf being sort of like a
like a cartoonist stand in for like a you know,
bad guy, right, like a bag. Yeah, I don't know,
(15:19):
but I don't know wolves. I understand calling somebody a dog.
Dogs are nice. That we're talking about dogs here, dogs
protecting the dogs against the wolves with the wolf whistle. Um.
So it does get confusing, and it's not easy to
insert your own interpretation when things just fit so closely.
I mean, even that boat wains call had me going
because it sure sounds the same when you look at
(15:40):
the motivation behind it or what it would have taken,
you know, to uh kind of what's the word co
opt that it starts to feel a little questionable, right, yeah, exactly.
And and John Lucas says that he saw this for
himself when he was a kid in World War Two,
because there would be a lot of soldiers from the
US who would hang around and try to whistle at
(16:02):
women who are going in and out of church halls
and social buildings. And if we could, I love to
do just a quick re enactment of a actual facts,
as our pal Lare and Vogelbam would say, newsreel about
wolf whistling. It's a report from July. It sometimes takes
a little bit of coaxing, but mostly these men of
(16:24):
the Six Corps enjoy the swanky swimming hole on their
day off. Nestled amongst the peaks of the Austrian Tyrone,
it offers rest and relaxation to war weary Vet. Sue's
duties have become less pressing since v E Day. I'm sorry,
what is v E Day? Oh? It's victory in Europe day. Ah. Yes,
and I want to say poinding app just one gas.
But the guy he left behind can rest easily because,
(16:46):
as these signal call pictures show, the non fraternization order
is still in effect. Tirolean gals are mighty enticing and
all a wolf can do is how but maybe when
the dourist trade opens up again. We we I can't
really do. It's got to make the sound. Uh, but
that that isn't that is part of it. G I
wolf whistles baby. Oh. And I did learn the I
(17:08):
did learn the science of it, which is actually it's
funny to explain because it sounds really simple. You take
your lips and you kind of like dish, You tuck
your lips back around your teeth and let them hang loose. Yeah,
and then you can you choose a set of fingers
either you could do your index or middle or your pinky,
whatever speaks to you. Yeah, and you put them together
(17:30):
so that there's like there's like a tiny gap between
the fingers. I push your tongue out. How is this
going to translate? Casey, push your tongue out, so it's
like one set me or behind your cheek. I put
kind of pop your tongue up, and you try to
blow the air through that gap over the top of
(17:53):
your tongue. No, get, get, get do it, get do it?
Bend And I really hope we didn't gross everybody out
with all our mouth sounds. You you do it? Can
you do it? Uh? Not yet, but I am I'm
gonna try to learn it. Okay, I'm gonna try. But anyway,
so there is a way to do it. But we're
what what we're establishing with that is it's the same
kind of whistle all the way through from ancient probably
(18:17):
ancient room up through World War two. But for most
of us, well I don't want to make assumptions, but
for many of us listening, definitely, all three of us.
The first um the first image that comes to our
mind when we think of wolf Whistles is, like you
said at the top, nel cartoons, not all of which
(18:38):
have aged well. Pepe lapew is a real creep. Yeah,
he's basically like a kind of a low key stalker
who uh you know he's he's so gentle and kind
of nonchalant about it that you know, it takes you
a minute to wrap your head around the fact that
he's just kind of like a serial killer, Like he's
just relentless. He's like a terminator type figure. But yeah,
(18:59):
I know, the cartoons of Text Avery, some of those
have an aged particularly well either, and that's because they're
taking a lot of the cues from their sexist and
often racist times in which they were around nineteen thirty seven.
For example, in a Little Red Walking Hood, Uh, in
one of Avery's cartoons where his iconic wolf figure which
you see it in in memes and and gifts a
(19:21):
lot where his tongue rolls out of his mouth because
he's googling it's some you know, pretty lady, and his
eyes pop out and all that stuff. It's just this
kind of the nature of it is that he's completely unhinged,
out of control of any of his bodily uh desires, right,
and it's going to stop at nothing to have said woman. Right,
(19:44):
that doesn't happen like on camera or in frame. But yeah,
it's definitely a thing, and it's it's very it's hard
to watch, honestly, but the animation is is pretty incredible. Yeah,
well that this is the fascinating part about this, right,
so many of us understanding in the context of depictions
and cartoons, right, but Little Red Walking Hood which you
(20:06):
which you mentioned, is pivotal here because I think it's
the first time text Avery had depicted a cartoon wolf whistling. Uh.
And he he chases the protagonists around until someone knocks
him over the head with a hammer. And this is
clearly supposed to be justice being served. Right. You're the audience,
(20:27):
You're supposed to be happy that this wolf creature got
has come up and uh and and according to analysts,
that's because in the ninetties, it was not considered a
good thing to be a lithario, a ladies man, you know, um,
any other words you want to put in there. And
it only later evolved over the next few decades too,
(20:49):
something like a positive image, which is weird to me
that they started out, um not glorifying this. You know,
I didn't know that Ben. That's interesting to me. So
he really is kind have considered the villain in some
of these cartoons, and I always thought it was just
kind of normalizing that behavior. But that's uh, that's that's interesting.
And a lot of this you can read about Pierre Flouquet,
(21:10):
who wrote the comic Language of Texas Avery. Um. He
he you know, knows the man in and out, and
he knows all of the nuances of his career and
you know, his contributions to you know, tropes like this,
um and it's crazy. I was getting a little confused
because there's another Red Hood character. Avery did, Red Hot
(21:31):
Riding Hood. Obviously things were you know, getting a little
more risque. Uh and and and you know it's super
um creative. It's the kind of things that you see
like depicted in the Who Framed Roger Rabbit, like that
style of things where you know, there's this weird kind
of self mutilation kind of vibe where the wolf is.
(21:51):
So I'm just gonna say it horny for this, you know,
attractive kind of Betty Boop, Uh, Jessica Rabbit asque little
Red writing character that he's trying to like bash himself
repeatedly over the hammer to knock himself out so he
doesn't like do a bad thing, like you know what
I mean, Like it feels like he's trying to numb
(22:13):
his senses so he won't just rape this character. Like
it's it's pretty insane. Yeah, it's. It's troubling. Um Technically.
The animation, though, is very well done. It's like hand
drawn and stuff. It's it's an iconic scene. Even if
you feel like you have not seen it, you have
seen some version of it. It occurs, of course and
(22:34):
who framed Roger Rabbit? It occurs in countless cartoons after.
It's also in and I thought of this too. It's
also in The Mask starring Jim Carrey. I love the
comic books. I don't know if I'm gonna watch it
again though, I'm not sure how it aged. I'll watch,
you know what, I'll watch one clip on YouTube. Ben
somebody needs to stop you again. No, that's just that
(22:57):
was his like catchphrase. They stopped me from watching The
Mask again. I remember seeing in theater the first time
you ever saw Cameron Diaz and she was also like,
that's the thing. The thing about the little Red Riding
Hood character in Red Hot Riding Hood is she is
she is a sex object. That is how she is
depicted and nothing else. She is meant to be like
busty and sexy, and it's kind of scantily clad and
(23:20):
the wolf just loses his mind. And that's what happens
in the Mask as well with with the Cameron Diaz character.
She's wearing this crazy like low cut, you know, kind
of Vegas show girl type skirt and he just, you know,
his heart starts beating out of his chest and all
of that stuff is from the tech savory tropes, but yeah,
it's it's super troubling and definitely doesn't age well. Um
(23:42):
and likely was just as responsible for Humphrey Bogart in
popularizing this as a kind of lothario esque kind of move.
But the thing is that the Humphrey Bogart seem It's
really interesting about that is the Lauren McCall character is
super empowered, Like she's it's in his lap on her
own and she kisses him without permission and then does
(24:06):
it a second time. Uh and and she has complete
control in that situation. So it's very very different and
when he whistles after she has kind of baited him
into doing it. So again, very different. There's a lot
more consent between these two characters than there would be
a traditional you know, cat call or even this cartoon depiction. Right, yeah, agreed,
(24:34):
Just to give you a sense of how sexualized this
tex Savery cartoon is. Again, that's the Red Hot Riding Hood. Uh.
It ran into trouble with sensors in the beginning. And
now uh the author you mentioned earlier, No, now, now
people believe it was only able to be shown on
(24:55):
screen because the US military wanted cartoons like it. They're
a fascinating theory here. Luke says, if you increase the
libido or you know, the thirstiness of soldiers by watching cartoons,
they'll get frustrated. If they get frustrated, they become more aggressive.
And if they become more aggressive, that's the logic here,
(25:17):
they become better soldiers. And you know, this is apparently
the gist of what Army commissioners said when they were
you know, describing what they wanted wartime cartoons to do.
And the last note on Red Hot Riding Hood. It
was seen by so many US soldiers and by so
many kids in the US that if they weren't already,
(25:40):
you know, thinking of wolf whistles as cool, they were now.
And that's why the first mention of wolf whistling comes
in a newspaper. But if we are being fair, we
have to tell you about something that I don't know about.
You guys, It blew my mind. I had never heard
of this. There is apparently an equivalent to a wolf whistle,
(26:00):
but from the other side of the sexual divide. Yeah,
it's called the slurp. And it was reported on in
February n the Fresno b Um, where it's has that
a group of Fulton Streets scientists report that at last
they have identified and isolated the female version of the
wolf whistle that often heard call used by men of
(26:21):
the armed forces when their trail crosses that of the
opposite sex. For certain reasons, this group of scientists do
not want their names published. I wonder why. Uh it
seems unnecessary to add that their research is undertaken for
no particular reason. This sounds like an onion article to me. Uh,
there anyone can think of? They call this female and
with the wolf whistle to slurp. The slurp is defined
(26:41):
as a soft female noise made with the teeth, tongue,
and lips, which sounds exactly as it is spelled uh
and which sometimes but not always, means roger, as in
like yeah, I oh like whistle like whistle heard and
copy that broke? Like that? Is it like a click click?
(27:03):
I casey, you know behind the curtain here. I cannot
find any like documentation of this. You're the you're the
person who uh off like, uh, I think both well,
I misspoke, I thought it was I had something completely
different in mind. Okay, Okay, so I don't know. I
cannot corroborate any of that. Okay, because because when we
(27:26):
were talking about this earlier, oh yeah the slur yeah
in case he got no excite, you were like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're talking about especially like cartoon sounds. I can think
of a few, I don't know, almost like the Hannibal
Lecter thing or whatever. But um yeah, yeah exactly, that's
kind of what it popped in my head. I did
not Whatever this thing is is something else. Can you
(27:47):
imagine cat call it? Like? Can you imagine if one
of these guys had put out a wolf whistle and uh,
the person's whistling at hit him back with that hannibal
lecter fava beans and can't you know I wonder how
that would go? Oh man, Yeah, it's it's crazy. Though.
There is a screenshot of this page the Fresno b article.
(28:08):
Uh makes you pay money to look at it in
full screen. But I can see that this article that's
being referenced here and in our materials is uh is
a thing. Maybe it's some kind of satire. I don't know.
I certainly had never heard of the slurp, so perhaps
let's not report this. Is that the actual facts the thing,
(28:29):
because now that we're googling it, Uh, it doesn't seem
to be much to back this up. But I like
the idea of the existence of a of a female
equivalent to the wolf whistle. Yeah, fight the power. We
do also have records of wolf whistling being so popular
they were whistling contests. Uh. It was even used once
as sort of a talent portion of a beauty pageant
(28:52):
type thing, when seventeen year old Janice Norse on September one,
the title Miss Sheboygan uh due impart to her incredibly
piercing wolf whistle. Fascinating I'm a big fan of precision whistling.
You know, this wolf whistle thing is a little bit
(29:12):
more of like a blunt instrument. But you know, if
you think about like snow White, her ability to whistle like,
you know, in this really melodic, kind of polyphonic, almost
kind of way. Um, there is an Atlanta artist or
formerly of Atlanta. She lives in Los Angeles now, but
her name's u adron uh And and she has this
ability to do these like just super precise whistled um
(29:37):
sections and a lot of her music. I highly recommend
checking your out if you want to hear some really cool,
non offensive whistling. How about Andrew bird Man. We gotta
give it up for him too. I love whistling and music. Oh, agreed, agreed. Yeah,
it's a lot of fun. So you may be asking
yourself whither the wolf whistle? Where did it go? Because
you don't hear it as much now, I would imagine
(30:00):
you see you still see it pop up in fiction,
But it seems like according to a couple of the
people we mentioned earlier, um, it started dying out in
the nineties seventies because partially the rise of feminism, prosecuting
for women's rights. Hey, I shouldn't be her asked just
because I'm walking to the store. Uh. And then people
(30:22):
started seeing it as uncool, as a more demeaning thing
to do to other people. And now one of the
big debates is how will it be depicted in the future.
I mean, what do you think I remember this whistle
occurring and things like the mask and and things like, um,
you know, cartoons, but not any recent ones. Yeah, I
(30:44):
mean it was definitely using like you know, I think probably. Uh.
The way it's used now is to seem dated or
two in some way kind of create like an atmosphere,
even though it was used in movies. Originally there was
I can't remember which writer in our research material said this,
but the idea was to um very quickly convey some
(31:05):
things about a character, either uh kind of trashy sort
of like you know, lithario ness or flirtation or sometimes both,
you know, And it was it was a very quick
way of expressing that, as it was done in the
movie Grease. There's um the uses of wolf whistles in
Grease to kind of help create that vibe of like
(31:25):
the fifties. But again that's a movie that was made
in the late seventies that was a period piece about
the fifties, and then some musical obviously, so that makes
sense to use it in that way. Or in Legally Blonde,
for example, it's used for kind of like a gag
in which Reese Witherspoon's character talks about how she's comfortable
using legal jargon in everyday life. Then a man wolf
(31:46):
whistles and she says, I object. Uh. So, you know,
it's definitely something that has been absolutely canceled because of
the me Too movement and just a lot more forward
momentum in you know, not tolerating with any of the
kind of sexism or uh implied, you know, dominance of
men over women that we were talking about on the
(32:08):
top of the show. That's just not a thing that
people are okay with anymore. I mean, at least the
people that that I know. Uh. And and it's becoming
less and less possible to carry on this kind of
behavior and not just be completely shut down with how
quickly things can spread on the internet. And that is why,
that is why super producer Casey Pegram did not want
(32:31):
to give you the albatross of the nickname wolf Whistle.
It felt like a condemnation uh and an undeserved when
and hey, you know, maybe that's the reason the three
of us don't know how to do it, because we
were because of the time we were raised in um,
which which I think is fine. I'm sure there are
plenty of other amazing whistles you can learn uh and
(32:52):
watch and here in music and story and song. Uh,
but this was this was pretty eye opening to me.
I'm glad we did this one man too. Yeah. It's
definitely not something I really think about because it does
feel like such a dated thing, but it really is.
You know, there are people still in the me too
kind of discussions or just in general about like, you know,
(33:14):
not treating women like trash. Uh. The idea of cat
calling is still very much a thing, and that's just
sort of an escalation of the wolf whistle, just using
words just what like unsolicited comments about women's bodies or
just about you know, their existence, uh, in terms of
how it would benefit men. So yeah, wolf whistling still exists,
(33:36):
at least in terms of the escalation or just like
a more rhetorical version of it, where people are shouting
out at women from across the street. That's the idea
is just allowed unsolicited uh advance, let's say, but back
in the fifties and stuff, it was considered good, clean fun,
and it'll be like, hey, come on, you don't have
a sense of humor, like just doesn't mean anything. And
(33:59):
we want to hear your experience, your opinion on this.
If you are a person with a talent for uh
for for whistling. I was trying to think of a
cooler way to say you are. If you are a
whistler yourself, we'd love to hear some of your input
on whistles, the history of whistles. Uh. At this point,
I'm just saying the word whistle because it's as fun
(34:20):
as saying she Boygan. Anyhow, thank you as always to
give Louisia who refuses to tell us how to pronounce
his last name, And of course thank you to super
producer Casey Pegram thanks to Alex Williams. A composed our theme.
Christopher Haciota is also here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland, that
notorious and DVS quister. I hope to have you back soon, buddy,
(34:42):
or you know, maybe die in a fire. No, don't
do that. We love you. We want to have you back,
and you will be back soon, because it's really not
up to us. Um, you just kind of pop up
whenever you pop up. I'm surprised you haven't popped up
now because I'm talking about you so long. But I'm
gonna stop. Oh yeah, we gotta sew it up before
he gets here. Oh man, okay, I'll so. You can
find us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter.
(35:02):
You can find us on Instagram. We love to recommend
our Facebook group. It is ridiculous historians. Check it out.
You'll see some top tier means and some great discussion.
You can also follow us as individuals on the internet.
I am at Ben Bulling on Instagram and at Ben
Bowling HSW on Twitter. And you can find me exclusively
on Instagram at how now and all brown. We'll see
(35:25):
you next time. Books. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always for
tuning in. Just thinking a lot about creepy oldies music recently.
Do you guys remember that song, Hey They're Little Miss
riding Hood. Hey They're a little Red Riding Hood. Anyway,
I'm bad, I'm bed as soon as you said creepy,
and I knew what we're doing, Ben, I knew it
(00:49):
was going to be that song. Yeah, I'm no, by
the way, and he's like, you sure can't, good yo,
or everything that a big wolf could want, followed by oh,
we're not talking about how exactly today, we're talking about
more of a whistle, the infamous wolf whistle also known
(01:12):
as a cat call, which I always thought was interesting,
like maybe there's a there's something to be unpacked in
the differentiation between a wolf whistle and a cat call. Uh,
I don't know. But it all started in this incredible
movie that I have not seen in its entirety, what
it's called Have That, To Have and Have Not, which
is a romantic kind of drama thriller from um which
(01:35):
I believe was one of the earliest debuts of of
the incredible Lauren bacall Um, and she and Humphrey Bogard
appeared across from each other in multiple films. But there's
a scene where, um, you know, they're just kind of
like the sexual tension is just killing you. It's it's palpable.
You can cut it with a knife. And uh, she
(01:57):
gives him a kiss and he said, well, what did
you do that for? I don't know. When we play
the clip, you know, you don't have to act with me, Steve.
You don't have to say anything, and you don't have
to do anything, not a thing. Oh maybe just whistle.
You know how to whistle down? Just Steve, you just
(02:20):
put your lips together and slow. You know, I've got
to say from her description it sounds a little more
simple maybe than it is, because a lot of people
struggle with whistling. But I've got to ask our super producer,
(02:44):
Casey Pegram Casey, you know, we didn't want to give
you the nickname wolf Whistle for this one, and you'll
see why. But have you have you? Have you seen
to have and have not? I believe I have. Yeah.
I think it's Howard Hawks movie, and I'm pretty sure
I thought at some point in college. But it's been
a while. Did you learn to whistle from watching it? No? Um,
(03:05):
I've never been able to do that whistle. I can
do regular like tuneful whistling pretty well, but the wolf
whistle completely aids me. Oh but that's the thing though,
This is this is where it gets funny. She says,
put your lips together and blow, uh, which you know
the wolf whistle as I think about as where you
put your thumb and forefinger exactly. I don't know how
(03:25):
to do that. I don't even understand what it does do.
Is it just intense? I guess you got to modulated something,
but I don't know. I feel like it just sort
of is like a little booster for a regular whistle.
I don't know. But again, um, this scene really did
because you know, he does the whistle sound. You hear
that in the clip, and the wolf whistle is all
about the pitch modulation. It's all about the we we
(03:48):
you know, that's it. And uh, it was that archetype
that kind of created the model of what was a
very fashionable thing for a while. It was a sign
of like, hey, good looking, you know, it's on a
flirtatious or whatever. But it wouldn't be terribly long before
it became uh incredibly um, maligned and in poor taste
(04:12):
and something that we think of now today. The idea
of cat calling is right up there with any other
form of sexual harassment. Uh. It is not okay, um,
and it's something that women don't want to have to
deal with, no question about it. But you know, back
when Bogey did it, it was kind of cute. It
was it was portrayed as you know, an aspirational, cool
(04:34):
thing to do, kind of like how spoken cigarettes was
portrayed for a long time. UM. But I like your
point about the sexual harassment. We have to set that
out in the very beginning. We are a history show.
But right now in lu Bush's domain of France, politicians
are seriously considering a bill where they're gonna find people
(04:57):
uh ninety euros if they're caught wolf whistling because they
want to try to combat sexual harassment. And then I
believe there's even a British politician who's saying, let's crack
down on this on cat calling people, wolf whistling on people. Um.
And you know, if you ask anybody, it's it's around.
(05:18):
It's been around. But I think to your question, Noll,
and I love the way you did the pitch there.
The question is how did this become so charged with meaning? Well,
I mean I think it's sort of like a pop
culture trope kind of thing. You think about it in cartoons,
you know, you think about it in like tech savory cartoons,
or you know, stuff from the fifties and like the
(05:39):
Bogar movie, Like that is the period that I think
of that particular version of it, But it goes farther
back than that, a lot farther. Um. It you know,
was around in ancient Rome, for example. Uh, the idea
of men hissing at women, that's that's definitely a little
sinister um or whistling at them in a similar way,
(06:02):
you know, not necessarily the same two tone kind of structure,
but it definitely was a thing. Um. There was a
comic playwright by the name of Claudis who wrote a
play called Mercator in two inter BC, and he refers
to a young woman saying that when she passed through
the streets, all the men would look at her, leer, nod, wink,
(06:23):
and whistled. So you know, if that's not just literally
describing what a cat call is that I don't know
what is Yeah, and you know this always thinks I've
always been mystified by the motivation for cat calling or
whistling to people in general, Like, is there ever anybody
who's gonna like when they're eighteen, they're gonna say, oh, mom, dad,
(06:46):
how did you meet? And they say, well, one day
I was walking down the street, living my own life,
and your father, who was who was pretty drunk, whistled
at me and said, hey, hot stuff, you know you
look your your butt looks like too bobcats in a
tight sack fighting. And next thing you know, we're married
(07:07):
in Vegas and here you are and we were so happy.
We're so happy together and we love you so much, right,
and thank you for asking about our origin story. Um. Yeah,
it's something that yeah, no, exactly, Ben, Like, it's like,
what what are you after with this? It's just a flex.
It's a weird flex. It's a way of saying, hey,
(07:28):
look at me, exercising some form of control over you.
It's a way to make people uncomfortable, um, and to
kind of exercise some form of dominance. Uh, in my
in my opinion, and it certainly feels that way in
the Roman version of it, where it's a group of
men with a lone female passing through the streets and
(07:49):
them trying to exercise some kind of control over her.
Certainly there's no sense that they went after her tried
to physically harm her or rape her or anything. But
you know, enough alcohol and enough ill will and horrible
nous that certainly would be an escalation of something like that.
So that's part of it too. There's an implication of hey,
we see you, and yeah, you better be careful or
(08:11):
we might do something about it. You know, somehow have
that power over a person. It's interesting, you know we're
mentioning uh, mercator merchant because for still scholars are debating
whether or not that's the first mention of whistling used
in this way. It may depend on translation. But there's
(08:33):
another theory to the idea that this again very distinct
whistle may have its roots in maritime history, that it
may have come from sailors trying to communicate at sea. Yeah,
they had a certain type of horn or like a
pipe I guess called a boatswain's pipe that would make
what was referred to as a general call. That was
(08:54):
a way of communicating at sea, and you know, you
think of sailors being away, see with no women around,
they get back to you know, sure, and they're let's
just say, feeling a bit deprived of the company of women,
therefore perhaps acting a little let's say thirsty, um, and
you know, behaving poorly towards women, whether involving alcohol or otherwise. Uh.
(09:20):
And again, I'm sure there are plenty of you know,
very polite sailors that would you know, just court a
woman in a any much more gentlemanly fashion. But it
certainly was rife for these kinds of rumors that Okay,
the general call is where this came from, was a
way of getting sailors attention, for trying to get each
other's attention, and they some historians believe that when they docked,
(09:43):
they would do the same thing to let each other know, Okay,
we got a live one here, we were spotted an
attractive lady. This is controversial. There's an article in The
Independent which kind of explains why politicians have been considered
oring doing a band of this sort. Uh. A lexicographer
(10:04):
Grant Barrett has one problem with this um wolf whistle theory.
It's that as far as he can tell, it's not true.
Historians at Britain's Royal Navy and its National Maritime Museum
UH said that they had never heard of this before.
They thought it would be unusual that sailors would take
(10:27):
a specific call used for emergency situations to leer at women,
but nol. We found the We found a collection of
the varying whistles and calls that sailors use, and there
is one that sounds a lot like a wolf whistle.
Right well, dude, I mean to me, it strikes me
as being like the equivalent of like an air traffic
(10:49):
controller using like hand signals to like signal a woman,
you know, is interested in a woman, like bringing out
his lighted like lightsaber baton thing with this like orange
vest on doing exactly that's the word. Uh, this would
be very similar because this would have been like a
a pretty I don't know, sacred has maybe taken a
(11:09):
little too far, but these were sounds that they were
allied on for safety, and we're very specific to different
conditions and you know, different navigational um maneuvers that they
would need to make, etcetera. So the idea that they
would have taken one of a lexicon of these sounds
and use that on land to kind of leer at
(11:31):
a woman. Just doesn't make a lot of sense, though
there is one of them that does resemble that classic
wolf whistle sound that we heard Humphrey Bogart do. Let's
let's hear that one real quick. It's for the maneuver
of turn two. Okay, I mean yeah that I can
see why you would think like people would think that.
(11:53):
It makes sense to me. It's logical, right, it does.
And I have to run through the rest of these
because they're all so cool sounding. We've got a judah
temps call all hands, you know that one bill at
heave around mess call im assuming that's food past the
word piping the side. I like that one um secure
general quarters, which I guess would mean stay inside sweepers.
(12:15):
And then we've got turned two, which was our wolfie sound.
And then these are these are a series of veers.
Maybe you can fill me in on this spinner offer
some conjecture that's V I E R S. And there
are four varieties eight side boys, four side boys, six
side boys, and two side boys. And again you can
find all of these at archive dot org if you
(12:37):
are in the maritime industry. I'd love to hear whether
these are still in use. Uh, and you know, to
tell us more weird stories about life on the boat
and what's up with them boys, that's what I want
to know. We're always concerned with them boys. There's one
(13:00):
question we have not addressed in this. If it did come,
you know, from a maritime source, if it whatever its origin,
maybe how did it become called a wolf whistle? John Lucas,
who penned a Brief History of whistling another very specific
experts exactly like the guy for whistles. He has his
(13:26):
own theory and it is this. He said, he was
talking with an elderly shepherd and the shepherd, you know,
was also an expert in hurting sheep. And this guy
told him that he trained sheep dogs and he has
a bunch of calls for the sheep dogs, and that
(13:46):
one of those sounds exactly like a wolf whistle. And
then John Lucas apparently said that's kind of politically incorrect,
and they said, no, no, no, it's it's kosher. It's
from Albania, that's right. Um. He explained that in the
mountains of southern Europe, Shepherds have used this tone the
two notes for centuries to communicate with their dogs and
(14:10):
let them know whenever wolves appeared. You can train a
dog to respond to a particular set of tones. We
know that you can make them drool when you blow.
Wasn't that a whistle a bell? That was a bell
with the Pavlov dog situation. Yeah, so again you can absolutely,
like you know, condition a dog to respond or to
be aware of what a certain sound means. And the
key was and honestly, as a sort of a sound nerd,
(14:34):
I guess modulating sound causes it to carry better. So
if you have like the high low, it gives you
these like two opportunities to catch the sound kind of
if that makes sense. I'm not being super scientific about it,
but this this proved to be true. It would carry
for miles uh and and especially in the open planes
of like you know, pastures of sheep, grays and lands
(14:56):
or what have you. Um, And so there we go.
I feel like we can put that one to bed
as well. So this wasn't a wolf whistle per se.
It was more a whistle, not a whistle that a
wolf would do. A wolf being sort of like a
like a cartoonist stand in for like a you know,
bad guy, right, like a bag. Yeah, I don't know,
(15:19):
but I don't know wolves. I understand calling somebody a dog.
Dogs are nice. That we're talking about dogs here, dogs
protecting the dogs against the wolves with the wolf whistle. Um.
So it does get confusing, and it's not easy to
insert your own interpretation when things just fit so closely.
I mean, even that boat wains call had me going
because it sure sounds the same when you look at
(15:40):
the motivation behind it or what it would have taken,
you know, to uh kind of what's the word co
opt that it starts to feel a little questionable, right, yeah, exactly.
And and John Lucas says that he saw this for
himself when he was a kid in World War Two,
because there would be a lot of soldiers from the
US who would hang around and try to whistle at
(16:02):
women who are going in and out of church halls
and social buildings. And if we could, I love to
do just a quick re enactment of a actual facts,
as our pal Lare and Vogelbam would say, newsreel about
wolf whistling. It's a report from July. It sometimes takes
a little bit of coaxing, but mostly these men of
(16:24):
the Six Corps enjoy the swanky swimming hole on their
day off. Nestled amongst the peaks of the Austrian Tyrone,
it offers rest and relaxation to war weary Vet. Sue's
duties have become less pressing since v E Day. I'm sorry,
what is v E Day? Oh? It's victory in Europe day. Ah. Yes,
and I want to say poinding app just one gas.
But the guy he left behind can rest easily because,
(16:46):
as these signal call pictures show, the non fraternization order
is still in effect. Tirolean gals are mighty enticing and
all a wolf can do is how but maybe when
the dourist trade opens up again. We we I can't
really do. It's got to make the sound. Uh, but
that that isn't that is part of it. G I
wolf whistles baby. Oh. And I did learn the I
(17:08):
did learn the science of it, which is actually it's
funny to explain because it sounds really simple. You take
your lips and you kind of like dish, You tuck
your lips back around your teeth and let them hang loose. Yeah,
and then you can you choose a set of fingers
either you could do your index or middle or your pinky,
whatever speaks to you. Yeah, and you put them together
(17:30):
so that there's like there's like a tiny gap between
the fingers. I push your tongue out. How is this
going to translate? Casey, push your tongue out, so it's
like one set me or behind your cheek. I put
kind of pop your tongue up, and you try to
blow the air through that gap over the top of
(17:53):
your tongue. No, get, get, get do it, get do it?
Bend And I really hope we didn't gross everybody out
with all our mouth sounds. You you do it? Can
you do it? Uh? Not yet, but I am I'm
gonna try to learn it. Okay, I'm gonna try. But anyway,
so there is a way to do it. But we're
what what we're establishing with that is it's the same
kind of whistle all the way through from ancient probably
(18:17):
ancient room up through World War two. But for most
of us, well I don't want to make assumptions, but
for many of us listening, definitely, all three of us.
The first um the first image that comes to our
mind when we think of wolf Whistles is, like you
said at the top, nel cartoons, not all of which
(18:38):
have aged well. Pepe lapew is a real creep. Yeah,
he's basically like a kind of a low key stalker
who uh you know he's he's so gentle and kind
of nonchalant about it that you know, it takes you
a minute to wrap your head around the fact that
he's just kind of like a serial killer, Like he's
just relentless. He's like a terminator type figure. But yeah,
(18:59):
I know, the cartoons of Text Avery, some of those
have an aged particularly well either, and that's because they're
taking a lot of the cues from their sexist and
often racist times in which they were around nineteen thirty seven.
For example, in a Little Red Walking Hood, Uh, in
one of Avery's cartoons where his iconic wolf figure which
you see it in in memes and and gifts a
(19:21):
lot where his tongue rolls out of his mouth because
he's googling it's some you know, pretty lady, and his
eyes pop out and all that stuff. It's just this
kind of the nature of it is that he's completely unhinged,
out of control of any of his bodily uh desires, right,
and it's going to stop at nothing to have said woman. Right,
(19:44):
that doesn't happen like on camera or in frame. But yeah,
it's definitely a thing, and it's it's very it's hard
to watch, honestly, but the animation is is pretty incredible. Yeah,
well that this is the fascinating part about this, right,
so many of us understanding in the context of depictions
and cartoons, right, but Little Red Walking Hood which you
(20:06):
which you mentioned, is pivotal here because I think it's
the first time text Avery had depicted a cartoon wolf whistling. Uh.
And he he chases the protagonists around until someone knocks
him over the head with a hammer. And this is
clearly supposed to be justice being served. Right. You're the audience,
(20:27):
You're supposed to be happy that this wolf creature got
has come up and uh and and according to analysts,
that's because in the ninetties, it was not considered a
good thing to be a lithario, a ladies man, you know, um,
any other words you want to put in there. And
it only later evolved over the next few decades too,
(20:49):
something like a positive image, which is weird to me
that they started out, um not glorifying this. You know,
I didn't know that Ben. That's interesting to me. So
he really is kind have considered the villain in some
of these cartoons, and I always thought it was just
kind of normalizing that behavior. But that's uh, that's that's interesting.
And a lot of this you can read about Pierre Flouquet,
(21:10):
who wrote the comic Language of Texas Avery. Um. He
he you know, knows the man in and out, and
he knows all of the nuances of his career and
you know, his contributions to you know, tropes like this,
um and it's crazy. I was getting a little confused
because there's another Red Hood character. Avery did, Red Hot
(21:31):
Riding Hood. Obviously things were you know, getting a little
more risque. Uh and and and you know it's super
um creative. It's the kind of things that you see
like depicted in the Who Framed Roger Rabbit, like that
style of things where you know, there's this weird kind
of self mutilation kind of vibe where the wolf is.
(21:51):
So I'm just gonna say it horny for this, you know,
attractive kind of Betty Boop, Uh, Jessica Rabbit asque little
Red writing character that he's trying to like bash himself
repeatedly over the hammer to knock himself out so he
doesn't like do a bad thing, like you know what
I mean, Like it feels like he's trying to numb
(22:13):
his senses so he won't just rape this character. Like
it's it's pretty insane. Yeah, it's. It's troubling. Um Technically.
The animation, though, is very well done. It's like hand
drawn and stuff. It's it's an iconic scene. Even if
you feel like you have not seen it, you have
seen some version of it. It occurs, of course and
(22:34):
who framed Roger Rabbit? It occurs in countless cartoons after.
It's also in and I thought of this too. It's
also in The Mask starring Jim Carrey. I love the
comic books. I don't know if I'm gonna watch it
again though, I'm not sure how it aged. I'll watch,
you know what, I'll watch one clip on YouTube. Ben
somebody needs to stop you again. No, that's just that
(22:57):
was his like catchphrase. They stopped me from watching The
Mask again. I remember seeing in theater the first time
you ever saw Cameron Diaz and she was also like,
that's the thing. The thing about the little Red Riding
Hood character in Red Hot Riding Hood is she is
she is a sex object. That is how she is
depicted and nothing else. She is meant to be like
busty and sexy, and it's kind of scantily clad and
(23:20):
the wolf just loses his mind. And that's what happens
in the Mask as well with with the Cameron Diaz character.
She's wearing this crazy like low cut, you know, kind
of Vegas show girl type skirt and he just, you know,
his heart starts beating out of his chest and all
of that stuff is from the tech savory tropes, but yeah,
it's it's super troubling and definitely doesn't age well. Um
(23:42):
and likely was just as responsible for Humphrey Bogart in
popularizing this as a kind of lothario esque kind of move.
But the thing is that the Humphrey Bogart seem It's
really interesting about that is the Lauren McCall character is
super empowered, Like she's it's in his lap on her
own and she kisses him without permission and then does
(24:06):
it a second time. Uh and and she has complete
control in that situation. So it's very very different and
when he whistles after she has kind of baited him
into doing it. So again, very different. There's a lot
more consent between these two characters than there would be
a traditional you know, cat call or even this cartoon depiction. Right, yeah, agreed,
(24:34):
Just to give you a sense of how sexualized this
tex Savery cartoon is. Again, that's the Red Hot Riding Hood. Uh.
It ran into trouble with sensors in the beginning. And
now uh the author you mentioned earlier, No, now, now
people believe it was only able to be shown on
(24:55):
screen because the US military wanted cartoons like it. They're
a fascinating theory here. Luke says, if you increase the
libido or you know, the thirstiness of soldiers by watching cartoons,
they'll get frustrated. If they get frustrated, they become more aggressive.
And if they become more aggressive, that's the logic here,
(25:17):
they become better soldiers. And you know, this is apparently
the gist of what Army commissioners said when they were
you know, describing what they wanted wartime cartoons to do.
And the last note on Red Hot Riding Hood. It
was seen by so many US soldiers and by so
many kids in the US that if they weren't already,
(25:40):
you know, thinking of wolf whistles as cool, they were now.
And that's why the first mention of wolf whistling comes
in a newspaper. But if we are being fair, we
have to tell you about something that I don't know about.
You guys, It blew my mind. I had never heard
of this. There is apparently an equivalent to a wolf whistle,
(26:00):
but from the other side of the sexual divide. Yeah,
it's called the slurp. And it was reported on in
February n the Fresno b Um, where it's has that
a group of Fulton Streets scientists report that at last
they have identified and isolated the female version of the
wolf whistle that often heard call used by men of
(26:21):
the armed forces when their trail crosses that of the
opposite sex. For certain reasons, this group of scientists do
not want their names published. I wonder why. Uh it
seems unnecessary to add that their research is undertaken for
no particular reason. This sounds like an onion article to me. Uh,
there anyone can think of? They call this female and
with the wolf whistle to slurp. The slurp is defined
(26:41):
as a soft female noise made with the teeth, tongue,
and lips, which sounds exactly as it is spelled uh
and which sometimes but not always, means roger, as in
like yeah, I oh like whistle like whistle heard and
copy that broke? Like that? Is it like a click click?
(27:03):
I casey, you know behind the curtain here. I cannot
find any like documentation of this. You're the you're the
person who uh off like, uh, I think both well,
I misspoke, I thought it was I had something completely
different in mind. Okay, Okay, so I don't know. I
cannot corroborate any of that. Okay, because because when we
(27:26):
were talking about this earlier, oh yeah the slur yeah
in case he got no excite, you were like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're talking about especially like cartoon sounds. I can think
of a few, I don't know, almost like the Hannibal
Lecter thing or whatever. But um yeah, yeah exactly, that's
kind of what it popped in my head. I did
not Whatever this thing is is something else. Can you
(27:47):
imagine cat call it? Like? Can you imagine if one
of these guys had put out a wolf whistle and uh,
the person's whistling at hit him back with that hannibal
lecter fava beans and can't you know I wonder how
that would go? Oh man, Yeah, it's it's crazy. Though.
There is a screenshot of this page the Fresno b article.
(28:08):
Uh makes you pay money to look at it in
full screen. But I can see that this article that's
being referenced here and in our materials is uh is
a thing. Maybe it's some kind of satire. I don't know.
I certainly had never heard of the slurp, so perhaps
let's not report this. Is that the actual facts the thing,
(28:29):
because now that we're googling it, Uh, it doesn't seem
to be much to back this up. But I like
the idea of the existence of a of a female
equivalent to the wolf whistle. Yeah, fight the power. We
do also have records of wolf whistling being so popular
they were whistling contests. Uh. It was even used once
as sort of a talent portion of a beauty pageant
(28:52):
type thing, when seventeen year old Janice Norse on September one,
the title Miss Sheboygan uh due impart to her incredibly
piercing wolf whistle. Fascinating I'm a big fan of precision whistling.
You know, this wolf whistle thing is a little bit
(29:12):
more of like a blunt instrument. But you know, if
you think about like snow White, her ability to whistle like,
you know, in this really melodic, kind of polyphonic, almost
kind of way. Um, there is an Atlanta artist or
formerly of Atlanta. She lives in Los Angeles now, but
her name's u adron uh And and she has this
ability to do these like just super precise whistled um
(29:37):
sections and a lot of her music. I highly recommend
checking your out if you want to hear some really cool,
non offensive whistling. How about Andrew bird Man. We gotta
give it up for him too. I love whistling and music. Oh, agreed, agreed. Yeah,
it's a lot of fun. So you may be asking
yourself whither the wolf whistle? Where did it go? Because
you don't hear it as much now, I would imagine
(30:00):
you see you still see it pop up in fiction,
But it seems like according to a couple of the
people we mentioned earlier, um, it started dying out in
the nineties seventies because partially the rise of feminism, prosecuting
for women's rights. Hey, I shouldn't be her asked just
because I'm walking to the store. Uh. And then people
(30:22):
started seeing it as uncool, as a more demeaning thing
to do to other people. And now one of the
big debates is how will it be depicted in the future.
I mean, what do you think I remember this whistle
occurring and things like the mask and and things like, um,
you know, cartoons, but not any recent ones. Yeah, I
(30:44):
mean it was definitely using like you know, I think probably. Uh.
The way it's used now is to seem dated or
two in some way kind of create like an atmosphere,
even though it was used in movies. Originally there was
I can't remember which writer in our research material said this,
but the idea was to um very quickly convey some
(31:05):
things about a character, either uh kind of trashy sort
of like you know, lithario ness or flirtation or sometimes both,
you know, And it was it was a very quick
way of expressing that, as it was done in the
movie Grease. There's um the uses of wolf whistles in
Grease to kind of help create that vibe of like
(31:25):
the fifties. But again that's a movie that was made
in the late seventies that was a period piece about
the fifties, and then some musical obviously, so that makes
sense to use it in that way. Or in Legally Blonde,
for example, it's used for kind of like a gag
in which Reese Witherspoon's character talks about how she's comfortable
using legal jargon in everyday life. Then a man wolf
(31:46):
whistles and she says, I object. Uh. So, you know,
it's definitely something that has been absolutely canceled because of
the me Too movement and just a lot more forward
momentum in you know, not tolerating with any of the
kind of sexism or uh implied, you know, dominance of
men over women that we were talking about on the
(32:08):
top of the show. That's just not a thing that
people are okay with anymore. I mean, at least the
people that that I know. Uh. And and it's becoming
less and less possible to carry on this kind of
behavior and not just be completely shut down with how
quickly things can spread on the internet. And that is why,
that is why super producer Casey Pegram did not want
(32:31):
to give you the albatross of the nickname wolf Whistle.
It felt like a condemnation uh and an undeserved when
and hey, you know, maybe that's the reason the three
of us don't know how to do it, because we
were because of the time we were raised in um,
which which I think is fine. I'm sure there are
plenty of other amazing whistles you can learn uh and
(32:52):
watch and here in music and story and song. Uh,
but this was this was pretty eye opening to me.
I'm glad we did this one man too. Yeah. It's
definitely not something I really think about because it does
feel like such a dated thing, but it really is.
You know, there are people still in the me too
kind of discussions or just in general about like, you know,
(33:14):
not treating women like trash. Uh. The idea of cat
calling is still very much a thing, and that's just
sort of an escalation of the wolf whistle, just using
words just what like unsolicited comments about women's bodies or
just about you know, their existence, uh, in terms of
how it would benefit men. So yeah, wolf whistling still exists,
(33:36):
at least in terms of the escalation or just like
a more rhetorical version of it, where people are shouting
out at women from across the street. That's the idea
is just allowed unsolicited uh advance, let's say, but back
in the fifties and stuff, it was considered good, clean fun,
and it'll be like, hey, come on, you don't have
a sense of humor, like just doesn't mean anything. And
(33:59):
we want to hear your experience, your opinion on this.
If you are a person with a talent for uh
for for whistling. I was trying to think of a
cooler way to say you are. If you are a
whistler yourself, we'd love to hear some of your input
on whistles, the history of whistles. Uh. At this point,
I'm just saying the word whistle because it's as fun
(34:20):
as saying she Boygan. Anyhow, thank you as always to
give Louisia who refuses to tell us how to pronounce
his last name, And of course thank you to super
producer Casey Pegram thanks to Alex Williams. A composed our theme.
Christopher Haciota is also here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland, that
notorious and DVS quister. I hope to have you back soon, buddy,
(34:42):
or you know, maybe die in a fire. No, don't
do that. We love you. We want to have you back,
and you will be back soon, because it's really not
up to us. Um, you just kind of pop up
whenever you pop up. I'm surprised you haven't popped up
now because I'm talking about you so long. But I'm
gonna stop. Oh yeah, we gotta sew it up before
he gets here. Oh man, okay, I'll so. You can
find us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter.
(35:02):
You can find us on Instagram. We love to recommend
our Facebook group. It is ridiculous historians. Check it out.
You'll see some top tier means and some great discussion.
You can also follow us as individuals on the internet.
I am at Ben Bulling on Instagram and at Ben
Bowling HSW on Twitter. And you can find me exclusively
on Instagram at how now and all brown. We'll see
(35:25):
you next time. Books. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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