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And They All Lived Depressingly Ever After
How did we go from this...A Cool Million is like a childhood fairytale, gone horribly, horribly wrong. We are first introduced to Lem Pitkin, “our hero,” the brave knight in shining armor, reminiscent of Lancelot, embarking on the quintessential American journey, to go into the world and make his fortune. His goals are noble, to save his mother from hardship, to make an honest living, to rescue the damsel in distress...he is a simple boy with a simple goal, encouraged by a man who used to be president.However, things do not go as planned, to say the least. Our hero ends up losing an eye, having a leg amputated after a bear trap attack, having his thumb cut off, getting scalped by wild Indians, paid to be beaten and laughed at by audiences and, in the end, being assassinated. Yet, throughout he maintains a sense of gullible optimism that only gets him into more trouble. Our damsel, Betty Prail's story is somewhat like a depression version of Cinderella. An orphan girl on a farm, she is taken in by a family with two ugly sisters and a step mother who make her cook and clean. But poor Betty does not get to go to the ball. Instead, she is repeatedly raped, beaten, and sold into prostitution (why the obsession during this period with innocent girls constantly getting raped?). This is not a fairytale with a happy ending. So, what is the point of all this? 
to this?Our hero, in life, is made a fool, manipulated by everyone he meets, and completely incapable of achieving an American Dream that certainly does not seem to exist. Even after his death, he is made into a figurehead for a racist, anti-Communist party, spearheaded by the corrupt, poor, hypocritical ex-president himself, Whipple, who is to blame for inspiring the disastrous quest from the beginning. The party's noble goals include getting rid of all the inferior races, yet they are too stupid to figure out how to do so in an organized fashion.
We are introduced throughout the story to money grubbing Jews, shady “Chinamen,” and savage Indians, all of whom are only slightly more evil than everyone else. The only message that I could extract from this book, which is clearly a political satire, justified by its unabashed ridiculousness, is that America is corrupt, Americans are incompetent and manipulative, and Capitalism is a complete and total failure. Americans are racist, rude, easily persuaded by the mob, and a man whom they themselves elected president is the worst of them all. All of our ideas of self determination and social mobility are delusional and based on ignorance. So what is the moral of this fairytale? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. But I do know that this is not a good one to read to your children.
X-Rated Cinderella
If Tim Burton was still good at making movies and he decided to make Cinderella, it may very well turn out like Tom Kromer's waiting for nothing in the case of Betty. She has a very rags-to-riches type of story in that her financial fortunes are exchanged with sexual ones. We don't know if Betty enjoyed the forced sex that she had in her evolution to become a street lady, but like any American dreamer, she had to work hard for the money, and eventually she probably become good at it. Thinking of a capitalist dream in terms of sex is an interesting one. The moral of this fairy tale, I think, is West finally agreeing with Horatio's American dream. He says yes, look, hard work and patience can pay off! Betty gets to live in a swank apartment and eat well. She's pretty much living the American dream. The fact that she lives the dream by means of forced sex is just another fantastic satirical jab given by West. I love these photos in your post!
Fairy Tales
First of all I just want to say I love your use of pictures in this post.
But really, your post made me think again about the character of Betty. She seems secondary throughout the book because Lem is so obviously set up as the hero. She is just a damsel in distress he is meant to save. When I think about fairy tales, though, even if they are totally sexist and even masochist at times, they are always at least about women. The female character, be it Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, etc. is basically the protagonist and the one we're rooting for. Obviously this is not the case with the story of Lem. But what about Betty's story? She goes through some pretty terrible stuff, as you point out, and in the end...she's Whipple's secretary? Are we supposed to cheer for this ending for her? Are we supposed to think, Lucky Betty she finally made something of herself? Because I don't.