So, I’m a little late in the game to come to Mad Men, but it’s here and it’s happening. People talked about it, thought it was wonderful. I watched about five minutes of an episode ages ago and wasn’t hooked, so I was doubtful. They even shot in my old building, but I didn’t care.
Finally, we started watching our way through Season 1 and I got it. It’s good. Quite good. Good enough that I’m the one pestering my husband to watch new episodes every night. But it’s also absolutely 100% infuriating. My aunt, who would have been a teen in 1960, absolutely adores the show because she says it is such an accurate record of what life was like back then. And that is exactly what makes me lose my entire mind.
I know everyone watches it and loves it and thinks: Oh! The ’60s! Drinking and smoking and adultery! Yay! And don’t get me wrong – that for sure is both fun and hard for me to get my mind around. But it’s the disrespectful boys’ club sexism rampant in every aspect of that show makes me pitch fits. So many fits that I routinely need to pause the disk so I can yell about it.
I know that’s the point, obviously. But good God. When the kid gets slapped – by someone other than his own dad – because he spills a drink and then his dad shows up and says, ‘Go get your mother in here to clean this up?!’ When they refer to women coming up with ideas as talking dogs? I am getting furious just typing.
The thing is, I’m not an uptight feminist-y female. I listen to Howard Stern – daily – for God’s sake. And defend him. But I guess my aunt’s proclamations about how real the show is just keep echoing in my head. And that being the case, all I can say is: Thank God for the Cultural Revolution. To everyone who burned their bras, I salute you, ladies. And I thank you.
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Comments
Maggie
September 8th, 2009 - 1:49:10 PM
Right, as you have duly noted, that is the point. Things were much, much worse only a generation ago. And while it is quite frustrating to see how bad it was, it is also encouraging to see how far we've come (although, of course, we have much further to go). As always, it is good to have a healthy understanding of history, so as to learn from it and to not repeat the same mistakes. And as bad as the characters in Mad Men may be (and yes, it is pretty bad), things were much worse even before that. Fortunately though, progress has been moving forward. An interesting fact of Mad Men, though, is that the majority of the show's writers are female. Which is great in of itself, but even more so, I think, because it provides the show with a female perspective of the era. We get to see how women of the early sixties really felt. And, for me at least, that is really refreshing (as well as sad and tragic). So yeah, much thanks to the many, many progressive women activists of the past. And many more to those of the present and future.
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Shiro
September 8th, 2009 - 10:13:37 PM
If you hate this show, you should totally stay away from ROOTS. They showed how badly slaves were treated and you'd probably have to have your husband clean up the mess after your head explodes. Why get infuriated over this? You know it is the point of the show. It demonstrates attitudes back then accurately. Alcoholism is OK in the workplace? Abhorrent! Smoking is OK and encouraged everywhere? Inane! Whites and blacks dating? Shocking! While it sucks that women are treated poorly in the show, it also does a good job of demonstrating how they started to turn things around then as well. Peggy is quite the unlikely hero. And being able to see the transition period is actually quite inspiring. But what would I know? I'm just a guy. ^___^
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