David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. The weekly insistence that you watch “Mad Men”
Last week, “Mad Men” graced us with the immortal line “I don’t speak ‘moron’” (delivered while watching a focus group of women trying different cosmetics). This week, Roger (John Slattery) – who’s banging Joan (Christina Hendricks), the ad firm’s world-weary secretary – gets to deliver not one but two misogynistic bon mots:
* In a bar where the women don’t seem to be all that interested in him, he opines, “It’s like they hit 30 and somebody puts out a light.”
* When Don (Jon Hamm) invites Roger to dinner at his home, Roger hits on his wife (January Jones). Later, he apologizes: “At some point, we’ve all parked in the wrong garage.”
Are you starting to get the feeling things will not end well for Roger, no matter how much milk he mixes into his vodka?
Anyway, the inevitable backlash against the wildly acclaimed “Mad Men” has begun, since falling into lockstep and liking a show everyone else likes doesn’t draw much attention to one’s critical acumen: In the past week, I’ve come across two separate disses of the show, both essentially grousing that the production design is too rich and the rest of the show is too shallow.
Both, it turns out, were written by women, whose niggling ulterior motives seem to be to decry the attitudes of the show’s male characters. These women actually dare to challenge the preconceptions of fictitious men. Dames these days!
It’s one thing, of course, to take issue with the show’s pervasive sexism. It’s another to translate that into saying that the show trucks in some sort of overall crappy gestalt that renders its aesthetic anemic.
“Mad Men” doesn’t, under any circumstances, celebrate its characters’ sensibilities; it’s, in fact, careful to provide foreshadowing of what happened post-1960 (when the show is set) that underscores how backward their thinking is. At the same time, it allows viewers to wallow in transgressive behavior, just as “The Sopranos” did, and just as many other breakthrough mainstream entertainments did.
If viewers find themselves empathizing with the “Mad Men,” they likewise are challenged as to why they’re doing so – just as those who grew to love Tony Soprano had to confront his more violent impulses – which makes these all-style-no-substance arguments feel, ultimately, as empty as the lives the “Mad Men” aren’t aware they’re living.
- “Mad Men:” 10 tonight; AMC.
Oh, and if you've missed any or all episodes, AMC is thoughtfully running a marathon of the first seven Sunday beginning at 10 a.m. TiVo away.
Comments
I love, love, triple-love "Mad Men"! Those two women who wrote those bad reviews can only be frigid young bitches who obviously aren't getting any and who have no memory of or experience with that era. YES, the sets are perfectly done. So what? Are they supposed to feature anachronisms of a more modern era? They'd certainly bitch about that, were it to happen.
While I am still a tender young woman (ahem), I do have a few memories of that era, and nothing seems all that out of place to me, at least in the homes. Who didn't play with dry-cleaning bags? Of course, I wasn't one of the secretaries who were up for grabs, but I can tell you that it wasn't all that different for me in the '80s, truth be told.
Yes, this show is rife with sexism and racism and ageism and all of the "-isms" but that's what makes it such a fun romp into the past. That, and the great writing.
Kudos to Matthew Weiner and all who work on the show!
Posted by: Just Another Dame | August 30, 2007 3:01 PM
Dave:
Episode 8 was another outstanding episode. The most powerful piece being the final minute where he tells his son he'll never lie to him and then cuts to the shot of his office door with "Donald Draper" on it.
Please keep pushing folks to watch this show!
Posted by: Tim Eby | September 7, 2007 7:45 AM