I knew it I knew it I knew it
08/12/2010
The main reason I haven't been interested in watching Mad Men is that I was pretty certain it would be impossible for the entertainment industry to produce a tv show set in the late '50s-early '60s without including a lot of self-congratulatory stuff about how much more enlightened we are than those pigs. I find it hard to endure that stuff, for all sorts of reasons, but most of all because, as a portrait of a time and a culture, it's substantially false. So no matter how good the show may be in other ways—and many people say it’s quite good—I figured I would end up gritting my teeth through a lot of it.
Here's confirmation, from the very intelligent and judicious Benjamin Schwarz of The Atlantic:
This striving for verisimilitude serves another purpose: Weiner seems to hope that getting the vintage mitten clasps and IBM Selectrics right will help viewers believe that outrageously un-PC attitudes and behavior were as common as the series shows them to be. Mad Men is hailed for what The Times calls its “unflinching portrayal of Eisenhower/Kennedy–era sexism, racism, anti-Semitism,” and this unrelenting focus on the unenlightened aspects of the past is clearly central for Weiner and his writers. Most of the supplemental historical material in the DVD sets focuses on racial and gender issues and progressive politics, including a lengthy paean to the SDS’s gaseous Port Huron Statement. The takeaway is clear, as The Times approvingly quotes an academic who indulges in a rather Whiggish interpretation of history: “The show explains why the ’60s had to happen.”
But even if the portrayal were as “dead-on” as The Times assures us it is, that portrayal is hardly neutral. In describing a scene in which sexist badinage is exchanged at an account meeting, McLean correctly points out that “the series is critical of this limited view and is not afraid to spell [its criticism] out.” That stance—which amounts to a defiant indictment of sexism and racism, sins about which a rough moral consensus would now seem to have formed—militates against viewers’ inhabiting the alien world the show has so carefully constructed, because it’s constantly pressing them to condemn that world.
And that stance is responsible for the rare (and therefore especially grating) heavy-handed and patronizing touches in an otherwise nuanced drama. Must the only regular black characters be a noble and cool elevator operator, a noble and understanding housekeeper, and a perceptive and politicized supermarket clerk? Must said elevator operator, who goes unnoticed by the less sensitive characters, sagely say when discussing Marilyn Monroe’s death, “Some people just hide in plain sight”? Get it—he’s talking about himself. He’s invisible. Even worse, that stance evokes and encourages the condescension of posterity; just as insecure college students feel they must join the knowing hisses of the callow campus audience when a character in an old movie makes an un-PC comment, so Mad Men directs its audience to indulge in a most unlovely—because wholly unearned—smugness. As artistically mistaken as this stance is, it nonetheless helps account for the show’s success. We all like to congratulate ourselves, and as a group, Mad Men’s audience is probably particularly prone to the temptation.
A most unlovely—because wholly unearned—smugness. I knew it. And Schwartz is a fan of the show. You can read the whole piece here.
This desperate need to spit on the recent past of our culture is pathological, more properly the study of psychologists than critics—which doesn’t mean we need to fall into the equal-and-opposite reaction of idealizing it, of course.
I've only seen a couple of episodes, but I thought it was some of the best quality television I've ever seen. Sets, costumes, lighting, dialogue - all superb. Then again, I'd just be tone deaf to the PC aspects alluded to.
“go home, put your curlers in …” It’s the kind of casually sexist remark that makes today’s viewers squirm
Not me it wouldn't.
Posted by: Paul | 08/12/2010 at 04:21 PM
So you're saying you're beyond redemption, huh? :-)
Yes, everyone seems to agree that it's very well done.
Posted by: Mac | 08/12/2010 at 04:36 PM
Being way behind the times as usual, I finally just watched Season 1, episode 1. I found the whole thing upsetting and disturbing, as I suppose it's meant to be -- I mean, the first episode is a such a maelstrom of sh*t about to hit the fan episodes that it's fairly unbelievable. But the extreme sexism and anti-Semitism also seemed unbelievable to me, and even the casual racism was overdone. It may be 1960, but it is New York after all; and I don't mean to sound parochial, and I wasn't there to witness it, but I find it hard to believe that attitudes were so demeaning and dehumanizing across the board in that time and place.
Posted by: Pentimento | 08/12/2010 at 06:36 PM
I never even heard of this show before I read this blog entry.
Well, this is kind of funny. I just went to Netflix to see if you could download the show online (you can't) but in reading the description, I recognized the name Don Draper. I heard Terry Gross interview the guy that plays that role on the way home from work a couple of weeks ago, so I guess I do know something about it.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet Cupo | 08/12/2010 at 06:51 PM
Some things were worse then, some better. I'm old enough to remember those times, and the adult women I remember were certainly not crushed flowers. Yes, they had distinct and somewhat subordinate roles. But in some ways they were respected more, too. There was not the deep suspicion and contempt from each gender toward the other that seems to have been growing steadily for some time now.
And as we all know, sadly, the black family was actually in better shape then, in terms of intact marriages etc., in spite of segregation.
But that stuff is not really the point that gets me. It's the nauseating self-congratulation, as if genuine human life didn't really exist until about 1965, and the only real point of history was to produce the enlightened beings who came into existence then.
Posted by: Mac | 08/12/2010 at 08:40 PM
I find it hard to endure that stuff, for all sorts of reasons, but most of all because, as a portrait of a time and a culture, it's substantially false.
Right on, Maclin. My Mum and her siblings grew up in the fifties and they all say they thought it was a wonderful era. And this is in spite of all of them having swallowed much of the Sex Revolution's garbage. But for them, the fifties were simply about family and friends and a time when you could leave your back door unlocked with nothing untoward happening.
The testimony of these three people, even given their current views on many topics, makes me highly doubtful that the fifties were as bad as everyone else seems to claim.
Posted by: Louise | 08/13/2010 at 12:43 AM
There was not the deep suspicion and contempt from each gender toward the other that seems to have been growing steadily for some time now.
Yep. That's entirely believable.
But that stuff is not really the point that gets me. It's the nauseating self-congratulation, as if genuine human life didn't really exist until about 1965, and the only real point of history was to produce the enlightened beings who came into existence then.
Yes, I feel cranky just thinking about it.
I wonder if perhaps the best thing is just to laugh with derision at such people. I mean - the arrogance really is laughable.
Posted by: Louise | 08/13/2010 at 12:46 AM
The very first episode(s) must lay it on a bit thick to set the tone. The couple of episodes I've seen (all from the third season, I think) haven't been anything like as objectionable as Anne-Marie indicates the first episode of season 1 to be.
Posted by: Paul | 08/13/2010 at 06:04 AM
Sorry - Pentimento. (Why did I write "Anne-Marie"?)
Posted by: Paul | 08/13/2010 at 08:49 AM
"...I feel cranky just thinking about it..."
I recognized that sensation. Best to avoid the occasion of crankiness, in general, I find.
Paul, the critics all seem to agree that it's really good drama. But I think I'll continue to avoid it, for the reason above. I'm not quite sure why I find the syndrome so extremely annoying. Perhaps partly because I had a bad case of it myself at the age of 20 or so.
Posted by: Mac | 08/13/2010 at 01:35 PM
Today a young student from California asked me what I would most miss about Aberdeen, and I said immediately, being able to walk around town and stroll to the Chinese supermarket or the Indian foodstore or the Cheese shop version of Chelsea. He replied, 'Back when they build many of the towns around here, they didn't have cars. Before the car, I suppose towns and cities had a town centre.' I don't reproduce his words very well, but what implicitly came across was that, in his experience, towns and cities built for cars are the norm, and towns built for walkers and people who just live there, the aberration. Because, I'd have phrased it in the exact opposition way, eg, 'after the car...' That's just a function of being 30 years older, of course. Even the American cities of my childhood recollection had living city centres.
I imagine that if one had a very strong imaginative impression of the technological changeover between olde worlde life (which could be anything - to this guy, it's life down to around 1975!) and new, contemporary life, that would undermine a sense that the people back then, the carless wretches, were folks just like us, and this in turn could sustain a sense of moral superiority.
I have not watched Mad Men. From what I have heard about it, it does not have enough violence, death, killing, sex, or at least bad language to be interesting. My favourite soaps have been Band of Brothers, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos and The Wire.
Posted by: Francesca | 08/13/2010 at 02:39 PM
What, you don't think sexist and racist remarks are a form of violence?!? :-)
Posted by: Mac | 08/13/2010 at 02:47 PM
not strong enough
Posted by: Francesca | 08/13/2010 at 02:54 PM
That town center, or lack thereof, is the rule in American towns that have been born or grown up post-WWII (roughly). I used to live in Huntsville, Alabama, which grew from early 19th c roots to a population of 15-20,000 in 1945 or so. Then the government started doing missile development there, and it exploded, to at least 150,000 by 1970 or so. It has a pleasant 19th c town center that's really not much more than a few blocks. Everything else is suburbia, and extremely pedestrian-unfriendly. The downtowns of cities like that mostly died commercially in the '60s, as people moved out, though have partly come back in a gentrified boutique-y sort of way.
Posted by: Mac | 08/13/2010 at 03:11 PM
I watch almost no TV (the last series I followed faithfully was The X-Files), and Mad Men doesn't sound like something I'd like anyways, but, man, I am totally hooked on Breaking Bad.
Posted by: Rob G | 08/13/2010 at 10:38 PM
I'm pretty sure Breaking Bad is in my future (via dvd). Several people have ranked it with The Wire.
Posted by: Mac | 08/13/2010 at 11:14 PM
I'm planning to watch Breaking Bad via DVD
Posted by: Francesca | 08/14/2010 at 07:38 AM
I looked on amazon and discovered I'd been planning to watch it for so long it had come out on DVD already! I read a review of it on Image journal - I don't know when, it feels like six months ago, but it must have been over a year! I bought it.
Posted by: Francesca | 08/14/2010 at 07:57 AM
I thought the comparison to The Wire would be enough to get you interested, even if you didn't know anything else about it.
It's probably going to be a while before I start it, though. My wife is in school now and it pretty much consumes all her non-work time. Since she liked The Wire as much as I did, it would Not Be Very Nice for me to watch it without her.
Posted by: Mac | 08/14/2010 at 09:49 AM
This is a nice catch, Mac. I saw a little of the 1st season & thought it heavy-handed from the outset, in spite of the extra crispy period-piece quality and so on. Occasionally I'll see an ad for the current season and think to myself that on that evidence at least, it seems they can only be driving the thing into the ground. But I hadn't come across any trace of confirming critical comment like the item you point out here. (Not that I was actively looking for it.)
Have you taken any interest in new, vaguely American-religion-themed series Justified, set in Harlan, KY? (Ran through winter & spring. Can't recall the network. TNT, maybe?) It's certainly got its heavy-handedness issues too, but it manages to surprise here & there. And people get shot in it from time to time — if you like that sort of thing. (I do.)
Posted by: paul bowman | 08/16/2010 at 06:46 AM
I hadn't even heard of Justified. Sounds interesting. Speaking of tv, several years ago I watched a couple of episodes of Friday Night Lights and was somewhat impressed with it. I didn't continue because I didn't want to commit myself to spending that much time on a tv show, but if it's out on dvd, which it probably is, I may give it another shot.
I don't know why the life-was-so-awful-before-1965 theme irritates me so much, but it really irritates me a lot.
Posted by: Mac | 08/16/2010 at 09:33 AM
Justified is on FX, I learn. (I was getting it via Hulu, incidentally, not on TV.) I learn that it's derived from a story, 'Fire in the hole,' by Elmore Leonard. No idea how closely it adheres.
Don't have any knowledge of Friday Night Lights, in turn, though I'm thinking I must have heard the title somewhere. Thanks — I'm going look into it.
Posted by: paul bowman | 08/16/2010 at 10:30 AM
Well, it's irritating because it wasn't.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 08/16/2010 at 10:39 AM
Friday Night Lights is about high school football in a small town in Texas. What I saw of it seemed both sympathetic and realistic, which would be unusual for tv on that sort of subject.
The Elmore Leonard connection is intriguing. He's a real master in the realm of crime/suspense/action writing.
Posted by: Mac | 08/16/2010 at 10:40 AM
I always think that Paul Bowman is the other Paul because his name on the message board where we met was Paul Crossbowman. (Crossbowman is the translation of his last name.) So, it always takes me a couple of posts by the other Paul to realize I'm wrong.
Also, there's someone who comments on Sally's blog called Pauler, which is a contraction of his first and last name, so that fooled me for a while, too.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 08/16/2010 at 10:42 AM
Very true, but there's more to my irritation than that. There's also the self-righteousness and self-congratulation. And the sheer stupidity...or maybe blindness is a better word.
Posted by: Mac | 08/16/2010 at 10:43 AM
Yes, and I think it's a deliberate blindness, too.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 08/16/2010 at 11:14 AM
I have heard much praise for Mad Men's style, but I'd never really heard anything about its substance. I hadn't considered watching it, mostly because I don't have any time to watch television shows these days -- but even if I did have time, I think I'd just watch The Wire again. That show has really spoiled other shows for me.
A few months ago I watched about 5 or 6 episodes of Friday Night Lights. It is remarkable for its unselfconscious integration of evangelical Christianity into the lives of the characters, and the character of the football coach is interesting, but the show itself is not of the greatest quality. It started well, but degenerated into a teen romance: a parade of unlikely pairings and melodramatic break-ups. I lost interest. I will say, however, that if you're a fan of hot cheerleaders the show is hard to beat.
Posted by: Craig | 08/16/2010 at 11:21 AM
Well, the last thing I need is more images of "hot" young women populating my consciousness, so maybe I'll leave FNL alone. I do remember, re your description of devolution into standard melodrama, thinking that it could go that way.
Ok, maybe not the *last* thing I need. It would be better than, say, images of torture. But still, not needed.
Posted by: Mac | 08/16/2010 at 11:47 AM
Janet, this Paul doesn't stop in here as often as he'd like. His comments are infrequent — so should be no surprise if they catch you off guard in the comment queue. : )
(& you can disconnect his last name from any image of weapon with a convenient mental note, that when his peasant anabaptist-leaning ancestor came over from Europe two & a half centuries or so ago, it was something more like Baumann — almost calculated not to threaten, or so much as raise an eyebrow, really.)
Posted by: paul bowman | 08/16/2010 at 06:48 PM
Well, I do remember you. I think if you commented more often, I wouldn't get the two of you confused.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet Cupo | 08/16/2010 at 06:50 PM
Here's a few lines by Jonah Goldberg about Breaking Bad
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/233359/re-mad-men-jonah-goldberg
I watches series I of BB last week. I found it so addictive that today, one day after finishing it, I phoned a local store to see if they had it in stock, so I wouldn't have to wait three days for it to come from amazon (they didn't).
Posted by: Francesca | 08/23/2010 at 03:03 PM
I think it was that little note from J Goldberg that made me decide I was definitely going to try Breaking Bad. Alas, I have to wait awhile.
Posted by: Mac | 08/23/2010 at 03:38 PM