Forum Overview :: Peter Molyneux's The Movies
 
Re: Tried watching this by Vested Id 08/25/2011, 7:35pm PDT
fabio wrote:

Now that it's on netflix instant.

Anachronisms: The Series would be a better title. It seems like the entire thing is an endless overt parade of 60s anachronisms to overwhelm and distract you from the fact that the show isn't very interesting or well written. Once you strip away the smoking, the smoking doctors, the smoking misconceptions, the quaint degradation of women, the shunning of negros, and the "hi tech" rotary phone/electric typewriter/switchboard, it's a show about a guy worried over his job and having an affair. So what?

I'm not a regular viewer but the 50s/60s archaisms are so much the point that I don't see how they "overwhelm and distract" from plot points which aren't very original or interesting to begin with, though I'm only really aware of the subplot of Don's background.

Pleasantville argued that the essence of the 50s was as portrayed in shows like The Donna Reed Show and Father Knows Best, and that while this world may be perfect it's ultimately barren because of what gets left out - namely sex and normal human emotions, which it makes almost equivalent. Even though today we have to deal with things like AIDS and global warming we're richer people because we're complete human beings. Mad Men literally reverses that formula by portraying the 50s/60s realistically (disputable but certainly when compared with Pleasantville), and the bargain it's presenting is that when you look at that world as it actually was, with the flaws mixed in with the good things the postwar era was superior to the world we live in in almost every way. Whether that's true is another issue but it's the show's whole cultural import. Not everything is about narrative fabs.
I'm guessing the initial rave buzz was from hipsters ecstatic to see their retro dress style validated, and the television without pity crowd who can't stop creaming themselves over Don Draper, despite him doing nothing but be insecure and mope.

Hipsters ruin nothing, geeks ruin Mad Men by reducing it's appeal into pat notions they're comfortable with, like how hats are sorely missed and how women should be feminine. Also I think you're ignoring the obvious point, remarked on by everyone, that Don Draper is obsessed over because he's a lost type.
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I'm watching Mad Men now by Fussbett 07/19/2009, 10:58am PDT NEW
    Tried watching this by fabio 08/12/2011, 3:31pm PDT NEW
        It reminds me of Sex and The City. =| by Fullofkittens 08/22/2011, 4:33pm PDT NEW
            Re: It reminds me of Sex and The City. =| by fabio 08/23/2011, 6:20am PDT NEW
        Re: Tried watching this by Fussbett 08/23/2011, 2:28pm PDT NEW
            fixed by fabio 08/24/2011, 6:34am PDT NEW
        Re: Tried watching this by Vested Id 08/25/2011, 7:35pm PDT NEW
            Re: Tried watching this by fabio 08/25/2011, 8:34pm PDT NEW
            Hey look, it's a whole thread of no one understanding a show they don't watch by Fussbett 08/25/2011, 11:19pm PDT NEW
                So it ends up being The Help for hipsters by Fullofkittens 08/26/2011, 5:15am PDT NEW
                It's so weird that defending a boring show is what brought you back NT by fabio 08/26/2011, 7:01am PDT NEW
                    I just posted Fat Sinead O'Connor and the Itagaki/Hard Gay video two weeks ago! by Fussbett 08/26/2011, 8:06am PDT NEW
                        I say we were courteous not to post in the real Mad Men thread NT by Fullofkittens 08/26/2011, 8:26am PDT NEW
 
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