Sunday, February 08, 2015
Mad World
I realize I'm more than a little late to the party on this one, but I've been watching Mad Men with my mother lately. Yes, while everyone else in 2007 was busy buying skinny ties at Banana Republic and taking Facebook quizzes to find out whether they're a Joan, I was working compulsively and missed out. Chances are I was reading other people's emails by the thousands and checking little boxes to indicate they were not relevant. Or maybe I was just drunk, who knows. But the point is, I'm only now finding out what everyone else knew long ago: Don Draper is a brilliant but troubled man.
Honestly it seemed kind of slow to me in the beginning and I wasn't super into it. There was too much adultery and a lot of the sixties stuff seemed a little fussy and self conscious to me. But as I got deeper into it, and especially in season three, I started to really like it. It's consistently surprising without being aggressively shocking, and the characters are all so complex and interesting. Even the characters I really like -- Peggy, natch -- have weird flaws and do things that make it harder to like them. I also like the fact that so much happens off screen; it's fun to piece together what happened in between episodes or seasons rather than have it spoon fed. Although I do also enjoy a good spoon feeding.
I also definitely recommend it for parental viewing, if you can get past all of the sexing. It gives you lots of conversation topics, like "were people really as irritating as Betty back then?" and "was that really what it was like when (spoiler alert) Marilyn Monroe died?" The hours fly by.
I realize I'm more than a little late to the party on this one, but I've been watching Mad Men with my mother lately. Yes, while everyone else in 2007 was busy buying skinny ties at Banana Republic and taking Facebook quizzes to find out whether they're a Joan, I was working compulsively and missed out. Chances are I was reading other people's emails by the thousands and checking little boxes to indicate they were not relevant. Or maybe I was just drunk, who knows. But the point is, I'm only now finding out what everyone else knew long ago: Don Draper is a brilliant but troubled man.
Honestly it seemed kind of slow to me in the beginning and I wasn't super into it. There was too much adultery and a lot of the sixties stuff seemed a little fussy and self conscious to me. But as I got deeper into it, and especially in season three, I started to really like it. It's consistently surprising without being aggressively shocking, and the characters are all so complex and interesting. Even the characters I really like -- Peggy, natch -- have weird flaws and do things that make it harder to like them. I also like the fact that so much happens off screen; it's fun to piece together what happened in between episodes or seasons rather than have it spoon fed. Although I do also enjoy a good spoon feeding.
I also definitely recommend it for parental viewing, if you can get past all of the sexing. It gives you lots of conversation topics, like "were people really as irritating as Betty back then?" and "was that really what it was like when (spoiler alert) Marilyn Monroe died?" The hours fly by.
