Season four of Mad Men premieres on Sunday, and I can hardly wait to start judging these fictional characters from a bygone era with which I am entirely familiar through television. (I don’t know if my epic reviews of last season will be on the docket [new full-time job, new full-time husband], but rest assured I’ll be picking away at the oniony goodness that is Don Draper’s neé Dick Whitman’s American-identity-questioning persona.) And it’s easiy to judge them; my mother once said to me, “I can’t watch that show. There isn’t one redeeming character!” My response? “That’s the whole point!”
I completely agree with Mom, but the lack of blameless protagonist isn’t a reason to dislike Mad Men. It’s preisely the reason I’m obsessed with the show. My loyalties are jerked from one character to another at least once during each episode. The vulnerable, bated tone of seemingly every television critic’s Monday column proves that it’s good and effective television. And it’s a font of sexism (what would I write/think about without that? what’s not to love?) Take this clip compilation for example:
How charmingly enraging!
And though I try my best to be on their side, the ladies who inhabit this proto-feminist, Helvetica-saturated, mid-century-modern world that floats somewhere between Kafka-esque dreamscape, Norman Rockwell painting and documentary say and do some pretty awful (and awesome!) things sometimes:
Compilation by TrèsSugar
