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Originally Posted by Zlick
I’m just about finished with my second show, the 1st season of Mad Men ... and I think it’s because the show has so affected me that I decided to post about my teevee catch-up. The show is set in the Madison Avenue advertising world of 1960 - - which is the year I was born. So that struck a chord with me right away. It’s not a political show, but the overt racism and sexism of the time makes a statement. More striking to me, naturally, is the blatant anti-Semitism featured in one important storyline, and the even more potent homophobia hinted at for the next season.
I was born in 1960, and I’ve been blessed to live in fantastic times of progress. I’m a jew, and I’m gay ... and I’ve experienced only the most fleeting nothings of anti-Semitism or homophobia during my entire life. I’m reminded by the show that, in 1960, people routinely hit their kids, women drank and smoked while pregnant, and the supremacy of white straight male dominated society was expressed with casual cruelty and boorishness.
And it's made me think back to Barack Obama’s election victory speech where he invoked a 100-year-old woman in Atlanta who had seen such incredible changes in her century of American life. From my birth in 1960 till today is roughly half that time, but Mad Men reminds me how much fantastic progress has been made in human affairs during the time I’ve been human. I’m so blessed to have lived during these particular 50 years, and in the modern metropolises of New York and Los Angeles - - in relation to almost any times and places in human history. The show makes me happy.
It’s also fantastically written, incredibly entertaining, and a stunningly beautiful period piece. And it’s wonderfully acted. The night I first got into the show, I attended a dinner party for my brother-in-law’s birthday. At one point, people were talking about their recent celebrity sightings ... and Linda, seated across from me, mentioned that she had seen Jon Hamm that very morning. Before that very morning, I wouldn’t have known who Jon Hamm was. But, um, he’s the star of Mad Men. Between that and the show being set in the year I was born, I started to pay special attention to Mad Men. I’m glad I did.
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