printWhy of course “Mad Men” is superb television. It is produced in Canada, by Lionsgate Television, whose studios I’d pass almost daily when I lived in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Canada makes quality, understated films.
“Mad Men” is a “cable period drama” about an advertising agency on Madison Avenue, Manhattan (New York), easily the most magnificent place I’ve ever been to.
The nostalgia the production triggers is a nostalgia for the days when women did not look and sound like Meghan McCain—had soothing, soft voices, spoke in complete sentences, and seemed so much smarter and refined than their modern-day, emancipated shrew sisters. Men were men, unapologetic, bold, unafraid and purposeful.
Don Draper fell in love with just such a lady. Or so its seemed. It was all so dreamy and romantic.
But all is not perfect. The lovely Megan Draper has begun to sound whiny and silly. Like her 2012 sisters, a good deal of sibilance has crept into her once pleasant voice.
Cringe factor rising. The not-to-be-mistaken current usage, “I feel like,” has crept into the dialogue.
HELP!
Bitchy Betty Draper (otherwise played by a very convincing actress) said, “I feel like something or another” in the course of a weight-loss coven. Others on the show have repeated this linguistic barbarity. I’m listening to the tapes of that great First Lady Jacky Kennedy in the car. Believe me, no one said “I feel like” in the 1960s.
Another recent, Mad-Men English abomination which gave me the shudders: “Like [a pregnant pause follows], I know that…”
Oh, and Peggy Olson holds her pen as do members of America’s much younger Idiocracy. And that includes our president, BHO, although footage of this sign of illiteracy has been removed from the Internet (something that happens all too often).
Adults of that era were taught as kids to hold a pencil on the first day of school. You graduated to a pen after perfecting your cursive in pencil.
Don Draper is, of course, still divine.
I can only watch movies from the 30″s-50″s, and of course well done Victorian Drama; this means TCM or my own collection. Many people have mentioned Mad Men to me as something I would like, but I have yet to try it for all the reasons listed above language, pen holding etc…. These things eventually seep through.
People today simply cannot portray people of yesteryear. We are too self-obsessed, adolescent, lacking taste, class, culture, intellect, character and fortitude. Women have taken on the wardrobe of street hookers and the personality of hen-peckers, meanwhile men dress as pubescent boys or pathetic hippies-Calgon take me away!
If you want the real thing without disappointment stick with the originals.
I’m sorry love, Mad Men does nothing but reinforce the myth that ‘real’ men of yesteryear drank, smoked and fornicated themselves into semi-conscious financial success. Which, if true, would mean that our contemporary nihilism should inspire wondrous wealth. Girls today have no role models, they are products of single mother ‘homes’. So, it’s to be expected that ‘real’ men for them means self-destructive, abusive, distant and uncontrolled morons. Just like mommy had. Mad Men is a good title. Too bad most people miss the point.
[Yours is indeed the liberal, feminist take on the world, facts be damned. And yes, I know you probably call yourself conservative or libertarian.—IM]
No reference to the past may be made without eventually remarking on its critical moral and social failings. I suspect Mad Men will make of its denouement a ‘teaching moment’. Everyone will be made to understand class, dignity, elegance, maleness and femaleness, are no substitute for right thinking. I hate it when people start to ‘grow’.
By the way, cursive may be going the way of the times table. Found myself defending cursive not too long ago against the charge of… well, I’m not sure what the charge against it was… superannuation I think – why learn to write when you can text.