Thursday, November 11, 2010

The essence of "Mad Men"

I think Michael Prescott nails it:

Why I'm not mad about Mad Men

And that gets us to the heart of my objections. Mad Men is a show written by young people about an era they never knew, and their attitude seems to include a large element of mockery and derision. In almost every scene, I can hear some smug twentysomething or thirtysomething scriptwriter whispering, "Look at these idiots. They didn't know smoking was bad for you. They didn't know liquor can cause health problems. They didn't think women had minds of their own. They didn't know there were gay people in the world. They were so stupid!"

Followed by: "See how much smarter, more worldly-wise, and enlightened we are?"

1 comment:

Unknown said...

As Prescott did a solid job, Rance Crain writes a compelling article about how it really was - rather tahn how some thirty-something wills it to have been: http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=145094

With a family long rooted in ink and ads, Crain has something to add to this conversation.