Keith D: Why I Hate Watching “Mad Men”.
I was 13 in 1960 w...: "Why I Hate Watching “Mad Men”. I was 13 in 1960 when JFK was elected president, the Cold War was intensifying and Fidel Castro was firmly e..."
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Why I Hate Watching “Mad Men”.
I was 13 in 1960 when JFK was elected president, the Cold War was intensifying and Fidel Castro was firmly established as the Cuban dictator just a few hundred miles from where I grew up on the beaches of Hollywood Fl. Up until that time I got my news from satirical sources like Mad Magazine and stand up comics like Mort Sahl, and Dick Gregory and Bob Newhart and the First Family album. Mad Magazine often made fun of the emerging new advertising men, who in my young teen mind were walking clichés. Bob Newhart’s Button Down Mind may have been inspired from his days as an uptight accountant but Newhart’s look was strictly out of Madison Avenue’s corporate control mind set.
Twenty one in 1968 and in radio broadcasting for a few years I would occasionally confront these Dan Draper Ad Men so aptly portrayed on Mad Men. By this time the youth culture had devoured our society and Madison Avenue. Guys like Draper seemed beleaguered and so out of it. I recall having long arguments with these guys, who by now were often demoted to middle management, about the importance of the Beatles and this huge demographic Baby Boomer shift which slamming our society. They just never got it. No clue.
So when I heard of this new TV series a few years ago called Mad Men set in the early 60s I was very interested. The show’s feel for the era is uncanny it is almost like watching a science fiction movie like Invasion of the Body Snatchers where the characters have no idea that they will soon be walking zombies. Also from Here to Eternity where the audience spends over 3 quarters of the movie caring about the incidental lives of the soldiers and women living on Pearl Harbor just days before the bombing in 1941. The viewer actually cares about the characters in these two films and their upcoming doom and transformation makes us care for them even more.
Not so with Mad Men. These characters are so arrogant, out of touch and self involved (these were the people that actually personified the upcoming 1970s Me Decade) that it is difficult for me to have any empathy for them. So as much as I love the idea of the show I just cannot watch it.
When I was that young teen reading Mad Magazine, they always listed their writing staff under the heading The Usual Gang Of Idiots. Come up with a show about those Mad Men and I will watch.
I was 13 in 1960 when JFK was elected president, the Cold War was intensifying and Fidel Castro was firmly established as the Cuban dictator just a few hundred miles from where I grew up on the beaches of Hollywood Fl. Up until that time I got my news from satirical sources like Mad Magazine and stand up comics like Mort Sahl, and Dick Gregory and Bob Newhart and the First Family album. Mad Magazine often made fun of the emerging new advertising men, who in my young teen mind were walking clichés. Bob Newhart’s Button Down Mind may have been inspired from his days as an uptight accountant but Newhart’s look was strictly out of Madison Avenue’s corporate control mind set.
Twenty one in 1968 and in radio broadcasting for a few years I would occasionally confront these Dan Draper Ad Men so aptly portrayed on Mad Men. By this time the youth culture had devoured our society and Madison Avenue. Guys like Draper seemed beleaguered and so out of it. I recall having long arguments with these guys, who by now were often demoted to middle management, about the importance of the Beatles and this huge demographic Baby Boomer shift which slamming our society. They just never got it. No clue.
So when I heard of this new TV series a few years ago called Mad Men set in the early 60s I was very interested. The show’s feel for the era is uncanny it is almost like watching a science fiction movie like Invasion of the Body Snatchers where the characters have no idea that they will soon be walking zombies. Also from Here to Eternity where the audience spends over 3 quarters of the movie caring about the incidental lives of the soldiers and women living on Pearl Harbor just days before the bombing in 1941. The viewer actually cares about the characters in these two films and their upcoming doom and transformation makes us care for them even more.
Not so with Mad Men. These characters are so arrogant, out of touch and self involved (these were the people that actually personified the upcoming 1970s Me Decade) that it is difficult for me to have any empathy for them. So as much as I love the idea of the show I just cannot watch it.
When I was that young teen reading Mad Magazine, they always listed their writing staff under the heading The Usual Gang Of Idiots. Come up with a show about those Mad Men and I will watch.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Hello
Welcome to my Blog - Keith D
I will periodically write about stuff I have no business writing about. I will state opinions I cannot back up, I will do absolutely no research on anything. I will write lies and half truths and then blame them on someone else.
Most of all I will try to destroy people's lives and careers or at least attempt to do irreparable damage to them.
But since those tactics are all ready on display on Fox News I guess I will just have to state my humble opinions on pop culture, lifestyles and politics and hope I don't get sued.
Examples:
"A day without a racist, misogynist, profanity strewn rant by Mel Gibson is like a day without sunshine."
“The Tea Party is an anger based movement relying on fear, resentment, hate and score settling. Like the left wing Yippies of the 60s they aim their paranoia upward to those in power (government, academia etc). Unlike those same left wing Yippies of the 60s they also aim their paranoia downward to those with less power (immigrants, people of color, gays etc). This is not a winning strategy.”
“I took my 15 year old daughter to see The Last Airbender movie and Toy Story 3. Both are aimed at kid audiences. Toy Story was quite good. The Last Airbender was just another example of the once so promising career of director M. Night Shyamalan's (The Sixth Sense, 1999) descent into misguided film making. Anyway I was interested in the demographic make up of the audiences for these 2 films. Both were loaded with kids and their parents, real little kids at Toy Story. But scattered throughout were numerous middle aged and older couples alone with no kids. Why? Hollywood just does not make movies for grownups anymore. And believe me Adam Sandler's new barf and pee festival is called Grown Ups but it is not really for grownups. For most of the summer the only movie for people over 30 was Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in Knight and Day. No wonder so many of us are… Going Middle Age Crazy at the Multiplex”.
…And more coming to this blog
Keith D
I will periodically write about stuff I have no business writing about. I will state opinions I cannot back up, I will do absolutely no research on anything. I will write lies and half truths and then blame them on someone else.
Most of all I will try to destroy people's lives and careers or at least attempt to do irreparable damage to them.
But since those tactics are all ready on display on Fox News I guess I will just have to state my humble opinions on pop culture, lifestyles and politics and hope I don't get sued.
Examples:
"A day without a racist, misogynist, profanity strewn rant by Mel Gibson is like a day without sunshine."
“The Tea Party is an anger based movement relying on fear, resentment, hate and score settling. Like the left wing Yippies of the 60s they aim their paranoia upward to those in power (government, academia etc). Unlike those same left wing Yippies of the 60s they also aim their paranoia downward to those with less power (immigrants, people of color, gays etc). This is not a winning strategy.”
“I took my 15 year old daughter to see The Last Airbender movie and Toy Story 3. Both are aimed at kid audiences. Toy Story was quite good. The Last Airbender was just another example of the once so promising career of director M. Night Shyamalan's (The Sixth Sense, 1999) descent into misguided film making. Anyway I was interested in the demographic make up of the audiences for these 2 films. Both were loaded with kids and their parents, real little kids at Toy Story. But scattered throughout were numerous middle aged and older couples alone with no kids. Why? Hollywood just does not make movies for grownups anymore. And believe me Adam Sandler's new barf and pee festival is called Grown Ups but it is not really for grownups. For most of the summer the only movie for people over 30 was Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in Knight and Day. No wonder so many of us are… Going Middle Age Crazy at the Multiplex”.
…And more coming to this blog
Keith D
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