Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Interesting Article About Mad Men and Feminism

I think Mad Men is one of the most interesting shows on TV. Even though I was not alive during the time the show takes place, it has always seemed to me that the show's writers and producers have nailed the time period pretty accurately. If you watch the show at all, you know that the male characters are interminably sexist, and the women have to put up with things that you wouldn't dream of today, both in the office and at home. Then again, at this point in the show, it's 1965, and that kind of behavior was tolerated back then.

Anyway, I came across an interesting Washington Post article today entitled "Why 'Mad Men' is TV's most feminist show." If you watch Mad Men, you should definitely give this article a read. The overarching point of the article (which is written by a female author of a book on feminism in the '60s) is that Mad Men's writers aren't sexist. Rather, the time period was sexist, and the writers are accurately portraying the time period. I agree with the last paragraph – that it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming seasons to the female characters as the sexual and cultural (and feminist) revolution of the late '60s takes hold in America. I'm hoping the following things happen to the main female characters:
-Joan's husband dies in Vietnam and she turns to the nascent porn industry to express herself
-Peggy explores her bicurious feelings
-Betty gets killed (or at least horribly disfigured) by that creepy neighborhood boy Glen
-Sally becomes a drug-addled teen who goes to Woodstock then later finds a different way to get high when she changes her last name to Ride and becomes an astronaut.

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