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roginI shouldn't watch True Blood and Mad Men in quick succession, the later drowned out the former so much I barely remember it.
Wow, that show cuts so precise it hurts.The whole thing with Peggy and Joan was so fucking heartbreaking. Sometimes people (who I have an extremely hard time not call stupid to their faces) wonder why I call a show containing so much sexism feminist. They just don't get it and sometimes the ignorance just drives me crazy.
I always try to explain it with old bond movies from the 70ties where women are basically treated like pets. The difference between sexism in front and behind the camera is that in those old Bond movies they ARE pets. They are not depicted as intelligent, or as actually human, they are actually treated according to the abilities the writer has given them (pretty, at best sly, never smart). This way the sexism even looks justified.
On Mad Men you see women, who are fully grown capable women treated as if they were subhuman and suddenly the horror of it becomes obvious. It shows in all it's uglyness what gender roles do to people and how they hurt. And also in a show where the pitch is everything it shows how the label you stick on something gives you power over it. Joan is trapped by the sex bomb secretary label and Peggy is pushed into the humorless bitch cage faster than she can look, even by Joan who she tried to help.
That exchange in the elevator! How Peggy is showing female solidarity, but Joan perceives it as disempowering, because she draws her power from her sexuality. She would have gotten a man to solve the problem for her, but she couldn't bare Peggy doing the same. Those patterns are so damn twisted and so damn true.
Wow, that show cuts so precise it hurts.The whole thing with Peggy and Joan was so fucking heartbreaking. Sometimes people (who I have an extremely hard time not call stupid to their faces) wonder why I call a show containing so much sexism feminist. They just don't get it and sometimes the ignorance just drives me crazy.
I always try to explain it with old bond movies from the 70ties where women are basically treated like pets. The difference between sexism in front and behind the camera is that in those old Bond movies they ARE pets. They are not depicted as intelligent, or as actually human, they are actually treated according to the abilities the writer has given them (pretty, at best sly, never smart). This way the sexism even looks justified.
On Mad Men you see women, who are fully grown capable women treated as if they were subhuman and suddenly the horror of it becomes obvious. It shows in all it's uglyness what gender roles do to people and how they hurt. And also in a show where the pitch is everything it shows how the label you stick on something gives you power over it. Joan is trapped by the sex bomb secretary label and Peggy is pushed into the humorless bitch cage faster than she can look, even by Joan who she tried to help.
That exchange in the elevator! How Peggy is showing female solidarity, but Joan perceives it as disempowering, because she draws her power from her sexuality. She would have gotten a man to solve the problem for her, but she couldn't bare Peggy doing the same. Those patterns are so damn twisted and so damn true.
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Date: 2010-09-13 09:45 pm (UTC)Mad Men is beyond incredible right now. Every. Little. Detail. Is spot on. Nobody gets it right, and they are perfectly happy to keep it complex - there's nobody here who has all the answers, they're all caught in the same patterns, putting a spotlight on problems without making them simple.
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