Mood:  irritated

AMC's Mad Men is a drama set in the late 1950s or early 1960s, and it is about advertising in post-World War 2 America. There's the Cold War, Jim Crow Laws, sexism, racism, and the demonization of sex. It is a very buttoned-up United States. It is a show that causes very hard feelings in me, and it is preventing me from enjoying the show as much as I can.

Within the first three episodes, the audience is clearly shown the role of women in the men's lives. They are vessels for their penises. They are objectified. They are their nursemaids, their underlings, their whores, but not their equals. Women are the butt of open sexual harassment, and are expected to take the heavy flirting as a compliment. The women are judged as neurotic or hysterical for wanting more out of life then being tucked away in the suburbs with the children and gossip-mongers. Single women who work or are divorced or are sexually active (with contraceptive) are judged harshly. When head ad-exec Don Draper realizes the best way to market a men's deodorant is to market to women who buy these products for their men, he brainstorms with his boss about how to market to women. He doesn't know how women think, and his boss says quite pointedly "Who cares what women think?"

Racism is abound in Mad Men. African-Americans are seen as just bathroom attendants, elevator operators or the sandwich guy. There aren't racial slurs or demeaning comments made about the Blacks servants on the show, but there a few slung around about a family of Chinese people who have been hired for a practical joke. There's even some anti-Semitism.

Mad Men is not a bad show. It is a good show, and Don Draper is one of the smoothest and most complicated characters on television today. Taking the behind the scenes look at the golden age of advertising is fascinating but Mad Men is a bitter pill to swallow for me. I can't stand the era it represents, which are straight WASP men ruling the world without much thought of the others who live in it.