Unable to load image

Fielding opinions on Mad Men and if I should keep watching it.

I'm halfway through season one and I'm starting to get the impression that this is a show for women. I had a suspicion about it from the start but figured it couldn't be because the the male characters weren't attractive enough. And yet the premise is suppose to be about life in the cut-throat advertising world but so far most of the drama revolves around having affairs, marital problems, and catfights - the most interesting thing that's happened so far is Draper's wife slapping the divorced single mom at the supermarket. The parts that are suppose to depict the competitive business world they live in is just a business meeting where draper gets up and says "Gentlemen... let me ask you something: Got milk?" Again, it seems like boilerplate "high stakes business drama" that the women viewers are suppose to take in the appearance but not the substance of to intuit the social status of each man.

I read some online discussions about it to figure out the viewership demographics and to find out what specifically people like about it beyond the melodrama, and a lot of the bring up the 'enigma' of Draper's character, which is something I've gotten no sense of myself. Other characters constantly hint about how they don't know anything about him, but I don't notice any idiosyncrasies about him that demand explanations that are suppose to make me care; dude sleeps with lots of women and feels conflicted about it, but I figured that was an attempt by the writer's to give a conscience to the standard licentious male protag. If this is a major thing that's suppose to drive the course of the show then it leaves me uneasy because this 'mystery box' style of writing is something I've started to loathe because of the bad payoffs: am I in for more melodrama here?

There's also the incessant browbeating about muh racism and muh sexism, which irks me because I'm a turbochud, but I can tolerate that as long as there are other redeeming qualities to watch for. So far what I like about the shows are brainstorming sessions where Draper comes up his insights about society or human psychology in order to make ads; that at least shows promise about some interesting things the show might have to say. I also like the quips from the male characters; the female sass is pretty grating though.

So am I off the mark here for clocking this as womenslop? I watched like two seasons of downton abbey before I clued in because I'm neurodivergent so my radars are probably way overcorrected when it comes to period drama. What's drama's appraisal?

36
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I like it, people were more sexist and racist in the 60s and the show doesn't tone it down.

Draper is a self-destructive c*nt but a charming one at times, Roger is awesome, Betty is a whiny self-absorbed crazy foid, Peggy is a modern writer self-insert and Pete grows up and becomes highly competent.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

>the show doesn't tone it down

Yeah, but it does this proglib bullshit when they do something they disapprove of nowadays.

Slap a mouthy child in the face? :!soyjak:

Doctor smoking during examination? :!soyjak:

https://i.rdrama.net/images/1718547477756333.webp :space: :!soycry:

And then an uncomfortable pause while they try to drive home how backwards the 60's was.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Yeah, the showrunners are libs, but would you rather they be anachronistic? Like the Gilded Age show where an Old Money NYC lady hires a black secretary and politely refers to her as “colored”.

!nonchuds What exactly do chuds want in their period shows?

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You think everyone in America was racist in the 1960s?

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Not everyone was racist on the show, most characters weren't racist, just indifferent, there were some who were implicitly racist and others like Pete were outspoken against it.

But certainly a large portion of the US population of the time was racist, the country was just desegregating.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

By modern standards? Pretty much, yea.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Thinking blacks are, on average, dumber than whites is racist by modern standards, though

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

BIPOCs! Mountains and mountains of BIPOCs! :soyjaktantrum:

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Why I do declare, @JohnDevereaux is a BIPOC.

:#!speechbubble:

https://i.rdrama.net/images/1718547477756333.webp

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Link copied to clipboard
Action successful!
Error, please refresh the page and try again.