I want to like “Mad Men,” but I don’t.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to like this very popular show. I enjoy nostalgia as much as the next person. Show me a hula hoop and my eyes light up. The little Alka-Seltzer guy? I’m “popping and fizzing” with the best of them. Hell, even a photo of Dwight D. Eisenhower can make me smile at simpler times when ice cream bars were ten cents and “Perry Mason” was must-see TV. But “Mad Men” bores the bajeezus out of me.
I just can’t seem to get excited about watching a bunch of men who are perpetually stuck in adolescence like Krazy Glue, ogling subservient women who are no more than eye candy and the butt of tits-and-ass jokes. And what does the show do to the only two women with any attitude at all? Betty Draper and Joan Holloway? Knocks ‘em up! That’ll teach ‘em.
Each season, I tune in to see if this time – this time – the storyline will sustain me. Granted, I cheat. I hedge my bet by setting it on DVR – so I can fast-forward through the commercials, I tell myself. This week’s two-hour premiere was over in 20 minutes at my place.
The show’s theme song could be the anthem of the GOP, a party that would also like to take women back in time when we had little say over our lives and no say over our bodies. Maybe I’m particularly sensitive because I actually lived through the show’s era and have seen what a world ruled by white men has produced.
Clearly, I’m in the minority though. The show has garnered numerous Emmys, although I suspect that has more to do with Hollywood wanting to jump on the “hip” bandwagon than “Mad Men” actually being so much better than every other show on TV. I’ll give them one for costume and set design, but that’s as generous as I get.
Jon Hamm is one handsome fella. No argument there. But more so than McDreamy? I think not.
So feel free to enlighten me here. What’s all the fuss about “Mad Men?”
