Mad Men

What a strange series. It's on the one hand looking back (nostalgically? humourusly? sadly? all of the above?) on a time when "men where men and they were smokin' assholes." What do women get out of this series? Scoffing (laughing? sympathy?) for a earlier, less empowered, but clearly more sexual (?) version of who they are now? It's yes "genius" to set a drama in the age of the Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, when racism and antisemitism were accepted, when the goal
of deceiving the American public about the dangers of smoking occupies the best brains. We are soooo much smarter than them. We know smoking is horrible. We know they are assholes to treat women, black and Jews the way they do. And yet, and yet, we are like alien overlords looking in on the experiment, trying to care about their feelings and yes, being surprised that
men (and women) locked so hopelessly into a pre-progressive era (helping Nixon get elected: omigod!) have feelings we can, well not exactly relate to, but be entertained by.
So in that sense it has some similarities to The Sopranos -- I mean, we never had true sympathy for Tony and his outrageous band of thieves and we scoffed at their "Italian" chintz lifestyles, but still, they managed to pull off, what, six seasons?
Funny how we like to hate our heroes (in the fiction sense). Or we choose heroes that we comfortably feel superior to which relaxes our need to judge everything (we KNOW these folks suck) so we can kick back and in our virtual reality of TV see if the boss nails his secretary.
How shameful!