I'd heard about it before, of course, from work colleagues and my husband watched a few episodes. But I don't watch much tv so hadn't seen it yet. Our Netflix queue was rather short and in searching for something to put on it, I thought of this show. The first disk arrived last week. Wow, is it good!
In case you have somehow missed the hoopla, the show takes place in 1960 and the male characters work for an advertising agency on Madison Avenue in NYC (hence the name, Mad Men). The acting is excellent and they do a wonderful job with the sets and costumes. They also stay true to the cultural norms of the times; for example, children are not the center of the universe. I had to chuckle at one scene, in the home of Don Draper (the main character). His daughter Sally (age about 6) is running around with a friend, playing outer space, and she has a plastic dry cleaning bag over her head and body. Her mother scolds her, not for playing with something dangerous and possibly suffocating herself, but for leaving the clothes that were in the dry cleaning bag on the floor of the closet! How safety conscious we have become since then!
The scene made me recall a habit of my childhood. I grew up during the '60's, in the Before Seatbelt Era. When my family went out in the car "for a drive" or to go over to my grandparents, I often made my younger sister sit on the floor in the back so I could hog the whole backseat. My parents rarely if ever protested. They were good parents, not neglectful. Makes me wonder how we will be criticized by the next generation. I can hear it, "OMG, they let their kids drink from plastic bottles!"
Now I have to get through as much as I can of the first two seasons of Mad Men in time for the start of Season 3 next Sunday. If you are interested, you can rent it at Blockbuster and Netflix and buy it at the usual DVD retailers like Amazon.com.
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