09:55
If you live in California or know something about the nation’s most populous state, you get tired of the way Easterners and Brits caricature it. Yeah, yeah, Woody Allen’s right turn on red, OK, vegetarian restaurants, OK, dumb blondes, yeah, lame-ass New York Times story, OK … enough. But what’s a bit startling is when a smart show run by people based in California pull the same nonsense. That seems to be the way the Golden State works in “Mad Men,” which just concluded last night with a boatload of stereotypes.
Most of the show’s cast and crew – including creator Matt Weiner – live in or around Los Angeles, the part of California that has taken the brunt of misinformed condescension. But that hasn’t stopped them from misreading a very complex state, one that was becoming especially complex and various during the period over which the show travels.
California has been the capital of American – and, before that, European – dreaming for a long time. And television shows are not the same as history books. But the shallowness is still discouraging, especially coming from people who know better. We get something that resembles the old New Yorker cover “View of the World From Ninth Avenue.”
Why is just about everyone in California Caucasian? (Even in the ‘60s New York scene we’d see a black secretary now and again.) Why is everyone falling into bed with real-estate agents? (Joan’s boyfriend Richard describes her as “undeveloped property”with “a hell of a view.”) Why is everyone else some variation of hippie? Why does it always seem less like a real place than an Eastern fantasy? “Every time someone from Sterling Cooper and Partners winds up in California,” a Bustle story says, “it suddenly becomes their new ‘paradise.’” (It’s a place where even Pete can get laid.)
Read Full Story: “Mad Men’s” California: Hippies, real estate agents, and a place where even Pete can get laid
0 comments:
Post a Comment