I don't know if you've noticed, but lately everyone seems to be completely and horribly racist. There's a lot of people saying really awful things... I guess in more consolidated streams, because if you're all up in the internet like me, you see a lot of horrible things getting posted in different places all the time, but some recent events are pulling far more than their fair share of the horrible tweets from the dank depths of humanity's worst bile.
That's why A Little Kiss felt like the best present Matthew Weiner could have ever given me.
Follow me to the spoilers under the cut, my loves.
In recent interviews, Mr. Weiner has been quoted asbeing my favorite ever saying that he's not going to do the sort of bullshit apologia about race in the sixties that people want to think. People want to glaze over history, and they're not doing it.
Which, honestly, is really amazing. When they opened on a civil rights protest and asshole copywriters water-bombing the protesters, I felt awful. When the lobby of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was full of African-American applicants and Don walks through the door to someone (I didn't catch who) saying, "We can't call security, they're here to apply for jobs," I felt awful. When nobody would listen to the only Black man at Don's birthday party, I felt awful.
And you know what? Good. Feeling awful about racism is a good thing. It reminds me that I'm human, and that I have privilege, and I need to check myself. It doesn't make me sputter and rage and say, NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACIST, or MY GRANDPARENTS WERE GROWN-UPS THEN AND THEY WEREN'T RACIST, or whatever. My grandparents, to the best of my knowledge, were sorta racist. They were probably products of their time, but still. Racist. That doesn't mean I didn't love my grandparents, or that I'm disrespecting their memories, or that there aren't certain facets of their personalities and lives that I want more than anything to emulate. It just means they were human.
The thing I think I really love about Mad Men is what an accurate picture it seems to portray. Don turning off the radio when Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech came on the radio. Peggy's date laughing off her thoughts of a women's liberation movement. These things happened, and they happened recently, and this sort of thing is still happening.
The more people try to pretend that there wasn't - or isn't now - racism and sexism, the more I want to punch them. The more people who write into Yo, Is This Racist? that Andrew Ti is the one perpetuating stereotypes and racism by openly talking about it, the more I want to punch everybody.
[Pro-tip: doing something racist doesn't make you a bad person. Doing something racist and lashing out when you get called out on it (I'm not racist, you {insert racist slur} bitch!) makes you a bad person. We've all done things that are insensitive (at best) or downright awful; it's how we react and learn from them that matters.]
So when a show like Mad Men, which can pull in millions of viewers to an actual TV, represents things like they really happened, and not the way everybody wishes it had happened, it just makes me want to slow-clap.
In the rest of the show, and character development! Oh man! I have so many feelings.
Joan's mother is awful, but is going to make for some really excellent TV.
I have no idea what's happening with Lane, or why he's being such a sketchball, but it's weird, and I don't get it.
WHAT KIND OF HOUSE GUESTS LEAVE YOUR CARPET LOOKING LIKE THAT, AND HOW DO YOU HAVE SEX ON IT WITHOUT FREAKING OUT BECAUSE THERE WOULD DEFINITELY BE SOME CANDY STUCK TO YOUR BACK AND THAT IS TOTALLY DISGUSTING AND EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
(That last sentiment is echoed in the comments section of Tom & Lorenzo's post, according to my sister.)
And finally, Peggy. Oh, Peggy. How I love you. I love you so. I wish you were a lesbian.
That's why A Little Kiss felt like the best present Matthew Weiner could have ever given me.
Follow me to the spoilers under the cut, my loves.
In recent interviews, Mr. Weiner has been quoted as
Which, honestly, is really amazing. When they opened on a civil rights protest and asshole copywriters water-bombing the protesters, I felt awful. When the lobby of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was full of African-American applicants and Don walks through the door to someone (I didn't catch who) saying, "We can't call security, they're here to apply for jobs," I felt awful. When nobody would listen to the only Black man at Don's birthday party, I felt awful.
And you know what? Good. Feeling awful about racism is a good thing. It reminds me that I'm human, and that I have privilege, and I need to check myself. It doesn't make me sputter and rage and say, NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACIST, or MY GRANDPARENTS WERE GROWN-UPS THEN AND THEY WEREN'T RACIST, or whatever. My grandparents, to the best of my knowledge, were sorta racist. They were probably products of their time, but still. Racist. That doesn't mean I didn't love my grandparents, or that I'm disrespecting their memories, or that there aren't certain facets of their personalities and lives that I want more than anything to emulate. It just means they were human.
The thing I think I really love about Mad Men is what an accurate picture it seems to portray. Don turning off the radio when Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech came on the radio. Peggy's date laughing off her thoughts of a women's liberation movement. These things happened, and they happened recently, and this sort of thing is still happening.
The more people try to pretend that there wasn't - or isn't now - racism and sexism, the more I want to punch them. The more people who write into Yo, Is This Racist? that Andrew Ti is the one perpetuating stereotypes and racism by openly talking about it, the more I want to punch everybody.
[Pro-tip: doing something racist doesn't make you a bad person. Doing something racist and lashing out when you get called out on it (I'm not racist, you {insert racist slur} bitch!) makes you a bad person. We've all done things that are insensitive (at best) or downright awful; it's how we react and learn from them that matters.]
So when a show like Mad Men, which can pull in millions of viewers to an actual TV, represents things like they really happened, and not the way everybody wishes it had happened, it just makes me want to slow-clap.
In the rest of the show, and character development! Oh man! I have so many feelings.
Joan's mother is awful, but is going to make for some really excellent TV.
I have no idea what's happening with Lane, or why he's being such a sketchball, but it's weird, and I don't get it.
WHAT KIND OF HOUSE GUESTS LEAVE YOUR CARPET LOOKING LIKE THAT, AND HOW DO YOU HAVE SEX ON IT WITHOUT FREAKING OUT BECAUSE THERE WOULD DEFINITELY BE SOME CANDY STUCK TO YOUR BACK AND THAT IS TOTALLY DISGUSTING AND EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
(That last sentiment is echoed in the comments section of Tom & Lorenzo's post, according to my sister.)
And finally, Peggy. Oh, Peggy. How I love you. I love you so. I wish you were a lesbian.
