'Dancing With The Stars' Season 14 Dream Casting
'Happy Endings' Scoop: James Wolk On Being Max's Valentine
Confession: I Don't Like 'Mad Men'
by Rich Keller, posted Jul 21st 2010 3:02PM
Before a flash mob heads to my house to give me the biggest atomic wedgie known to man, let me take a moment to set things straight about this piece. In no way am I telling you, the adoring audience who utterly loves AMC's 'Mad Men,' that you're total prats for watching this critically-acclaimed drama. That is absolutely, totally not true!What I'm doing is giving one man's opinion on why I'm not into the show. Call it sad, call it insane, call it f----ng stupid, but it's just the opinion of little ol' me. Take it any way you feel.
Now it's not like I hate 'Mad Men' with all of my soul. Nor do I like the program, as this article suggests. In reality, I don't care about the show at all.
To me, it's just another workplace drama like so many others that have come and gone over the years. The show has its share of work & relationship issues, character triumphs and tragedies, and an occasional secret that changes the fate of everyone forever. The only difference it all takes place 40 years in the past!
Yet to many, 'Mad Men' is the greatest drama since the Greek tragedies. This is what drives my ambivalence about the program -- the holier than thou attitude every fan exudes when you say you're just not interested. You probably know what this is referring to: the feeling of over-importance given to shows like 'Mad Men' or 'Lost' where, if you don't see it, you're the stupidest person on the face of the planet. Then, when you bow to pressure and watch, you realize it isn't as mind-blowing as everyone said it was. After viewing a few episodes of 'Mad Men' this was exactly my opinion. And the reason why I began to ignore it.
Despite this general ennui there is one specific thing that irks me about the show: the characters -- all of them. I understand that 'Mad Men' creator Matthew Weiner wanted take the images people have of the early '60s -- the 20th century version of Camelot -- and expose it for its flaws. But, there are flaws and then there's self-destruction. And the staff of Sterling Cooper (now Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce) have a self-destructive streak several ad inserts wide.
Weiner made these characters pretty on the outside, but ugly deep within. The result: rather than connecting with them, the characters have been made unlikeable. True, there have been other dramatic characters out there, like Vic Mackey and Tony Soprano, who have been just as self-destructive. However, within them you could see some sort of redemption or bright spot in their lives that made you root for them. The folks of 'Mad Men' just continue to destroy themselves from the inside.
I know fans will say that I need to stay with the show in order to eventually see the good inside of these people. Honestly, I don't have the time for this. I never got into the whole serialized drama format where it sometimes takes eons for characters to grow and change. Though spanning four years in three seasons, the amount of change in some of the characters is slower than the speed of ice floes. There's not enough hours in the day, let alone a television season, to go watch the slow progression of these ad execs. And, as the golden times of the early '60s slowly transform into the cynical days of the mid-'60s, I don't see that changing any time soon.
There you have it -- my reason why 'Mad Men' is not on my Favorites list. I'll put on my biggest pair of boxers while I await for the wedgie mob.
18 Comments