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Comment by DontchaKnowit | Hacker News Reader

I do not remotely get the fascination with this show.

The plot/writing is just straight up stupid. If someone acted like Don in a marketing meeting the clients would be like "what in the fuck are you talking about?"

Then you have the obvious heavy handed feminist messaging. "Boy I sure would like to work, but I have to be a goood wife and stay home while my husband cheats on me" wife turns to camera "cause the patriarchy"

And then they try to paint Don as this cool customer who is the pinnacle of suave, when in reality his character is just a straight up goober. He's weird as hell, and comes off dumb as a box of rocks.

I just don't don't get it. My theory is that no one actually likes the show outside of internet people and people in the entertainment industry.

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>"Boy I sure would like to work, but I have to be a goood wife and stay home while my husband cheats on me"

Do you honestly believe this kind of thing does not now nor did happen? I have personal experience with families like this.

>I just don't don't get it. My theory is that no one actually likes the show outside of internet people and people in the entertainment industry.

In my immediate circle of friends, I have 2 that this is one of their go to shows to binge when "nothing else is on". Can pretty much perform the show as a one person act by this point. Neither of the two are "internet people" as they are my personal friends, and neither are in the entertainment industry. Maybe it's not enough evidence for you to feel your theory is wrong, but it doesn't hold up from my experience.

Sure I'll buy my theory is wrong. I guess it just doesn't strike my fancy. I also can't understand the appeal of marvel movies, and half the planet loves those things.

And yeah of course that kind of thing happens. My problem is chiefly that it is super heavy handed. Like the story doesn't really paint a picture of reasonable people who are struggling in their relationship, but rather this caricature of a larger-than-life husband who does whatever he wants and an incredibly demure wife who just puts up with it. Again, that exists, but it is absolutely not the norm - and the show seems to suggest that this is just how life was in those days. I just don't buy that at all. Maybe it was more acceptable, maybe it was easier to hide your shittyness, but shitty people are shitty people are shitty people. It's not like in the 60s everyone was like 'hell yeah bro you cheated on your wife and the mother of your children. High five that's sick bro"

Its like if you made a period piece about the building of the railroads in the late 1800s and every white character just said things like "boy I sure do hate those chinese" instead of actually creating realistic characters that demonstrate their hatred instead of just being a caricature of a racist.

I agree with your comment on "heavy handedness". I think this is common in modern cinema in all forms. They fail to capture subtlety and come across as cartoonish. For example, based on conversations I remember with the older generations from my early childhood, usually racism was not expressed as some sort of outright hatred. Far more common was just casual ideologies that were part of the thinking of the times and rooted in tribalism in general, but had an overarching affect on society. One of the old ladies at my church when I was a child told me, "birds of a feather flock together" regarding people of different races. They thought races should be kept separate and that problems came up when you mixed races together. To them, it was "just so" and just as casual as the thought "that businesses should not be open on Sunday" or whatever. It was a set of axioms that were ingrained in their thinking. But if you asked her if she hated black people, she would say "no, they're God's children", etc.

Well it’s a feminist show or at least change in womens role in society is a large theme (hence the name). I think it might come across preachy if one expects a more nuanced show.

If you look it against films from the era like The Apartment (which is like styleguide to mad men) or All that heaven allows, similar themes and characters were displayed already then as sign of the times.

Sorry, you know the norms for social relationships in the 1960s?

>Its like if you made a period piece about the building of the railroads in the late 1800s and every white character just said things like "boy I sure do hate those chinese" instead of actually creating realistic characters that demonstrate their hatred instead of just being a caricature of a racist.

Have you watched mad men at all? it's nothing like this level of storytelling.

It sounds like you haven't really watched the show. Which is fine, but your criticisms assume too much and miss the mark.

For example, this:

> And then they try to paint Don as this cool customer who is the pinnacle of suave, when in reality his character is just a straight up goober. He's weird as hell, and comes off dumb as a box of rocks.

...is, probably, the main major theme that the show explores in some way in almost every episode. Ditto your feminism complaint. The show explores "feminism" from a bunch of different angles and none of them are as dumb as your dismissive caricature here.

It's fine not to like something, but you don't have to go out of your way to criticize something you don't seem to have actually engaged with. You can just say "Wasn't for me!" and move on. Or not say anything at all!

I mean, I definitely watched the first season. I don't know I think to some degree the show is a victim of high expectations - I heard so many positive remarks about the show that I was pretty surprised by the quality of the script and the acting. I mean it borders on lifetime/hallmark levels of cornball at times - but it sounds like you are saying that this might be intentional at least with regard to Don's gooberisms. I guess that just went over my head.

I used to think it was overrated, then I gave it watch over recently and it's, imo, the best of any of the prestige shows ever. Certainly no other prestige show hits strongly over all the seasons, and I think it has one of the best endings ever.

> I just don't don't get it. My theory is that no one actually likes the show outside of internet people and people in the entertainment industry.

You see this attitude more and more: I don't enjoy what I saw, it can't be that maybe I missed something, or that it just wasn't for me... no, it's everyone else that's stupid.

No, you don't see that attitude more and more. That's just a thing that people say. It's not even an attitude.

What I mean is that I don't know anyone that actually watches that show, but I hear about it like constantly on podcasts, interviews, etc. So it feels like some sort of zeitgeist that is just a mirage. But it just sounds like myself and those around me most have different tastes. cool, whatever. Enjoy your show.

I can still think its a really stupid show without thinking that the people that enjoy it are stupid.

But that happens all the time, it's not unusual at all, it's just different things for different people.

I was never into Disney/Pixar/cartoon (even as a child I rarely found anything animated engaging or funny, because in my mind 'anyone' can do that - make a drawing look or say something funny - there's not a skillful expression or delivery) or DC/Marvel/Star Wars stuff. Obviously plenty of people are!

I think your caricature is funny. It could work well in a parody of Mad Men.

There is a lot more complexity to these topics in the show, as others have also mentioned. You should watch it or read more about it if you want to understand the full context.

I watched the first season pretty attentively. Does it get better? Cause I really don't see myself finding anything redeeming on a second watch through

Movies do this often, they take a nugget and build it into a mountain for the sake of story (everyone is a drug dealer, or everyone is a misogynist). There is little nuance. However, it is surprising for a long-running show to go on about those things and go off on uninteresting infatuations with certain arcs. For example, one very irritating trope is where the guy spends money like water --like it did not matter at all, as if he was about to die tomorrow and had no family. It's very irritating.

I think that yes, movies do that often, but great movies/shows do not. Nuance is the name of the game for creating a rich and meaningful story imo.

I was just surprised at how shallow the show was after hearing such great things about it

These criticisms are valid in the first and second season, but they fall away in the third and the show really finds itself. I laud the show but really I usually come back to S3-6. Revisiting Season 1 was admittedly jarring. The quips were still good though.

Don Draper is popular for the same reason that Andrew Tate is a phenomenon: American culture has become so lopsidedly gynocentric that there's a generation of young men who have received zero guidance on what it means to be masculine and they're casting around for any example they can find, no matter how absurd.

Word. It is really tragic. Hard to watch little kids running around being weirdly misogynistic because they wanna be a top g one day...

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