tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68096124954731081452024-03-13T20:33:28.450-07:00popculturemeetshistoryRobert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.comBlogger165125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-52787021760541562282013-09-24T18:33:00.002-07:002013-09-24T18:33:05.720-07:00Boardwalk Empire, Season Four, Episode 3, "Acres of Diamonds"
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In “Acres of Diamonds,” the connection between the fictional
Dr. Valentin Narcisse (Jeffrey Wright) and the real-life Marcus Garvey became
even more explicit as “Boardwalk Empire” depicts the emergence of the “New
Negro” of the 1920s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Expressing a
philosophy similar to Garvey, Narcisse is clearly a member of his organization,
the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), whose membership peaked
during the first half of the decade.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before World War I, African Americans remained divided
between two approaches to the problem of racism in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1895, facing the rising tide of
segregation and disenfranchisement in the post-Reconstruction South, Booker T.
Washington spoke of accommodation to these new conditions in a speech at the
Atlanta Exposition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Espousing what
became known as the “Atlanta Compromise,” Washington accepted the loss of
African American political rights and suggested that blacks focus on economic
development through vocational training.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After this speech, Booker T. became the leading the figure in black
America until his death in 1915, as money from Northern philanthropists flowed
through his schools and institutions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not everyone shared Washington’s views.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Led by W.E. B. Du Bois, some African
Americans believed that you could not achieve economic progress without political
rights and that they should not abandon the quest for legal equality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Du Bois advocated for blacks to attain higher
education and to fight Jim Crow through the courts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along with an interracial group of blacks and
whites, he formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) in 1909.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As American involvement World War I began in 1917, some
questioned whether African Americans should fight in President Woodrow Wilson’s
war<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“to make the world safe for
democracy” when they did not have equal rights at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Du Bois urged blacks to serve, saying that
participation would give blacks a greater claim on rights once the U.S.
defeated the Central Powers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed,
thousands of blacks served in segregated units during the year-and-a-half the
U.S. fought in the conflict.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Upon returning to the United States following the November
1918 armistice, blacks faced a new wave of attacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fearful that black veterans would seek
equality after their service abroad, white Southerners engaged in a violent campaign
to maintain the status quo as 76 blacks were lynched in 1919.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That same year, a major race riot broke out
in Chicago after a black boy drowned because angry whites had pelted him with
bricks when he drifted to the white section of the beach.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Feeling that the promises of the war had been broken, a more
militant black community emerged in its aftermath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Narcisse’s mentions the “New Negro” as he
talks to a group in Harlem early in the episode, a term which reflected more
activist mood of African Americans during the 1920s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emerging in Northern cities whose black
population had been augmented by the African American migration during the war
and throughout the following decade, the “New Negro” philosophy merged Washington’s
and Du Bois’s views.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Prominently featured on Narcisse’s wall is a poster for
Garvey’s UNIA, which represented the most dramatic manifestation of the “New
Negro.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the fictional Narcisse
arrived from Trinidad, Garvey came to Harlem from Jamaica and began to espouse
a form of black nationalism and black separatism that appealed to many working-class
blacks in the North.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He preached black
self-help, started a shipping company called the Black Star Line, and urged
African Americans to return to Africa. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Garvey, however, faced serious difficulties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His authoritarian leadership of UNIA
alienated allies, as did his meeting the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having caught the attention of the young J.
Edgar Hoover, the federal government aggressively pursued Garvey for mail fraud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After his conviction, he served two years in
prison and was then pardoned by President Coolidge in 1927 and deported.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does Narcisse face a similar fate? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-45260874302206797132013-09-18T20:07:00.001-07:002013-09-18T20:07:52.921-07:00"Homeland," Season Two
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Season two of “Homeland” continues the program’s arc after
the show’s excellent opening set of episodes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In season two, the CIA recalls the seemingly discredited Carrie Mathison
(Clare Danes) back to service to deal with potential retaliatory strikes on the
U.S. after an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many have described “Homeland” as the “anti-24” and the
contrast can be seen in the interrogation scenes in the two shows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In season one, Saul Berenson (Mandy
Patinkin), eventually draws information out of a suspect after earning her
confidence during a cross-country car trip, rather than torturing her a la Jack
Bauer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, in season two, Carrie finally
gets American marine turned terrorist Nicholas Brody (Damien Lewis) to confess
by identifying with his post-traumatic stress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many criticized “24” during its run for oversimplifying the
interrogation process and “Homeland” is much more in line with techniques that intelligence
professionals say usually work, as torture often produces unreliable
information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This evolution is another
manifestation of how the nation has moved away from the tactics of the early
years of the Bush war on terror.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Though the Islamic terrorist threat is the primary focus,
“Homeland” also clearly shows the influence of 1970s thrillers that portray the
government and its intelligent agencies as a danger as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After Brody moves to assist the CIA to hunt
down the Bin Laden-like Abu Nazir, the Company makes plans to eliminate him
after his work is done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This subplot
consumes a good portion of the final episodes, along with the terrorist threat</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, the show does take some entertaining—but absurd—“24”
like twists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In season one, it is clear
that the neoconservative Vice President Walden is a stand-in for Dick Cheney
and the connection becomes even clearer this season when it turns out he has a
pacemaker for his heart problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a
bizarre series of evens, Nazir programs the pacemaker to give Walden a heart
attack and kill him in revenge for the drone strike that killed his son (Walden
ordered the attack as CIA director).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Homeland” also portrays the war on terror’s impact on the
home front.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brody’s PTSD has left him
unable to deal with his wife and family and he goes to the length of giving his
best friend, Mike, permission to resume the relationship he had with his wife
while Brody was presumed dead in Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brody
believes the war and his captivity has permanently changed him, just as the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars have altered many real-life vets.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As season two concludes, it takes a dramatic twist when the
late Nazir’s network attacks the CIA and make it look like it was the work of
the now reformed Brody.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having started a
romantic relationship, Carrie helps Brody escape the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Away from Langley at the time of the attack,
it appears Saul will become CIA director and Carrie will serve at his side with
Brody’s role in exonerating himself unclear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With the Abu Nazir plotline concluded, “Homeland,” like other serialized
shows, has revamped key parts of its premise and it will be interesting to see
where the program goes from here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
might have to get Showtime because I don’t think I can wait a full year to find
out.</div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-46951596074607374262013-09-18T10:24:00.001-07:002013-09-18T10:24:13.038-07:00Boardwalk Empire, Season 4, Episode 2, "Resignation"
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More elements of the Roaring Twenties emerged in “Resignation,”
episode two of Boardwalk Empire’s fourth season, First, Van Alden/Mueller’s
wife buys a new couch and other household goods for their home, but the
puritanical Van Alden/Mueller bemoans that they can’t afford it on his
salary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She notes that they can pay for
it over several months rather than all at once.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Indeed, the 1920s witnessed a dramatic rise in installment purchases, as
more and more Americans could afford the consumer products of the “New Era” by
using credit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1926, customers made 15
percent of all purchases through installment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the season premiere, a black ally of Chalky White is trapped
into a bizarre “they like to watch” scheme with a white husband and wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Angered, he murders the husband and in
“Resignation,” the woman claims she was raped and seeks the help of her late
husband’s employer, Dr. Valentin Narcisse (Jeffrey Wright), a West Indian
immigrant who is a major player in New York.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Such rape allegations often led to the lynching of black men in the
South in the late 19<sup>th</sup> and early 20<sup>th</sup> centuries, the peak
period of racial violence in American history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Narcisse notes that her charge will have credibility, given that a woman
of the “Nordic tribe” made the allegation, reflecting the scientific racial
categories of the 1920s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After using the
allegation to extract a share of Chalky’s profits, Narcisse has her killed,
clearly angered by the woman’s desire for vengeance for a clearly false
allegation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chalky refers to Narcisse as
a “Jamaican,” and though Narcisse says he is from Trinidad, it should be noted that
Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant himself, and his black nationalist group,
the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), were at their peak during this
period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Narcisse tells Chalky about
their common roots going back to Africa, a seeming reference to Garvey’s focus
on pride in African culture.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Toward the end of the episode, J. Edgar Hoover appears in
the early stages of his role of head of the FBI (then Bureau of Investigation).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this time, he was just beginning what
would be a central role in the next half-century of American history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In “Resignation,” he exposes a corrupt
Treasury department official, who responds that Hoover is out of his
jurisdiction and that “I’m not some Bolshevik under the bed,” likely referring
to J. Edgar’s role in the 1919-1920 Palmer Raids against the American Communist
Party during the First Red Scare.</div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-24856535148620573942013-09-10T12:41:00.002-07:002013-09-10T12:41:48.706-07:00Boardwalk Empire, Season 4, Episode 1, "New York Sour"
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“Boardwalk Empire” returned this week as the Roaring
Twenties and the concomitant battle over Prohibition continued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first episode of season four explores a
few of the important issues of that decade as the program moves into 1924.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eli Thompson’s wife is worried that her college-attending
son is smoking while at school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
late 19<sup>th</sup> and early 20<sup>th</sup> century, smoking was
concentrated among working-class people and the poor and was seen as uncouth
among middle and upper middle class people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As the Victorian values of that era lost their power during the 1920s,
the stigma on smoking faded and it slowly became a respectable behavior.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, a new character played by Ron Livingstone, has arrived
to bring the Piggly Wiggly chain to Atlantic City.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time, chain stores were expanding
across the country and putting economic pressure on local mom and pop stores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such problems existed long before the arrival
of Wal-Mart.</div>
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">At the conclusion of the episode, Nucky Thompson
is examining real estate papers about property in Manatee County on the Florida
Gulf Coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 1920s witnessed a
dramatic rise in interest in real estate in the Sunshine State as a bubble in
land prices eventually burst at the end of the decade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Could Nucky be headed for some poor financial
investments?</span>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-80784415629137795512013-08-18T18:05:00.000-07:002013-08-18T18:05:12.920-07:00Lee Daniels' "The Butler"
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I modestly recommend “Lee Daniel’s The Butler,” which offers
the most thorough feature film depiction of the civil rights movement to
date.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though it often oversimplifies the
period, it exposes the audience to an important set of events that many
Americans are unaware of as we continue to honor the 50<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of the era, with the celebration of the March on Washington coming
at the end of the month.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The film revolves around the life of Cecil Gaines, played by
Forrest Whitaker, who eventually works as a butler in the White House for three
decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His story begins in Georgia in
1926, where he and his family live on a cotton plantation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the opening of the film, a planter rapes
his mother and his father is killed after offering minor protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, blacks had no recourse to such
violence at that time in the Jim Crow South. After several years working inside
the house at the plantation, Cecil joins millions of other black Americans in
the Great Migration to the North and gets a job a working at a luxury hotel in
Washington D.C.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hired by the White House in 1957, Cecil watches President
Eisenhower agonize over the crisis in Little Rock, AK, where Governor Orval
Faubus is preventing the court-ordered integration of Central High School.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The film accurately shows Ike’s desire for
the South to have more time to implement the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of
Education decision of 1954, but also how he is forced to send federal troops to
enforce the order when Faubus allows a climate of anarchy of prevail in the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The film is sympathetic to Eisenhower and
does not show his refusal to urge citizens to obey the Brown decision, which
many historians believe offered sustenance to the South’s campaign of “massive
resistance.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The movie’s central theme is the generational tension
between Cecil and his son Lewis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like
many of his era, Cecil is reluctant to openly challenge the system because of
the memory of the racial violence he saw in the South (in addition to his
father’s death, he witnessed a lynching as a teenager).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having escaped the worst of the Jim Crow
South, he is content with his life as the movement picks up speed after the
Brown decision. Representing the more militant post-World War II generation,
Lewis wants to challenge the status quo.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lewis attends Fisk University in Tennessee, one of the
leading historically black colleges that educated blacks during the era of
segregation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While in school, he goes to
James Lawson’s workshops on nonviolence and becomes part of the student sit-in
campaign in Nashville in 1960, which eventually resulted in the desegregation
of public facilities in the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
becomes part of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the
fictional character becomes the Forrest Gump of the movement, appearing at all
of the key events of the time, including the Freedom Rides of 1961, the Birmingham
campaign of 1963, and the Selma campaign of 1965.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the same time, Cecil watches JFK and LBJ deal with the
movement from Washington. “The Butler” shows—albeit in Hollywood fashion—how
the activists moved Kennedy to propose the most far-reaching civil rights bill
in history after the Birmingham police unleashed fire hoses and dogs on
protesters in the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following the
assassination, LBJ pushes the final bill through Congress and then proposes the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 after Alabama state troopers violently beat activists
at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Through his lens, the movie portrays the movement as a grass-roots
phenomenon that involved more than the incredibly important efforts of Martin
Luther King, Jr.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Throughout all of this, Cecil disapproves of Lewis’ behavior
because he breaks the law though his civil disobedience and because he fears
for his son’s life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, many black
Americans, even leaders of the NAACP, did not support the street protest
tactics of the students because they felt were too dangerous and that change
should come through the courts and legislation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like some SNCC activists such as Stokley Carmichael, Lewis
and his girlfriend become disenchanted with the non-violent strategy of Dr.
King during the mid-to-late 1960s, moving closer to Malcolm X’s advocacy of
self-defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They join the Black
Panthers, although Lewis becomes disenchanted with the group and leaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, Cecil hears President Nixon
and his advisers plot the group’s destruction, with references to J. Edgar
Hoover’s COINTELPRO campaign that undermined the Panthers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lewis and Cecil continue to be estranged throughout the
1970s and 1980s, even as Lewis enters politics and is elected to Congress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cecil continues to work into the Reagan years
where he sees the president veto sanctions on apartheid-era South Africa
(Congress overrode the veto).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shortly
thereafter, father and son reconcile and are arrested together at a protest
outside the South African embassy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such
efforts were common in the 1980s as many movement veterans saw the anti-apartheid
struggle as an extension of their fight during the 1950s and 1960s.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, the film concludes with Gaines living to see the
election of Barack Obama, though his wife, played by Oprah Winfrey, passes away
beforehand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The move concludes with
Cecil going to a meeting with Obama in the White House (though we do not see
him)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The film oversimplifies aspects of the movement, though in
fairness it is a feature film and not a documentary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, it bizarrely casts very famous
actors as presidents: Robin Williams as Ike, John Cusack as Nixon, and Alan
Rickman as Reagan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s almost as if the
filmmakers thought of the actor least likely to play the role and cast
them!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, they were following the
path laid by the television miniseries “Roots” 35 years ago; if you have a
black-themed project, use prominent white actors in supporting roles.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Indeed, the most important thing about “The Butler” is that
it is a film about African-American issues with black characters in the
lead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most films about such issues,
whether unbelievably inaccurate (“Mississippi Burning”) or relatively accurate
(“Lincoln”) usually feature whites as protagonists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In “The Butler,” the white characters are
clearly in background. For this reason and for its depiction of the seminal
events of the civil rights era, it is a worthwhile movie.</div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-45380798303218791302013-08-10T18:58:00.002-07:002013-08-10T18:58:20.699-07:00"Breaking Bad"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">I watched
every episode of “Breaking Bad” this summer (I know I’m behind the curve) and have
a few reflections about the show as the second half of the final season begins
on Sunday night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, I see a strong
undercurrent of class tensions, perhaps reflecting the growing income
inequality in the US in recent years as well as the impact of the Great
Recession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, even though the
show focuses on the “war on drugs,” the impact of the post-9/11 conflicts is clearly
visible on the characters.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">As a highly
educated man with a Ph.D. in chemistry, Walter White represents an idiosyncratic
symbol for the economic struggles of many working and middle class Americans in
recent years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His education should make
him a highly paid professional, but his personal disputes with his grad school
colleagues left him out of an enormously successful business, Gray and
White.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a high school teacher, Walt
struggles to support his family and once he is diagnosed with lung cancer, his
HMO won’t pay for the best health care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wearing
his sense of resentment on his sleeve, Walt refuses the financial assistance of
his rich friends and even blows up the car of an arrogant wealthy man in season
one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The Iraq war’s
influence could be seen when White’s DEA brother-in-law Hank is nearly killed
by an IED while working near the Mexican border.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such devices were the weapons of choice for
the insurgents in their fight against American troops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The combination of that trauma as well as
Hank’s shooting of a drug dealer in self-defense leaves him with a serious case
of post-traumatic stress syndrome, like many who have served abroad in America’s
wars over the last decade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">As we head
into the final episodes, it will be interesting to see how executive producer
Vince Gilligan concludes the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
predict a very unambiguous ending—i.e., the antithesis of “The Sopranos” or
“Lost.”</span></div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-79092076649904131732013-06-23T17:31:00.000-07:002013-06-23T17:33:29.148-07:00"Man of Steel"<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">I recommend
“Man of Steel,” which offers a darker take on the Superman story than audiences
have seen in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Combining
traditional elements of the mythology with the more serious tone of post-9/11
comic book films, director Zack Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan have
banished the memory of Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” (2006), reinvigorating
the franchise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Like the
original “Superman” (1978), the film begins with the depiction of Kal-El’s leaving
Krypton as an infant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the planet
crumbling, Jor-El, played well by Russell Crowe, puts his only son on a ship to
Earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After Kal’s departure, the evil General
Zod (“Boardwalk Empire’s” Michael Shannon) kills Jor-El and declares that he
will find his son.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Jor-El’s act
of sending his son away to save him echoes the story of Moses from the Old
Testament and Kal-El means “vessel of G-D” in Hebrew (Tye, 65-66). As I noted
in my previous post on Superman, two Jewish American teenagers from Cleveland
created the character during the 1930s and the influence of their religion and
immigrant experience pervades the tale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The destruction of Krypton can be seen as a metaphor for the Russian
pogroms that forced Jews to leave Eastern Europe in the late 19<sup>th</sup>
and early 20<sup>th</sup> centuries or for Europe on the eve of the Second
World War. Once on Earth, the Middle American Kent family adopts and raises
Kal-El as Clark Kent and he tries to assimilate into humanity, but is not truly
one of them, an experience shared by many immigrants who came to the United
States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, Kal El’s biological mother
fears humans will see him as an “outcast” and a “freak.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For more about Superman’s history, see <a href="http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2013/06/supermans-history.html">http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2013/06/supermans-history.html</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Like “Batman
Begins” (2005) and “Amazing Spider Man” (2012), “Man of Steel" is a much more cynical
examination of its protagonist than previous incarnations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gone is the whimsy and humor of the Christopher
Reeve films of the 1970s and 1980s, replaced by humanity’s fear of the alien other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the beginning of the movie, Clark Kent is
working a series of odd jobs, quietly helping people on the way and then
quickly moving on, much like David Banner in the “Incredible Hulk” TV
show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a series of flashbacks, we see
his adolescent struggles with his powers, which are far more traumatic than
those experienced by Tom Welling’s Clark on TV’s “Smallville” (2001-2011).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">As I’ve noted
before, most film franchises have become more serious since 9/11 and one of the
problems with “Superman Returns” was that is so consciously echoed the
sensibility of the original films.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not
so with “Man of Steel.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, the
climactic action scenes eerily echo 9/11 as we see people fleeing dust and
falling buildings. The contrast between Henry Cavill’s Superman and Christopher
Reeve’s from the late 70s/early 80s is almost as stark as the difference
between Daniel Craig’s James Bond and Roger Moore’s from the late 70s/early 80s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For more, see <a href="http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2011/09/post-911-popular-culture.html">http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2011/09/post-911-popular-culture.html</a>></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Overall, I
very much enjoyed the film, though Snyder could have cut one major action
sequence to make the story tighter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
the end, Clark begins his traditional job at the Daily Planet, providing a nice
conclusion to the movie and giving us hope that newspapers will still exist
when the sequel debuts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Larry Tye, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Superman: The High-Flying History of
America’s Most Enduring Hero</i>, (New York, 2012)</span></div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-70387709804073816132013-06-17T15:48:00.000-07:002013-06-17T15:48:00.619-07:00Superman's History
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt;">With the premiere of “Man
of Steel,” the latest iteration of the Superman legend, it is an appropriate
time to analyze the history of the character on his 75<sup>th</sup>
anniversary. Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel, two Jewish-American teenagers
from Cleveland, created Superman during the Great Depression, with DC Comics
publishing Action Comics 1, the first comic book to feature Superman, in 1938.
Many have interpreted Kal-El’s (Superman’s given name) flight from war-torn
Krypton as a metaphor for the American immigrant experience in general, or perhaps
for Jews trying to escape Europe during the 1930s. Clark Kent’s sense of
otherness as an “alien” in Middle-American Kansas can also be seen as an
expression of the challenge of assimilation for the immigrants who arrived
through Ellis Island between 1882-1924 and their children. During the
depression, Superman reflected the politics of the time, acting as a proto-New
Dealer, taking on corrupt landlords and businessman.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt;">During the 1950s,
Superman again reflected the ethos of his era, emerging as a champion of
“truth, justice, and the American way,” during the Cold War with the Soviet
Union. This phrase, now closely linked to the character, first became
central during this time (though it had been used briefly during World War
II.) The first Superman television show, the Adventures of Superman,
premiered during this decade, starring George Reeves, from 1952-1958.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the 1970s and early
1980s, Superman re-emerged with the Christopher Reeve films, which became the
most famous and influential depiction of the superhero. The success of
the films can partly be attributable to the fact that director Richard Donner
portrayed Superman as an incorruptible hero in the aftermath of the cynicism
wrought by Vietnam and Watergate. The film also served as a template for
most of the comic book movies since then, clearly influencing Tim Burton’s and
Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, as well as Sam Raimi’s Spider Man
series.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt;">The TV show “Smallville,”
which premiered in 2001, can be seen as a 10-year prequel to the Christopher
Reeve films and became the primary representation of the Superman myth for
Generation Y. Exploring Clark Kent’s coming-of-age in Kansas, which is
only partially examined in the Donner film, “Smallville” shows the young
Superman discovering his origins and learning to use his powers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt;">After the failure of
“Superman Returns” to revive the movie franchise in 2006, it appeared that the
character might disappear from the big screen. With the strong opening box office
for “Man of Steel,” however it seems likely that the character will continue to
endure in films and other aspects of popular culture for the foreseeable future.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sources: Bradford Wright,
Comic Book Nation, (Baltimore, 2001)</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt;">Erik Lunegrad,
"Truth, Justice and (Fill in the Blank), New York Times, June 30, 2006</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><br />
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Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-33696919421043233052013-06-14T20:06:00.001-07:002013-06-14T20:06:34.425-07:00"Mad Men," Season Six, Episode 10, 'Favors"
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The Vietnam-era
draft moved to center stage on “Mad Men” in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Favors” as Mitchell Rosen, the son of Don’s ex-mistress, is in danger
of being inducted into the military and sent to Southeast Asia in 1968. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don tries to help, assisting Mitchell in a way
that ends with mixed results.</span></div>
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conscription prevailed during the World War II-era as the draft provided no
exemptions for men attending college or graduate school. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to avoid a national debate over
Vietnam, the Johnson Administration allowed for deferments for those in higher
education during the 1960s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result,
most members of the American upper middle class did not serve and a smaller
share of the population bore the burden of the conflict than in the Second
World War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to the historian
Christian Appy, 20 percent of the American soldiers who served in Vietnam were
poor, 55 percent were working class, and 20 percent were middle class (though a
larger share of the country participated in Vietnam than has served in the
all-volunteer military of the post-9/11 wars).</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Once out of
school, young people with means often found ways to avoid the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some used creative tactics to fail their
physical, such as losing a tremendous amount of weight in advance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others found a friendly doctor to give them a
medical exemption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, 30,000
people left the country altogether and journeyed to safe haven in Canada.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Mitchell Rosen
is contemplating that path and Megan, herself a Canadian, considers helping
him. “He can’t be on the run the rest of his life,” responds Don, no doubt
thinking of his perpetual post-Korean War fear of being exposed as a fraud and deserter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, Don tries to find a way for Mitchell
to gain another exemption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though a
student, Mitchell sent back his draft card in protest and has been classified
as 1A, or available for service.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Don tries to
see if his new clients at General Motors will help, but like many Americans,
they express disgust toward those who try to avoid the draft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even Arnold Rosen, a Korean War vet himself,
seems conflicted, saying that he and Don were lucky to live in this country and
that “Service is part of that bargain…sacrifice…We knew that.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In an interesting twist, Ted Chaough comes to
the rescue and contacts a pilot friend of his in the Air National Guard, which
will likely become Mitchell’s salvation, just as it did for the young George W.
Bush in 1968.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While members of the guard
and reserves have served multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan since
9/11, Lyndon Johnson refused to call them up throughout the Vietnam War,
fearing it would provoke a wider debate over the conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result, many young people with
connections, like Bush and Dan Quayle, found their way into the National Guard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">History aside,
this season of “Mad Men” has picked up momentum in the last few episodes and
seems to be a late bloomer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will be
interesting to see how Don survives his current escapades.</span></div>
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Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-29421812207961174482013-06-13T20:13:00.001-07:002013-06-13T20:13:55.505-07:00"Mad Men," Season Six, Episode 9, "A Tale of Two Cities"<style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">“It’s a
revolt,” declares Pete Campbell regarding the internecine machinations at
Sterling Cooper as antiwar protestors battle with police in Chicago during the
infamous 1968 Democratic convention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
a strong episode, the divisions between the old and new members of the firm mirror
the schism in the country over the Vietnam War.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Early in “A
Tale of Two Cities,” the Democrats are delaying the debate over Vietnam at
their convention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Megan tells Don there
is no way Humphrey can win if the Democrats don’t come out against the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Against Nixon,” responds Don
quizzically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, Nixon had been left
for dead by many after his close loss to JFK in the 1960 presidential election,
which was followed by a defeat at the hands of Pat Brown (father of Jerry) in
the 1962 California gubernatorial race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore,” snarled the former vice
president to the press afterward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most pundits
presumed his political career was over, but Nixon campaigned hard for the GOP
in the 1966 midterms, receiving a great deal of credit for the Republicans’
success that year, which was much needed after the Goldwater debacle in 1964.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, Megan was partially correct, as the
failure to adopt a stronger position against the war alienated the antiwar left
from the Democrats, with many of them staying at home rather than voting for
LBJ’s vice president.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The convention
plays on television throughout the episode, reminding us of a time when there
were only three networks and the quadrennial rituals revealed major national
debates as opposed to the stage-managed infomercials the country watches
today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The antiwar movement descended on
the proceedings and marched toward the convention hall, only to be met with
harsh resistance from the Chicago police of Mayor Richard J. Daley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, public opinion was divided over
the police beatings of antiwar protesters and that is reflected in the
episode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Megan and Joan are horrified
while Don seems sympathetic to the police.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the end, a majority of Americans seemed to side with the cops,
despite their brutality, a sign of how the only thing more unpopular than the Vietnam
War was the antiwar movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
end, the disorder surrounding the convention doomed Humphrey, paving the way
for Nixon’s victory in the fall.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The next day,
Roger and Don meet with some executives from Carnation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One official believes that the Democrats are
not only done for 1968 because of Chicago, but could be finished for good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While that was a slight exaggeration, the
legacy of the divisions surrounding the battles of 1968 and 1972 weakened the
party for years, leaving them with a reputation that liberals were outside the
national mainstream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Between 1968 and
1988, the Democrats only won one presidential election, Jimmy Carter’s narrow
post-Watergate win in 1976.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The CEO of
Carnation arrives at the meeting and express his anger at the “long haired
fools,” but is also unhappy that the Republicans will likely nominate Nixon the
next month, calling him an “opportunist.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He prefers “Dutch Reagan,” a reference to then California Governor
Ronald Reagan, who had been elected in 1966.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The “Gipper” would make his first attempt to win the presidential
nomination at the GOP convention in Miami Beach, falling short in part because
the party bosses believed he was too conservative for the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nixon adroitly bridged the divide between the
Rockefeller and Goldwater wings of the party in ‘68, but Reagan’s emergence
reflected the rise of the New Right that grew out of the reaction to the 1960s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">By the
conclusion of “A Tale of Two Cities,” Pete is frustrated that the business is
changing and seems to give into the cultural changes of the time, borrowing a
marijuana cigarette from Stan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Meanwhile, the divide between those from Ted Chaough’s firm and the old
guard from Sterling Cooper seems as profound as the divide in the country as a
whole in 1968.</span></div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-70398589041721195402013-05-28T13:21:00.003-07:002013-05-29T06:47:44.329-07:00"Mad Men," Season Six, Episode Eight , "The Better Half"<style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Soap operas
both real and fictional continue on a strong episode of “Mad Men” as the
differences between Peggy and Abe reflect an important divide over crime that
emerged in the country during the late 1960s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Police sirens blare in the background throughout “The Better Half” as “law
and order” became a dominant issue in American politics.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Previously,
Abe had resisted Peggy’s desire to live on the tony Upper East Side, saying he
saw them “raising our kids in a place with more different kinds of
people.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The growing crime in their
neighborhood, however, is straining Peggy’s patience, especially after Abe is
attacked while getting off of the subway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The police officer dealing with the case is frustrated by Abe’s
unwillingness to give more details about the incident, asking, “Were they
colored or Puerto Rican?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Or white!”
shoots back Abe, yelling<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“fascist pigs”
after the cop leaves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Peggy is
furious that Abe won’t provide more information to the authorities, but he
says, “I’m not going to give them an excuse to shake down every kid that walks
through this neighborhood,” adding, “This is a fucking police state and we’re
going to have to fight, OK. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They did it
in Paris and they did it in Prague and believe it or not we’re going to have to
do it here, too,” referring to the student revolts in those countries in 1968.
“That doesn’t mean protecting criminals!” Peggy responds. “Those kids have no
other recourse in this system,” declares Abe, seemingly sympathizing with his
assailants.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">As crime grew
in the late 1960s, it moved beyond its traditional status as a state and local
issue and became the subject of intense national debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While New Leftists like Abe and many liberals
talked about the need to address the “root causes” of crime and the importance
of addressing poverty and the underlying issues of American cities, Republicans
forcefully called for tougher penalties on offenders and “law and order,” which
was key to the party’s resurgence after LBJ’s landslide victory over Barry
Goldwater in 1964.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Richard Nixon made
the cry central to his 1968 presidential campaign as he attacked Democrats and
liberals as “soft on crime.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
particular, Nixon focused his ire on the “activist” Supreme Court, which had made
decisions enhancing protections for criminal defendants, such as the famous <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Miranda vs. Arizona</i> case of 1966, which
brought about the warnings we have heard police read to accused criminals in
every police drama since.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">As Abe
suggests, many liberals saw the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“tough
on crime” rhetoric as little more than code words for bigotry. With explicit
appeals to racism no longer acceptable in the aftermath of the civil rights
victories of the mid-1960s, they saw it as a new and more sophisticated way to
appeal to racial prejudice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While no
doubt racism played a role in the success of such language, many Americans were
simply worried about their personal safety in the late 1960s and uninterested
in broader discussions of the rise in crime and its “root causes.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, Peggy responds to Abe’ understanding
of his attackers’ plight by saying, “They’re animals.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Calls for “law
and order” were essential to Nixon’s narrow win over Hubert Humphrey in the
fall of 1968, as well as George Wallace’s strong third-party showing in the
election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Tough on crime” rhetoric
would become a central part of the GOP strategy from the late 1960s to the
early 1990s, when crime finally began to fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even in liberal New York City, a Democrat like Ed Koch touted his
support for the death penalty during his mayoral campaigns in the 1970s as
support for capital punishment rose in Gotham’s outer boroughs as well as across
the nation as a whole.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Fearing for
her safety, Peggy accidentally stabs Abe when she hears noises toward the end
of the episode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While en route to the
hospital, Abe ends the relationship because he believes her work in advertising
is antithetical to his values, adding, “you will always be the enemy.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quite a unique break-up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This episode was much better than most of
this season’s fare, perhaps because the history was in the background as
opposed to the foreground.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-45251342583189551162013-05-12T21:57:00.002-07:002013-05-29T06:47:34.378-07:00"Mad Men," Season Six, Episode 6, "The Man With a Plan," <style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The shark is
rapidly approaching as the summer of 1968 comes closer on “Mad Men.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With Don Draper’s Sterling Cooper merging with
Ted Chaough’s firm in “Man With a Plan,” the longtime rivals compete while a
few historical notes are heard in the background.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Early in the
episode, one of the new employees asks Stan if he worked on the “daisy,” a
reference to one of the most famous television spots in American political
history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1964, Lyndon Johnson’s campaign
ran an ad showing a little girl counting down while picking a daisy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, the child’s countdown stops and a
more frightening voice replaces hers, intoning <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“10…9…8…,” until reaching zero, followed by a
nuclear explosion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then Johnson himself
comments, “These are the stakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To make
a world in which all of G-D’s children can live...Or to go into the dark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must either love each other or we must
die.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The narrator concludes, “Vote for
President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.”
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, LBJ’s
Republican opponent, had made some frivolous comments about the use of nuclear
weapons and the Johnson campaign repeatedly tried to make Goldwater look like a
warmonger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though the “daisy” ad aired only
once, it went down as a classic example of negative advertising.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ironic that it would be Johnson who would
Americanize the war in Vietnam after his landslide victory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Meanwhile, Sylvia
is upset that she hasn’t heard from her son, who is apparently in France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“All of France is on fire,” Sylvia tells
Don.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, a student/worker uprising
basically shut down France in May 1968 as they protested the policies of
President Charles De Gaulle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her comment
reminds us that 1968 was a turbulent year across the world, not just in the
United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition to France,
Mexico was racked by protests that the government violently quelled months
before Mexico City hosted the 1968 Summer Olympics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inspired by the reformist government of
Alexander Dubcek, the “Prague Spring” thrived in Czechoslovakia as openness
came to part of the Iron Curtain, at least until the Soviet Union sent in tanks
to crush the movement in August.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Discussion of
the 1968 election is heard once again, as the new co-workers express their
allegiances to McCarthy, Kennedy, and Nixon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Don observes that “Humphrey has all the delegates,” a reference to
Vice-President Hubert Humphrey’s hold on the Democratic political bosses who
still controlled the nomination process in 1968.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After RFK’s victory over McCarthy in the California
primary on June 4, he told the audience at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles,
“Now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there,” a reference to the site of the
Democratic convention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all likelihood,
Kennedy would have lost to Humphrey, but RFK never got the chance as he was
shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan as he left through the hotel kitchen, only two
months after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">“I don’t understand
what’s going on. It seems like they’re shooting everyone,” declares Pete
Campbell’s mother after hearing of RFK’s assassination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Megan is also visibly upset while watching
television coverage but Don seems nonplussed and distant, more focused on the
end of his affair with Sylvia than in the events of the day.</span></div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-33366398497334070522013-05-05T21:37:00.002-07:002013-05-05T21:38:26.813-07:00"Mad Men," Season Six, Episode 5, "For Immediate Release"<style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">After a “Mad
Men” episode with enough twists to fill a season of a daytime soap opera, major
changes are afoot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the end of “For
Immediate Release,” Sterling Cooper goes through yet another major renovation as
the agency merges with a rival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some interesting
historical themes lie beneath the major plots of the episode.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">As the company
readies to go public, Pete celebrates by going to a house of ill repute in Manhattan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In an unbelievably awkward moment, he sees
his father-in-law with a prostitute as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Concerned about the personal and professional implications, Pete asks
Ken for advice and he tells him that his father-in-law, who is also an
important client, will have to keep quiet because to do otherwise would expose
his own culpability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Talking about the
bizarre encounter, Ken says, would be the equivalent of “mutually assured
destruction” (MAD).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Of course, MAD
represented the military doctrine governing the use of nuclear weapons during
the Cold War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As long as both the US and
USSR maintained huge stockpiles of missiles aimed at each other, neither side
could use them because it would precipitate the end of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It’s why I don’t worry about the bomb,” concludes
Ken (though as the season 2 finale of “Mad Men” showed, the world came
perilously close during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">With less
apocalyptic issues at stake, Pete’s father-in-law pulls his business from the
agency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Furiously, Pete storms over to
his office and tells him “you just pressed the button, Tom” a reference to the
nuclear analogy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though his
father-in-law believes Pete won’t respond to his first strike and tell Trudy,
he proves to be wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only time will
tell what the fallout will be from this radioactive exchange.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Meanwhile,
Peggy is frustrated by the decline of her neighborhood, a concern shared by
many New Yorkers during the late 1960s and early 1970s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abe reassures her, “Look the neighborhood’s
changing….Everything’s getting better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Johnson’s gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The war is going
to end. We’re going to have a new president no matter what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe McCarthy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At worst case Kennedy.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peggy, who was raised Catholic and has a
picture of JFK on her wall, responds, “I love Bobby Kennedy.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Abe and Peggy
will both experience disappointment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Though Johnson pulled out of the race, the war in Vietnam would drag on
until 1973.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the episode occurs in May
1968, Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy will duel for the Democratic nomination
for the next few weeks, until Sirhan Sirhan assassinates RFK following his
victory in the California primary in June.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Relying on the strength of the party bosses who still determined
presidential nominee at this time, Vice President Hubert Humphrey garners the
Democratic nomination at the party’s convention in the summer and would likely have
done so even if RFK had lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
guesses we will hear Abe yell “Dump the Hump” at some point this season, due to
Humphrey’s rhetorical support for the war from 1965-68 (despite his private
misgivings)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Historical
references notwithstanding, the firm’s major concern is how to recover from
Don’s sabotage of the all-important Jaguar account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He gets an opportunity to redeem himself when
a revitalized Roger gives him a chance to compete for a new Chevrolet
product.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember when Don declared, “I
want Chevy” last season? The importance of the account reminds us that Detroit
and the American auto industry remained dominant in the 1960s, before the high oil
prices of the 1970s opened the door for more fuel-efficient Hondas and
Toyotas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>General Motors reigned supreme
and Chevrolet was the car designed for the burgeoning middle-class in 1968.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">In the end,
Don concocts a scheme to merge with longtime rival Ted Chaough’s agency in order
to win the Chevy account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With this
accomplished, Peggy and Don can be together professionally again while she
flirts with Ted while living with Abe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How will this all turn out?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll
find out next week on “As the World Turns”… I mean “Mad Men.”</span></div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-16265653391741964522013-04-28T22:01:00.000-07:002013-04-28T22:05:01.052-07:00"Mad Men," Season Six, Episode 4, "The Flood"<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Reminiscent of
the season three episode, “The Grown-Ups,” which revolved around the Kennedy
assassination, “The Flood” portrays the characters’ reaction to the death of Martin
Luther King, Jr.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Changes in everyone’s lives
play out against the background of the murder of the nation’s leading civil
rights leader in Memphis on April 4, 1968.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Early in the
episode, Paul Newman addresses an advertising award ceremony attended by most
of the main characters. An opponent of the Vietnam War, Newman expresses his
support for Senator Eugene McCarthy, praising him for challenging Lyndon
Johnson over the war before Robert Kennedy entered the race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, antiwar forces wanted RFK to run
against LBJ, but he turned them down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>McCarthy accepted and with the assistance of an energetic group of young
volunteers, nearly defeated Johnson in the New Hampshire primary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only after seeing Johnson’s weakness did
Kennedy enter the Democratic race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abe
Drexler, the most politically progressive character on the show, applauds
Newman’s remarks.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Everything
changes when someone shouts out that Martin Luther King has been killed. Still
working for New York City Mayor John Lindsay, Henry Francis leaves his
Westchester County home to help out, telling Betty “they’re going to burn down
the city,” a reference to the urban riots of recent years, notably Watts in
1965 and Detroit and Newark in 1967.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abe
leaves the ceremony and goes to Harlem to report on the black community’s
reaction and news reports follow about how King was murdered while advocating
for sanitation workers in Memphis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Pete returns
to his apartment in the city and calls Trudy in the Connecticut suburbs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whereas the couple held each closely while
watching the coverage of the Kennedy assassination five years earlier, they are
now estranged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The separation is
cemented when Trudy rejects Peter’s suggestion that he come stay with her and
their child during this difficult time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The next day,
Henry confirms to Betty the newspaper’s accounts of the previous night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along with a few advisers, Lindsay walked
into Harlem to try to calm an angry crowd and was largely successful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though there was a small riot that night, the
city avoided the troubles that plagued Washington, D.C. and other cities that
night (Cannato, 211-215).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, riots occurred
in 125 cities across the nation that night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Later in the episode, though, Henry expresses frustration that the city
achieved calmness by paying off urban militants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, some have criticized the Lindsay Administration
for funneling money to radicals in the late 60s and early 70s (Cannato, 130-131).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Harry Crane and
Peter have a confrontation because Harry is worried about advertisers losing
money because news reports are preempting the prime time schedule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crane is annoyed by all the network special
reports, a common phenomenon in the days before cable news and Internet when
the three networks were the only game in town for news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter, who has been a relative liberal on
race, including pushing clients to pursue the African American market, is
furious about Harry’s greed in the face of a national tragedy, calling him a
racist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“No one will be happy until they
turn the most beautiful city in the world into a shithole,” responds Crane.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Meanwhile, Don
seems unable to relate to his kids during the aftermath of the tragedy and
finds solace in (surprise) alcohol.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
Megan, Sally and Gene go to a vigil in the park, Don takes Bobby to see “Planet
of the Apes.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With its depiction of the decline
and destruction of humanity, the film very much reflected the dark mood of
1968.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For more on the movie, see <a href="http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2011/08/return-to-planet-of-apes.html">http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2011/08/return-to-planet-of-apes.html</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">For the most
part, the episode is replete with white people upset over Dr. King’s death
while providing solace (albeit awkwardly) to black co-workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While this no doubt occurred in some
instances, it is important to remember that King became a much more polarizing
figure than remembered during the final years of his life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His opposition to the Vietnam War alienated many
Americans and his focus on economic issues, which included talk of income redistribution,
was also controversial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>King moved to
address class divisions in America and was in the midst of preparing for his
Poor Peoples’ Campaign, which was to include a march to Washington, D.C. where he
and his allies would camp out until Congress legislated greater funding to
combat poverty.</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">“The Flood”
proves to be the best episode of what has been a relatively weak season to this
point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the Tet Offensive and King
assassination behind them, more turmoil awaits our friends as the summer of
1968 arrives on “Mad Men.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Sources:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vincent Cannato, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York </i>(New
York, 2001)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-79074955435512532192013-04-22T13:59:00.001-07:002013-04-22T13:59:14.323-07:00"42"
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“42,” which proves to be an entertaining retelling of the story of the
integration of baseball in 1947, even though it indulges in many Hollywood
clichés. With strong performances from
its two leads, Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson and Harrison Ford (in his
best performance in years) as Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey, the
film introduces another generation of Americans to an important story in the
country’s journey to civil rights. The
movie focuses on Robinson’s life from his initial signing by Rickey in 1945 to
the conclusion of his first season with the Dodgers in 1947.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Like many
historical films, “42” only provides limited context to what precedes the
events it depicts. The introduction to
the film references the impact of World War II on race relations, as many black
veterans returned home with higher expectations after fighting for democracy in
a war against racist regimes abroad. The
agitation of the American Communist Party, as well as the pressure from new
state laws barring employment discrimination, like the Ives-Quinn bill in New
York, in pressuring major league baseball to integrate, goes unmentioned.
Wendell Smith, a sportswriter for the <i>Pittsburgh
Courier</i>, one of the most important black newspapers in the country, has a
major part in the film, but his role and that of other black sportswriters in
pushing major league baseball to eliminate the color barrier is also neglected. The film gives Rickey full credit for
integrating baseball and while Rickey’s role was truly historical and heroic,
“42” doesn’t provide a full picture of the story behind Robinson’s emergence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Staring with
Robinson’s first spring training in Florida, the movie focuses on the ferocious
resistance to integration in America in the 1940s. As would be the case until
the 1960s, black players could not stay in the same hotels with their white
counterparts due to the Sunshine State’s Jim Crow laws. Indeed, Robinson broke the color line in
baseball nearly a decade before Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and the
Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56), the events usually regarded as the start of
the modern civil rights movement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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in the minors in Montreal, Robinson made the Dodgers squad in 1947, but many of
his teammates were not happy about it.
As the film accurately depicts, several of them signed a petition
declaring their unwillingness to play with Jackie. Manager Leo Durocher (played well by “Law and
Order: SVU’s” Christopher Meloni) orders a team meeting to tell the team that
Robinson will play if he can help the team.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Once Robinson
debuts in 1947, the film does a relatively accurate retelling of his first
season. From skimming Jonathan Eig’s <i>Opening Day (</i>2007), it appears the
screenwriter relied heavily on that book.
Philadelphia Phillies’ manager Ben Chapman, a native Alabamian, is the
stock villain of the movie, as he repeatedly taunts Robinson with racial slurs
during his plate appearances.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The movie
includes the famous story of Robinson’s appearance in Cincinnati where, as
legend has it, the crowd, which likely included many people from nearby
Kentucky, heckled him with racist epithets.
While this occurs, Dodger shortstop and team leader Pee Wee Reese, a
Kentuckian himself, comes over to Robinson and put his arm around him to
demonstrate his support for his teammate.
While this symbol of interracial brotherhood is now memorialized with a
statue in Brooklyn, there is little contemporary record of the incident and it
likely did not occur (Eig, 127-129).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">In true
Hollywood style, Robinson’s heroism and performance wins over his teammates. Though there is little doubt that many
players embraced him more as the season progressed, they rarely socialized with
him during that inaugural season. The
movie concludes with Robinson, like Roy Hobbs in “The Natural,” (1984) hitting
a home run to clinch the pennant. Conspicuously
omitted from the feel-good story is the Dodgers’ loss to the Yankees in the
World Series that fall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The movie’s
conclusion notes that two other African American players, Don Newcombe and Roy
Campanella, joined Brooklyn in the next two years. Still, the process of integration in major
league was slower than the film suggests.
It would not be until 1959 that the Boston Red Sox became the last team
to integrate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">These
criticisms aside, “42” is a fun movie that portrays an important part of
American history. Like many other
historical movies, it makes its audience familiar with a story it would likely
be unaware of otherwise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Jonathan Eig, <i>Opening Day: The Story of
Jackie Robinson’s First Season</i> (New York, 2007)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-23899492008847430592013-04-21T21:49:00.001-07:002013-04-21T21:49:29.429-07:00"Mad Men," Season Six, Episode 3, "To Have and To Hold"
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least-subtle episodes in the six seasons of “Mad Men,” virtually every issue of
the 1960s comes into play, from the sexual revolution to Vietnam. Despite all the obvious historical references
throughout “To Have and To Hold,” I’m not sure where this season is headed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">With Dow
Chemical frustrated by the bad PR they are receiving over the military’s use of
napalm in Vietnam, Harry Crane and a colleague conceive of a strategy to boost
the company’s image: an one-hour
primetime televised Broadway show with celebrities ranging from John Wayne to
New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath (including the horrifying idea of Wayne in
a sketch of “Camelot.”) The program
would also feature performances of traditional songs such as “Yankee Doodle
Dandy” and the Notre Dame fight song, while Dow would sponsor the show with the
slogan “family products for the American family.” Though President Nixon would not use the term
until the next year, Crane and his allies seem to be appealing to the “Silent
Majority” of Americans disturbed by the counterculture, the antiwar movement, and
other changes of the era.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Meanwhile, during
an evening out, Megan’s boss mentions the controversy over the Smothers
Brothers criticism of the Vietnam War in their television program, saying,
“sponsors and the network don’t want to have a conversation about the
war.” Indeed, CBS canceled the program in 1969 because
of the hullabaloo surrounding it. In the
ensuing conversation, Don notes that he’s against the war, the first time he
has mentioned his views regarding Vietnam.
While noteworthy, Don’s comment comes after the previous episode, “The
Collaborators,” revolving around the Tet Offensive, following which a majority of
the country thought the war was a mistake.
See <a href="http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2013/04/mad-men-season-six-episode-two.html">http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2013/04/mad-men-season-six-episode-two.html</a>><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The sexual
revolution arrives in full force as Megan’s boss and his wife propose that
Megan and Don go back to their place, smoke marijuana, and “see what happens”
and if they can “become better acquainted.” It appears they are proposing some
kind of wife/husband swapping situation.
At the same time, Joan and an old girlfriend randomly pick up a couple
of guys.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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inequality again makes an appearance, as Joan’s partnership in the agency
doesn’t seem to mean much when her attempt to fire a secretary is thwarted by
the male powers that be. Though her old
friend is jealous that she made it on her own without help from a husband, Joan
tells her that it is not all that it seems and that “I’ve been working there (the
agency) for 15 years and they still treat me like a secretary.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">As the episode
ends, Don remains unable to deal with female independence, unhappy with Peggy’s
success at a rival firm as well as Megan’s burgeoning career as an
actress. Indeed, after avoiding the set
of Megan’s daytime soap opera for months, he makes a point to come and watch her
first sex scene. Despite the relative
tameness of the fictional encounter and his own ongoing affair with a neighbor,
Don is furious at Megan for “enjoying it” and implies she’s a prostitute. It’s 1968 and the world is changing, but Don Draper
remains the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-12597962966338784462013-04-14T21:53:00.002-07:002013-04-14T21:53:43.067-07:00"Mad Men," Season Six, Episode Two, "The Collaborators"
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previous episodes revolving around historical events such as the Cuban Missile
Crisis and the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War and the Tet Offensive
serve as a metaphor for the various issues individual characters face in “The
Collaborators.” Don, Peter and Peggy’s
personal and professional battles are all contrasted with the events in
Southeast Asia in late January/early February 1968.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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the American war effort was losing support at home as the third year of direct U.S.
involvement came to a close. Though the “attrition”
strategy masterminded by U.S. commander William Westmoreland had inflicted
serious casualties on both the Viet Cong (VC) and the North Vietnamese Army
(NVA), the “search and destroy” missions carried out by American troops neither
addressed the social inequities that created the conditions for the insurgency
nor strengthened popular support for the South Vietnamese government. Furthermore, in a war without clear front
lines like World War II, the only sign of progress Americans could see was the Pentagon’s
report of the “body count” of enemy dead that aired on the network evening news
every night. As American casualties mounted this was no longer sufficient to
maintain the public’s belief in U.S. military success. Fearing the growing disenchantment in the
country, President Johnson and his military commanders launched an “optimism
offensive” during the fall of 1967, repeatedly telling the American public that
the U.S. military effort had turned the corner and that victory was approaching.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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time, the communists planned a massive attack on U.S. forces. In the fall of ‘67, they launched a series of
attacks in rural areas to draw American troops away from the cities. In addition, VC and NVA forces attacked the
Marine base at Khe Sanh, leading Westmoreland to fear a second “Dien Bien Phu,”
the battle that led to the French withdrawal from Vietnam in 1954. Distracted by these feints, American forces
were caught off-guard when the enemy began its largest offensive of the war during
the traditional cease-fire for the lunar holiday of Tet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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troops attacked 36 of the 64 provincial capitals on January 30, 1968, a massive
coordinated attack that flew in the face of the public optimism of the Johnson
Administration. As heard in the episode,
the guerilla forces even penetrated the US embassy in the South Vietnamese
capital of Saigon, though, as Sylvia Rosen observed, “We got it back.” After months of government pronouncements of military
success, Tet shocked the American public and destroyed the remaining
credibility of the Johnson Administration.
“What the hell is going on? I
thought we were winning the war,” exclaimed a surprised Walter Cronkite. Or as Arnold Rosen tells Don, “You know we’re
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hoped the urban dwellers of Saigon and the other cities would rise up against
their colonial masters, but it turned out no revolution was in the offing. Instead, the U.S. Army repelled the attack as
the VC left the cover of the jungle and exposed themselves to superior American
firepower. Still, public opinion turned
against the war for good. Cronkite
traveled to Vietnam to investigate the situation and returned home to tell the
American people the conflict was a “stalemate.”
Watching the CBS anchor’s editorial from the White House, Johnson mused
that if he had lost Cronkite, he had lost the country, a tribute to the power
of the evening news in the pre-cable, pre-Internet era (though many historians
believe the media was only catching up to the disaffection of the public rather
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losing the New Hampshire primary to Eugene McCarthy and also facing a challenge
from arch-nemesis Robert Kennedy, LBJ told the country on March 31 that he
would not seek re-election in the fall.
Slowly, the U.S. began to turn the war effort over to the South
Vietnamese themselves, a strategy of “Vietnamization” that Richard Nixon gradually
implemented after his narrow victory over Hubert Humphrey in 1968.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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league baseball celebrates Jackie Robinson Day on Monday, it is remarkable that
the number of African Americans in baseball has fallen from a quarter of all
players during the mid-1970s to 8.5 percent in 2011(Ruck<i>, Raceball</i>, 177;
“2011 Race and Gender Report Card,” p. 1). Indeed, Hispanics have
surpassed blacks as the largest minority in the game and there is little sign
that the number of African Americans playing in the majors will increase
anytime soon. Though the integration of baseball was a seminal event in the
civil rights movement, most young blacks going into professional sports today
seem to prefer basketball and football.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">It was not
always this way. During the first half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century,
the major leagues were segregated, but baseball was at the center of black
culture. After players and owners drew the color line in the 1890s, a
number of independent teams such as the Cuban Giants continued the tradition of
African-American baseball. With the Great Migration of blacks to the
North during World War I, a fan and consumer base emerged capable of supporting
a league. Organized under the leadership of former pitcher Rube Foster in
1920, the Negro Leagues became one of a number of African-American institutions
that sustained black life under Jim Crow. Though they often labored in
obscurity compared to their white contemporaries, players such as catcher Josh
Gibson and pitcher Satchel Paige were among the best in the sport in the 1930s
and 40s, even if they never played in the majors (Gibson) or didn’t during
their prime (Paige)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">After
struggling during the Depression, the Negro Leagues thrived during World War
II, as a number of forces laid the groundwork for integration. The fight
against fascism and Nazi racism abroad exposed the contradictions between
American rhetoric and American practice. Black sportswriters agitated for
major league teams to sign black players, with help from liberal politicians
and the Communist Party. The passing of Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain
Landis in 1944, who had long held the line on segregation, opened the door for
change. Brooklyn Dodgers’ GM Branch Rickey walked through it when he
signed Jackie Robinson, then playing for the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro
Leagues, to a contract in 1945.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">When Robinson
played his first game as a Dodger on April 15, 1947, he debuted a year before
President Truman integrated the military and nearly a decade before the epochal
civil rights landmarks of <i>Brown v. Board of Education </i>and the Montgomery
Bus Boycott. Robinson faced incredible racism in his early years in the
league, but excelled, paving the way for a parade of black stars in subsequent
years, including Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. As a result, the Negro
Leagues declined and disbanded. Not every team quickly followed
Brooklyn’s lead, however, as the Boston Red Sox only became the final team to
integrate in 1959. While black players entered the league, there were no
African American managers or coaches in the majors during this time, as the end
of the Negro Leagues meant the loss of opportunities for blacks in these
positions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The 1960s and
70s were the heyday of African American participation in the majors as well as
the game’s popularity in black America. As ESPN’s Michael Wilbon
recalled, “The talk in the barbershop wasn’t of Wilt and Russell nearly as much
as it was of Aaron and Mays.” (Was<i>hington Post</i>, April 14, 2007) In
the face of racism and death threats in 1974, Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time
home run record. The percentage of blacks in the major leagues reached an
all-time high of 27 percent the following year as 16 black players, comprising
40 percent of all non-pitchers, played in the 1975 All-Star Game (Ruck,
177-178).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The change
seemed to begin in the 1980s as other sports emerged. The National
Basketball Association (NBA) had nearly gone bankrupt during the disco era, in
part because some viewers and advertisers saw the league as “too black.”
The merger with the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1976 brought
Julius “Dr. J” Erving into the league, reviving it, followed by the arrival of
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, whose rivalry helped make it comparable to
football and baseball in terms of popularity. The arrival of Michael
Jordan then sent the league into a stratosphere by the 1990s, with millions of
young black (and white) kids wanting “to be like Mike.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Football grew
and surpassed baseball in popularity while featuring plenty of black players on
the field, but there was one major position that remained closed to African
Americans as late as the 1980s—quarterback. Racial stereotypes suggested
that blacks did not have the intelligence and leadership skills to run an NFL
offense. It was routine for pro coaches to move a black college
quarterback to another position after he was drafted. Those that insisted
on playing QB had to leave for the Canadian Football League (CFL), as future
Hall of Famer Warren Moon did for several years in the early 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The Washington
Redskins’ Doug Williams punctured this myth when he threw five touchdown passes
in a victorious MVP performance in Super Bowl XXII in 1988. In the
following years, Donovan McNabb, Steve McNair, and others achieved success as
quarterbacks. The Atlanta Falcons and Oakland Raiders drafted Michael
Vick and Jamarcus Russell 1<sup>st</sup> overall in the NFL Draft in 2001 and
2007, respectively, something that would have been inconceivable as late as the
1990s. Though black QBs do not yet face a completely even playing field,
they are unlikely to be forced to change roles anymore. The opportunity
to play the prestige position has encouraged more young African Americans to
pursue football at the expense of baseball.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The number of
blacks in the game remained reasonably high, as there was a lag before
declining youth participation impacted the percentage of African Americans playing
the game. As late as the mid-1990s, there were still as many blacks as Latinos
in the majors and Ken Griffey, Jr. and Barry Bonds competed for the title of
“best player in the game, ” though their choice of the sport was no doubt
influenced by the fact that they were both the sons of star players.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">For the most
part, it appears the decline of black players reflects greater sports options
rather than discrimination. Both college basketball and football hold out
the promise for earlier stardom than college baseball, and there are far more
scholarship possibilities for the former than the latter. Under Commissioner
Bud Selig, major league baseball has made great efforts to rejuvenate the game
in urban areas through its Revive Baseball in the Inner Cities (RBI)
program. Still, some African-American players, such as the Los Angeles
Angels’ Torri Hunter, have complained that management’s search for Latin
players comes partly out of a desire for a cheaper and more malleable work
force.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">As players
take the field with Robinson’s historic 42 on their back, there will be
relatively few African Americans in the lineup or on the mound, though nearly
40 percent of the participants will be people of color (2011 Race and Gender
Report Card, p.2). Indeed, no sport better reflects the multiculturalism of
today’s US more than baseball with its large Latino and Asian
contingents. Without Jackie Robinson’s courage 66 years ago, the
contemporary diversity of the sport would be inconceivable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Sources: Rob
Ruck, <i>Raceball</i>: <i>How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin
Game</i> (Beacon Press, 2011)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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Gender Report Card,” The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in
Sports. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-91204241524662853732013-04-08T17:16:00.000-07:002013-04-08T17:16:05.250-07:00"Mad Men," Season Six, Episode 1, "The Doorway," (Part 2)
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premiere for season six of “Mad Men, “The Doorway” featured too many themes to
discuss in one post. In particular, the
episode included a number of pop culture references from the late 1960s that
require explication.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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change a headphone ad because a comedian makes a joke about the Vietnam War on
“The Tonight Show” that links the ad with crimes committed by American
soldiers. Though “Mad Men” executive
producer Matthew Weiner told <i>TV Guide </i>that
the actual joke is fictional, the plotline reveals how important the program, then
hosted by Johnny Carson, was to American culture during the period. Indeed, “The Tonight Show” garnered a much
larger percentage of the television audience in the late 1960s that it does today,
even though Jay Leno still leads David Letterman and others in the ratings race. Younger readers who have grown up with
multiple channel options probably don’t realize that Carson dominated late
night from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s as competitors ranging from Dick
Cavett to Pat Sajak fell by the wayside, one by one. As Weiner himself observed, “I can’t even explain
it to young people what a universal experience it was [when] people watched [<i>Tonight</i>].(TV Guide website, April 8,
2013) For more on Carson and his “Tonight Show” reign, see href><a href="http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2012/05/johnny-carson-and-late-night-tv-today.html%3E">http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2012/05/johnny-carson-and-late-night-tv-today.html></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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the client wants the ad changed because it is going to be aired in an expensive
slot during Super Bowl II in January 1968.
I know Weiner says the show is not a history lesson, but “The Doorway”
offers a very presentist look at the big game, which had not yet achieved the
national holiday stature it attained in the 1970s. Indeed, many believe the Super Bowl ad wars did
not truly get underway until Apple introduced the Macintosh during Super Bowl XVIII
in 1984 with a groundbreaking spot based on George Orwell’s novel set in that
year. See href><a href="http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-super-bowls-history.html%3E">http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-super-bowls-history.html></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Roger’s daughter asks him to help her husband start a business in a new field—refrigeration. Immediately, I thought of the scene from “The
Graduate,” where Mr. McGwire tells Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) about the
great future in “plastics.” I think
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1967, when “The Doorway” begins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-75736294350402302422013-04-07T22:59:00.000-07:002013-04-08T14:18:06.892-07:00"Mad Men," Season Six, Episode 1, "The Doorway"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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back and enters the realm of 1968, the most eventful year of the 1960s. As it does, the show’s clothing and aesthetic
have clearly evolved from the 1950sish feel of season 1 to reflect the cultural
and social changes that marked the decade.
The first episode of season 6, “The Doorway,” also continues the
program’s commentary on key events of the period such as the Vietnam War and
the decline of New York City.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Appearances
clearly mark the time as several characters are sporting facial hair, which was
stigmatized at the outset of the decade, but became more and more common in the
era. Gone are the days when only Paul
Kinsey had a beard; now, Ginsburg, Stan, and Abe Drexler all have some, along with
the hippies in Greenwich Village.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The drug
culture emerges in full flower as several characters use marijuana in the
episode, including Megan and the young employees of the booming Sterling Cooper. More and more people tried marijuana as the
decade progressed. As late as 1960, only
4 percent of college students had tried it.
By 1972, 50 percent had used it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">As always, gender
is central in “Mad Men,” as a precocious 15 year-old family friend named Sandy
lectures Betty on the downsides of domesticity and expresses a desire to move
to some kind of hippie commune in the city.
Meanwhile, Peggy seems like Don circa season 1, ripping into the workers
under her for their poor work. She
appears very self-confident and the epitome of a 1970s career woman, a far cry
from season 1 and 1960.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Vietnam makes
two important appearances as Don meets a soldier on R&R while vacationing
in Honolulu. The soldier notes that everyone
in Hawaii has been friendly and that “after all the shit that went on last
summer stateside I was looking for a fight,” a likely reference to the growing
antiwar movement at home. By the end of
1967 and three years of an Americanized war in Southeast Asia, a majority believed
the war was a mistake and protests were spreading from university campuses to
the rest of the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">In addition, Peggy
has to change an ad campaign after it turns out it resembles a comedy routine on
“The Tonight Show” that referenced American soldiers cutting off the ears of
the Viet Cong. Over the course of the war,
some Americans turned against the conflict because of stories about crimes
committed by U.S. soldiers. The most significant atrocity, the My Lai massacre,
where a U.S. Army unit killed 300 to 500 Vietnamese civilians in March 1968,
would not be exposed until 1969.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The decline of
New York City, symbolized by rising crime and urban decay, comes further into
view. After Sandy reminds Betty that she
lived in the city while working as a model, she replies, “It was different back
then. There weren’t all the riots and
robberies.” Indeed, crime had increased
dramatically in NYC over the decade. When
Sandy makes good on her promise to go to the city, Betty travels to Greenwich
Village to find her. While much of the
area is very gentrified today, it was a much different picture at this time,
with decaying buildings and other symbols of urban blight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Of course, the
Village had long served as a home for artists and political radicals. After finding the commune, Betty talks to
some of the kids staying there and encounters a Jerry Rubin/Abbie Hoffman wannabe. Mocking her search for Sandy, he says “Why
can’t you leave her be. It kills you to
be out of control.” Betty responds,
“Someone needs to control this mess,” reflecting the growing generation
gap. “We have to take everything the
establishment throws away. That’s all
that’s left,” he lectures her, adding, “We don’t like your life any more than
you do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Toward the
conclusion of the episode, one of Don’s neighbors jocularly relates a story
about the police arresting gay people in the bathroom of a Bloomingdales store. Except for one minor character, I believe this is the first significant mention of homosexuality in “Mad
Men” since Sal left during season 3 and a reminder that even New York City was in many ways a center of
homophobia at this time. The modern gay
rights movement did not really gain momentum until the Stonewall Riot of 1969,
which took place in Greenwich Village.
Perhaps this will be referenced again next season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">As the episode
ends on New Years Eve 1967, Don reads a newspaper with the headline, “World
Bids Adieu to a Violent Year.” Indeed,
it had been a difficult year with major race riots in Newark and Detroit while
the Vietnam War dragged on with no “light at the end of the tunnel.” With an even more divisive year beginning and
Don Draper fixated on the fact that he was once Dick Whitman, who know what
season 6 holds?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: justify;">The first iteration of this post left out the fact that the character of Sal was a vehicle for referencing and discussing gay issues and the closet during the 1960s. Thanks to readers for reminding me about this. It was very late when finished the post</span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-69480925836492269532013-04-02T21:28:00.004-07:002013-04-02T21:28:47.296-07:00Preview of "Mad Men," Season Six
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six of “Mad Men” premiering on Sunday, I
have a few thoughts regarding the events that will shape it. Though executive
producer Matt Weiner has frequently noted that the show is not a history
lesson, it is very likely that the new season will take place in 1968, as it
would be surprising to produce a show about the 1960s while omitting its most
eventful year. While we can’t anticipate the personal challenges that
await Don Draper and the other characters, we do know the major historical
events that are to follow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Vietnam took
center stage at the outset of the fateful year. Throughout the fall of
1967, the Johnson Administration repeatedly suggested the U.S. military was
making progress against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army and that the
nation could see “the light at the end of the tunnel.” The communist allies,
however, punctured this optimism when they launched a massive attack in January
1968 called the Tet Offensive. Though the U.S. military eventually
repelled it, the communists’ ability to launch a nationwide attack weakened
public support for the war at home and destroyed Johnson’s remaining
credibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">In the
aftermath of Tet, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota garnered 42 percent of
the vote running as an anti-war candidate against Johnson in the New Hampshire
primary. Though McCarthy lost, his strong performance revealed how much
the war had weakened LBJ. Robert Kennedy, who had been the first choice
of the anti-war forces, then entered the race, setting off one of the most
dramatic primary battles in American history. With his popularity crumbling,
Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election on March 31.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">A week later,
James Early Ray assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis,
Tennessee. King had been preparing for his Poor People’s Campaign, which
was to include a march on Washington D.C. to demand greater funding for
anti-poverty programs, which had been diminished by the diversion of resources
to the war. In accordance with his new emphasis on economic inequality,
King accepted an invitation to support the sanitation strike in Memphis, where
garbage workers were fighting for better pay and work conditions. After
his assassination, riots broke out in 125 cities across the country, adding to
the national sense of disorder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">RFK and
McCarthy continued to battle it out in the Democratic primaries. Echoing
the 2008 race between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, RFK’s support came
largely from blue-collar whites while McCarthy’s backing came primarily from
upscale constituencies. Many viewed Kennedy as the only person who could
still speak to both sides of the cultural divide in America, as he retained
credibility with working-class whites as well as minorities. After
winning the crucial California primary over McCarthy on June 6, RFK was shot
and killed by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Even if
Kennedy had lived, he would have faced an uphill battle to win the Democratic
nomination. At this time, only a small number of delegates were allocated
through primaries and caucuses, as party officials still controlled the
nominating process. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, the choice of the
establishment, was virtually certain to win the nomination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">With no real
possibility of an anti-war nominee, the radical faction of the peace movement
mobilized to protest at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Mayor
Richard Daley and the city government refused to provide marching permits and
confrontations with the local police ensued. Eventually, police and the
protesters squared off outside the convention hall and a national television
audience watched the cops use tear gas and violence against the
militants. Humphrey received the nomination inside, but it was clear the
violence outside had seriously damaged his candidacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The fall
campaign witnessed a presidential race between Humphrey, Republican nominee
Richard Nixon, and the independent candidacy of Alabama Governor George
Wallace. Both Nixon and Wallace campaigned strongly on the theme of “law
and order,” declaring they would clamp down on rising crime, urban riots, and
anti-war demonstrators. As I pointed out in a previous post, it is
important to remember than many Americans disdained and resisted the social
changes of the 1960s. See <a href="http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2012/03/mad-men-season-5-premiere-part-2.html"><span style="color: #0000f5;">http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2012/03/mad-men-season-5-premiere-part-2.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Well behind at
the outset of the general election campaign, Humphrey began to gain traction in
September after he made a speech calling for more aggressive action to achieve
peace in Vietnam, distancing himself from the unpopular Johnson. His
campaign started to reduce Nixon’s lead, particularly as labor unions worked to
move frustrated blue-collar voters away from supporting Wallace and back into
their traditional home in the Democratic Party. In the end, though, Nixon
edged out Humphrey for a narrow victory in the November election.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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on an upbeat note as Apollo 8, the first spacecraft to orbit the moon, sent
back incredible images of Earth on Christmas Eve. Nevertheless, 1968 was
a turbulent and divisive year and its repercussions would echo for decades to
come. It will be interesting to see how Don, Peggy, Joan, and Roger
navigate its travails.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-59653527921585836502013-03-24T16:22:00.002-07:002013-03-24T16:22:52.910-07:00"Emperor"
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<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I modestly
recommend “Emperor,” a historical film about the early days of the American
occupation of Japan. Starring Matthew
Fox (“Lost”) and Tommy Lee Jones, the movie portrays an under examined topic, the
U.S. decision not to try Emperor Hirohito for war crimes after the end of the
Pacific War. While Nazi crimes have frequently drawn Hollywood’s attention from
“Judgment at Nuremberg” (1961) onward, Imperial Japan has received much less
screen time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Fox plays Bonner
Fellers, a Japanese specialist who goes to Tokyo with General Douglas MacArthur
(Jones) following the surrender. Though
the film dramatically narrows the time frame concerning the decision to try
Hirohito from a couple of years to ten days, “Emperor” provides a reasonably
accurate portrayal of American concerns as they sought to rebuild the
country. Despite tremendous popular anger
in America toward the emperor over the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S.
government’s early planning for the occupation sought to drive a “wedge”
between Hirohito and the Japanese government, placing blame on Prime Minister
Hideki Tojo and the militarists (Dower, 278-301). As portrayed in the film, Fellers and MacArthur
were deeply concerned that communists could exploit the postwar devastation of
the country to gain a political foothold and believed preserving the monarchy would
help stabilize the country. In the movie
as in reality, the U.S. does not try Hirohito and he plays an important
symbolic rule during the occupation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Though Fellers
concludes in the film that it isn’t possible to know the emperor’s role in
planning Pearl Harbor, Hirohito had knowledge of the attack beforehand (Dower, 292.) The film also shows Hirohito’s crucial role in
ending the war as despite the devastation wrought by the atomic bombs, the
Japanese war cabinet split on whether to surrender after Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. It required the emperor’s radio broadcast of surrender to ensure an end
to the bloody conflict.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The film
accurately shows the devastation wrought by the American aerial bombing of Japan. Fellers references the firebombing of Tokyo on
March 9—10, 1945, which killed 100,000 people, more than those killed in Hiroshima. Indeed, one reason the U.S. military chose
Hiroshima as a target for the bomb was because it was one of the few cities still
relatively intact where the United States could demonstrate the power of their
new weapon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Though the film
focuses on Fellers, Jones captures the vainglorious nature of MacArthur, who is
seen preening for the cameras and media attention. But it also shows the general discussing his
plans to make Japan a model for transition for military rule. Indeed, the U.S. occupation became one of the
most successful in history, as MacArthur midwifed a new constitution and government
that included an elected parliament, women’s suffrage, and stronger labor
unions. The document also forbade Japan from
using its military forces abroad and the country emerged as a stable,
prosperous democracy and ally that would become strong enough to challenge American
economic supremacy by the 1980s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As I saw the
film the week of the 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq
War, it was impossible to watch without comparing the two postwar
occupations. Paul Bremer, whom President
Bush appointed head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq after the
initial invasion, was no MacArthur and made a series of disastrous decisions,
from dissolving the Iraqi Army to barring all former Baath Party members from
the new government, fueling the insurgency that would bring the country to the
brink of civil war. Granted, MacArthur
had certain advantages, as Japan was an organic country while European colonialists
carved out Iraq’s borders at Versailles.
Furthermore, despite the militarism of the 1920s, Japan’s history
included a longer tradition of democratic institutions than Iraq’s. Though Bremer may have faced a more daunting
challenge than MacArthur, the differences in the outcome of the two occupations
remains quite stark.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“Emperor” does
not delve as deeply into the issues surrounding Japanese war crimes as it could
have and is marred by a weak love story.
Still, I think it is a worthwhile film that depicts a period that has
been long been neglected in popular culture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Sources:
John Dower, <i>Embracing Defeat: Japan in
the Wake of World War II</i> (New York, 1999)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-64282194223255324332013-03-19T18:12:00.001-07:002013-03-19T18:12:47.305-07:00The History of March Madness<br />
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This week marks the beginning of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament, popularly known as “March Madness,” which determines the men’s college basketball champion. The month-long competition, once relatively obscure, has become massively popular, commanding the attention of casual fans more than any other sporting event besides the Super Bowl.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In the 1950s, the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) remained the most prestigious postseason college tournament. Over time, the NCAA surpassed it, with John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins teams dominating the competition throughout the 1960s and 70s, winning 10 titles in 12 years. The NCAA split the field into four regions, with the winners of each area becoming known as the “Final Four.” After airing on regional television in its early years, the final appeared on network television for the first time in 1973, as UCLA defeated Memphis State (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Big Dance,</i> p. 100).<o:p></o:p></div>
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As with other sporting events I’ve analyzed, observers often point to one particular game that laid the groundwork for its rise. In the case of the NCAA Tournament, it was the 1979 title game between Magic Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans and Larry Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores. Though the game itself was not close, the much-hyped battle between the two future NBA stars produced the highest television rating in the history of the tournament, setting the stage for the event’s growth during the final two decades of the 20<sup>th</sup> century (and laying the groundwork for the NBA's boom in the 1980s).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The 1980s and 90s witnessed a series of close games involving elite programs and All-American players. With college stars remaining in school for three or four years, many appeared in multiple Final Fours, including Houston’s Clyde Drexler (2) and Hakeem Olajuwon (3), Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing (3), as well as Duke’s Christian Laettner, who made it in all four of his seasons. Indeed, Laettner’s Blue Devils replaced UCLA as the dominant program during this era, becoming the New York Yankees of the sport, loved by supporters and despised by opponents.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The emergence of ESPN in 1979 proved crucial to the rise of the tournament, as the nascent sports network covered every game of the hectic early rounds, breaking in to the ends of close contests to show dramatic finishes. This technique made the first four days of March Madness among the most exciting in all of sports. After witnessing the success of this formula, CBS purchased the rights to the entire tournament, putting all of the games on network television in 1991 (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Big Dance</i>, 105). <o:p></o:p></div>
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By the 1990s, more and more offices held pools to see who could correctly fill out their brackets and predict the outcome of the tournament. With everyone putting their money on the line, the office pool became a national phenomenon with even non-fans participating and rabidly following the results. President Obama, himself a huge basketball fan, has publicly revealed his brackets on ESPN every year since he took office. Long lunches are often the rule of the day during the early rounds, diminishing worker productivity. With the emergence of the Internet, the situation has become worse as workers can now watch all games streaming on their office computers. One firm suggests that 2.5 million workers will spend roughly 90 minutes watching the tournament while ESPN ‘s Liz Granderson proposes making the first two days of the tournament a national holiday (Challenger, Gray and Christmas).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Like most sporting events, the ratings for March Madness have declined in recent years due to competition from new entertainment options. Furthermore, with players either skipping college entirely or only attending school for a year, few players participate in more than one Final Four anymore. NBA greats such as Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, unlike their predecessors, never played in the tournament. In their absence, the coaches of elite programs have taken center stage, including Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, North Carolina’s Roy Williams, and Kentucky’s John Calipari. Nevertheless, March Madness remains the most consistently entertaining event in sports and I will follow my brackets religiously for the next month (at least until they’re busted!).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sources: Barry Wilner and Ken Rappaport, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Big Dance: The Story of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, </i>2012.</div>
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-34369480320582941992013-03-14T19:11:00.000-07:002013-03-15T10:08:36.634-07:00"The Americans," Episode 7, "Duty and Honor"Soap opera relationships continued on “The Americans” as Philip met an old girlfriend in New York City. At the same time, the arrival of a Polish leader opposed to Soviet involvement in his country foreshadowed the fall of the Iron Curtain.<br />
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As the episode begins in 1981, Elizabeth and her kids watch a news report showing images of unrest in Poland. The previous year, Polish workers led by Lech Walesa started the Solidarity union in the shipyards of Gdansk. The formation of the non-communist union represented an ideological threat to the communist government in Warsaw as well as to the other satellite governments in Eastern Europe. Rumors swirled that the Soviet Union would invade Poland and put an end to the protests, just they had done in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.<br />
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In “Duty and Honor,” Philip and his former lover work to undermine the credibility of Andrzej Bielawksi, a Polish opposition leader who appears to be a fictional stand-in for Walesa. In the episode, it is hinted that he has become a priest (which Walesa did not). Still, many believe that Pope John Paul II’s visit to his home country in 1979 laid the groundwork for the rise of Solidarity and the Catholic Church played a vital role in the opposition. In the fictional plotline, Philip sets up a phony rape case, forcing Bielawski to withdraw from his role in the opposition.<br />
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In reality, Polish leaders declared martial law in 1981 and forced Solidarity underground, though Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. By the late 1980s, Solidarity reemerged to win the first free and fair elections in Poland in 1989 and Walesa won the presidency in 1990.<br />
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“Is this the beginning of the end of communism in the Eastern bloc?” a reporter asks Bielawksi in “Duty and Honor.” Though it was hardly clear at the time, the rise of Solidarity and the bravery of the Polish opposition heralded the fall of the Soviet empire for good.
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6809612495473108145.post-77952913008709042552013-03-07T20:50:00.000-08:002013-03-15T10:19:07.860-07:00"The Americans," Episodes 5-6, "COMINT" and "Trust Me"While there wasn’t much history to discuss in episodes five and six of “The Americans,” I want to keep the momentum of the blog going. The role of women, a significant theme of another historical drama, “Mad Men,” does make an appearance in “COMINT” and “Trust Me.”<br />
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In episode five, the FBI supervisor played by Richard Thomas (“John Boy” from “The Waltons”), mockingly reproaches an agent for commenting on a female colleague’s appearance. While workplace sexism in the early 1980s had diminished somewhat from the days of Don Draper and Sterling Cooper in the mid-1960s, the nation was still a decade away from the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas scandal that dramatically raised awareness of the issue in 1991.<br />
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Elizabeth’s KGB controller also criticizes the stalled progress of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the United States. Indeed, after passing the Congress overwhelmingly in 1972 and quickly gaining ratification in a majority of the states, the ERA was on the verge of failing in 1981. The emergence of the New Right and an antifeminist movement led by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly in the 1970s left the amendment three states short of the three-fourths necessary to become law. After President Jimmy Carter extended the ratification time by three years in 1979, feminists worked furiously, but were unable to secure passage in Illinois or several border and southern states before time expired in 1982. It is noteworthy that the ERA lost momentum after the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, which provided fuel to the pro-life movement and the emerging religious right of the period.
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While critics seem to love the show, I’m tiring of the on-again, off-again, arranged marriage of Philip and Elizabeth. I’ll try to be patient, but “The Americans” is beginning to wear on me.
Robert Fleeglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635319741456458950noreply@blogger.com0