Even though I don't have a TV

I am supremely good at wasting time watching television. Case in point: I recently watched two seasons of the show Mad Men, which airs on AMC and will be starting its third season in the near future.

I kinda hate getting addicted to new shows because then I do indeed waste all this time catching up and becoming obsessed... but at least I can pretend I'm learning something from this show. It's set in the late 50's early 60's in Manhattan so I get my dose of New York culture and world politics from that time, which I can somehow link up to my Vietnam class since we're currently studying the Kennedy administration.

Ok but really it's about the characters and how ridiculously well their stories are written. Of course the costumes and all that help set the tone, and there are funny moments of circumstances that seem so ridiculously racist/sexist/inappropriate watching from this day and age. So I've been really enjoying all that while at the same time cringing at how much these people smoke (even on the airplanes! and while pregnant!) and thinking how glad I am to be entering the workforce as a woman in this era instead of back then.

Unfortunately one of the pervasive themes of the show is adultry: these "mad men" work on Madison Ave all day and then go off to meet up with their mistress in a hotel and then return to their wives and children in the suburbs after dark. Basically. Which is sad, and yet so seemingly common. And it's just made so much worse by the fact that television is supposed to allow a person to escape, and yet it seems impossible to escape this culture of deception. I'm lucky to have what I have, and I know I'm lucky, and that makes it all the worse when friends of mine are not so lucky. What I mean is... it's hard to watch a show (though it may be set 50 years ago) about people who cheat and lie in relationships and then have it echo back in real life.

I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that television--that is, smart, savvy television--isn't scripted in a void, as much as we would like to turn to it for an escape. And actually I appreciate this show much more than others that are too over-the-top or gloss over more important issues (coughcoughGGcoughcough). So affairs and duplicitous men aside, I recommend watching Mad Men and would love to have more people to discuss it with, since it really is one of those shows that inspires dialogue.