[on the 1960s as portrayed in 'Mad Men'] To my mind, the picture is too crude and the artist too pleased with himself. Everyone chain-smokes, every executive starts drinking before lunch, every man is a chauvinist pig, every male employee viciously competitive and jealous of his colleagues, every white person a reflexive racist (when not irritatingly patronizing). It's not that you don't know that, say, sexism was rampant in the workplace before the feminist movement. It's just that, on the screen, the endless succession of leering junior execs and crude jokes and abusive behavior all meant to signal 'sexism' doesn't work - it's wearying rather than illuminating.
