I can’t embed this video of the first Mad Med episode where Peggy goes to the gynecologist, but I had forgotten just how exactly it mirrors the latest freak-out over contraception until I saw it again the other day. The dialog for the gynecologist is pretty much the current Republican attitude towards contraception: you can have it, but you have to pay for it, and if you use it “too much” you’re going to be called a whore and we can take it away. That episode was set in March, 1960. The Obama team should hire Matthew Weiner and have him edit it down to a 60 second ad to emphasize just how retrograde the last couple of months have been.
Strumpet Alert
by $8 blue check mistermix| 49 Comments
This post is in: The War On Women
JPL
MSNBC online has a timely article about the economics of the pill.
The entire article is worth reading but most of us will say well, duh!
Blackfrancis789
Great. Now I’m going to have to start watching Mad Men?
Dian Murasso
I would like to see a livestream of you guys playing some old school games like Ocarina of Time. Even though i live in New Zealand and wont see it xD Cant wait to see what happens with your guild lol
RedKitten
Which is why the right-wingers are against it, no doubt. All them wimmenfolk, trying to take a man’s place in the world! It’s unnatural, I tells ya! Why can’t they just go back to being secretaries (until they get married and pregnant, of course)?
lonesomerobot
OK completely OT but I know you’ve followed Fukushima developments, mistermix
1st: “Radiation levels inside Fukushima’s reactor 2 have reached fatally high levels, and levels of water are far lower than previously thought, experts say today. The current radiation levels are so high that even robots cannot enter.”
2nd: “While traveling in Japan several weeks ago, Fairewinds’ Arnie Gundersen took soil samples in Tokyo public parks, playgrounds, and rooftop gardens. All the samples would be considered nuclear waste if found here in the US. This level of contamination is currently being discovered throughout Japan.”
lonesomerobot
GOP waging a war on women, immigrants, blacks, liberals, the poor, the elderly, unions, practically all non-Christians, science, alternative energy, proof of climate change, viable healthcare access, hoodies, …
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@lonesomerobot: Maybe we could carve out part of the US and move the Japanese here. Just make it its own country over here. They’ve wanted to be part of the West more than other Asian countries anway. While were at it, we could move Taiwan as well. That would just leave us defending South Korea.
Gin & Tonic
@lonesomerobot: And still, a minimum of 50 million of your fellow citizens will vote for them in November.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@lonesomerobot: And yet they’ll get 40% of the vote at least.
lonesomerobot
@Gin & Tonic, @Belafon (formerly anonevent): the suppressed vote, that is. It’s how they manage to remain viable.
lonesomerobot
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): just another thing for the GOP to have a war on
Hill Dweller
In other news, House Republicans are about to pass Ryan’s radical budget and a transportation bill that Secretary LaHood(a Republican) called the worst transportation bill he’s ever seen.
If a transportation bill isn’t passed before the end of the month, approximately 70,000 people will be laid off immediately, and thousands more later.
Hawes
Isn’t Mad Med that new reality show where they lock 12 drug reps into a mansion in La Jolla and see who can sell the most Viagra to Catholic priests?
Valdivia
Make it 30 seconds and put it on the air every day in every state.
Valdivia
@Hill Dweller:
as I understand it the bill they have to pass for Transportation is not that awful one cooked by Boehnor but the one passed already by the Senate which is different (though probably not great)
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
@JPL: You see this as a good thing. Republican will point to this exact same sentence and say “yeah, that’s the problem right there!”
Hawes
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Move them to the Great Basin. I hear Hart Mountain is lovely this time of year.
Actually, given how insane the GOP base is, pretty much bringing in any immigrant group would be bound to swell the ranks of the non-GOP.
Rick Massimo
As Digby pointed out a few days ago, Peggy may have gotten a lecture from her doctor, but even she didn’t have to bring a note to her boss.
David Hunt
@Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity:
I disagree. Most of them know better than to say this. They’ll just think it real load. Then they’ll running it through the Dogwhistle 2012.4 coding machine and start sending out the message to those that understand it.
Schlemizel
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I have long been in favor of the Bartcop proposal to give Oklahoma to the Israelis, they could move everything there & the whole ME situation would be cleaned up. Heck, they could probably do a whole lot better with the space than what we currently have.
Schlemizel
@Hill Dweller:
Can someone explain to me how the GOP can pass anything in the House that is supposedly controlled by Dems? Why is this happening, I must have missed the memo.
Name one bill the Dems got through the House when the GOP owned it.
bemused senior
This clip sounds pretty much like my first visit to the gynecologist to get the pill in the late 1960s. Add more prurience and less moralism. Mortifying.
catclub
I think a Mad MED episode that starts with a gynecologist appointment is not going to end well.
catclub
@Schlemizel: Have you read “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union”? by Micheal Chabon.
I enjoyed it.
Rafer Janders
@Schlemizel:
Um, the House IS controlled by the GOP now. That’s why Boehner is Speaker and Nancy Pelosi isn’t….
Narcissus
Patriarchy dies hard.
Rick Massimo
@Narcissus: And stupid too.
mistermix
@lonesomerobot: Thanks, I’d missed the second link.
Hill Dweller
@Valdivia: Boehner doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate’s version, so he is trying to pass a 3 month extension today. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to have the votes for the temporary extension, either.
Mnemosyne
@Schlemizel:
I think you’re having an early morning brain fart. The House went back to Republican control in November of 2010 after the disastrous (for Democrats) midterm elections.
Joy in FL
I just got hooked on Mad Men (thanks to this blog). My blu-rays of seasons 2 & 3 arrive today from Amazon.
I watched that first episode a couple days ago and thought just what you have said.
I am also finding my respect increasing for what progressives have achieved. I was 3 years old in 1960, so I do not remember the repression and condescension first-hand.
Deb T
I got my firsts birth control pills in 1968 or 69, and went to Planned Parenthood. It was my first gynecology exam and it was free (I was a ‘poor’ student). Everyone was very pleasant and nice. There was no shaming. I continued to use PP for my exams although after I graduated and got a job I had to pay a nominal fee. I did not have regular healthcare till I got a good full-time job in 1973.
God bless Planned Parenthood.
Frankensteinbeck
@lonesomerobot:
That is one truly, massively dishonest and deceptive site. Yes, radiation levels INSIDE A NUCLEAR REACTOR are fatal. I wouldn’t stand inside an industrial smelter’s furnace, either. He didn’t give his actual results on the so-called ‘nuclear waste’ claim, but the page he waved at high speed across the screen showed one positive, one negative, and three barely detectable results. Further down he presented cancer levels without reference to background radiation and normal cancer rates in a community. Have you ever heard of being lied to with statistics? That is what that site is trying to do to you.
Brachiator
@Narcissus:
Especially when it’s propped up by women.
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I don’t know if it has been mentioned here before, but a recent NY Times article about Santorum’s appeal to women is illuminating (On the Right, Santorum Has Women’s Vote, Mar 23)
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These women find comfort and support in their view of what country and family is supposed to be. Maybe they find great value in their view of themselves as mothers and the bulwark defender of the home. And just as many Tea Party People are afraid that the country is turning into something that they do not understand, these women cling to a narrow, rigid, safe (for them) vision of what family is supposed to be.
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Brachiator
By the way, for those who can or want to view the entire Santorum and Women story, here is a reference.
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Having problems adding links through edit.
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WereBear
@Brachiator: Not only that; they have chosen this path. Or had it chosen for them… but this is what they have and they will defend its rightness at this point to avoid cognitive dissonance.
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My mother loves her children; but would be the first to admit that she was not cut out to be a full-time mother and housewife, and if she had been given opportunities, she would have taken them.
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And everyone involved would have been happier.
SuperHrefna
This is one of the reasons why I find Mad Men so depressing: I know Draper is meant to be an antihero and they are portraying the sexism/racism/ismism of the time for us to be horrified by but I think a lot of people find Don Draper to be a Real American Hero and watch the show and long to be a Master Of The Universe like him. Especially younger people like my youngest brother (a 20 something): on the one hand he’s horrified, on the other he’s intrigued… Raised by a feminist he didn’t even know that kind of relationship between men & women was a possibility.
If you put out a ad like that a lot of people would watch and think, yeah, that’s the way things should be.
JenJen
Love, love, LOVE Mad Men and I’ve probably seen the first season three times now. Without seeing the video, correct me if I’m wrong… wasn’t the doctor smoking a cigarette in that scene, as well?
Inkadu
@Frankensteinbeck: fukashima is the best thing to happen to nuclear energy: an almost completely contained worst case scenario. The only argument against it I have left is regulatory capture and complacency deteriorating what have been proven to be extremely effective safety measures.
lonesomerobot
@Frankensteinbeck: you should maybe read up a little on Arnie Gunderson’s background before you discount what he has to say. I’ve found him thus far to be about the most accurate source of info on what’s going on at Fukushima.
But you know, believe what you want to believe.
sharl
@lonesomerobot: I’m not certain, but I believe Frankensteinbeck was directing his harsh criticism more at the CommonDreams post more than toward Gunderson’s post.
shortstop
@Hawes: Silly, they don’t have to sell it. It’s covered under the priests’ church-administered health plan.
shortstop
@David Hunt: Agreed. But Rih would actually say it out loud with some belligerence.
Maus
The irony, of course, being that Peggy’s actress is a Scientologist, which is both publicly anti-abortion while having a history of forcing their paramilitary officers to get abortions.
Waldo
Great observation about 1960’s Mad Men and 2012’s GOP.
Hob
@bemused senior: The other thing about that scene is that the doctor has also been providing BC (and at one point, an abortion referral) for Peggy’s co-worker Joan, who used to be sleeping with him. He doesn’t give Joan the moral lectures because he doesn’t consider her a “good girl.”
Hob
@Maus: I’m always sorry to hear that anyone is a Scientologist, I don’t think there’s a single good thing about that outfit. But as far as the show goes in this case, I couldn’t give less of a crap; Moss isn’t using the show to advocate for her church and she’s a damn good actor.
Frankly I don’t see any irony there at all, because (a) Peggy isn’t getting an abortion, she’s getting birth control, which AFAIK the Hubbardites have no objection to (so OK, there’s one good thing about them); and (b) playing characters who do things you personally wouldn’t approve of is an actor’s job, it happens all the time– the only reason you know about it in this case is that Moss’s religious affiliation has been talked about a whole lot (someone feels compelled to mention it in just about every Mad Men discussion I’ve ever seen), which isn’t the case for most actors.
Frankensteinbeck
@sharl:
No, I was just as or more disgusted by Arnie Gunderson. The blatant use of deceptive statistics renders it impossible to take a merely unexplained rating on trust. Context is everything. When you catch an ‘expert’ misrepresenting the context in one case and leaving it out entirely in another, both leading to sensational and scary sounding conclusions, it’s time to ditch that expert as dishonest.
The ‘radioactive waste’ bit was vile. He picked a quote out of context to make it sound like the nuclear industry never thought about contamination until now, he spent a huge amount of time driving home to you that his samples represented all of Tokyo, then gave you a rating he didn’t explain with the ridiculous subtext that this must be caused by Fukushima.
sharl
@Frankensteinbeck: Thanks for the response.