![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Learning the Words
Jan. 23rd, 2012 12:42 pm(I don't really miss the Cold War.)
Last night was possibly the last episode of Pan Am. If you'd told me back in September that I would be VERY UPSET by this, I wouldn't have believed you. This is almost entirely because the ad campaign for Pan Am set it (and the Playboy Club) up to look like the natural successor to Madmen, which I have absolutely zero interest in. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes, there is sexism and racism and classism, but in every case, Pan Am runs at it full force, acknowledges the problem, and while it cannot, historically speaking, solve the problem, it still deals with it in a graceful, well written, exceptionally acted way. Yes, there are Boys and Their Issues in this show, but the predominant foci are the four stewardesses, and their journeys to become the kind of people the can, now that it's 1963.
All of this came to a head in "Truth or Dare", which aired before Christmas and might have edged its way on to my list of Perfect Episodes of Television (and not just because of the scene where they're sitting in the plane with their shoes off watching Colette tie a knot in a cherry stalk with her tongue while talking to the pilots), but last night, once again, Pan Am surprised me when it tackled sexuality.
( Spoilers )
Pan Am is pretty, you guys, but it mostly serves to remind me about how glad I am that I don't live there.
It is all soft touch and emotion, and then all of a sudden you realize they've hit you with a hammer when you were looking the other way.
Also: Female friendship! Excellent cinematography! Wonderful costuming! SPIES! ;)
Last night was possibly the last episode of Pan Am. If you'd told me back in September that I would be VERY UPSET by this, I wouldn't have believed you. This is almost entirely because the ad campaign for Pan Am set it (and the Playboy Club) up to look like the natural successor to Madmen, which I have absolutely zero interest in. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes, there is sexism and racism and classism, but in every case, Pan Am runs at it full force, acknowledges the problem, and while it cannot, historically speaking, solve the problem, it still deals with it in a graceful, well written, exceptionally acted way. Yes, there are Boys and Their Issues in this show, but the predominant foci are the four stewardesses, and their journeys to become the kind of people the can, now that it's 1963.
All of this came to a head in "Truth or Dare", which aired before Christmas and might have edged its way on to my list of Perfect Episodes of Television (and not just because of the scene where they're sitting in the plane with their shoes off watching Colette tie a knot in a cherry stalk with her tongue while talking to the pilots), but last night, once again, Pan Am surprised me when it tackled sexuality.
( Spoilers )
Pan Am is pretty, you guys, but it mostly serves to remind me about how glad I am that I don't live there.
It is all soft touch and emotion, and then all of a sudden you realize they've hit you with a hammer when you were looking the other way.
Also: Female friendship! Excellent cinematography! Wonderful costuming! SPIES! ;)
