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Old Sitcom "That Seventies Show" Does Hitchcock -- And Psycho( A COVID-19 Story)

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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It is time perhaps, to mark a post for posterity -- I'm writing this post at a time when much of the world, and the US where I live -- are "sheltering in place" at home(a lot of the time) to deal with the threat of the coronavirus(COVID-19.) It is my fervent hope to find a post like this one years from now when this is all over and to say to myself: "Oh, yeah.COVID-19 -- that was a hell of a terrible year. But we got over it.")

Yes, its not TOO hard to read, watch TV, and...occasionally...sit at the computer for awhile but -- there are pressures, scary risks, economic travails. I'll be glad when it is over.

I read an interview with Vin Scully the other day. He's 92 and was "the voice of the LA Dodgers" for decades from the 50's through...the 2010s?" His voice is very, very happy and upbeat and so is the man. A sports reporter called Scully desperately seeking the happy voice and optimistic manner of Scully to comment on these dark times. In speaking to his quarantine Scully noted that , at 92, he'd long been rather "quarantined," but it was hard not to see his grandkids, etc.

Scully did say he was trying to watch "Happy Movies" all the time. He cited The Music Man (1962). That's a great choice. I personally LOVE The Music Man, my family saw it twice at the theater, its a great childhood memory, and I often offer "The Music Man" as the "anti-Psycho" of my youth: The Music Man was the movie anybody could watch, of any age, and be transported to a better world. In 1966, The Music Man WAS tied to Psycho when the two films were announced in commercials as the "two biggest movies coming to CBS" in the fall in a series of summer TV commercials. It was wacky -- Robert Preston and Shirley Jones marching down a sunny street in a parade suddenly ZOOMED into Mrs. Bates raising her knife in the shower. By fall, CBS only showed "The Music Man"(in two parts) and dropped Psycho entirely.

I"ve been watching "The Music Man" and "The Great Race" and a few other "family childhood favorites" -- they bring back a simpler time and keep my mind off the grim now. But I think I'll be looking at Psycho, too -- its heartwarming to me in its own way, y'know? Nostalgic.

To the topic at hand: looking around at streaming programming, in addition to movies, there are TV series. In my boredom, I took a quick visit to the "That Seventies Show" episode list, because I vaguely recalled a "Hitchcock salute episode" that I had watched first run.

I found it. Turns out the episode aired in 2000...almost 20 years ago now. And it was an episode from a show about 25 years before THEN. The mind reels. The carousel goes round and round...you can't go back...

I confess to watching sitcoms and TV dramas sometimes, not a lot, usually to keep the household peace. "That Seventies Show" wasn't close to the gold standard of "Seinfeld," but it had its moments. I was the target audience (teen/college in the 70's, "now grown up"), the clothes and hair and other references worked. I particularly like the casting of the psychotic gang leader from "Robocop" as a truly scary father in the family, the macho man out to terrorize his more impish, deadpan son.

That son was played by Topher Grace, one of three mini-stars generated by the series. Ashton Kutcher was the other, and Mila Kunis was the third(Kutcher and Kunis are now married, after Kutcher's detour to Demi Moore.) We will see how they hang on.

Anyway, the Hitchcock episode was interesting because they chose to spoof five specific Hitchcock movies in one 30-minute(with commercials) episode: Rear Window, Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho, and The Birds. When you get right down to it, those ARE the five famous Hitchcock movies now, aren't they? The British films and Rebecca and Notorious and Strangers on a Train are known to critics, but those Big Five are really "it" in Hitchcock. And in 2000, That Seventies Show knew that.

This was their Halloween episode. The show opened with Topher Grace chasing his friend "Fez" on the family house rooftop. Topher stumbles and hangs from the rain gutter(only about a 15 foot drop.) Cue Vertigo "swirling dizzyiness music." Topher keeps hanging --but Fez falls from the roof, injures his leg -- and needs a wheelchair. As the episode continues, Fez, from that wheelchair, spies on the next door neighbor(a big guy) and determines he may have killed his wife. Meanwhile, Topher can't handle climbing ladders and such -- he has vertigo.

Topher's mom visits a new neighbor who keeps caged birds all over her living room, one bites her and she runs. Asthon Kutcher gets an NXNW spoof(a neighbor brat uses a radio-controlled crop duster to chase Kutcher around the lawn.) And "saving the best for almost last" then Kutcher -- a teenage heartthrob at the time -- does Janet Leigh's nude but not nude bit in a "usual" shower scene spoof(an angry teen girl hits at him with a shower brush, he spills red shampoo which goes down the drain.)


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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

A nice "re-do" of Raymond Burr entering the dark room to confront James Stewart in his wheelchair is re-staged to nice comic effect(they darken the room and the memories are surprisingly acute with the big man in the lit doorway and Fez in the wheelchair.) Funny: In lieu of Stewart's big flash apparatus popping big bright bulbs of light in Burr's face, Fez opens fire with a tiny Kodak camera and its tiny clicking flash cubes. An actual laugh.

They wrap up the episode with a credit sequence in which each main cast member gets to lie on their backs on a spinning surface to get a "Vertigo" effect. Its fun.

On balance, this sitcom episode from 2000 is nothing much, silly -- but can be added to the "Psycho spoof" list.

I think what I may have liked better is that -- for once -- the shower scene isn't ALL that is spoofed. The hanging from the house rain gutter Vertigo spoof and the Rear Window climax spoof aren't something you see a lot. And they had Ashton Kutcher wear a nice suit to be chased by the plane(with no explanation.)

But this: in 2000, those five Hitchcock films likely WERE famous..but as posters have pointed out around here, most of them aren't famous anymore. And this: a show about teenagers in the 70's WOULD be relevant to include Hitchcock movies, because a lot of 60's/70s kids were Hitchcock fans..because his movies were all over TV(though The Lost Films went away til the 80's..Vertigo, Rear Window. Harry, Man 2, Rope. )

Hmmm...what other shelter-in-place viewing pleasures -- Hitchcock or otherwise -- lie ahead?

Stay well and stay safe...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Meanwhile,

A "connector" page led me from "That Seventies Show" to a relatively recent Netflix Streaming series called "The Ranch" which is equal parts nifty and demoralizing:

Nifty: Ashton Kutcher and Danny Masterson from That Seventies Show are "re-united" -- Masterson always had a certain good comic timing to me. Kutcher's made his name as "the male dumb blonde" but he does it well.

Nifty: In supporting roles as Kutcher's parents are -- Sam Elliott(always welcome for that voice, that stache and that manner, he shoulda been John Wayne, I tell ya) and ...surprisingly...Debra Winger. Its good to see Winger back, but a little sad to see that age got her, too -- she was so YOUNG in Urban Cowboy, An Officer and a Gentleman, and Terms of Endearment.

Demoralizing: These great to good players are trapped in a tired sitcom -- jokes are set up then punch-lined off with minimal comic effect. The first time I heard Debra Winger say something trite -- and then get a big fake audience laugh for it -- I was devastated. I mean, she was in Terms of Endearment! Oh, well...we all gotta eat.

There was this added fillip, however, one of Winger's sitcommy lines to son Kutcher(seeing him wearing some fluffy "Ugg" like boots") was "What the F--K are those?" And suddenly a 60s sitcom became R-rated.

The Ranch. Interesting only as a reminder that Hollywood has far more good actors around than good writers to write for them(which Billy Wilder noted, long ago.)

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

But this: in 2000, those five Hitchcock films likely WERE famous..but as posters have pointed out around here, most of them aren't famous anymore.
I dunno...since 2000 there have been so many Hitchcock 50 year anniversaries, so many Hitch redos from Bates Motel to Flightplan and Disturbia, two Hitch Biopics, lots of docs including a whole one about the shower scene, and one of the biggest songs & videos of the last 20 years, Gaga's 'Bad Romance' (still widely played, still her peak by far) prominently features the couplet, "I want your psycho, your vertigo shtick/Want you in my rear window, baby, you're sick" (Gaga's visuals also draw on Family Plot's early Karen-Black-in-a-blonde wig imagery - Gaga's beauty is a bit wonky so Karen Black is a good fit for her).

I also think that Hitchcock's high profile in the last 20 years has strongly interacted with strands of feminism over this same period not always benignly. Almost every post-Weinstein, casting couch story now comes with a 'Hitch too' aside. And while it's great that Alma Reville is better known now than 20 years ago, the 'Alma was robbed' meme is out there too. These two ideas have merged with earlier criticisms of Hitch for all his interest in (sexualized) violence to form a kind of characteristic snarky undergraduate 'hot take' on Hitchcock that's new and exceedingly irritating.

In sum, Hitchcock for better but also for some worse, feels very alive in culture still. I think lots of shows today wouldn't think twice about following in the footsteps of that That 70s show ep. for that reason.

Update: Ha, well Netflix made it very easy to catch this episode (the first That 70s Show ep. I've ever watched in full). Boy is it a lightweight show! Amazing that it's birthed so many solid mid-level stars. Anyhow, the Hitch parodies are all pretty weak - only the Cropduster spoof made me laugh (when the toy plane bursts into flame as it crashes into a cornfield painting on a garage wall!). Not up to the level of any of the Simpsons ingenious Hitch-spoofs, let alone the 30Something Hitchcock ep.. Nice of them to try I suppose.

BTW, a bunch of Alfred Hitch Hours & a few AH Presents have appeared on youtube in the last week or so. They'll very shortly be copyright-objected off, but in the meantime here's a link:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0Abl-T-we7Bv50zPIhqdFw/search?query=hitchcock

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I dunno...since 2000 there have been so many Hitchcock 50 year anniversaries, so many Hitch redos from Bates Motel to Flightplan and Disturbia, two Hitch Biopics, lots of docs including a whole one about the shower scene, and one of the biggest songs & videos of the last 20 years, Gaga's 'Bad Romance' (still widely played, still her peak by far) prominently features the couplet, "I want your psycho, your vertigo shtick/Want you in my rear window, baby, you're sick" (Gaga's visuals also draw on Family Plot's early Karen-Black-in-a-blonde wig imagery - Gaga's beauty is a bit wonky so Karen Black is a good fit for her).

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Well, swanstep, you have unknowingly walked into my penchant for "listening to the last person I talked to"(and with respect for the opinion, I might add) -- a poster here some time ago(months) contended that no young people he/she knew of had any knowledge of Hitchcock films EXCEPT Psycho...and only barely that film. And this rather launched me on my resignation that, yeah, probably Hitchcock was now so long ago and his movies look so "old" that my generation might be about the last to have really got into his entire canon.

But you arrive to make the "counter case" that actually, Hitchcock is very MUCH still a part of our culture and..I would certainly rather agree with that(even as I agree with the other position too -- a lot of young people barely know Spielberg let alone Hitchcock.)

I think the bottom line is that -- in my nation of over 300 million people and a world of billions -- enough members of several living generations have been exposed to Hitchcock that he still has something going with SOME people, even as others don't know him or his films at all. And Psycho is even bigger than Hitchcock. I'm certain it gets "educational" play in high schools and colleges(many posters say that's where they saw it.)





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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I also think that Hitchcock's high profile in the last 20 years has strongly interacted with strands of feminism over this same period not always benignly.

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What is aggravating about that -- given that some of "his women" went on record very much in favor of Hitchcock -- is that, as a professional matter, he very much RELIED on women to be among his key collaborators -- Alma, of course, but also Joan Harrison and Peggy Robertson, and(in a secretarial mode) Suzanne Glauthier near the very end(I "met" her that one time I crashed Hitchcock's Universal office with student press credentials -- there's a story I get to take to my grave with a smile.)

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Almost every post-Weinstein, casting couch story now comes with a 'Hitch too' aside.

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I suppose part of that is because he's perhaps the only famous Old Hollywood name that new generations would recognize. Who really knows who John Huston, Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder were anymore.

Speaking of Ernest Lubitsch, he died in a hooker's arms of heart attack. At his home. Billy Wilder has confirmed that. ("They slipped her out the back door into a cab and out.")

And with all these OTHER Hollywood directors, and producers, and moguls, having their way with women both consensually and not -- here's 50-year's celibate Hitchcock getting the rap as some sort of sexual predator.



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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The "feminist" angle with Hitch SHOULD be that he gave women responsibility behind the camera from the 20s on; that he made a lot of films with female protagonists(Rebecca, Suspicion, Shadow of a Doubt, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Notorious, Under Capricorn...The Man Who Knew Too Much '56, The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, and...indirectly...Psycho. Family Plot, too -- two of them.)

And even with the sex murders of women in Frenzy, to me, the film certainly seems to make a case AGAINST men, from the sex maniac Rusk to the two professional men who joke about rape in the pub. Meanwhile: Mrs. Oxford is smarter than her husband about the case, and Mrs. Blaney is more successful in business than her husband and the handsome Hetty Porter bullies her goofy husband. Etc.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

And while it's great that Alma Reville is better known now than 20 years ago, the 'Alma was robbed' meme is out there too.


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More bizarreness. Hitch when he was alive, and daughter Pat for decades after said Alma was key to everything and someone wrote "the Hitchcock Touch had four hands -- Alfred's and Alma's."

But it only went so far. One way in which I'm ahead of the people who write these articles is that I have read a LOT of books and articles on Hitchocck and -- even with the hope that I can separate out the fake stories and guesses from the real stories -- they got some things wrong on Alma.

She was rarely on set. She had little or nothing to do with lense choices or camera direction or direction of actors. She read script pages and made notes(famously "liking" Stefano's audition pages of the Sam/Marion hotel tryst), but Hitch worked daily with the writer.

The movie "HItchcock" rather stupidly flew in the face of documented history by suggesting that Alma "saved the movie by writing a new final scene"(which one, the bad shrink scene or the scene in the cell lifted from the book?) ; that Alma directed the Arbogast murder while Hitchcock was sick and single-handedly decided on the process shot staircase fall then and there; and recommended Tony Perkins to Hitch for Norman(wrong -- Hitch had been wanting to work with Perkins since he saw him in Fear Strikes Out.)

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These two ideas have merged with earlier criticisms of Hitch for all his interest in (sexualized) violence to form a kind of characteristic snarky undergraduate 'hot take' on Hitchcock that's new and exceedingly irritating.

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Undergraduate indeed. Written by people with opinions and no research to "fit" an idea. As for the sexualized violence -- oh, yeah, it was there -- James Bond sold it too. But as I've written before there are just as many brutal murders of men as of women in Hitchcock.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Update: Ha, well Netflix made it very easy to catch this episode (the first That 70s Show ep. I've ever watched in full). Boy is it a lightweight show!

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Well, I don't want to offend people who like things other than I like but...yeah. Again, for me, the father(Red, they called him?) and the 70's ambiance were about the only draw. Oh, the mother was a rather funny actress. But sitcoms in general are a very weak form unless the writing is REALLY good. And even some of the REALLY good ones -- like Mary Tyler Moore -- aren't all that great today. It was weekly TV manufactured under tight deadlines.

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Amazing that it's birthed so many solid mid-level stars.

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I suppose if one canvassed most broadcast sitcoms and dramas we'd find a LOT of mid-level stars. Its entry level work(or highly paid career work.)

And some big stars, too.

Jennifer Lawrence started on "The Bill Engvell Show," I've read. Never heard of it.

Leo DiCaprio started in sitcoms, yes?

ER gave us one movie star(George Clooney.) St. Elsewhere gave us another (Denzel.)


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Anyhow, the Hitch parodies are all pretty weak -

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Oh, I think I took note of them at the time because they were there at all. I'll bet I saw a commercial promoting this episode and turned it on accordingly.

I did like the spoof of the Rear Window climax with the little Kodak instamatic. Nostalgic of the 50's and the 70s.

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only the Cropduster spoof made me laugh (when the toy plane bursts into flame as it crashes into a cornfield painting on a garage wall!).

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They also managed, for a moment, to get the "swoop" of the plane behind and past Kutcher. A single second that looked , for that second, like the movie itself.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Not up to the level of any of the Simpsons ingenious Hitch-spoofs,

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No, from what I've heard,those Simpson episodes "got it" better -- I've seen clips of the Psycho-related material.

And yet -- I remain possessive of a real blind spot about The Simpsons. Decades, it has run, awards it has piled up and yet...on brief viewings of it, I just can't get into it. Animation is part of the problem, I think.

But this: I HAVE assimilated the phrase "D'Oh!" into my vocabulary and I use it for the amusement of friends when I do something stupid. It works. The joke's on me, but I'm kinda cool about it.

The OTHER "classic comedy" for which I have a blind spot is Norman Lear's 70s stuff. I was reading about him the other day and they listed the massive success of All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, One Day at Time, and on and on, and it hit me: Other than a few Familys and a couple of Maudes, I never saw any of those. I didn't watch TV much in the 70's(out and about) but I found those series to be "a bunch of yelling."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

let alone the 30Something Hitchcock ep..

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Aha...I was going to mention THAT one as yet another TV salute to Hitch -- though that was back in the late 80's I think.

ANOTHER 30Something episode had one character say to another: "You are positively glutinous with self-approbation!" That's a rather over-written joke from Frenzy. I was impressed that the 30-something guys remembered it.

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Nice of them to try I suppose.

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Well, that's what its all about really isn't it? I'm a Hitchcock buff. Somebody does a "Hitchcock homage" and I feel that they are reaching out and making connection. Just for having MADE it.



BTW, a bunch of Alfred Hitch Hours & a few AH Presents have appeared on youtube in the last week or so. They'll very shortly be copyright-objected off, but in the meantime here's a link:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0Abl-T-we7Bv50zPIhqdFw/search?query=hitchcock

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I'll take a look. These "shut in" days are almost dangerously too appropriate for looking at things -- entertainingly new(yes, I've done the Tiger King thing) and nostalgically old (any fondly remembered movie from the past five decades warms me right now.)

There are a couple of seasons of the Hitchcock half hour on Hulu, I think. I took another look at "Revenge" and "Breakdown" and wow, Hitchcock just threw those brilliant little pieces out even as he worked on his movies. Amazing.

And he was a damn funny and charismatic host -- I'm not sure I ever found him as cool when I was younger as I find him now.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

yes, I've done the Tiger King thing
Tiger King sounds bizarre & sensationalist rather in the 'white trash' mould of Jersey Shore, Kardashians, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, The Osbornes, etc.. I normally avoid this sort of stuff. Is there anything more to it than that? Anything that could tempt me?

I'm looking forward to a miniseries coming up on FX (I think): Mrs America starring Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlaffley, Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem, Sarah Paulson is in it, lots of great people. It's written and show-run by a passion-projecting Mad Men writer. It's definitely off the same high-quality production line as Feud & Fosse & the OJ & Versace Murder series.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

But sitcoms in general are a very weak form unless the writing is REALLY good. And even some of the REALLY good ones -- like Mary Tyler Moore -- aren't all that great today. It was weekly TV manufactured under tight deadlines.
The sitcoms that survive best over time seem to have to have something literally ingenious about them. Seinfeld & Curb & Arrested Development, for example, are normally ingeniously plotted and layered with ingenious call-backs & in-jokes.

And the greatest UK sitcoms (e.g., Fawlty Towers, Young Ones, Spaced, The Office, Fleabag), tend to have something ingeniously conceptual about them (and often their runs are only 12 eps or so, so quality can be sustained). I *really* recommend *Spaced* from the late '90s. It was Edgar Wright's big break (directed all eps) and introduced the world to Simon Pegg (who co-wrote) & Nick Frost. It's visually audacious and just an enormous amount of fun. Lots of movie parodies including a great one of Pulp Fiction. The dvds have absolutely hilarious commentary tracks if you can track them down. Tarantino joins Wright & co. for comm. on a few eps..

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Tiger King sounds bizarre & sensationalist rather in the 'white trash' mould of Jersey Shore, Kardashians, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, The Osbornes, etc.. I normally avoid this sort of stuff. Is there anything more to it than that? Anything that could tempt me?

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I don't see it being your kind of thing, swanstep. It is barely mine but as I say, I democratically watch certain shows with the people in my life "to keep the peace" and avoid looking too disconnected from popular culture.

Tiger King has become such a sensation because(in America at least) the world is locked down and many of them have Netflix. "Right place, right time." A 2016 indie called "Blood Father" with Mel Gibson is doing real well, too -- this could lift him out of his self-imposed purgatory. In fact, more on THAT one in a minute. I watched it too.

White trash? Well, a few of the men on film are missing quite a few teeth. Meth addiction, we are told. So yeah.

There is a queasy "disconnect" between how Tiger King has been sold as something "funny and funky and eccentric" and what it is really about, at heart: animal abuse by people who in no way should have been entrusted with the care and feeding of ANY animals, let alone exotic ones. These are ex-convicts in some cases, very brutal people.

Indeed, the filmmakers save until the very last hour the most disturbing footage of "star" Joe Exotic mistreating the animals -- if they'd shown that footage FIRST, nobody would have stuck around to watch the rest.




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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

With Tiger King, I'm reminded of my mixed feelings when I see a homeless person with a dog on a leash( and I see that a LOT these days):

1. Well, at least the homeless world is the only world this dog knows. He has no idea he could have lived with a family in a nice air conditioned house.

2. Well, the homeless person is with this animal all day long -- the animal certainly isn't lonely for human attention . And it makes the homeless person happy.

So I cling to that for sustenance. I try not to think about whether or not the animal is properly fed, or if the homeless person beats the animal, or if the homeless person is too insane to properly care for it.

Yes, Tiger King brought forth some of the same feelings. That said, these "businessmen and women" do seem to have at least SOME sense of caring about these animals, some skill at keeping and training them.

And the "regular people" come in (small) droves to hold the lion cubs and other cute baby animals so....its OK?

The Gold Mine that Netflix hit here was that these assorted animal keepers have enough other crazy things going on in their lives - a Presidential race going nowhere, rumors of one murder and a lousy attempt at hiring for another -- that the cameras can LEAVE the animals off shot for long periods of time. So we don't think about the abuse.

Eh...I don't do much "reality TV," and Tiger King isn't much better than what I've seen. I expect the draw is the "big cats"(so much like our house tabbys, except giant and murderous) and the wacky people who own them.

And oh: while Joe Exotic is a gay man(with various younger gay husbands), there is one other Big Cat zookeeper who has a "squad" of pretty damn beautiful "female trainers" hired and the suggestion is that the ladies are his "harem" and that he has brainwashed them into a cult. I was intrigued by THAT angle...but it goes nowhere.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Now playing "alongside" Tiger King:

Mel Gibson in a straight-to-streaming 2016 film called "Blood Father." It has become a lockdown hit. I watched it. I liked it. Mel's journey has been an interesting one.

I think people forget that, while fellow action stars like Arnold and Sly and Bruce started a "slow fade" on the natural as stars. Mel Gibson was flying pretty high while they fell, because he was a Prestige Filmmaker with Oscars in hand for Braveheart and such dramas as The Year of Living Dangerously and The Bounty on his resume. And he could handle a romantic comedy like "What Women Want" and go all Rock Hudson/Cary Grant on us.

And even when he brought things crashing down on himself -- he pulled off The Passion of the Christ and it made him even more of a zillionaire.

No matter. The die was cast. He stopped being hired for A movies, and his superstardom ended, just like that.

But "a name is a name" in Hollywood, and after enough years in the wilderness, Mel has been allowed to come back on a limited basis. Why he was even in a Will Farrell comedy a coupla years ago. And Sly hired him to be the villain in an "Expendables"(alongside fellow prestige has been Harrison Ford.) And Robert Rodriguez let Mel be the cool villain in "Machete Kills."

In short, Mel's been able to work the last few years, just not in big stuff.

Blood Father is cut from that cloth. But he is so GOOD in it. Gibson always had a "real" rage going on beneath the surface, a legitmate craziness that fueled the "Lethal Weapon" series and also manifested in all the scenes of him being beaten and tortured in his movies(no where worse than at the end of Braveheart.) Though the critical world loves Lee Marvin's badass in "Point Blank"(1967), Gibson was muy mas macho in the inferior(but more fun) remake Payback in 1999. "He's a dangerous man."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

And thus the simple plot of Blood Father. Gibson -- in a big giant ugly gray beard - is an ex-con, tattoo artist, and AA member who lives in a desert trailer park. His best pal is -- wait for it -- nice wimpy William H. Macy. (Recall what Macy said about his role in Van Sant's Psycho: "If you see me in a movie, you can bet I'm gonna get killed.")

Gibson pines for his long MIA teenage daughter -- who, he tells Macy "I haven't seen in years except on the back of milk cartons." Well, she shows up at the trailer park -- with a pack of murderous Mexican cartel killers on her tail. (Her boyfriend was one of them, she shot him, the rest are mad.)

Modern Hollywood: the villains are Mexican cartel killers, Russia Mafia...or American CIA. That's it.

As has been pointed out, "Blood Father" is in the New Generic genre of "geezer action"(60-something Gibson is a Boomer, and there are a lot of us), "Taken" subdivision("Nobody touches my baby girl!") . What makes this one different is...The Gibson Difference. When he rages against the cartel...you believe the rage. And the violence rained upon GIBSON is...brutal. Its something in his make-up, its always been there, his desire to be tortured or worse on screen, and its back. Macy is good, the late Michael Parks(a QT favorite) is good, the daughter is, well , beautiful. And whereas no A filmmakers would allow Gibson to wear that ugly beard, he gets to here -- until the last half hour when he shaves it off and "LOOK--ITS MEL GIBSON!" Handsome as ever, if a bit aged. Which is OK by me.

The question: am I wrong to salute a Mel Gibson comeback? Isn't he a horrible guy? Oh, sure, demonstrably so (but not ENTIRELY so; his family loves him). But so is 3/4 of Hollywood, in different ways and...I can't help myself. Plus Gibson will never really be a superstar again.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I'm looking forward to a miniseries coming up on FX (I think): Mrs America starring Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlaffley, Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem, Sarah Paulson is in it, lots of great people. It's written and show-run by a passion-projecting Mad Men writer. It's definitely off the same high-quality production line as Feud & Fosse & the OJ & Versace Murder series.

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Sarah Paulson seems to be the queen of these FX things(though I guess she wasn't in Feud.) I like the Mad Men connection and I did like Feud and the Fosse series(if only for briefly bringing Damn Yankees some ink.) As for Cate Blanchett -- she's been "in everything" for years now. Heck , at the 2008 Oscars, they showed "fake clips" of Blanchett roles in 2007 -- including "the killer dog that chases Josh Brolin into the river in No Country For Old Men."

As to the subject matter...well...its time for a look at those matters.

I'm reminded that "Mad Men" at its heart, was a show about women rising up and taking power in the elite workplace. They were mainly WHITE women, which forced the producers to bring some black female cast members and to focus as best they could on racial matters.

But feminism separates out a bit from race-- Steinem and Friedan and Schafly were white; the battle was within a gender realm, not a racial realm. Race COULD enter into it -- I believe that the mini-series will feature Shirley Chisholm, an African-American politician of the era but -- its just an interesting sidelight to me. The women had to fight their battles "intra-white" for awhile before they could branch it out.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The OTHER "classic comedy" for which I have a blind spot is Norman Lear's 70s stuff. I was reading about him the other day and they listed the massive success of All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, One Day at Time, and on and on, and it hit me: Other than a few Familys and a couple of Maudes, I never saw any of those. I didn't watch TV much in the 70's(out and about) but I found those series to be "a bunch of yelling."

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I wanted to elaborate on this a bit. My objection to these shows (when I watched them at all) wasn't about the political content , it was about the coarse look of the soundstage material and the yelling. In short, this was all about as removed from the class and erudition of -- Hitchcock movies -- as could be. I found no entertainment value in this stuff. Clunky TV soundstage sets.

Mary Tyler Moore was funny enough, but not all that great. I never saw the offshoot series ("Phyillis" and "Rhoda") But I do recall how in Network, right after the big Ned Beatty scene, there is a shot of a jet landing at LAX and the narrator says "The Howard Beale Showw as now Number Three in the ratings behind Phyllis and the Six Million Dollar Man....)

As a matter of personal history, my parental family, including me, attended tapings of two Mary Tyler Moore episodes in the 70's. They took FOREVER to get less than a half hour on tape; we had to re-do our laughter with each re-take.

The two episodes are: (1) Ted Baxter refuses to take a vacation because he's afraid his replacement will be permanent and (2) Mary refuses to give up a source and ends up in a jail cell with a hooker(played, maybe? by a young Family Affair actress.)

So..that's my laugh in those episodes! Buried amongst the others. Hah.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The sitcoms that survive best over time seem to have to have something literally ingenious about them. Seinfeld & Curb & Arrested Development, for example, are normally ingeniously plotted and layered with ingenious call-backs & in-jokes.

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All great ones. The ingenious plotting and layering is a reflection of the truly creative writing talent -- the key to all great sitcoms. As I've said before, Larry David deserves every penny of his billionaire status -- Seinfeld and Curb are at a plane above the rest.

Also, Seinfeld and Curb use the techniques of film -- a lot of location work in Curb, a few outdoor sets on Seinfeld(the city street, the roadway near a hill) that allow for an escape from the "three camera stage play" techniques of most sitcoms(where the players "hold for a laugh" from the studio audience -- which is embarrassing when the jokes aren't that good.




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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

An interesting experiment for me over the past TV season has been watching a TV sitcom called "Mom" which is followed by some sort of new "female doctor" sitcom with the woman who used to be the wife on Everybody Loves Raymond. I've watched both, back to back , to "keep the peace."

"Mom" is actually fairly well written with top talent in Allison Janey(as a former sex and drug addict) and Anna Faris(as her ditzy grown daughter)...with movie tough guy William Fichtner as Janey's wheelchair-bound ex-stuntman husband(he's the "man amongst women" in an almost all-woman show.) I find "Mom" to generate some legitimate laughs, consistently throughout the show.

But the "female doctor" show on after it is written by amateurs, and has, in the main, an amateur cast performing the stale gags. In direct juxtaposition to "Mom," the doctor show is...just plain banal. And yet -- Kyle McLauglin is in it(from Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet -- he's a name). And they just added Kelcey Grammar in hopes for a second season. Maybe, maybe not. But...not good.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

And the greatest UK sitcoms (e.g., Fawlty Towers, Young Ones, Spaced, The Office, Fleabag), tend to have something ingeniously conceptual about them (and often their runs are only 12 eps or so, so quality can be sustained).

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I suppose the "British model" is very special and he quality control is very much in evidence(shorter seasons.) The "nastiness" of British comedians like John Cleese and Ricky Gervais is not necessarily something that American networks would allow. (And the Fleabag woman is their female counterpart, complete with sexual appetites.)

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I *really* recommend *Spaced* from the late '90s. It was Edgar Wright's big break (directed all eps) and introduced the world to Simon Pegg (who co-wrote) & Nick Frost. It's visually audacious and just an enormous amount of fun. Lots of movie parodies including a great one of Pulp Fiction. The dvds have absolutely hilarious commentary tracks if you can track them down. Tarantino joins Wright & co. for comm. on a few eps..

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Excellent. I'll take the recommendation. I like Pegg and Frost, I've seen Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and that one about the pub crawl and the one about the alien...funny guys. Wright and QT bring class to the enterprise as maker and commenter.

Speaking of commentaries, I saw one on Dawn of the Dead where Wright singled out one extra getting beaten up in a pub, and said "He was Barry Foster's stunt double in Frenzy."

I can't recall a single "stunt" for Barry Foster's Bob Rusk in Frenzy -- except falling out of the back of the parked potato truck. But that looked like Foster himself. Maybe this guy was just Foster's lighting double.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

Well, blimey, I've just discovered that all 14 Spaced eps are currently available on youtube (for free). Here's Season 1:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCK5Lcs_vqSB3Zz9URbIB3dcJy9FmtL3I

& here's Season 2:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCK5Lcs_vqSCiwN-1xT83Ys8wrpx5zX_L

Moroever, all eps seem to be available on dailymotion (the more copyright wild-westy, but still reputable, virus&malware-free, sub-youtube site) too! Wow. This show used to be *so* hard to see.

So, dabble away! As I mentioned earlier the dvds-blurays are really worth tracking down/renting at some point for their hilarious commentaries (i.e., if you become a fan)

Holy cow, Spaced is lockdown perfection now I think about it. I may be doing a rewatch on youtube myself.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

I've now seen the first 4 eps of Mrs America & I'm quite impressed. Great perfomances are scattered throughout w. Uzo Aduba's Chisolm & Ullman's Freidan & John Slattery's Mr Schlafly getting the golds so far. The creator/showrunner of the series is Dahvi Waller who made her name writing one of Mad Men's best eps, 'The Beautiful Girls' (see my blog post about that ep. at the time for a refresher: http://plaguehouse.blogspot.com/2010/10/no-its-not.html) & as you'd expect every ep. is well-shaped & studded with telling lines & character moments. The direction and visuals strike me as undistinguished so far - a shame given all the A-list-adjacent directors, Fleck & Bowen (Capt Marvel) & Amma Assante (Belle). Budget constraints after sparing no expense on cast & other talent? One other obstacle for the show is that it has a pretty depressing tale to tell at bottom: it wants to show the roots of a culture war we're still trapped by (notwithstanding that the grosser flaws and blindnesses of early '70s feminists, all writ large on the show, have been mostly cured since).

I'm with this show to the end (5 more eps), but I can understand it not being quite propulsive enough or flat out fun enough for some tastes.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I've now seen the first 4 eps of Mrs America & I'm quite impressed.

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Hmm..I didn't realize it had started. I guess I can binge the first 4.

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Great perfomances are scattered throughout w. Uzo Aduba's Chisolm & Ullman's Freidan & John Slattery's Mr Schlafly getting the golds so far. The creator/showrunner of the series is Dahvi Waller who made her name writing one of Mad Men's best eps, 'The Beautiful Girls'

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I'm glad to see a role for "The Silver Fox" Roger Sterling, aka John Slattery(on topic, still married to Talia Balsam, daughter of Arbogast. And with Mad Men quality writing -- Slattery was a fine presence in shows before Mad Men, but never with such well written material. Hope he has that again, here.

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(see my blog post about that ep. at the time for a refresher: http://plaguehouse.blogspot.com/2010/10/no-its-not.html)

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I enjoyed that post, and I'd forgotten about the heavy "women visuals" of that episode at its end.

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& as you'd expect every ep. is well-shaped & studded with telling lines & character moments.

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A reminder that even as Matt Weiner was the show runner/head writer of Mad Men, he did find some real writing talent(Dahvi Wahler) -- much as David Sopranos Chase found Weiner.

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The direction and visuals strike me as undistinguished so far - a shame given all the A-list-adjacent directors, Fleck & Bowen (Capt Marvel) & Amma Assante (Belle). Budget constraints after sparing no expense on cast & other talent?

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That happens sometimes. Well-paid stars can "kill" the rest of the budget.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

One other obstacle for the show is that it has a pretty depressing tale to tell at bottom: it wants to show the roots of a culture war we're still trapped by (notwithstanding that the grosser flaws and blindnesses of early '70s feminists, all writ large on the show, have been mostly cured since).

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Well, I've grown up as a man in this "era," and while I certainly think women "came a long way baby" -- yeah, I suppose.

Reading old microfiche newspapers to research articles on Hitchcock and Psycho, and other old movies, I was always astonished -- as late as the mid-sixties -- to find in the La Times a "Women" section that listed all the women within its articles as "Mrs. John Smith, Mrs. Bill Johnson, etc" -- its why that MRS degree was practically required back then(hence, The Desperation of Marion Crane). And women couldn't get their own credit, etc.

A lot of that is gone and "cured," but I've lived long enough to understand: no "struggle" is ever really over. Too many people make too much money FROM struggle, for one thing. If everybody got exactly what they wanted...it would be over.

I think men benefitted from feminism in certain ways: they don't have to be the sole breadwinner. Two incomes buys more(its one reason why houses and cars became so much more expensive -- people could PAY more.) And I personally know of a number of "women-owned businesses" where the wife's name is use for tax breaks and loans, but the husband still runs the joint.





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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Speaking of "Mad Men," there was a cynical, Realpolitik episode where Joan, around 1970, confronted her sexist pig new ad man boss and threatened to go to Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan about her plight. How? Via a New York Times article. The ad man boss tells Joan that the Times won't print such an article because he'll tell them he'll pull all the ad income if they do. And then he fires Joan, and makes sure that she has to take a "pennies on the dollar" payout versus her "partner" payout.

No matter what the political issue, there is the way it is portrayed in fiction and the media...and how it works out as real life. That Mad Men episode opted closer to real life.

And this. In my own real life, I have been involved with fully feminist high-earning women and yet, with one or two other women who sang the praises of growing up in the 60's in a "male breadwinner" household and expected the same of me.

Farewell and adieu....

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

Mrs America ep. 5
This episode, the best one yet in my view, went full Mad Men. Like a lot of the best MM eps, it had a singular, weird historical event, a 'couples debate', to bounce everything off. Slattery rules the set in 1974 ep., seemingly channelling both Don Draper (in strategizing the debate format) & John Huston's Noah Cross (when he lowers the boom of the future on Phyllis). In broader terms the ep. beautiful illustrates how the women's movement (and people generally) in the '70s are ultimately hamstrung over how to integrate their concerns with either gay rights or racial justice. Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice becomes a key reference - things are just confused but also transformative for everyone in this ep. & there's a clear sense in which the feminists in 1973-74 have really set themselves a task of societal transformation that (certainly with hindsight) is going to take generations & the best part of 40 years to accomplish not the months most of the protagonists wish.

Highly Recommended. *****

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Well, I found it, and I've completed the five episodes to date.

Interesting how the first four specifically went for the singular name of a singular female leader:

Phyllis
Gloria
Betty
Shirley

before, I think going to the "group" title of Episode Five.

Its quite a good series, and yes -- it is very much a continuation of Mad Men.

Indeed: whereas Mad Men ends in 1970(with Don Draper meditating in Big Sur California but clearly headed back to NYC ); Mrs. America STARTS in 1971 , as if a baton has been passed to a new set of characters(with John Slattery, not Jon Hamm, chosen to link the two series.)

I'm reminded that Mad Men, too, was very much a series about feminism, with Elisabeth Moss(Peggy) and Christina Hendricks(Joan) starting the series in 1960 as much different women than they would finish in 1970. But "Mrs. America" reminds us that the job wasn't really done or -- more true to life -- that one struggle is simply replaced by another in this life. No one is ever really meant to make it to the end zone, spike the ball, and live happily ever after. Yes, to use the cliché...the goalposts are moved.

Another thing that Mad Men seemed to be about -- to me at least -- was the idea that marriage was untenable. At least for these rich, handsome and beautiful people. Don got divorced twice; Roger got divorced twice; Joan got divorced once and compassionately rejected a rich suitor at the end; Pete got divorced.

And yet (said the show), marriage COULD succeed and was always worth another try. Roger ends the show with a third wife(Don's French ex mother in law!) Pete reconciles with his ex-wife. Peggy gets a husband. Betty Draper's second marriage was a rather dull success -- to be ended by her cancer.

Though that ol' cheatin' scalawag Don Draper ends the series alone. Not for long, I'd bet.



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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I dunno, maybe I'm contradicting myself. Mad Men has a bunch of cheaters and a lot of failed marriages, but practically everybody kept at it. Romance and love -- and sex -- kept male/female relationships(and as I recall, a couple of gay ones) "in play at all times."

And thus "Mrs. America" brings us a 70's in which (broadly speaking) the women have split essentially over their relationships to men. Phyllis has all of her housewives, most of them upper middle class, all of them(so far) white; the feminists are a rather more divided lot, with racial and gay factions that make for a difficult reconciliation.

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For me personally, this series is, like Mad Men, Nostalgia Deluxe. I impressed myself with the realization that while my life at that time was about as "fun" as it would ever be (the teenage/college years), with a lot of frivolity -- I knew who each and every one of these women were -- I chalk it up to growing up in a household with Time, Newsweek and US World Report delivered every week and Cronkite on the air every night. I spent much more time on partying, on friends and on a girl in those years but - the tumult in the news was a backdrop. (And I missed the draft, so that one item of youthful angst was removed. )

The clothes, the music(above all, the MUSIC), the TV commercials -- I miss the 70's.

I've got to look this up: did Bella Abzug have a husband? As memory serves, she did. Not so, Betty Freidan, at least not for long. The issue here is whether many of the feminist leadership were married when they took up their causes. As I recall, a lot were not, some were -- and of course, some were lesbians, which added its own subtext to the movement. A movement about women could be SOLELY about women (lesbians) if they didn't have to consider the male role in romantic/social bonding. (And yet..gay marriage would become its own issue.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I found three Hitchcock references, so far:

ONE: An actress plays Shirley MacLaine in one scene set in '72. The Shirley MacLaine of 1972 had very long hair at odds with the short-haired pixie look she favored in "The Trouble With Harry" and other early films ("The Apartment" most famously.) MacLaine was perhaps more famous as a political activist in 1972 than as a movie star -- she did an ABC TV series that flopped around that time, she needed to change her persona a bit.

TWO: Reference is made to Doris Day; Phyllis speaks of "Que, Sera, Sera"....and the famous fifties version comes up on the soundtrack.

THREE: John Slattery of course. Still married in real life to Talia Balsam, daughter of The Original Arbogast .

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Of personal note: the summer of 1972 that saw the Democratic convention go a little crazy(remember the Vice Presidential pick who turned out to have had electro-shock therapy on his brain? OUT) and the Watergate break-in occur...also saw the smashing comeback release of Frenzy for Hitchcock. Indeed, I do believe that Frenzy opened within a day or two OF the Watergate break-in. (June 1972, 12 years after the June 1960 release of Psycho in first markets.)

And Hitchcock, while basking in his Comeback Kid status, ran into the buzzsaw of feminism with that movie. The National Organization of Women gave Frenzy its monthly "Put Them In Their Place" award and threw a few naked Barbie dolls with neckties round their necks, at the Universal office in NYC.

Somehow I think Hitchcock dug that. Not only was he back with great reviews and a small hit -- he was CONTROVERSIAL. A part of the times.

That Frenzy got no 1972 Oscar nominations reflects, I think, the feminist opposition to it. Fair enough. The movie IS about rape-murders of women.

And yet, I've always felt that Frenzy was about women being successful than men(Brenda Blaney), smarter than men(Mrs. Oxford), more powerful than men(Mrs. Porter and that woman who gets a man at Brenda's marriage bureau)...and the film rather took up how men in 1972 were going to have to deal with it. Grumbling, in the main. But one man -- Rusk -- goes in for rape and murder. Frenzy is, arguably, a rather feminist film, you ask me.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Mrs. America certainly has an "all star cast," doesn't it. We've got the always funny and powerful Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug -- a year hence she will play Lucianne Goldberg in the Bill Clinton sex scandal/impeachment mini-series; you can always count on Margo to make things fun.

You've got Rose Byrne playing Gloria Steinem -- with the realization that its fairly easy to "do" Steinem visually -- that hair, those aviators. Rose Byrne's real-life boyfriend, Bobby Cannivale, gives Dan Ackroyd a run for his money as NBC late night guy Tom Snyder(a truly weird fellow, but some greats came on his show -- like Hitchcock.)

Uzo Aduba gives us a Shirley Chisholm of gravitas and a slight outsider status with the other feminists. She fronts a couple of other African-American feminists (comedienne Niecie Nash plays lawyer Flo Kennedy) and demonstrates the issues going on there.

Elizabeth Banks -- sort of a movie star -- plays that rare bird: a REPUBLICAN feminist(and we had them, then, and we had some fairly liberal Republicans, of which Nixon ironically was one); Banks is Jill Ruckelhaus...wasn't her huband one of the men who refused Nixon's request to fire the Watergate prosecutor? Maybe not.

And Tracey Ullman -- truly one of the funniest women alive -- finds the rage and inner hurt of Betty Friedan(key: she's older and less attractive than Steinem), but makes sure to keep a humorous edge.

One "instinctual" feeling I have about this show is that it reminds me of something someone once said: "If wars were only fought by women, they'd be over fast. Because women are savage and show no mercy."

This show seems to maintain that edge to it: the women in this show HATE each other, the rage towards each that comes out in their televised confrontations is to-the-death savage. Scary, even. And, yes, some of the men around the edges of the tale rather seem to enjoy the "catfight" aspect of the political battle. And there is this: within both "teams" but particularly on the feminist side, there are a bit too many envious, jealous rivalries going on to truly advance the cause.

Indeed, "Mrs. America," made in a Hollywood that clearly views Phylllis Schlafly as an ultravillain(a now dead ultravillain) has the kind of nuance that "Mad Men" specialized in...Phyillis is given her due, given her rounds, given her sympathy -- and presented, of course, as a powerful woman who had to fight past men to get rights for housewives.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I speak of an all-star cast, but of course, Cate Blanchett is THE star of the piece. Is this Blanchett's first role for ...well...television? I'm guessing no, she probably did something for HBO. But Ms. Blanchett has spent a few years coming up as the successor to Meryl Streep, and she proves it here. (I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for John Slattery as a mere TV actor, having to keep pace with this Grand Dame of the Cinema.)

In casting Blanchett and giving her the lead of Phyllis, the series can't help but make SOMEWHAT of a hero out of Schlafley. Blanchett gives some smart, powerful speeches. And -- in an act of true daring on everyone's part -- Blanchett does her first scene in a bikini -- on a stage, parading in front of Republican donors in tuxedos and gowns. Ms. Blanchett has the acting chops, but she also has a body. How -- unfeminist?

Oddly enough, the Blanchett role that her Phyillis is most reminding me of is -- the 50's Russian Communist ultra-villain in the fourth Indiana Jones. Its "the bad one," but not when Blanchett is on the screen, playing a single-minded, brilliant, physically dangerous woman who is Indy's only real opponent in the whole movie. Some of that single-mindedness shows up here.

Well, onward with the show -- a week at a time from here on out. Its intriguing to realize that this series, based in the 70's, is likely heading for 1980(just as Mad Men headed for 1970.)

And Reagan.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Sidebar: as of Episode 5 , "Mrs. America" is up to 1974, and thus seems to have skipped one of the early 70's feminist landmarks: the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, which was hyped into a mini-Super Bowl of a sports broadcast while maintaining the queasy bogus hype of a WWE Wrestemania event.

This "Battle of the Sexes" story has already been made into a TV movie(with Holly Hunter as Billie Jean and Ron Silver as Bobby Riggs) and a movie-movie(with Emma Stone as Billie Jean, and Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs) , and I will bet that the Mrs. America showrunner felt it was "played out."

But I noticed it missing.

It gets a corollary in Mrs. America: the debates between Phyillis and first Betty Freidan(whom Phyillis beats, despite an audience in Freidan's corner) and then the ACLU lawyer and her husband(who beats Phyillis and her lawyer husband, but rather by playing a "lawyer snobbery" card that doesn't quite "win") ...reminds me of how Bobby Riggs first BEAT a female tennis star(Margaret Court) before getting beaten by Billie Jean.

It all seems similar to me.

And that Billie Jean/Bobby Riggs match WAS meant to be some sort of feminist thing...it was almost as if the serious issues of feminism got monetized as some sort of a joke. And the problem with the Billie Jean/Riggs match is that the man was much older and less of a champion than billie jean.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

Mrs America ep. 6 ("Jill")
Another impressive episode, but very depressing for *us*. We see Schlafley start to build the coalitions between religious groups (and her showing them how to wield political power) that starts the great sort of America politics into two ideologically pure, thoroughly vetted & litmus-tested, other-demonizing camps, but one much more extreme than the other. When you know how things turn out some of the show's suggestions of trouble for Schlafley, e.g., about her gay son, start to fell like feints to keep the liberal audience watching. We *want* things to blow up for Schlafley just like we *want* her to connect the feminist dots of her own experience. But we know they never do and that she never will. The final 3 eps are going to be a slow motion horror show with the big surprise ending being that This is your real life now. Gah... this show's great but dee-pressing.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The episode illustrated something that, again, people tend to forget, which is that there WERE moderate(and sometimes even liberal) Republicans at one time, and that they DID fight with the more conservative forces. But they also fought within themselves.

The big scene in this episode to me was the meeting for drinks(coffee?) between Jill and Phylllis. At the DC Press Club, I think.

Its cordial for a bit, but eventually goes cold. Note how Jill rather "lords over" Phyllis -- her implicit message is: "I'm a connected DC insider and my husband may be Vice President; you're nobody." She's rather condescending and near the end she says, "Remember: there are more of us than of you." (Republican feminists.)

As often happens with Phyllis on this show(think: her debate with Betty Friedan), she says something cold enough and daffy enough to drive the other woman to fury, and it happens here. Jill leaves in a huff (or "a minute and a huff," as Groucho might say.)

But indeed, Jill's husband does NOT get the VP nominee nod(Phyllis helps kill it by going to Reagan's people), and that's the first clue that Jill's way of Republicanism is going out the door.

There's further "insider irony" here. Jill's husband, Bill Ruckelhaus, famously resigned from the Nixon administration rather than fire the Watergate prosecutor. So even if Nixon and Ruckelhaus were of the same "liberal Republican cloth," Ruckelhaus turned on his boss...and thoroughly expected to be a "winner" from it. Nope. Didn't happen.

Three episodes to go. It truly is "Mad Men...the sequel." But a very short sequel alas.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

One side bit in the "Jill" episode that amused me.

They try to bring up the concept of female secretaries at the US Capitol being sexually harassed in a "Me Too" fashion. Fair enough. But they also give us the real-life example of Elizabeth Ray(portrayed on the show as a much more va-va-voom woman than in real life.) She was a "secretary" who couldn't type or do much of anything. She was on staff to be Congressman Wayne Hays mistress...even as he was married to his FORMER secretary as his second wife.

A great comedy bit: Margo Martindale's Bella Abzug figures all this out in Hays' waiting room, looking at Ray and then -- and this is funny -- pulling on the electric typewriter cord to show the other women that it is unplugged. Elizabeth Ray doesn't type ANYTHING. Learning that Ray is paid $14,000 for this "job," Bella says : "That's terrible. That's too low. She should be paid $50,000 to schtup (THAT guy)"!

The point being made here, I think -- and it speaks well to the myriad types of women IN "Mrs. America" -- is that there was a whole brigade of women in DC jobs who were there CONSENSUALLY to trade sex for money or power(or even marriage to the power men.) They were separate from the women who were there to advance and run things but...they were there.

Still are. Along with "boy toys" for the women in power. And same-sex players, too.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

"there WERE moderate(and sometimes even liberal) Republicans at one time"

Yep, and in 1976 Jesse Helms and lots of other southern politicians are still Dems. And Republicans regularly win California & all the other West Coast states, & so on. The Big Sort into red and blue countries will end that.

'she says, "Remember: there are more of us than of you." (Republican feminists.)'

I think that Jill may have been thinking as it were 'across party lines' here, i.e. I understood her not to be claiming (mostly) that there are more Repub feminists than anti-feminists but as (mostly) saying that a rising majority of women and people generally are feminist/supportive of the ERA. [Such cross party coalitions are, however, fading fast thanks to polarizers like Schlafley... and figuring out ways of achieving minority rule, of over-representing the views of zealous minorities on guns, abortion, health care for all, taxing rich people, and everything else, is about to become a Repub specialty.]

Jill's confidence that the arc of history is with her and not with Phyllis et al.*sometimes* *is* condescending but mostly it's more innocent than that. Jill like most feminists find it hard to believe that Phyllis or anyone else *really* doesn't like the ERA etc.. People like the ice-cold, Texas shooting & roses & catholic-hate lady aren't even *imaginable* to Jill. So there's kind of a shock for Jill when she realizes Phyllis can't be bought off with access to Rumsfeld... it's a harbinger of the sort of shock that a majority of white women voting for Trump in 2016 represented. (Sclaflley's last book was a pro-Trump screed!)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Yep, and in 1976 Jesse Helms and lots of other southern politicians are Dems. And Republicans regularly win California & all the other West Coast states, & so on.

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Sure. Demographics changed...mililions of people moved into the "warm" West Coast states and flipped the politics. Sometimes I think the press fails to move ahead with the change. For instance, Orange County in Southern California USED to be a Republican stronghold, but immigrants and youth etc "flipped" it to blue -- in about the last ten years. And yet Orange County STILL gets covered like its Republican.

Also: liberal Republicans probably ended up in the Democratic party eventually and we know of the Reagan Democrats who were coming. With only two major American political parties, the contours may have stayed the same, but the contents(the people and their regions) changed.

I think a big secret that isn't a secret is how -- in Washington at least -- a lot of operatives switch parties, affiliate wherever the power seems to be. Or try to stay "independent." Its not a bad approach actually. I'm reminded of Max Von Sydow's assassin in Three Days of the Condor: "I don't take sides. I only ask when, where...and how much."


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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I think that Jill may have been thinking as it were 'across party lines' here, i.e. I understood her not to be claiming (mostly) that there are more Repub feminists than anti-feminists but as (mostly) saying that a rising majority of women and people generally are feminist/supportive of the ERA.

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OK, I get that. Still, Mrs. America rather shows Jill as being an outsider in hanging WITH the Democrats. They never really act like they trust her. I wonder how she and her husband did once Carter came in.

But certainly, ERA support crossed party lines and as the miniseries shows, a lot of MALE politicians(Republicans, too) supported the ERA. Seems they thought it was sort of harmless..almost a "frivolous issue." Until Phyllis made it serious to them.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Jill's confidence that the arc of history is with her and not with Phyllis et al.*sometimes* *is* condescending but mostly it's more innocent than that.

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Well, I think that the condescension is really that of being , as I said, a "DC insider." This is emphasized when Jill first views Phyllis protesting outside the White House -- from her air conditioned limosine. Hey, power is cool to have. It is zealously guarded.

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Jill like most feminists find it hard to believe that Phyllis or anyone else *really* doesn't like the ERA etc.. People like the ice-cold, Texas shooting & roses & catholic-hate lady aren't even *imaginable* to Jill.

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That reminds me of the late Pauline Kael's statement about Nixon(around 1973): "I don't know a single person who voted for Richard Nixon." Well no -- she wouldn't.

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So there's kind of a shock for Jill when she realizes Phyllis can't be bought off with access to Rumsfeld...

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There's that DC insider approach again.

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it's a harbinger of the sort of shock that a majority of white women voting for Trump in 2016 represented. (Sclaflley's last book was a pro-Trump screed!)

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Ah well...we'll see.

I don't "do" politics much but I will say this: I think a discussion of politics on the "Psycho" page is quite ON topic. Because ultimately the same "mysteries of the mind" that create a psychopathic killer(at one extreme) can create political stances and beliefs, and I'm not sure why that happens. Parents usually -- you agree with them, or you rebel against them.

The polarity of modern politics in America has meant one thing mainly: nothing gets done. Like a "tic tac toe" game that ends in a tie, very little major legislation gets passed -- I think the last few sessions have been the least productive in almost 100 years.

But what DOES get done is-- big money is made. On broadcast TV, cable TV and the net -- because polarized people love the sturm and drang of it all.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The polarity of modern politics in America has meant one thing mainly: nothing gets done. Like a "tic tac toe" game that ends in a tie, very little major legislation gets passed -- I think the last few sessions have been the least productive in almost 100 years.

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I'll elaborate. In the wake of a crisis or emergency -- 9/11 and now COVID-19 -- something DOES get done. Money is approved and appropriated . Tons of it.

But issue by issue -- deadlock a lot of the time. Sometimes I wonder if all the laws have been passed that are necessary, all the agencies are in place to do what's necessary. Maybe we don't need any further legislation.....a lot of US Congress Members are touting their "constitutent service" right now -- helping people with their Social Security, etc. Because they can't talk about passing any major bills.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

Ep. 7 "Bella"
A transitional, somewhat unsatisfying episode this one. Margo Martindale as Bella took center stage, organizing a big, nominally bipartisan Women's convention. The whole ep. focuses on Schlafley's group trying to undermine the convention from the outside & Bella trying to keep the various factions & generations in her coalition together. Unfortunately both sides of this drama felt a little familiar at this point (we'd traversed v. similar ground in the "Betty" ep.) & the convention payoff itself was left to next week. Not a terrible ep. by any means but not up to the high standards of the last few in my view.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Well, I suppose they are trying to "shape up a narrative climax" -- and that convention will be a place to stage it...rather like a "penultimate" episode of The Sopranos or Mad Men, where something big happens and then the final episode brings closure.

On another thread, we were talking about the recently passed Brian Dennehy and the "big guys" in movie history(Victor McLaughlin, George Kennedy, Richard Boone somewhat.)

Well, they are fewer , but there at a few formidable "big gals" -- and Margo Martindale is one of them.

She's a real character star, though she has largely been confined to TV limited series in recent years.

I've seen her as a hillbilly crime boss on "Justified"; as a deep-planted Russian spy in "The Americans"; and now here as Bella Abzug. In certain ways, Margo (like most stars) is the same person each time -- same line readings, mannerisms, movements -- but she adds a little something each time, and here its..Bella's trademark hat and trademark toughness.

One is reminded that "Mrs. America" offers a sampling of our most noteable female actresses, from Cate Blanchett(the Oscar winner) to Tracey Ullman(the comedy pioneer) to Elizabeth Banks(whose pretty white-bread looks bely a professed 2020 feminist stance -- she wore four hats on "Charlies' Angels," including director and star); to Sarah Paulson(an "FX series superstar" with a delightful lisp) and here, to Rose Bryne(who has perhaps the most famous person to play in Gloria Steinem and yet is rather the least starry star.)

Of this group, Margo Martindale(I'd call her MM, but there is fellow big gal Melissa McCarthy to consider) is the "fun" player - kind of female Walter Matthau hanging around with the dry one-liners.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The episode flitted with how to handle the "enemy women"(a sad concept from either side) by putting everyone in the same convention; and the strain placed on the women's movement by trying to align with too many other causes(if you profess the rights of gay women, you certainly should profess the rights of gay men; bringing in racial rights exposes the privilege of white women, etc.)

But on the whole, the series is a good lesson in how politics works and how, by then, women were already players.

I suppose I shouldn't speak to where things ended up, but it seems to me that a lot of the goals of the ERA movement HAVE been achieved, just without the ERA -- maybe it was an organizing cause that didn't have to be won on its own terms.

And I will say this: I always thought it was rather disingenuous to sell the ERA as "just a few words." Those few words, if codified, would trigger thousands of other words -- statutes, regulations, legal cases and precedents. I never quite thought it was "tough" to undersell the ERA as "just a few words" -- and it assumed a dumb audience.

I understand that the ERA isn't a dead issue -- somebody should sell it more smartly.

Well, two more to go. I think they have to extend "fan service" to Sarah Paulsen next, even though she is playing a fictional character.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

a lot of the goals of the ERA movement HAVE been achieved, just without the ERA
Right, most famously Ruth Bader Ginsburg wins 5 out of 6 cases before the Supreme Court in 1973-1976 by showing essentially how a lot of the ERA is already implicit in the 'equal protection' clause of the 14th Amendment. That's a different sort of struggle tho', and the Right has spent the last 40 years slow-motion fighting back against *that* gradual success, stacking the courts with conservative judges who now have Roe v. Wade, the Intermediate Scrutiny standard for Judicial interpretation & construction, and lots more (they hate a lot of New Deal jurisprudence too!) in their sights.

BTW, the final 2 eps are titled 'Houston' & 'Reagan'. Quite an ominous change from all the previous individual women titles.

BTW2, I like your comparison of MM to Mathhau.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Right, most famously Ruth Bader Ginsburg wins 5 out of 6 cases before the Supreme Court in 1973-1976 by showing essentially how a lot of the ERA is already implicit in the 'equal protection' clause of the 14th Amendment. That's a different sort of struggle tho',

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Well, that's possibly another issue, here. "Women's rights" were won on many grounds -- they aren't drafted, but they can serve in the military; abortion is legal; and a lot of women are in the workplace and in power(I know some -- they earn a lot more than I ever did.)

Even unisex bathrooms. Though one woman friend of mine said "great, now I can go into the bathroom after a big hairy man's been in there."

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The ongoing right/left struggle will always recur, but in different ways, and with different "splits" over time. In America, racial demographics will chart the course.

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BTW, the final 2 eps are titled 'Houston' & 'Reagan'. Quite an ominous change from all the previous individual women titles.

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Well "Houston" can gather "the all star cast" and "Reagan" yeah, well, that was 6 Presidents ago, from both parties. In America, all reigns can be reversed. Usually are. That's the system. A pendulum.

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BTW2, I like your comparison of MM to Mathhau.

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Thanks. Speaking of "women's issues," I always felt that when the movies mainly went for beautiful women, we were deprived of wise-cracking Matthau types on the female side. Not so much in the era of Thelma Ritter and later Rosalind Russell, but in the later era of hot babes and tough women. Margo Martindale glides through "Mrs. America" as a woman who just doesn't think much about sex or beauty anymore -- she's a power woman and digs on humor. That shot of her pulling up the unplugged typewriter cord(to show that Elizabeth Ray wasn't hired to type) was classic unspoken humor.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

Wow, big Supreme Court decision today striking down all discrimination (esp. in employment) against gays and trans people because it would involve discrimination on the basis of sex which is proscribed by Title 7 of Civil Right Act 1964. Who needs a Constitutional Amendment when you can just have an ordinary statute do the work for you (it's the way it's done in lots of countries including the UK and NZ after all)?

Ginsburg didn't write the decision, Gorsuch did, but it was her cases before the Supreme Count in the 1970s that established the line of reasoning that the court accepted today: she argued the cases that tried to prohibited discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, i.e., arguing that such discrimination in employment involved Title 7-proscribed discrim. on the basis of sex. RBG losing those cases led Congress in the Carter years to amend Title 7 to explicitly prohibit pregnancy disarm. So I expect that RBG had a big smile in court today and was v. happy to see Gorsuch and Roberts fully accept and peddle her original lines of reasoning. If the SC had accepted those lines of reasoning back in the 70s there wouldn't have had to be an amendment to forbid pregnancy disc. passed - indeed that amendment is now redundant because the more expansive reading of Title 7's anti-sex disc provision RBG argued for is now settled Statutory interpretation. Big day.

Anyhow, this forms an interesting sidebar to the ERA-focus of Mrs America. Phyllis Schlaffley would be one of those tearing their hair out today about 'traitors' Roberts and Gorsuch.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

I think they have to extend "fan service" to Sarah Paulsen next, even though she is playing a fictional character.
Ha! You called it ecarle. 'Houston' was the official title, but it was the Sarah Paulsen ep. for sure (actor service even more than fan service - this is the ep. that undoubtedly sold Paulsen on her non-name role). More later.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Ha! You called it ecarle.

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Well, it was a process of elimination given that the other "name" actresses each got an episode.

'Houston' was the official title,

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Possibly because Paulsen was playing a fictional woman and not "entitled" to have an episode named for her? But also, at the end(and a bit before) ALL the big name women show up in Houston and we realize "how far we've come."

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but it was the Sarah Paulsen ep. for sure (actor service even more than fan service - this is the ep. that undoubtedly sold Paulsen on her non-name role).

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I tell ya the truth -- I'm not really sure what "fan service" is -- delivering Sarah to her fans? Or catering TO Sarah.

I did read a headline that Paulsen gave up her annual stint in "American Horror Story" to do this -- or postponed it, or something.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

Ep. 8 'Houston'
Or 'Alice in Feminist Wonderland'... Sarah Paulsen's lucky-in-love Alice has a general-flusteredness+alcohol+valium-fuelled awakening not only to the humanity & virtues of feminists but also to the abusiveness of her own side. Phyllis & Rosemary are awful to her and Alice herself is awful to Pamela...until after her awakening.

I appreciated the effort but it did feel a little pat & wishful to me so this 'departure' ep. grabbed me less than any of the others. I guess I didn't feel the need for such a departure! Indeed, I suspect that I'd have preferred a non-departure, more conventionally objective treatment of the Houston conference+Phyllis's counter-conference (which could have contained within it an Alice slant). Maybe I'll think more highly of what we actually got either after sleeping on it or after seeing Ep. 9.

p.s. In interviews, Paulsen claims she accepted her role script unseen & without any knowledge of the 'Houston', bottled-up-in-her-character's-head episode.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Or 'Alice in Feminist Wonderland'... Sarah Paulsen's lucky-in-love Alice has a general-flusteredness+alcohol+valium-fuelled awakening not only to the humanity & virtues of feminists but also to the abusiveness of her own side. Phyllis & Rosemary are awful to her and Alice herself is awful to Pamela...until after her awakening.

I appreciated the effort but it did feel a little pat & wishful to me so this 'departure' ep. grabbed me less than any of the others.

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I thought about this: the episode was set in 1977. In 1978(Coming Home), 1979(The China Syndrome) and 1980(Nine to Five), Jane Fonda produced and starred in three films in a row in which her character went from "square and straight" (not necessarily Republican, but maybe) to "radicalized" by film's end. She was an Army officer's wife in Coming Home(Bruce Dern's); she was a fluffy feature TV reporter in The China Syndrome, and she was a dumped housewife in Nine to Five. Vietnam, No Nukes, and equal rights in the workplace were the themes.

All were hits, all were timely. Fonda won a Best Actress Oscar(her second) for Coming Home.

But they too, felt a little "pat" -- at least one after the other after the other with the same basic "arc" for Fonda. Fonda wasn't much of one for "nuance" Still: hits, Oscar bait, memorable. Fonda's stardom rather faded after them -- with On Golden Pond as a big Swan Song with Dad(no radicalization.)

Anyway, I felt that Paulsen's Alice was "the Jane Fonda character" and likely that's why she had to be fictionalized.

Still, all these decades later...there was much more nuance(and drug-induced weirdness) in THIS version of the old Jane Fonda plot. And yet: the "Real Politik" of the real people in the other episodes perhaps rendered the Jane Fonda plot too...well, pat.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I guess I didn't feel the need for such a departure! Indeed, I suspect that I'd have preferred a non-departure, more conventionally objective treatment of the Houston conference+Phyllis's counter-conference (which could have contained within it an Alice slant).

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Well, this one went off on its own tangent -- kind of like a Tony Soprano dream, I guess.

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Maybe I'll think more highly of what we actually got either after sleeping on it or after seeing Ep. 9.

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Well, theyre gonna "wrap things up" and i think we've discussed some of that already -- victory from defeat, that sort of thing.

Plus I'm sure that the series will say that there is "more yet to be done," and an ERA still to pass.

Its OK by me...

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p.s. In interviews, Paulsen claims she accepted her role script unseen & without any knowledge of the 'Houston', bottled-up-in-her-character's-head episode.

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Yes, this happens a lot when there is belief in the project. On topic(!) Janet Leigh took Psycho sight unseen just to get to work with Hitchcock. Tony Perkins was ready to, but I guess Hitch "played fair" and told him exactly WHO he would be playing...but Tony still went with Hitch.

Conversely , a few years later, star newbie Sean Connery refused to sign on to Marnie(even as Hitchocck was at his peak) until he could read the script.
A sign of his stardom's longevity, I guess.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

Ep. 9 "Reagan"
This ep. was another 'Meh' from me I'm afraid. The narrative drive that characterized the first 6 eps really dissipated over the final 3 eps, with this final ep. the worst... We touched bases with all key characters to o great effect meanwhile both the Carter admin & Reagan rat out their respective key women support bases.

Phyllis's loss of UN Ambassador post to Jeane Kirkpatrick revealed the limits of the show. Kirkpatrick was a Democrat who was super-militaristic & -authoritarian, and honestly was regarded as a complete *witch* by the left (and much more of a conservative loony threat than Schlafley!). She was a close Reagan insider during his campaign & ultimately did lots of Cabinet-level advising on all manner of defense & Foreign Policy issues. (She ended up with Phyllis's dream job for sure.) We needed to have met her before the closing scroll. Thatcher too enters in passing. These figures being dropped in late made the show feel small.

A key moment in the ep. is Phyllis unilaterally deciding to support Reagan early, before any primaries. As far as I could see, however, the show didn't explain her reasoning at all. We see that her husband is miffed and thinks it's a risky mistake, but we're left in the dark about Phyllis's reasoning. There also seemed to be a bit of a wobble about exactly how seriously Phyllis takes religious reasons & missions. Rosemary & Lotte have the conservative, true-believer religious mission nailed down but Phyllis seems more secular and pragmatic than them... The key visuals of the ep. (including a parody Abzug&Steinem duo) were from an odd 'RIP ERA if ratification hadn't been extended' party/rally. This felt anti-climactic and not the best use of time to me.

In sum, series did not stick its landing... worth it for the first six eps though, and especially that middle bracket of 4, eps 3-6, which were The Americans-/Mad Men-worthy.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

Note, as this Slate article explains:
https://slate.com/culture/2020/05/mrs-america-finale-jeanne-dielman-homage-ending-meaning.html
the body of this ep. ended with an explicit homage to one of the obscurest/artiest/college-studenty-est art-films ever made, Jeanne Dielman (1975), which we saw a clip from last week. (So Phyllis ends up trapped between Jeanne & Jeane!) This felt like a bit of a gimmick to me. After all Schlafley could and did keep angling for influence in Washington. And if you're *really* on a shortlist for Cabinet, well, just stick around, resignations & firings happen all the time, & lots of lower-level appointments, Commission Leaderships etc. a la Abzug, Think-Tank-ships, and so on await. There's no *real* reason to believe that, this initial setback notwithstanding, that someone as connected & driven as Phyllis wouldn't if she wanted be looking forward to a very lucrative consultancy & power party through the next 12 years of Repub rule at least. 'Trapped in bitter domesticity' is just wishful thinking by the showrunner!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

This ep. was another 'Meh' from me I'm afraid. The narrative drive that characterized the first 6 eps really dissipated over the final 3 eps, with this final ep. the worst...

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Endings are hard to do...particularly with "reality" material.

I think the most jarring scene to me was the confrontation between Phyillis and her "turning" friend Alice. Since Alice was an entirely fictional character, we KNOW that this scene never happened. It rather deflated the "realpolitik" charge of the stories of Gloria and Betty and Bella and Shirley....

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We touched bases with all key characters to o great effect

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I do think it was "cool" how the show used its starry name cast so that, near the end when all the women turned in their letters of resignation to Carter's smug aide(Ham Jordan?), it was like a "curtain call of stars," both real(Gloria Steinem, Jill Ruckelhaus) and actorly(Rose Byrne, Elizabeth Banks.

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meanwhile both the Carter admin & Reagan rat out their respective key women support bases.

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A bit of "nuance," there. Democrat Carter's Ham Jordan says "we don't want to look like we can be jerkect around by a bunch of women," fires Bella and loses the other women(and the next election?) as a consequence.

Reagan (voice only) thanks Phyillis for her work getting him elected(and her mailing list) but warmly says he can't bring her into his Administration when he NEEDS pro-ERA women. (A reminder that for all his conservatism, Reagan in real life -- as a Governor, at least -- raised taxes and, I think, may have let some abortion laws get by him.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

The key visuals of the ep. (including a parody Abzug&Steinem duo) were from an odd 'RIP ERA if ratification hadn't been extended' party/rally. This felt anti-climactic and not the best use of time to me.

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I was intrigued by the Abzug/Steinem dancing duo -- because they made the point that Abzug and Steinem had "branded themselves visually"(Bella with the big hat she always wore; Stein with her long hair, center part and aviator glasses). This helped Margo Martindale and Rose Byrne play them with ease ...and worked shockingly well with the two "bit players" paroding the women.

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In sum, series did not stick its landing... worth it for the first six eps though, and especially that middle bracket of 4, eps 3-6, which were The Americans-/Mad Men-worthy.

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I'm not sure I was able to differentiate as well as you, swanstep. I do think the beginning was better than the end and the detour to the fictional Alice was perhaps too developed to "service the FX superstar," Ms. Paulsen.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

There's no *real* reason to believe that, this initial setback notwithstanding, that someone as connected & driven as Phyllis wouldn't if she wanted be looking forward to a very lucrative consultancy & power party through the next 12 years of Repub rule at least. 'Trapped in bitter domesticity' is just wishful thinking by the showrunner!

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Yes, well I guess the point they were making(and made over and over) was that Phyillis was a driven careerist who was fighting for the rights of housewives to stay in the kitchen, so look where she ended up, ha ha ha.

Actually I think the series showed "up front" that Phyllis was much better suited to be -- and probably wanted more to be -- a military/foreign affairs advisor than running her "women's organization" she sidetracked herself away from a standard left/right debate(defense) into the domestic dangers of social engineering.

Its seems to me that men(some men) benefitted from feminism...men who welcomed being relieved of "sole breadwinner" status and men who didn't mind the idea of abortions at all , for obvious reasons.

As they say, "there is always more to be done," but the dark events of the past week have reminded us that feminism oftimes gets swamped by other issues.

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[–] swanstep (2616) 4 years ago

A reminder that for all his conservatism, Reagan in real life -- as a Governor, at least -- raised taxes and, I think, may have let some abortion laws get by him.
Yes, the Republican party has surged so far to the right (and embraced such implacable extremist tactics) in recent decades that Reagan looks like a compromiser & half-way a Liberal now!

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