must reads: “Why Is TV Suddenly Overstuffed With Buxom Bunnies, Sexy Stewardesses, and Charlie's Angels?”

Gosh, it’s like the 60s -- the early 60s -- are returning with a vengeance. Sarah Seltzer at AlterNet serves it up...

Buxom Playboy bunnies entertain suited, whiskey-swilling men at a private club. Lithe stewardesses offer men drinks as they fly the friendly skies. Charlie's angels suit up in skin-baring outfits yet again, ready to take their boss's calls and do justice in style.
These retrograde images from new shows "The Playboy Club," "Pan Am" and "Charlie's Angels" are the staples of a new season of television in which a post-"Mad Men" old-school aesthetic seems to pervade everything, but without the critique that darker, more nuanced show contains. "Mad Men" (for the most part) warns viewers that underneath the glamour there was a world of gross, painful injustice. These new shows at first glance seem to be imitating the fashion without delving into the finer points.

...and surveys the opinions as to why this is so:

The New York Times' Alessandra Stanley believes this television lineup reveals a perverse longing for a time when the problems facing women were easy to identify--and when women viewers today can consider them (for the most part) solved...
...

At the Washington Post, Hank Stuever warns us that this nostalgia-fest is in fact perilous for the culture's ability to grow and adapt to our present reality and says the TV lineup is so bad he's inspired to take up feminist arms himself...

...

Maureen Ryan at AOL TV looked at the numbers and asked around to find out why the number of women sitting around writers' tables has plummeted in the last half-decade...

Thankfully, Seltzer also finds some shows to be optimistic about. Still, it all looks like a matter of one step forward, two steps back.

(If you stumble across a must-read link, feel free to email me.)

support

Disqus comments

blog comments powered by Disqus

posted:
Thu Sep 29 11, 8:52PM

categories:
tv buzz

permalink

Disqus comments

1960s
Alessandra Stanley
AlterNet
AOL
Charlie's Angels
Hank Stuever
Hollywood hates women
Mad Men
Maureen Ryan
must reads
New York Times
Pan Am
Playboy Club
retro
Sarah Seltzer
Washington Post

· question of the day: Which era would you like to see as a setting for a nostalgic soap opera or drama (à la ‘Mad Men’)?
· Starsky & Hutch (review)
· because stale leftovers are sooo yummy
· question of the day: Was Stephen Colbert’s in-character testimony before Congress last week inappropriate?
· Mark Wahlberg admits ‘The Happening’ was terrible; Billy Bob Thornton says Hollywood is terrible; a female Old Spice Man spoof; more: leftover links
· get your Easter candy sugar rush early
· must reads: “The Real Scare Is Not Being Scary”
· question of the weekend: Does it freak you out to hear that scientists have discovered a “second Earth”?
· Will Smith as Robin Hood?; a Wolverine with depth?; ‘Narnia’ upsets Jesus-y types; more: leftover links
· question of the day: Does it help or hurt when real-life cops connect the Times Square would-be bombing to Jack Bauer and ‘24’?

previous post:
got my accreditation for the London Film Festival

next post:
things you need to know: Michael Jackson’s freakish offspring cried for her daddy as he died

must reads: “Why Is TV Suddenly Overstuffed With Buxom Bunnies, Sexy Stewardesses, and Charlie's Angels?”

support

Disqus comments

tip jar

share

read more

related

bloggy

search

follow

share and enjoy

shop to support




(in case of site outages or other emergencies, I'll update my status on Twitter and Facebook)
follow FlickFilosopher.com no matter where you are online