Anyway, one notable thing about this issue is a four-page advertisement that begins on the inside cover. Here is how the text on the first two pages runs:
Whatever happened to style?It's an awful let down to flip the page and find that it's an ad for Chrysler.
Where has the glamour gone?
It wasn't too long ago. America had it.
Looking and feeling like a million bucks
was practically our birthright.
We didn't race from A to B. We cruised.
Going for a drive was A BIG DEAL.
People took notice.
We turned heads.
and when we arrived somewhere,
WE ARRIVED IN STYLE.
In my town, the guys who listen to hip hop really loud and think that "pimp" means "role model" drive Chrysler's.
That said, those are very good questions. it reminded me of this quote I ran earlier from Vincent Kartheiser:
“There is a large portion of America that doesn’t feel about America the way we did in 1960, and I think we want to know why we don’t,” said Mr. Kartheiser, 29. “We want to know what went wrong.”What did go wrong? Something did.
I think a good starting point would be the assassination of the President on November 22, 1963. Nothing was ever the same after that.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see how the series handles it. The actual assassination, as I'm sure you know, comes up in the second-last show of Season 3. The writers, however, used the moment to divide characters into grown ups (Don, Roger, Peggy, Joan. Harry and Henry Francis) on the one hand and children (Pete, Betty, Jane Sterling) on the other. That is a very interesting move and suggests that they do not intend to parrot back the usual boomer mythology about the JFK assassination.
ReplyDeleteI won't say anything since you apparently haven't seen it yet. Are watching it on DVD or is it being broadcast a season behind in Canada?
ReplyDeleteI've seen it and I'll be commenting at greater length when I get to that episode. I have a sneaking suspicion we may disagree about the significance of what happens ;-)
ReplyDeleteI think that what happens in the episode and what happened to the USA are two different things, although having lived through those four days I do believe that the way Weiner handled it was accurate. I was 12 years old when it happened, but I remember that weekend as though it were yesterday.
ReplyDelete