Monday, August 16, 2010

Free Fall.

"I'm sorry, but I still say they never would have dared to do this directly after Sept. 11."

I usually get ignored when I make this comment during the opening credits of Mad Men, probably because the observation is a plain one. Still, I don't watch Mad Men regularly enough to get over how offensive and impossible this sequence would have been after the unimaginable events of 2001. And when I type in "mad men+9/11" in Google, I don't get the reaction I expect.

I know that I am very late to this, since Mad Men is in season 4 at this point, but surely I'm not the only one who's had this reaction. What awesome coverage of this topic did I miss? I was living in San Francisco the year this show debuted and obsessed with non-media stuff at the time.

I am strongly in favor of not censoring themes because they bring up disturbing memories. I do not think that certain scenes should be off-limits because of Sept. 11. At the same time, when I see a show made for pure entertainment using such boldly evocative imagery, I feel somewhat betrayed.

4 comments :

  1. Anonymous8:25 PM

    i struck me as more of a dream sequence than anything else. in fact i don't believe i even thought of 9/11 while watching. (i only watched season 1 ... not a big fan.)

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  2. Interesting. I'm wondering if this struck people differently depending on where you lived on Sept. 11. To me, the image of a guy in a suit plummeting from a Manhattan skyscraper, once you've seen it in reality as part of a traumatic national event, is inextricable from this sequence. I don't know if I felt more tied to this because I lived there at the time.

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  3. No one should ever forget this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d3K0QuXL24

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  4. Anonymous10:03 AM

    yeah. i lived in nyc on sept. 11. and no, still no.

    --same anon. as above

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