Summary of Things That Were Good

1) Half the episode was all about Puck, a character who has been severely neglected since the middle of Season Two.
2) More than a quarter of it involved a plot that was all about every girl on the show except Rachel or Quinn.
3) A bit of Puck’s plot actually subtly tied into the women’s plot.
4) It made at least somewhat of an effort to address complaints that the show is misogynist.
5) It also addressed complaints that the show solves its problems too easily. Coach’s problem wasn’t, couldn’t be, resolved in one episode by a bunch of earnest teenagers singing at her.

( spoilers, long )

I can't agree with Tom and Lorenzo that "Mad Men is one of – if not the – most feminist television shows in the history of the medium" because this is a world where "Buffy" and "The Golden Girls" and "Murphy Brown" existed*, but it is most definitely far from the misogynistic show people who don't watch it are convinced that it is.

There's a big difference between a show that cheerfully ignores its own obvious sexism, even adding sexism and misogyny into stories where it doesn't have to be(perhaps the writers actually have issues, or maybe they're just stuck in a previous era)and a show which is set in a time or place or profession where misogyny is rampant and uses that to point out that the world doesn't need to be that way. Seventy to eighty percent of television belongs in the first category, even, I regret to say, some of my favorite shows of all time, like The A Team and Supernatural.

When you watch Mad Men thoughtfully, you have the opportunity to notice that it's actually that second type of show.

( read on, MacDuff )

TBC