Do you feel like a tainted human being every time you watch a "prestige" TV show in the Golden Era of television?
Will no amount of exfoliation, showering, and enemas purge the evil inflicted on your soul through watching endless evil television characters destroy themselves and the entire world around them?
Do you desperately wish we could get back to the good old days when we knew beyond a doubt the good guys were good and the bad guys bad? Are you suffering from what others have dubbed Anti Hero Fatigue, a very serious and lasting psychological condition?
Well you're not alone!
If you are anything like me perhaps it is time you go on an Anti Hero Television Cleanse!
The program is simple: all you have to do is turn off your sets and stop watching.
I loved music. I loved it more than I love it now. But I think that can happen with anything. You can live in New York for 10 years and say, "I now want to move to San Francisco." It's just harder for me to do music now, period. It's easier for people who focus on it all day and who are younger in their concept of what they want to do with it. I am not what I would consider truly a musician. I am an inventor. I am an innovator.
It has been said it is better to burn out than to fade away. Though it is not yet certain this is exactly what might be happening to Kanye West's music career. Here is what he said in a self-written Paper article: "Just choose what you want to focus on. Right now, over 70 percent of my focus is on apparel. I haven't even given my College Dropout of clothing yet. We're still on mixtapes."
The greatness of the AMC television show Mad Men lies in one simple principle: it continually defies audience expectations of what a television show should do. It is a seemingly conventional TV show with a conventional premise (a historical family/business drama about one man, Don Draper, in particular, and a whole ensemble of characters that surround him) that repeatedly plays with those conventions. At the same time it never gets distracted by that playfulness, never veering off too far into surrealism (like some other shows)—instead it is always grounded in the histories and narratives of its characters and the events of the American 1960's.
I have almost managed to catch up with all 6 1/2 seasons of the show right before the whole thing finishes with the last half of season 7, which began this past Sunday, April 5. The torrid and tangled lives of Don Draper, Betty and Megan, Peggy Olson, Pete Campbell, Joan Harris, and Roger Sterling have been fresh in my mind over the last year and it has convinced me that not only is the show great, but it is perhaps one of the greatest of all time.
Here are a few of the ways Mad Men has fashioned itself into a classic show by continuing to defy convention:
