Mad Men shows us the way things were in the 1960s. It is was it is. "DT" seems rather ignorant for being in grad school.

NO!

I thought it was rather prestigious to work as a nanny/house servant back in the day.For wealthy people Even porters on trains. Just sayin....

Yes, there should be 12% negroes, 20% Mexicans and 5% jews working at SC

With every respect, Pan Am, perhaps you are being too logical, if not necessarily "races" (sic). D'Thommas has zero interest in "the way things were in the 1960s." Such inconvenient realities, he shouts, writhing in hysterical fury, are inconsequential compared to his population segment's "rights" to protracted therapy for their acute grievances and victimization. He screams righteously, "That what social justice about!" The ever-scowling, intense DT, citing his prestigious undergraduate degree in Black Studies, therefore postulates that "the way things WERE" must be supplanted by "the way things SHOULD BE," you see.

Anya, may I suggest that you, like Pan Am, are being too logical? D'Thommas would scoff wrathfully at your suggestion that negroes should represent only 12% of the cast -- the same as their incidence in the general population. He would condemn your perhaps well-intentioned thought as "races" (sic) and oppressive. His demand for 20% is founded in the concept of "affirmative action to redress centuries of dehumanization." DT would also erupt in rage at your idea of incorporating 5% Jews, who he condems as "the foes of my peopolds."

Let's not forget Asians and Latinos.

Fullprof: You said that "DT would also erupt in rage at your idea of incorporating 5% Jews, who he condems (sic) as 'the foes of my peopolds (sic).'"

When I was a young adult in the sixties, Jews were thought to be the friends of the Negroes.

Hi fullproffesor!

I believe the writers of MM are being true to American history during the time period. We can't compare 1963 to 2009 and expect the years to be the same as far as race/religious/gender relations.

I am sure that as MM continues we will see the struggles and changes in race/religious/gender relations as the years go on. Both positive, and negative.

Well, what can I say? Like PamAm, I too was an adult in the sixties. I try to keep up with what's going on in this world today, so please pardon my ignorance, but I have never heard of D'Thommas. It sounds like he's of a younger generation who, from your description Fullprofessor, might be a "rapper".

His desire to "change history" is, IMHO, ridiculous and outrageous. History is History - trying to change it causes many problems. Take the Don/Dick character for instance. He tried to change his history and now must face up to the misunderstandings, damage and hurt he has caused, not only to himself but also to those around him.

MW has shown a very limited view of the 60s. One major household (Draper), and one company (SC). There must be hundreds of households in Ossining and thousands of companies in NYC. What we don't see is all of the household helpers, all the elevator operators, all the Blacks who work in other jobs.
To focus on MM and its representations as DT does limits his view. He wasn't there in the 60s and doesn't know what he's talking about.

Ah, but that's precisely the point D'Thommas is making, rozsie. He doesn't HAVE to have been there in the 60s. He doesn't even have to KNOW how things were in the 60s. In today's world of blazing racial sensitivities, depicting history accurately is "races" because, in the surly DT's own words, "It diss tha bruthas and sistas like they bees inferior to Tha Man." He rages with bileous indignation that Mad Men is, after all, a show about advertising -- and that the primary mission of TV advertising in 2009 is pandering to self-anoited victim groups. As one example, DT notes triumphantly that the vicious home invaders in home-security commercials are inevitably white males, even though that demographic accounts for only 9.7% of actual home invasions. Showing the actual perps would be, as the perpetually enraged DT puts it, "more dehumanizing honky propaganda."

I don't think there was any such word as "racism" back in the 60s

hopefullly we have come a long way but still have a long way to go

Virtual head shake
If he's visiting a GradSem, what is DT's degree in? Obviously not Black Studies because he would know what conditions were like in that era. He might rail against them but... It just sounds so much like history as read in Soviet textbooks a few decades ago.

Don't write how things were but how they should be perceived, as in there were no positive aspects of the Russian Czarist era (except music - that was kulturniy) and no negative aspects of the Bolsheviks. Except, of course, for the Bolsheviks who strayed from whatever the current line was or got in someone's way and were executed. As late as 1969, Trotsky was still "Photoshopped" out of pictures with Lenin.

The only reason I can see DT would be tolerated as a speaker is as a joke, even if he is serious. Someone who just doesn't get the point. Just as someone who insists Ebonics be part of the standard curriculum because he or she sees it as a valid dialect of English, so many people speak in that fashion.

Why not include Yiddish? Or Hispanic usage with their loan words as well?

While Mad Men has never claimed to be absolutely historically accurate (IBM Selectrics in 1960, for God's sake), it still presents what I consider a fair picture of the conditions that prevailed in those days.

So aptly put, Ritt1.

roszie: can't you recognise a troll? The perfessa made the whole thing up.

the "prof" is "full" of it. Who uses a fictional TV show for research?. Please. When there are primary sources available and eager? What is this? Middle school group project?

Anya got it. I just didn't have the nerve to say it when it went up---The whole concept of this thread is BS fabricated using racism to bait.

Sadly, many participants in GradSem permit ourselves to wish, as do certain participants on this board, that the scowling D'Thommas did not exist among us. And a few, also like some here, fail to grasp the essence of Black Studies curricula: furtherance of grievances about oppression; exploitation; victimization; marginalization; dehumanization; yada yada. As educators, however, Dr. Patel and I must maintain open minds for all viewpoints. OF COURSE DT understands the realities of the 1960s. What sparks his outbursts of bileous rage is the fact that Mad Men presents those realities faithfully. For DT and his brethren, historical accuracy is incidental to ethnic therapy.

Pan Am, you are correct that in the 1960s "Jews were thought to be the friends of the Negroes." Yet it was only the Jews who held that view. Recall Jesse Jackson's characterization of New York as "Hymietown" and Al Sharpton's slurs about "diamond merchants." D'Thommas and his fellow race-activists never miss an opportunity to screech vile epithets about Jewish people. DT has even singled out Roger and Pete as Mad Men's "slimy Israeli occupiers."

Maybe "DT's" feelings could be more easily soothed by script and wardrobe changes instead of casting, Full Prof. Here is a for-instance. Big Don, in his do-rag and oversize wifebeater, is slouching at the bar in his office pouring himself the usual glass of Dewars, neat. The door opens and Roger Babydaddy stalks in wearing a suit which reflects light like the dazzling spinner wheels on his ride. Rog seizes Don's Kraft bag with the words, "Gibs me summa dat, Bro!" Don replies, "Sheeyitt, Mon, not 'less hyo axes me mo nice!" This will make the series more contemporary and less dated for innercity youth audiences, while maintaining the characters so well liked by its hard-core senior-citizen viewers. A win-win solution.

They can use some better clothes like this

http://www.suavecito.com/images/Staff/Craig-Jay.jpg