Sure, you can use the Lloyd Bentsen / Jack Kennedy reference, but really? Mad Men has been on the air for 4 SEASONS. I watched the first couple episodes of Mad Men 4 years ago and I was disgusted. Pan Am has aired only 3 episodes - and you think you know where the producers/writers are going wirh the characters? After only three episodes? Pan Am is never going be as dark as Mad Men or contain the intense drama. I look forward to seeing how the four female leads in this show grow and learn to deal with the sexism they will undoubtedly encounter.
As far as the “especially preposterous moment, the Pan Am crew helps rescue survivors of the Bay of Pigs fiasco.” Look it up - December 24, 1962 - near Havana. Pan Am boarded the first 107 prisoners onto a DC-6 and flew them to Miami. Flights continued into the next day until over 1,000 prisoners were flown to freedom.
One last issue - have you ever interviewed any of the Pan Am stewardesses who flew during the early ‘60s and asked them how they felt during that time? Why don’t you ask them face to face if THEIR decision to become a stew made them feel powerless and weak? I doubt it.
Posted by Tamara Keeton on Oct 13, 2011 at 9:53 AM
Ms. Douglas - I really would hope that you would either correct or pull your erroneous statement about Pan Am and the Bay of Pigs. I know you did not purposefully put out this untruth ... but revisionist history runs rampant these days. Thank you.
Posted by Tamara Keeton on Oct 13, 2011 at 10:28 AM
“Playboy Clubs, it turns out, were actually liberating, providing a haven for strong-willed women who wanted to make something of themselves.”
Typical misogynist hogwash. The mainstream media (99.9% male leadership) is bringing out the heavy guns, folks. The Dark Ages are upon us. Next fall on ABC: Barefoot & Pregnant! (And not in an ironic way, either!)
Any program, network, etc. that references (or even acknowledges) Hugh Hefner - one of the most noxious pigs ever to walk the planet - should be boycotted post-haste.
The corporations have three (and only three), job openings for women: 1/ breeding machine, 2/ sex object, 3/ any other employment which specifically serves the male. The corporations are the enemies of real women. Always have been. Always will be.
Would that more start to do what some of us are doing - drop the cable, stop watching TV, start visiting alternative media (like ITT for instance) on the web and in print. And maybe even read a book! Not a Kindle - A BOOK!
Posted by Hermies Purrbuckets on Oct 13, 2011 at 3:40 PM
I find it interesting that some women who call themselves feminists are so elitist and so quick to judge other women for their personal choices. Wasn’t the point of feminism for women to make their OWN choices? Ok so women can now be doctors, lawyers and engineers, but what if we don’t want to? What if a woman WANTS to work in a Playboy Club, or as a stewardess/flight attendant, be a teacher, a waitress, a receptionist or *heaven forbid* get married and be a stay at home wife and mother, for that matter? Why do some women feel so threatened by that? Also, since when is watching a simple TV show mean a person wants to go back to any past time. Can’t you trust adults to BE adults and have some common sense and watch a TV show with some perspective? People watch history shows all the time about wars, doesn’t mean they want to go out and BE in a war, does it? If a Black person watches a program about the Civil War or Gone With The Wind does that mean that person somehow wants a return to slavery days? Hardly. Quite frankly as a woman who did want to be a stewardess as a girl and is a feminist and receptionist today, I deeply resent the judgmental attitudes represented in this article. I LIKE this show and hope it stays on the air for a long time. It’s not a return to sexism. If anything Pan Am is about showing women who made different choices and choosing adventure and then changing the world in their own way! If you did your homework, you’d realize it was the stewardesses who were on the front lines in the labor movement fighting the rules that discriminated against them and other women re: age, weight, marital status. It was people like retired flight attendant Iris Peterson (who worked for United from 1946 to 2007) who took the cases to court and WON, and not the uptight radical feminists who actually mocked and belittled them at the women’s rallies in the 70s! I would suggest you read the book “Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants” by Kathleen Barry and you’ll see that a number of stewardesses were feminists such as former NOW President Patricia Ireland.
Posted by Sabrina Messenger on Oct 13, 2011 at 8:38 PM
Yes! Thank you.
Posted by student on Sep 30, 2012 at 6:54 PM
Reader Comments
Sure, you can use the Lloyd Bentsen / Jack Kennedy reference, but really? Mad Men has been on the air for 4 SEASONS. I watched the first couple episodes of Mad Men 4 years ago and I was disgusted. Pan Am has aired only 3 episodes - and you think you know where the producers/writers are going wirh the characters? After only three episodes? Pan Am is never going be as dark as Mad Men or contain the intense drama. I look forward to seeing how the four female leads in this show grow and learn to deal with the sexism they will undoubtedly encounter.
As far as the “especially preposterous moment, the Pan Am crew helps rescue survivors of the Bay of Pigs fiasco.” Look it up - December 24, 1962 - near Havana. Pan Am boarded the first 107 prisoners onto a DC-6 and flew them to Miami. Flights continued into the next day until over 1,000 prisoners were flown to freedom.
One last issue - have you ever interviewed any of the Pan Am stewardesses who flew during the early ‘60s and asked them how they felt during that time? Why don’t you ask them face to face if THEIR decision to become a stew made them feel powerless and weak? I doubt it.
Posted by Tamara Keeton on Oct 13, 2011 at 9:53 AM
Ms. Douglas - I really would hope that you would either correct or pull your erroneous statement about Pan Am and the Bay of Pigs. I know you did not purposefully put out this untruth ... but revisionist history runs rampant these days. Thank you.
Posted by Tamara Keeton on Oct 13, 2011 at 10:28 AM
“Playboy Clubs, it turns out, were actually liberating, providing a haven for strong-willed women who wanted to make something of themselves.”
Typical misogynist hogwash. The mainstream media (99.9% male leadership) is bringing out the heavy guns, folks. The Dark Ages are upon us. Next fall on ABC: Barefoot & Pregnant! (And not in an ironic way, either!)
Any program, network, etc. that references (or even acknowledges) Hugh Hefner - one of the most noxious pigs ever to walk the planet - should be boycotted post-haste.
The corporations have three (and only three), job openings for women: 1/ breeding machine, 2/ sex object, 3/ any other employment which specifically serves the male. The corporations are the enemies of real women. Always have been. Always will be.
Would that more start to do what some of us are doing - drop the cable, stop watching TV, start visiting alternative media (like ITT for instance) on the web and in print. And maybe even read a book! Not a Kindle - A BOOK!
Posted by Hermies Purrbuckets on Oct 13, 2011 at 3:40 PM
I find it interesting that some women who call themselves feminists are so elitist and so quick to judge other women for their personal choices. Wasn’t the point of feminism for women to make their OWN choices? Ok so women can now be doctors, lawyers and engineers, but what if we don’t want to? What if a woman WANTS to work in a Playboy Club, or as a stewardess/flight attendant, be a teacher, a waitress, a receptionist or *heaven forbid* get married and be a stay at home wife and mother, for that matter? Why do some women feel so threatened by that? Also, since when is watching a simple TV show mean a person wants to go back to any past time. Can’t you trust adults to BE adults and have some common sense and watch a TV show with some perspective? People watch history shows all the time about wars, doesn’t mean they want to go out and BE in a war, does it? If a Black person watches a program about the Civil War or Gone With The Wind does that mean that person somehow wants a return to slavery days? Hardly. Quite frankly as a woman who did want to be a stewardess as a girl and is a feminist and receptionist today, I deeply resent the judgmental attitudes represented in this article. I LIKE this show and hope it stays on the air for a long time. It’s not a return to sexism. If anything Pan Am is about showing women who made different choices and choosing adventure and then changing the world in their own way! If you did your homework, you’d realize it was the stewardesses who were on the front lines in the labor movement fighting the rules that discriminated against them and other women re: age, weight, marital status. It was people like retired flight attendant Iris Peterson (who worked for United from 1946 to 2007) who took the cases to court and WON, and not the uptight radical feminists who actually mocked and belittled them at the women’s rallies in the 70s! I would suggest you read the book “Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants” by Kathleen Barry and you’ll see that a number of stewardesses were feminists such as former NOW President Patricia Ireland.
Posted by Sabrina Messenger on Oct 13, 2011 at 8:38 PM
Yes! Thank you.
Posted by student on Sep 30, 2012 at 6:54 PM