I may not have cable, but seeing Jon Hamm on SNL this weekend was all the reminder I needed that I LOVE MAD MEN! The Mad Men skit they did on SNL featured the wonderful Elizabeth Moss and John Slattery and I was very close to downloading all of Season 2 off of I-Tunes (I didn’t though because I think it is too beautiful a show to watch on my laptop).

It seems I am not alone (duh! the show is super critically acclaimed), there is a great little piece on NPR today from Jake Halpern in which he talks about why he too loves Mad Men. The most telling quote from his story sums up many of my feelings:

And ultimately the show does what art is supposed to do it illuminates it sheds light on what a time and a place might have felt like and why,

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Wow. Speaking of glass ceilings, have you seen the new McDonald’s ad for their premium coffee? The one where two women in a coffee shop get super excited about new McDonald’s lattes. And here is why:

W1: Now we don’t have to listen to jazz all day long!
W2: I can start wearing heels again.
W1: Read gossip magazines! (tosses book away)
W2: Watch reality TV shows…
W1: I like television!
W2: I can’t really speak French.
W1: I don’t know where Paraguay is!
W2: Paraguay?

McDonalds! YAY! Just when I thought you didn’t understand women. You’re right! We all really just want stop all this pretending to be smart stuff and we finally have a place to get a latte where we can be stupid again!

And who really wants to hang around jazz listening, New Yorker reading, Mad Men loving, “smart” women who may even be crazy enough to want to support local coffee shops that serve fair trade coffee??**

Watch the commercial here:

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AMC, the wonderful channel that brought us all Mad Men, has another idea up their sleeve, and I can’t help but think that it will be awesome or awful. They plan on adapting the Francis Ford Coppola classic, The Conversation into a television show.

It’s pretty easy to see how this could be awful. The Conversation is a great film and should probably be left alone. How could it be awesome you ask? According to Tony Krantz, the producer, “It gives us an opportunity to look back at the 1970s through the filter of 2009. The issues of privacy and individuality, and issues of spying and listening, are as relevant now as they’ve ever been. This is the perfect vehicle to tell those stories.” [Variety]

I’m always up for a little political commentary, especially something that takes on the Patriot Act. Let’s hope AMC doesn’t mess this up. I also wonder who they’ll get to replace Gene Hackman. Who would you pick?

It seems to me that Hackman is pretty irreplaceable. Just go after the jump to witness his stellar work in The Conversation and takepart to learn how you can reform the Patriot Act with the ACLU.

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Like a lot of people I’ve recently become addicted to Mad Men - I adore it! The only thing I don’t so much adore is watching how horribly the women characters are treated on the show…

The show takes place in the early 60’s (the first season was set in 1960 - the second season starts in 1962) and follows the lives of those in the Madison Avenue advertising world (where the “Mad” Men in the title comes from). The office dynamics for the ladies are quite atrocious. Check out this someone telling youtube mashup of some of the more deplorable behavior on the show - # 8, 4,3 and 2 are pretty telling:

And that’s just a small example..

This doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the show, I love love love it - it’s like when Robert Altman said he made movies about the way things are/were - not they the way things should be. While hard to watch, the eye-opening reality of what that time was like is somewhat extraordinary.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

TakePart Gang:

Sudan Leader Charged with Genocide: What Are the Reactions? by Wendy Cohen

Inconvenient Truth of the Day: Al Gore Speaks on Climate Change by Joshua Tremblay

* * *

Nicole Hughes:

“Farms in the Sky” a Solution to Global Food Crisis?

Wal-Mart Launches Eco-Bling Project

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Andy Kondrat:

NYC To Bring in 300 Hybrid Taxis Per Month

Coolio To Educate Students On Climate Change

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Jon Popham:

Pickens’ Plan for Energy Independence

On “Rent” Closing, the East Village, and Gentrification

* * *

Gina Telaroli:

Batman Morals: Top 5 Lessons from the Capped Crusader’s Films

Emmy Nominations Kick “The Wire” to the Curb

The Emmy Nominations for the 2008 season are here. I’m not a big TV watcher, with the exception of The Wire and Lost, but it’s always interesting to consider the nominations and this year is no exception. The complete nomination list can be found here but after looking at it, it has become obvious to me that I should focus on a glaring omission:

1) THE WIRE

I’m sorry, but it is unacceptable that this show not be nominated and even more unacceptable that none of it’s actors be nominated. I mean really, does William Shatner really deserve another nomination for Boston Legal? Not when Andre Royo, Michael K Williams and Lance Reddick are without one.

I’m not sure how anyone who spent 5 minutes with Royo’s Bubbles could NOT nominate him… He is the definition of best supporting actor and did more work in one episode than William Shatner has done in his entire Boston Legal career. And as much as I love Lost and love Michael Emerson’s Ben, I would easily chop his name of the nomination list for Royo, Williams, Reddick or any number of their co-stars.

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“The Colbert Report,” it was announced today, is being honored with a Peabody Awards, the broadcast and cable industry’s most prestigious prize. In his typical tone of truthiness, Steven Colbert responded to the announcement by saying “I proudly accept this award and begrudgingly forgive the Peabody Committee for taking three years to recognize greatness. On a personal note, I’d like to say that I’ve long been a fan of Mr. Peabody, as well as his boy Sherman.”

Other winners include “Project Runway,” “Taxi to the Dark Side,” “Art: 21 — Art in the 21st Century,” “Speaking of Faith: The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi,” “Bob Woodruff Reporting: Wounds of War — The Long Road Home of Our Nation’s Veterans,” “Dexter,” “Mad Men,” “Planet Earth,” “30 Rock,”

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