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Good Girls Revolt - General Discussion


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Has anyone watched this? I watched about 15-20 minutes of the first episode and could not get into it. Should I go back and stick it out?

Yes. I think they've rejiggered it as well, because Grace Gummer's take on Nora Ephron, which was originally announced as only being part of the pilot, is now credited as a main character.

It's a very stylish show, and Anna Camp (playing the character you'd expect Anna Camp to play) and Genevieve Angelson who plays Patti, the very driven flower-child researcher, are both great.

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I saw the pilot when Amazon first posted it.  I am glad it made it to series, but I do hope they tone down some of the "the sixties are different!" clunkiness from this episode.  Some of the male characters were a little too on the nose in their sexist attitudes, when subtlety would have been a better choice.  The music cues were also fairly cliche.  Having said all that, I really like the lead actresses.  I see promise in their relationships,  and I'm interested to see where it all goes.   

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I liked the pilot during Amazon's voting but don't remember much so am looking forward to the season.

If it's any consolation, Haley, I remember my high school boyfriend using the phrase "blue balls" in 1966 as part of  his campaign to get me to have sex with him.  ;)

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Seems like the show is going out of its way to hit every.single.beat of the women's movement in the 60s and 70s. Yeah, that's why we're here, but I feel like I'm being banged on the head with it. Maybe because I lived through it once already?

Anyway, I'm in no hurry to watch the rest of the episodes.

Edited by lordonia
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I'm on the fence with this show. I mean, I liked it well enough to binge the entire first season, but I had a hard time with a lot of the characters, especially Patti. The show lacked subtlety, and all the 1960's references felt super clunky. I did think they did a better job later in the season of balancing the male/female conflict. The first few episodes felt like the men were all bumbling idiots, while the women did all the work. The second half felt like everyone was competent, but the women were unfairly compensated and credited for their work, which made their plight more relateable. 

Finn is a poor man's Don Draper, and while I liked him at times, and found Chris Diamantopoulos to be very charming in the role, I hated his relationship with Patti. The actors had decent chemistry, but it was very "she's my manic pixie dream girl who will keep me feeling young and relevant" and ugh.

I preferred Doug and Patti's dynamic, even though Doug could be irritatingly moody. I felt like they could use a lot of growing and maturing and that the differences in their personalities would compliment one another, which we saw in how well they worked together. But I wasn't that invested in their relationship to care one way or the other.

I thought the supporting girls were much better developed and fully realized. Cindy's journey often made me cringe, and there were times that I really disliked her, but I thought, overall, she was a great character. And I know Anna Camp seems to play the same character in every role, but she does it very well, and Jane's development from a stepford housewife to career woman was really well done. I also really liked her with Sam. (*shakes fist in the air* SAM!!!)

The weak link for me was Eleanor Holmes Norton, and maybe that's because she's the only regular character who is a real person (or at least not hidden behind a fictional name) and is still an active political figure and so her portrayal is a slippery slope. I wish she had more of a point of view so we could understand her motives and struggles. Instead she was just the magical all knowing lawyer.

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33 minutes ago, lordonia said:

Dear everybody who worked on or witnessed this scene: you have to push the lit button to answer the danged call.

phone.JPG

I'm sure they went over this with the actor but she forgot and the script supervisor didn't catch it but yeah a big gaffe. Old tech. Gotta love it.

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I'm enjoying this show, but does every researcher have to be in a relationship with her male counterpart? Doug & Patti are dating, and every interaction between Finn & Patti has a sexual undercurrent. Cindy mostly writes photo captions and is getting it on with Ned the photo editor. Gabe kissed Denise. Jane & Sam aren't dating yet, but I have a feeling that it where it is headed now that Jane broke up with her boyfriend and Sam previously asked her why they weren't dating.  Women and men can actually interact in the workplace without there being sexual undertones, but not in this show.

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Yet another take on the Mad Men vibe. Not sure why they had to start off with people having sex in the office during the first few minutes. Yawn.

Was Mother Teresa a widely-known cultural figure in the late 60s, early 70s?

Not sure I buy someone blasting In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida in the middle of an office during work hours--even a magazine office. Clumsy way, IMO, to shoehorn in an era-based musical cue, as a lead character provides encyclopedia-esque context for the part of the audience presumed to be too young to understand it.

I liked Nora's line about fighting over the bottom bunk in jail.

Consciousness raising meetings? Boy the writers are hitting every trope, or least the ones for the segment of society who had the leisure to get involved in such things.

I think the women's clothes are solidly on point, even if the show is being very obvious about lining up specific personality types with certain styles and colors.

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Yeah, so far it's a slog for me.  It shouldn't feel that way.  I like the characters and the cast and the period aspect but (as usual) there just isn't much in the way of story going on.  Mad Men had great writing, not just the period aspect.  

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I just binged on the whole season on Amazon Prime yesterday and today.  Now you'd think that meant I thought it was so good I couldn't stop watching, but while it was enough to keep my interest, I felt they kept missing the mark.  I was 16 in 1970 and the 'feel' of the time felt right, except for Patty and I'm talking about in the work setting.  I felt for her age she was made to be a little too 'right on!' and all that.  I mean, would a woman that age be wearing lace up suede flat whateverthey were called booties to a job?   Why was only she dressed like that if it was the style?  I wore those things but in the version where they only came up over the ankle in '72 and only very casually with jeans and I certainly didn't dress that way professionally a few yrs later.  Maybe in a big city newpaper she could get away with being the 'hippy chick' of the office, but working for one of the main magazines I just cant imagine not dressing more professionally.  And the long straight hair with some crimped strands were not in style.  We all just straightened our hair if it wasn't straight as a board (like mine) already!  And the whole boss liking Patty because she made him feel cool was icky.  Especially with a youngish hot wife back at home.

The two actresses who played Cindy and Jane seemed to be about to break into tears at any minute throughout the series!  Especially Cindy (who I liked, and reminded me of a homelier version of Sex and the City's Charlotte).  I liked her character and thought the things she went through were interesting, but the last three episodes she was so very wavery voiced and hesitant that I found myself feeling impatient.  Jane seemed about to either break into tears every time she spoke or break into an operetta.  I got tired of her teeth--- isn't that petty of me?  I just wanted her to close her mouth and speak up and quit using her eyes to get all the meaningful expressions across!  It was as if these women expected the guys to read their minds.  If you did all the research and gave him all the ideas for the story and he goes,'' Yeah,yeah,yeah, that's how I'M gonna write it!", then don't expect him to understand how YOU feel by wiggling your eyebrows, staring at him searchingly, and holding your mouth ajar!

I DO sound petty.  So I might as well finish up with ''Does anyone know if there will be a season 2?"  ;) 

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I haven't heard anything about a possible renewal, but reviews have been mixed. The story was certainly left open to follow the lawsuit and personal repercussions.

I thought the series got a little better as it went along, but then the focus devolved to just being messy romantic relationships all around. I really disliked Patti and Finn together. Ew. When Doug lamented that he didn't know why they could never work it out, my mind answered "because Patti's a ditz."

Jane maybe had the most depth of character because we got to see her arc of awareness, but somehow I never really liked her. Part of it may be due to Anna Camp, who seems to be the go-to actress for these ice blond WASP roles, but who I've never warmed to.

I agree about becoming impatient with Cindy and her meek irresponsibility. The show went out of its way to portray Lenny as a lout, but up until he hit her, he was just a man of his time who expected his wife to stay at home and have babies. He at least wanted to spend time with Cindy and watch TV together. Finn treated his wife far worse, in my opinion.

I also couldn't work up much antipathy for Ned because, as he said, he never made any promises to Cindy about their future. She's the one who created an instant life with him in her head.

The less said about the art gallery dick waving jerk who was selling out the magazine to advertisers, the better.

Edited by lordonia
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I am enjoying this show quite a bit, but having a problem with some it. 

Some of it just does not ring true:  it's hard to believe that it in 1970, only Cindy's husband is anti-Viet Nam-war - or rather, only Cindy's husband (name?) is willing to be vocally anti-war. This is post-RFK assassination, post-MLK, post-'68 convention, etc.  The rest of the party guests looked shocked when he was speaking, with Jane and someone else saying, "But don't you want to prevent Stalinism?"  This sounded like maybe an argument that would have been made in 1964, not by 1970.

Also, none of these 20something men in 1970 are vets?  Clearly all of the men had education deferments, but NONE of them are vets? Did all of them medical deferments???  They all did something to try to get out of the service - so how could they be shocked by the husband's anti-war stance?

I also didn't understand why Jane went looking for vets for her reporter Sam - HE HAD TO KNOW SOMEONE.  Everyone of that age knew someone who was drafted, or enlisted, and went to war.   HS classmates had to have been drafted (or enlisted) or a college classmate or two enlisted as an officers.

Also, his "I don't support the war but I do support the troops" didn't ring true either -- I thought that as a result of so many Viet Nam vets feeling unsupported we now are explicit about that, but I am not sure that was an argument in 1970. 

Edited by Blueeyedgirl
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This struck me as more 1970s, given the women's lib and consciousness raising. Patti's hair is all wrong, though - modern, processed, permed, not at all the wholly natural look that characterized the decade. It didn't seem to me to have anything new to say about anything, though. One thing MAD MEN did exceptionally well was pick out events that have been overshadowed but that really hit people at the time. This show, like THE NEWSROOM, seems to be operating with hindsight at full 20/20.

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Patti's bio for the show said she spent a lot of time in San Francisco prior to the start of the show so she adopted many of the styles that were emerging there. That's why she dresses so differently than the rest of the East coast women she works with.

Also, the show is set in the waning days of 1969 and early 1970.

Edited by maraleia
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Weren't birth control pills available by the early 70s? At the very least I would think women in major cities has access to them. I think I can see where  Cindy's storyline is going.

Not sure how I feel about them making it seem like Black women were on the forefront of White women's nascent feminism. I think while Eleanor Holmes Norton was undoubtedly influential, she was also an outlier. For the most part I don't think Black women felt they were embraced by the overall feminist movement. Intersectionality was not a thing then, at least not as that specific word.

"Dimples of Venus." Learn something new every day.

Well, at least Cindy was able to avoid having sex with her husband by simply saying she wasn't feeling well. It'll be a couple more years before she can see Ingmar Bergman's film, Cries and Whispers, and learn another method.

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Seems like the show is going out of its way to hit every.single.beat of the women's movement in the 60s and 70s.

Yeah, it's like the producers/writers drew up a list and each episode they check items off. This show is trying to be Mad Men from the women's POV but the writing is so on-the-nose it's almost laughable--IMO anyway.

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On October 30, 2016 at 0:53 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

Yet another take on the Mad Men vibe. Not sure why they had to start off with people having sex in the office during the first few minutes. Yawn.

Was Mother Teresa a widely-known cultural figure in the late 60s, early 70s?

Not sure I buy someone blasting In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida in the middle of an office during work hours--even a magazine office. Clumsy way, IMO, to shoehorn in an era-based musical cue, as a lead character provides encyclopedia-esque context for the part of the audience presumed to be too young to understand it.

I liked Nora's line about fighting over the bottom bunk in jail.

Consciousness raising meetings? Boy the writers are hitting every trope, or least the ones for the segment of society who had the leisure to get involved in such things.

I think the women's clothes are solidly on point, even if the show is being very obvious about lining up specific personality types with certain styles and colors.

What other shows out there now have the "Mad Men vibe?"

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What other shows out there now have the "Mad Men vibe?"

I'm referring to shows made since 2000 whose storylines were based in the 1960s and 1970s. In their way, I think they each tried to highlight how much worse things were for women, minorities, etc., and how "great" things were for the men who were in charge of things before laws and social mores started changing. There always seemed to be particular attention to the clothes and music of the time. These are just the ones I've watched at least parts of:

Ascension
The Astronaut Wives Club
11.22.63
Magic City
 

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9 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

 

Not sure how I feel about them making it seem like Black women were on the forefront of White women's nascent feminism. I think while Eleanor Holmes Norton was undoubtedly influential, she was also an outlier. For the most part I don't think Black women felt they were embraced by the overall feminist movement. Intersectionality was not a thing then, at least not as that specific word.

 

I give you this photo and these articles. http://www.ifyouonlynews.com/miscellaneous/gloria-steinem-dorothy-pitman-hughes/ http://www.themarysue.com/gloria-steinem-black-feminism/

https://www.smith.edu/library/libs/ssc/agents/steinemhughes.html

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I give you this photo and these articles.

Okay, there were several "outliers".

Black women may have been involved in the feminist movement at the top levels--with the likes of Gloria Steinem--in a relatively public manner. However I think their presence was not well-reflected down in the rank and file levels. For the most part, I don't believe Black women looked at the feminist movement as one that was racially inclusive in practice and I don't think Black women generally were considered participants in that movement except perhaps as tokens. Intersectionality was not a thing yet, and Black women generally still had racial issues to deal with which were arguably more dire. (Plus, I think some people misidentified Black matriarchy--a whole other troublesome and debatable issue--as "feminism" when it was really the outcome of slavery, institutional racism, etc., and not a role Black women necessarily demanded and fought for.)

I still stand by my earlier statement that the way this show presented the situation was misleading unless it was actually only intending to portray women of a certain socioeconomic and educational level in the bigger cities like NYC and LA. IMO, of course.

Like many other shows I've seen that try to portray the 60s and 70s, I think this one is perhaps playing to an audience too young to recognize when certain issues are being prettied up or otherwise shown in either an overly positive or overly negative manner for pure dramatic effect. A docudrama it is not and clearly wasn't meant to be one.

Edited by Joimiaroxeu
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On 11/2/2016 at 8:23 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

I'm referring to shows made since 2000 whose storylines were based in the 1960s and 1970s. In their way, I think they each tried to highlight how much worse things were for women, minorities, etc., and how "great" things were for the men who were in charge of things before laws and social mores started changing. There always seemed to be particular attention to the clothes and music of the time. These are just the ones I've watched at least parts of:

Ascension
The Astronaut Wives Club
11.22.63
Magic City
 

There was also Pan-Am, The Playboy Club, and Vegas (the one with Michael Chiklis). 

Obviously Mad Men is the go to comparison for shows set in the 60's, and likely will be for many years to come. But they really weren't the first to point how things were different back then compared to today. They just did it better than most. At times anyway, 

As for Good Girls Revolt, I wasn't too sure if this would keep me interested but watching the pilot I was hooked. My only complaint came at the end when they dropped the anvil that is Nora Ephron. Partly I rolled my eyes because they had already told us earlier in the episode she was Nora Ephron, but then they had to double down by having Jim Belushi make a big stink when she quit, practically saying "Well good luck, Nora Ephron,. We'll see if we ever hear from you again, Nora Ephron! All right everyone, back to work, nothing to see here now that Nora Ephron is gone." ...(Belushi walks out, but then peeks his head back in) "Nora Ephron!".

Edited by reggiejax
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Mad Men wasn't the first but it's probably the one current audiences most recognize and the one whose success later shows have tried to emulate.

I recently heard this show referred to as a dramedy. Maybe that's another reason why they're playing so fast and loose with the chronology of certain events and other details.

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A crystal egg? After nearly 40 years you'd think a seemingly valued employee would merit a more personal gift. Plus, what are the odds someone will steal it from her desk?

As soon as Jane delivered her 3-month ultimatum and the guy agreed, I think the message I saw on his face was, "Okay, that gives me three months to replace you while also trying to take your virginity. Thanks for the heads up!" Maybe she'll find a new beau in that rock 'n' roller down the hall in her apartment building.

By 1970 weren't most women--at least the younger ones-- wearing pantyhose? Or were those only for "career women" <ugh, ptooey>?

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This show is based on a real lawsuit (and a book about it): the women who worked at Newsweek sued the magazine for sex discrimination in 1970. Eleanor Holmes Norton was the lawyer in that case. She's no outlier and is a central part of this story. That lawsuit was also instrumental in changing office politics and culture.

That said, the role and inclusion of black women in the feminist movement is pretty broad. It does everyone a disservice to boil anyone down to a "type," even one that justifiably felt left out but was also a single piece of an incredibly complex movement. 

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I really loved this series and hope it gets another season because there is definitely more to the story. You have all made excellent points, but I adored the music and the clothes and cultural references. It really took me back because I was 15 when the story took place. 

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On 10/30/2016 at 9:53 AM, Joimiaroxeu said:

Consciousness raising meetings? Boy the writers are hitting every trope, or least the ones for the segment of society who had the leisure to get involved in such things.

Well they did start up in New York as early as 1967, and the first women involved were the type of women in this show. So I'm not sure I'd call it a trope, when they were part of the beginning feminism movement.

On 10/30/2016 at 9:53 AM, Joimiaroxeu said:

Was Mother Teresa a widely-known cultural figure in the late 60s, early 70s?

That one took me aback as well, so I thought I'd check up on it. She was the recipient of some pretty high honors in India in 1969, and given these characters all work at a global news magazine, it seems possible they'd know of her. But it did stand out, I agree.

On 11/5/2016 at 4:31 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

Maybe that's another reason why they're playing so fast and loose with the chronology of certain events and other details.

Which events? The only other one I remember mentioned was Altamont - which happened in December 1969, so that one tracked.

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Which events? The only other one I remember mentioned was Altamont - which happened in December 1969, so that one tracked.

There were a few that I've caught while watching but I didn't write them down. This article touched on some:

http://www.thewrap.com/7-things-good-girls-revolt-gets-wrong-about-the-1960s-photos/12/

Frankly I think this show is mainly aimed at people not old enough to know better or consider it a big deal if some of the details are off. But Mad Men set a fairly high standard in the facts regard so maybe that's part of the reason they're playing this show with a lighter touch. It's an eye-catching take on groundbreaking moment in feminist history but if they made it too serious it might turn viewers off. I guess.

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So I'm not sure I'd call it a trope, when they were part of the beginning feminism movement

 

There's a lot of cultural shorthand associated with the "women's lib" movement of the 60s and 70s and in my experience shows like this one usually depict some of them. Consciousness-raising groups are one example. Bra burning would be another although there doesn't seem to be any real evidence that it actually ever happened, at least not on a widely noticeable scale. Anyway, that's what I meant by trope.

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1 hour ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

There were a few that I've caught while watching but I didn't write them down. This article touched on some:

http://www.thewrap.com/7-things-good-girls-revolt-gets-wrong-about-the-1960s-photos/12/

Frankly I think this show is mainly aimed at people not old enough to know better or consider it a big deal if some of the details are off. But Mad Men set a fairly high standard in the facts regard so maybe that's part of the reason they're playing this show with a lighter touch. It's an eye-catching take on groundbreaking moment in feminist history but if they made it too serious it might turn viewers off. I guess.

There's a lot of cultural shorthand associated with the "women's lib" movement of the 60s and 70s and in my experience shows like this one usually depict some of them. Consciousness-raising groups are one example. Bra burning would be another although there doesn't seem to be any real evidence that it actually ever happened, at least not on a widely noticeable scale. Anyway, that's what I meant by trope.

Thanks for the link. Those were good points.

I guess I fit in the category of the people who are old enough to remember, but am willing to give a little leeway here and there for storytelling purposes. (I do call shenanigans on screwing, fairly openly, in the bullpen with nothing but a half glass door to provide privacy).

To my recollection, there were indeed instances of bra burning. I didn't pay close attention as I thought it was stupid despite my support of feminism, and I was too well endowed to even consider it (much to my dismay, as small breasts were fashionable, thanks to Twiggy).

Edited by Clanstarling
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On 11/7/2016 at 3:37 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

Consciousness-raising groups are one example.

As soon as I saw the group, I knew they'd do the 'vagina in the mirror' thing.  It's a funny thing and a good anecdote about the times but not a very original one.  For as much as it's mentioned in period tv, you'd think it was something every woman alive then experienced.

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Also, none of these 20something men in 1970 are vets?  Clearly all of the men had education deferments, but NONE of them are vets? Did all of them medical deferments???  They all did something to try to get out of the service - so how could they be shocked by the husband's anti-war stance?

I can believe that no one else at that party was a veteran. The fact is, the majority of men who were of age did not go to Vietnam. Nor did the majority serve in the military. The percentages in fact are low for service.

It hasn't been explicitly stated, but the reporters are closer to 30 in age. The one reporter with the friend who served, graduated HS in 1958 or 1959, according to the show, which makes him close to 30 in 1970. That puts these guys, on the higher end of the age range for service during the Vietnam war. So that makes it even more believable that no one else at that party served.

Also, not having served did not necessarily equate to an anti-war stance, and even if it did, it didn't necessarily equate to the boorish viewpoint (basically calling the vets dupes) that Cindy's husband had.

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Also, his "I don't support the war but I do support the troops" didn't ring true either -- I thought that as a result of so many Viet Nam vets feeling unsupported we now are explicit about that, but I am not sure that was an argument in 1970. 

I do agree that statement seemed to be an anachronism. Even if that was what he felt, he wouldn't have expressed it that way.

Edited by reggiejax
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I binge watched it because that's what I do but I disliked the show. As others have mentioned the writers hit on every sixties cliche like they had a checklist. The male characters were annoying stereotypes. What turned me off the most was including Nora Ephron in the mix when she wasn't the least bit involved. Why did they need to do that? It made me question the historical accuracy of everything else.

I heard the catchphrase "magical thinking" a couple of times and waited patiently for the imminent arrival of Joan Didion. Sure enough, next episode, one of the researchers mentioned her book, Slouching toward Bethlehem. Is it my imagination or did she quote from The Second Coming and attribute it to Didion without crediting Yeats?

Of course, Hunter S. Thompson and Gonzo journalism was name-dropped before the term had been used to describe Thompson's writing style and a couple years before he used it himself.

I enjoyed learning about Eleanor Holmes Norton, one of the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights Movement.

Also, the postal worker's strike was historically accurate. Am I the only one who thought the reporters should have been arrested for tampering with the mail?

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Not every woman alive, but certainly the kinds of women portrayed on this show. If your criticism is that TV shows about the Sixties rely too much on the events of the Sixties...ok. But it's not like the Kennedy assassination or Vietnam War is a particularly original plot point. Those show up in everything set during that time, yet that ubiquity doesn't turn those events into tropes. They're cultural touchstones...like most of what's going on in this show. I'd rather not dismiss women's cultural touchstones as cliches, even if the dates don't always line up. I'm juuuuuust old enough to remember, or at least have family members who were young women at this time and raised me in the culture, but I don't care. It's a TV show.

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