David Shanske (david.shanske.com)I spent some time in the last few days watching the second season of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I’ve always enjoyed period pieces, especially 20th century ones. This is set in 1959. I can’t pretend I was a Jew in New York in the 1950s…my parents were though, although certainly not the economic...
I couldn’t help but think about the 80’s movie Dirty Dancing when watching this particular episode. The quirky part is that this version seemed to portray the entire process as a far more silly and frivolous affair instead of something people genuinely did for fun and relaxation. I can’t imagine that there was as much tongue-in-cheek snark in the 50’s when trips to the Catskills were in vogue.
Of course I’ve got worse complaints about the show’s characters and the seeming non-differentiation of their individual voices…
I also watched Diner earlier in the week, and while very far from being my favorite film, it had a more nuanced portrayal of 1959 culture than Maisel has had. Of course Barry Levinson (b. 1942) actually had the experience of living through the 50’s compared with Amy Sherman-Palladino (b. 1966) who didn’t. She obviously has a drastically different lens.