Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

[Reed John]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

She's one of those actors whose been in minor roles and/or minor films/shows for a while and is finally getting a chance.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

She's certainly running away with it.

I guess MoS is probably what used to be called a "woman's show," the showrunner and most of the writers are female. That's maybe why it's not come up on here before. Probably for that reason, I find it something of an oasis in the blows, blood, and body-parts that feature large on most cable shows these days.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

I really enjoyed the first two series of Boobwalk empire, but having taken some time out to be sick, I suddenly discovered we were in series four. I'm going to have to do some serious catch up

[Reed John]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

I started watching it on the strength of your review. It's good so far. Michael Sheen's nonchalance during the observations is Pythonesque.

I'm really getting into the whole 1950s-ness of it.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

Did you begin with series one?

[Reed John]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

Yes.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

Good. It's worth it for Beau Bridges and Alison Janney, neither of whom have been in series two (yet.)

Not only for them of course, but their performances are excellent.

[Reed John]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

Allison Janney hasn't shown up yet for me.

Beau Bridges is apparently an amalgam.

I don't know much about their work, but I'm sure a lot of it has been superseded and, as I've already seen in the show, Masters was still a bit stuck in the categories of "normal" vs dysfunctional. We'll see.

It's just mindboggling that in the era where we put a man on the moon, so little was known about so many important features of humanity. Not just the sex stuff. For example, there's that bit where the prostitute explains how her uncle raped her. She seems to think that was just "how it was." And M & J don't know what to say. Lots and lots of people still walking around on this planet and defining cultural norms and so forth grew up in that world.

We're a terrible species in so many ways. If the machines want to take over, I won't stand in their way.

I also struggle to fathom with how much effort it took for people to look "presentable" in those days. Especially women, but men too - shirt and tie everywhere.

I suppose people with respectable jobs still have to dress up all of the time, but stuff was harder to iron back then, and I don't think women sleep in curlers anymore, do they?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

Yup. Buttoned up and buttoned down. It's why hippies needed to be invented.

It's just mindboggling that in the era where we put a man on the moon, so little was known about so many important features of humanity. Not just the sex stuff. For example, there's that bit where the prostitute explains how her uncle raped her. She seems to think that was just "how it was."

Well it's still like that, or it is for too many people. See the Samantha Morton interview (linked elsewhere.)

It is hard at this distance to understand how important M&J's initial work was. The idea that women had sexual feelings at all was not fully accepted. As a young teenager I certainly didn't know it. No one told me, it just wasn't discussed. Sexuality was male territory. Girls were its objects, its receptacles. The idea that they might get as much pleasure from it as I hoped to was not really an issue. We really were groping in the dark. Literally and metaphorically.

[Reed John]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

I find it odd that the show hasn't mentioned Alfred Kinsey yet. He died in 1956.

I think the discussion of sex is still very messed up, even among the so-called "sex positive" people. At the end of the day, it should be about honestly relating to other human beings, and yet that aspect of it seems to get the least ink.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

I thought Kinsey was mentioned in passing early on, but perhaps I'm wrong.

My limited understanding is that Kinsey's studies were mainly about sexual frequency gleaned through interviews. M&J studied actual physiology, and later psychology. Basically it's more dramatic, particularly given the complex relationship between M&J themselves.

[Reed John]

Boardwalk Empire - new HBO series

Everything I know of Kinsey is from the Liam Neeson film, but my understanding was that he was a sociologist and revealed that the actual sex lives of Americans was way more active and diverse than most anyone could imagine. He and his wife were also the center of a Free Love scene in Indiana that would seem weird now, let alone the 40s.

As I understand it, W&M's work eventually led to all kinds of insights into evolutionary adaptions. Not sure they knew that.