21 of Sally Draper’s Best Quotes

With the season 6 premiere of Mad Men tonight, let’s take a look at quotes from Sally Draper.

1. You have big ones. My mommy has big ones too. And I’m going to have big ones when I grow up.
2. Do you lie on top of her?
3. I Don’t wanna wear someone else’s shoes, especially ski boots. You know that they’re sweaty. Oh, my gosh!
4. Are you and Daddy doing it?
5. We learned that they used to be fish, and he doesn’t know because he has baby science.
6. I know what it is. I know that the man pees inside the woman.
7. She doesn’t care what the truth is as long as I do what she says.
8. Every time I go around a corner, I keep thinking I’ll see my dad.
9. I hate sevens.
10. When I think about forever, I get upset.
11. I told Betty and Henry to take their ski vacation and shove it.
12. Who’s Dick?
13. …And it has a picture of her on it, holding a box. With a picture of her on it, holding a box.
14. I’ll save my Fritos for you.
15. I’m not sure that’s the way I like you.
16. I’m old enough that I can stay alone while you go laugh your heads off.
17. I want to live with you all the time.
18. I want to stay and I don’t know why I can’t.
19. I hate her so much. She’s such a phony.
20. We don’t go across the park. There’s bums on the other side.
21. And then I was floating over town. Standing straight up, not like Superman. Only it wasn’t Ossining, it was London. Like Mary Poppins.

Your ShirtPunch shirt of the day: Moss from The IT Crowd.

WWE and the Pitfalls of Nostalgia

Professional wrestling is a bizarre thing. The appeal of it is difficult to explain to someone who isn’t a fan. You either get it or you don’t. The best I can do is compare an episode of Monday Night Raw to an episode of The Muppet Show. They’re both vaudevillian presentations structured around an authority figure struggling to deal with an array of larger than life personalities. Only the Muppets use a stage while the WWE use a wrestling ring. Most fans discover it at a young age and they’ll always maintain an appreciation for it, even if they don’t watch it anymore.

It’s certainly not as big as it was in the Attitude Era, but the WWE has had somewhat of a resurgence as of late—a lot of which could be attributed to the drawing power of nostalgia. Since guys like The Rock and Brock Lesnar have returned to the ring, many viewers who stopped watching have taken an interest again. Unfortunately, the emphasis on former stars is very much a large problem with the current product.

In terms of pure wrestling, the current WWE roster is arguably the strongest it has ever been. CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Kofi Kingston and Dolph Ziggler are all better wrestlers than most of the guys from the Attitude Era were. Of course, it’s difficult to see that when they’re never given the opportunity to show it. With it being Wrestlemania season, WWE is in full-out huckster mode. In every three-hour episode of Raw, there’s only about twenty-five minutes of actual wrestling and the rest of the show is spent hocking t-shirts, toys, and social media applications. It feels less like a television show and more like a QVC infomercial. If the fans wanted to see a bunch of oily people scream at each other while commerce is thrown in their faces, they’d watch MTV. Otherwise, they’re subjected to three-minute long, one-sided matches. A wrestling match is a story in itself with beats and an escalation of suspense. When the ending is a foregone conclusion, the investment is lost. If you’ve seen one Ryback match, you’ve seen them all.

What the Attitude Era lacked in good wrestling, it made up for in strong characters. The Rock had that over-the-top arrogance people loved, Mankind was a living cartoon, D-Generation X was all about controversy, and everyone wished they could’ve stuck it to their boss the way Steve Austin did. Compelling characters have been absent from the program ever since. What’s the defining characteristic of John Cena? He’s just a guy wearing jean shorts. The rest of the roster are either defined by their ethnicity or a one-note joke that runs out of steam all too quickly. With wrestlers not being given a chance to wrestle nor the writers giving them good characters to compensate for that, they lack credibility in the eyes of the fans. Therefore, the success of this year’s Wrestlemania is all based around the nostalgia of wrestlers from ten years ago.

People are drawn to nostalgia because it reminds them of simpler times; when they were younger and it seemed like their interests were always catered to. However, nostalgia can be both misleading and cynical. Wearing those rose-colored glasses will make you believe everything in past was great and that everything in the present sucks. The Rock, Brock Lesnar, Triple H, and The Undertaker all have marquee value, but they’re going to return to their day jobs and semi-retirement soon. Once that happens, the interest of the nostalgia-dwelling fans will more than likely diminish.

The Rock has barely been present for his program with John Cena as is. While he’s been busy acting as an apologist for the first G.I. Joe movie, the build up for Wrestlemania’s main event has rested on the shoulders of someone the fans have been sick of for the last seven years.

A wrestler like The Undertaker just seems out of place in the current climate of WWE. His Wrestlemania opponent, CM Punk, works best when he can bring aspects of reality into the storyline. With CM Punk’s opponent being a zombie with superpowers, it might be a bit difficult for him to drop the proverbial “pipe bombs”. Because of this, they’ve turned to drawing heat from the actual death of Paul Bearer, the Undertaker’s former manager. They’re not quite exploiting it the way they exploited Eddie Guerrero’s death years ago, but it does feel like a crutch for the story to hinge on.

Then you have Brock Lesnar and Triple H, two performers who serve no purpose in having a match together. They already have credibility and neither of them would suffer from a loss. It feels like a vanity match more than anything. They’ve attempted to spice it up by adding the stipulation that if Triple H loses, he’ll be forced to retire. Considering he only wrestles once or twice a year anyway, it doesn’t feel like much is at stake.

There’s definitely a place on the card for the veterans, but they’d be better suited elevating the wrestlers who will be carrying the show for the rest of the year as opposed to taking the spotlight from them. At the rate WWE is going right now, it’s hard to imagine they’ll be able to sell Wrestlemania 39 off of the nostalgia of Cody Rhodes’ mustache.

By selling out an entire football stadium for Wrestlemania, WWE obviously maintains a large fan base despite all of its flaws. What makes these flaws so frustrating is that they have the potential to have a really good product. Professional wrestling is a great satire on sports culture and even with the roster capable of pulling that off, WWE doesn’t take advantage of that. They’re too busy living in the past while having lost sight of what made it awesome in the first place. I suppose Vince McMahon knows that there will always be lifers (like myself) who will always shell out the money for it, regardless of how much they complain. Nostalgia isn’t the only thing that’s draws people to professional wrestling now: there’s also an element of irony. If you’re over the age of 10 and still watch wrestling, it’s likely with a least a hint of irony. Hate-loving the inherent stupidity is part of what makes it fun.

Once a fan, you’ll always be a fan. Whether you like it or not.

Guest Post by Morgan Eschmann.

Awkward, an MTV comedy that is arguably the freshest and smartest high school show we’ve seen in years, is available on Netflix Instant and we highly suggest you catch up before the third season premieres on April 16th. 

The gang at Slacktory made this chart of all the curses in the first two seasons of Game of Thrones. And, of course, there’s a supercut to go along with it. 

Tip: While you’re over there, check out their other awesome supercuts, including ones for some of our favorite shows: 30 Rock, Bob’s Burgers, and Parks & Recreation. 

Do NOT forget that Happy Endings is back on tonight. 

Back to back episodes every Friday night for the next three weeks!

Season 5 of Mad Men is now available on Netflix Instant.

Season 6 premieres Sunday April 7th at 9pm.

“You’ve got big balls, Betty Suarez” - Wilhemina Slater, Ugly Betty (2010)

I’ve been watching a lot of Ugly Betty reruns as of late. And I realized that the best moments in the entire series occur when Betty (America Ferrera) and Wilhemina (Vanessa Williams) are pitted against one another. Both are women of color navigating the very racist world of fashion editorial and despite how stridently she treats Betty, there is part of her that beams when Betty is able to leave the fashion world with confidence. It’s one of the most powerful moments in the series—and it has nothing to do with Betty’s ongoing relationship with her boss Daniel (which frequently plays into the problematic stereotype of a person of color helping a white person get ahead.) 

This made me want to take a closer look at some of my favorite shows this season—all female-driven—and gauge them. Ugly Betty was by no means perfect when it cames to representations of gender or ethnicity, but it got a lot of things right that I think more ambitious shows are letting slip through the cracks.

Last night, I happened across Anita Sarkeesian’s Feminist Frequency installment about The Bechdel Test and perhaps I’ve been under a rock, but I loved how simply it measured the representations of women in popular culture, but also minorities. For the uninitiated:

• The Bechdel Test was originally created to address the lack of female representation in popular culture; the rubric is simple. There has to be two women who communicate with one another about something that isn’t a man.

• Later on, a variation of this test was created to gauge the representation of people of color in popular culture: Are there two people of color and are they communicating about something besides a white person?

What was wonderful about Ugly Betty was that even if it was creatively uneven at times, it represented a world where characters like Betty and Wilhemina could talk about their careers. It’s a show that frequently passed both variations of this test.

I wanted to apply both tests to four of the most compelling series I’ve been following through the current TV season. It’s odd, but none of these series—which I think represents the TV’s top creative tier—are able to pass both tests. Keep in mind all four of these shows are helmed by, and prominently star, women. 

• The Mindy Project. At its core, this comedy is about Mindy Lahiri—an Indian-American doctor who tries to juggles the demands of her job with her pursuit of love. The writing and acting is solid. However, we do learn that this show—as funny as it is—falls short. Because she dates only white guys in the show (the lawyer, the midwife, that guy played by Ed Helms, and maybe even Danny Castellano) and because most of her conversations tend to be about her dating life—whether she’s speaking to a man or a woman—I don’t think this show really passes either test. This is all with the exception of her brother—who appears only a couple times so far. But it’s a good show! And as it starts to wrap up its first season—I have hopes that perhaps this comedy will start to get out of its comfort zone. 
• Scandal.  Kerry Washington’s turn as Olivia Pope, a Capitol Hill crisis fixer, is electrifying. And showrunner Shonda Rimes does a pretty good job of trying to keep women and people of color from falling into boxes on this show. That said, there is always a nascent fear that due to the nature of the beast—Olivia Pope is fixing the problems of mostly white people, after all—this sometimes fails to pass the second test. I think Scandal’s probably at its best in those too rare moments when Harrison and Olivia talk about Olivia for a moment—not about the President, or about their latest hot mess client. I think finding a way to mine that relationship is going to be what keeps the soap’s longevity in tact—long after viewers have bored of her on-off relationship with President Grant.
•  Bunheads.This was one of the biggest surprises of 2012—a soap about female friendships that (1) didn’t oversexualize its leads; (2) presented a soap driven by women of all ages; and (3) allowed its female leads to mentor one another. Of all the examples herein, Bunheads is the only one that passes the The Bechdel Test with flying colors—talking about boys comes with the turf of being a show about girls who are coming of age. Unfortunately, this show fails spectacularly when it comes to representations of minorities. I think there are two instances where a black girl is literally trotted out to ask, “Hey guys, what’cha talking out?” and then has no further lines. Again, I see a lot of promise and room for growth—and I think that showing the kind of issues a young black girl might deal with in a primarily white community like Paradise, CA could give AS-P some excellent fodder to transform Bunheads into captivating TV.
• Girls.From my vantage point, it’s hard to see Girls as a feminist serial. Its leads—who are in their mid-twenties—spend much of their time worrying about boys and their relationship to boys. This might be realistic, but I know a lot of young women who spent the same—if not more—worrying about how to be good daughters, how to get the job of their dreams, and how to be happy alone. We do see Hannah and Marnie struggle through jobs—in the time that their friendship is functional, they’re able to talk about non-relationship-related things, too, but in the second season, the show basically collapses into a motif of men fixing everything (Charlie chases after Marnie; Adam comes to the rescue for Hannah following a breakdown; an anonymous blond man is quick to console Shoshanna after she dumps Ray). There’s one scene—where Jessa and Hannah are in the bathtub together—and it possesses the potential to pack a punch. But instead Jessa laments her short-lived marriage to the wealthy finance guy. The needle could go either way on this soap and second opinions are welcomed—I’m not convinced that this is the kind of serial that feminists should champion. Its portrayal of female relationships depicts women as unhinged and broken. And the race question? We’ve debated that to death and a few-episode guest arc by Donald Glover isn’t enough to make us second-guess our reservations.

HBO: The Cool Kids With Nothing To Say Anymore

When it comes to original, scripted programming, HBO has firmly secured its place in the echelon of “television do-gooders”. A beautiful list of groundbreaking dramas and comedies have been birthed by this pay-channel that once had insight and, well, balls, along with the censor-less freedom to tackle any subject matter they desired. It’s the beast of this latter ability, however, alongside with general cool-hunting that has reared its ratings-hungry head in the face of what once made the channel’s original programming so wonderful and subsequently, let if fall by the wayside.

It comes as absolutely no surprise that in the past eight weeks HBO has renewed Girls for its third season and cancelled Enlightened after its tour-de-force second. Obviously, television exists in a Gladiator-esque forum wherein the bloodthirsty masses thrust gut-reaction thumbs by way of ad sales and ratings figures. The once-virgin beauty of HBO, however, eschewed this system—not only by existing as a subscription service that forewent traditional commercial breaks, but also in their creative direction to push forward with well-written, unflinching, and remarkable stories about, basically, being human. That’s what has so often worked in their favor. Maybe not always for their ratings but if not there then definitely in esteemed accolades (which then inflated their amount of subscribers anyway). 

The oxygen-soaked spark of this punk television attitude came about during a post-Reagan era of strange, late-late shows. They aired, successfully, oddballs like Tales from the Crypt, Real Sex, Def Comedy Jam, The Kids in the Hall, and the seminal The Larry Sanders Show— which would bring their programming out of the midnight cult scene and pave the way for many more realistic and sharp narratives. They got in with the weird and then started refining themselves.

Throughout the mid-nineties this alternative comedy edge stayed sharp and gave us Arliss, Tenacious D, Tracy Takes On..., and the brilliant Mr. Show. Then, HBO almost completely ended their sketch sensibilities with their first hour-long drama: Oz, a chillingly realistic and deftly written tragedy about life, or lack thereof, in prison (a particularly violent show that my parents, who held strictly true to the age limits of the MPAA, actually made me watch to deter me from a life of crime—I was fifteen; it worked). Oz was the harbinger of HBO’s golden age. In the next five years earth-shattering shows such as Sex and the City, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and The Wire would leave their imprints in television history alongside well-tailored and beautiful mini-series like Angels in America and Band of Brothers. The amount of Emmys this half-decade period produced would be enough to melt down and fund a new space program.

If the early 90s was HBO’s “Cult” period then afterward came the period of “Storytelling,” with an intermediate phase that had a logistical crossover between them. They took steps to get there and they took them well. On the tail end of their golden age, however, another intermediate period began to develop crossing an emphasis on storytelling with what was working so well for their ratings: edgy ideas. And so were born Entourage, Deadwood, Extras*, Big Love, Flight of The Concords*, and True Blood [*although these only lasted two seasons, it’s important to note that, unlike Enlightened, they chose to cancel themselves]. These shows were still interesting enough outside of their “quirky” settings by handling their scenarios just as well as continuing to tell good, and sometimes great, stories (even if Entourage and True Blood devolved into mindless garbage over the years, both had substantial and promising beginnings that lasted more than two seasons). These shows were the tipping point, and the tail end of the “storytelling” era, that brought us into the current state of affairs at HBO: the era of “Cool”.

Concerned more with bringing in viewers in a climate of rapidly decreasing television viewership than dedicating themselves to excellent craftsmanship, HBO seemed to seek out a large amount of salacious and surprising material, with an eye on the modern youth who was more into downloading than buying premium packages through their cable provider. Hung (a show that never knew which tone it wanted to convey), How To Make It In America (a show that had most of the puzzle pieces of Girls but focused more on achieving success than on absurd confessional-ism), and Bored to Death (the only one that seemed to harbor sharp writing and a sense of fresh modernity) all failed early on. Instead of rethinking their rubric, they pushed for more ratings-bait ideas— where now the popularity of a show won over its quality.

Now, this is not to say that some shows still exist on the channel that juggle both: Game of Thrones is a masterfully handled storytelling experience, but it also had a largely built-in fanbase to begin with and has filled a fantasy void in most television viewers’ schedules. Girls and Eastbound and Down both had subtle, heart-examining first seasons worthy of many merits, but soon after started focusing more on shock with nearly robotic human interactions. But the ratings were still there, so they got to stay. Veep is too early to call and The Newsroom is too Sorkinese of a wild card.

Unfortunately, this is just how it seems to go when you have a good thing on your hands. If HBO was the punk in a Stooges jacket it was only a matter of time until he traded in his safety pins and liberty spikes for a 401k and a house in the suburbs. Maybe FX, with its shining light Louie (hey! remember when HBO fucked this up all those years ago?!), is the young-blood following in its footsteps.

This current model, this cool-huntin, is bound to fail. If I learned anything in high school it’s that trying to convince anyone else that you’re cool will tell them just the opposite. Jonah Hill’s character says in 21 Jump Street, about the current state of coolness: “liking comic books is popular, environmental awareness, being tolerant…” So does that, coupled with its complete lack of trying to be so, make Enlightened the coolest show around? Then good riddance, HBO, because House of Cards, Cougar Town, Arrested Development, and Friday Night Lights have shown us that there is life off the networks and life after cancellation.

Alan Hanson is a writer who can be found here.