christina hendricks mad men

A few months ago, I told you about Twin Falls-bred actress Christina Hendricks being credited with the recent sharp increase in the incidence of breast augmentation surgery in the United Kingdom.
Now the shapely star of Mad Men is being blamed for the entire 2011-2012 American network TV season.
That season will include a remake of Charlie’s Angels, a NBC series called Playboy Club and ABC’s Pan Am, a program about an era when flight attendants were called stewardesses.
Yes, they’re all knockoffs — in one way or another — of Hendricks’ Mad Men, an AMC series about a swinging ’60s advertising agency in New York City.
Here’s what New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has to say about all that Hendricks must answer for:
“ … Hollywood is a world ruled by men, and this season, amid economic anxieties, those men want to indulge in some retro fantasies about hot, subservient babes.
“‘It’s the Hendricks syndrome,’ said one top male TV producer. ‘All the big, corporate men saw Christina Hendricks play the bombshell secretary on Mad Men and fell in love. It’s a hot fudge sundae for men: a time when women were not allowed to get uppity or make demands. If the woman got pregnant, she had to drive to a back-alley abortionist in New Jersey. If you got tired of women, they had to go away. Women today don’t go away.’”
Hendricks, who lived in Twin Falls from 1983-89 and attended what’s now Vera C. O’Leary Middle School, has women’s clothing manufacturers rushing to sign her up, and designers striving to recreate the look of the show with nipped-in waists, full circle skirts and tight-fitting shirts.
A year, ago the 36-year-old Hendricks was voted “The Sexiest Woman Alive” by female readers of Esquire magazine. She was also nominated for an Emmy Award.
Wrote Dowd: “A top female entertainment executive says ‘it’s not a coincidence that these retro shows are appearing at the same time men are confused about who to be. A lot of women are making more money and getting more college degrees. The traditional roles of dominant and submissive roles are reversed in many cases. Everything was clearer in the ’60s.’”
I dunno. That’s a lot to put on any actress.