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The Daily Beast: Fire and Ice: Mad Men's Christina Hendricks and January Jones

As promised, the last Emmy-related piece of this year.

While I've already discussed Modern Family and Glee, Friday Night Lights, and to a certain extent Lost, as well as rounded up my picks for who will win a gold statuette and who should have won, I can't imagine not discussing AMC's luminous period drama Mad Men.

Over at The Daily Beast, my latest feature--which is curiously entitled "Mad Men's Ice Queen"--takes a look at Mad Men's Emmy nominated actresses January Jones and Christina Hendricks and explores how they fit into certain female iconic traditions and why our perceptions of their characters seem to spill over into their real lives.

Just why is Betty Draper so misunderstood and disliked? Why does Jones seem so icy whereas Hendricks--a somewhat reluctant sex symbol--seems so vibrant and full of life? Can they escape our own perceptions of them? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Season Four of Mad Men airs Sunday evenings at 10 pm ET/PT on AMC.
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Comments

b said…
IMO people like Joan because she's curvy and sassy, therefore they ignore her bad traits and just focus on that instead.

Betty OTOH, is beautiful and stylish but her depression and anger and bad parenting define her character. Therefore it's harder to like her. But she's fascinating to watch and January Jones does really great subtle work on the show. With Betty you have to look below the surface to see what is going on. The amount of hatred she gets from MM fans is ridiculous.
8/28/2010
Team Joan said…
I like Joan better because she IS the glue that holds together the office and she knows all that is going on inside and outside the office. From her interviews, Christina also just seems well spoken and sincere... Oh, and she can act.

Luckily for Betty, she was the prized doll on top of the wedding cake and she looked nice on Don's arm. She also is a vapid person with no maternal instincts. She has always been pretty enough to get her way but she runs from the reality of life. January has poor taste in clothes and men. For goodness sakes, she couldn't even act through hosting SNL... She has a lot to learn.
That sums up why I am TEAM JOAN, all the way!
8/30/2010
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