Fact-checking ‘Pan Am’

• Seriously, since when does a Kennedy-era pilot have long sideburns? Agreed: the captain needs a can of my pomade and a couple bucks to get a haircut.
• The Kate-the-spy storyline is not that unrealistic: it was the Cold War after all.
• I like Collette and Kate best.
• The PC revisionism isn’t too bad but: this show is produced by ABC/Disney for broadcast TV... they announced last week that none of the major characters would smoke. Believe me, the glamour was cancelled out by the eternal blue plumes of cigarette and cigar smoke. As a little kid, I coughed my lungs out on long flights.
• Pan Am’s characters are simplistic, outdated stereotypes, as if the show itself was written/made in 1963. I don’t dislike it as far as it’s true. A kind of realism. The snobs look down on it but better the period as it depicted itself than again preaching 2011 PCness. Fun and unapologetically nostalgic.
• Weigh-ins and make-up checks? Yes.
  
  Pregnancy = end of job? Yep.
  
  Grabby businessmen? No. She said that the businessmen were with a few exceptions, gentlemen. They DID hand the girls their business cards and hope they’d get lucky. They didn’t. The girls were in their 20s. The men were usually in their 40s, and married. Girls weren’t interested. Most of the cards hit the garbage can immediately.
  
  Pilots and stewardesses? Nope. Again, there was usually a big age difference. She said most of the pilots were WWII veterans, and married. As astonishing as it may seem, the girls weren’t interested in men their fathers’ age, and the pilots felt the same. The pilots on the show are too young-looking. Senior pilots (50+) would bid on overseas flights. They would ALL have been experienced WWII bomber pilots, making them about 45 years old on average I would guess.
  
  Did they know they looked good in their flight-attendant togs? Oh yeah! She said they adored strutting down the street in their uniform and matching Pan Am bag.

Labels: history, television