Air heads

Did anyone else see Pan Am last night? No, of course everyone else was watching Frozen Planet.

I enjoyed it - it was as soapy as Downton Abbey, and the frocks and sets were gorgeously done - plus I love Christina Ricci.

But there's something odd about these dramas set in the 1950s and '60s - that seem to revel in the pre-women's lib era. In Pan Am there's much emphasis on being weighed (= shot of sexy legs on the scales) and girdles (hee hee!) but also a general fetishising of the bound female form - the air hostesses sweep through the airports in their tight suits like the stars of that Virgin Airways ad, and spend most of the flights delivering martinis on the highest heels.

Of course this is historically accurate, probably, but why do we fantasise about that kind of femininity now?

And unlike Mad Men, which Pan Am would so love to be, on the evidence of the first two episodes there's none of the nuance of characterisation. Yes, MM's Betty Draper is a beautiful doll, but she's also thwarted, conflicted, contradictory and mad as hell. Bring on season five, we're missing you...