Admittedly, I'm not the audience Disney/ABC wants for the new Sunday night series PAN AM.
Obviously, the target audience is 18-35 year-old women who will be enthralled by the 1963 retro setting, the conscious visual
attempt at replicating the lush stylings of early 1960s Technicolor/Metrocolor/Color by Deluxe/Cinemascope romantic comedy/dramas--and the mild dose of what was called "do-me feminism" in the era when Naomi Wolf was at her nonfiction/pundit peark.
I got to the early scene where Christina Ricci (likely eager for a steady career-rebuilding gig after appearing in Happy Madison's Nick Swardson vehicle BUCKY LARSON) says goodbye to her meant-to-be-Beat boyfriend who replies with a line like "I don't need to see the world to change it."
And I started to think of some conservative blather I read a long time ago where Julie Nixon Eisenhower and Tricia Nixon Cox were considered the "real rebels" of the 60s--another f--- you to a counterculture who brought about more good change than bad. So wonderful of PAN AM to bring back that semi-buried memory.
As a slight respite from the endorsement of well-groomed conformity, there's
a spy subplot with co-star Kelli Garner (who gave good and underappreciated performances in studio boutique films like THUMBSUCKER and LARS AND THE REAL GIRL)
Cut to the scene where Christina goes to the Pan Am building to take a helicopter to the airport (she's indispensable to the flight and needs to get to her job in 35 minutes).
Then, there's the time-honored cliche of Ms. Ricci changing clothes in the back of the cab--with the cabbie sneaking a quick peek.
That's all I ever intend to see of PAN AM.
