Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

They're deliberately muddying the backstory and characterisation of Ginsburg, the whole point is that we don't know which bits he's making up and which bits are true.

We don't know where they're going with Dawn's character at all yet. Although I'm unsure if they're being criticised for not giving her much screen time or failing to put a black character in a sufficiently senior position (in a very conservative environment). If you're going to critique the writers' treatment of these characters then it's probably best to wait until closer to the end of the series, otherwise it's like making pronouncements on Peggy's character based on four or five episodes in S1.

We're talking about quotas awfully early on in this conversation. Wake me up when we get to pretending that what I actually unreasonably want from the show is a legion of feminist black one-legged schizophrenic lesbians. x-posts

Even Peggy tho - how come the most powerful female copywriter in the show had to be championed by a white guy? I love Peggy and I've enjoyed her story but this is a very particular way of showing how these equality movements made inroads. Instead of showing (except obliquely through office windows and rumors) how people were fighting to break their way in, they primarily show when the company is forced or agrees to let people in. They hire Dawn because they made a stupid advertisement to needle a different firm. Obviously they have the right to their artistic vision, but no one is wrong to question why this is the particular artistic vision they're pursuing.

I love Peggy and I've enjoyed her story but this is a very particular way of showing how these equality movements made inroads. Instead of showing (except obliquely through office windows and rumors) how people were fighting to break their way in, they primarily show when the company is forced or agrees to let people in

the majority of the show takes place in the advertising agency. it doesnt seem unnatural that such things are presented in the way they are.

It seems unnatural because it actually makes no sense.

no sense in the narrative of the show or no sense in that it is not realistic because it's not historically accurate? the latter being not very important, imo.

altho the show is at pains to explain that the particular agency is especially conservative. kinsey saying in the first season that there are women copywriters at other firms. when ginsberg is hired it's explained that every agency has a "jew" copywriter and that one "even" has a "coloured" copywriter.

Both? It's extremely poor character development both for Peggy and Dawn and deprives them of drive and agency and makes them flatter and more boring as characters. And it's not historically accurate. The two things are not mutually exclusive. x-post

And you don't see how that's kind of lazy and gross?

Anyone else pick up hints that Ginsberg's father is schizophrenic? The Mars story.. Holocaust.. Randomly showing up at the office to 'make xeroxes for his case'.

You realize that it was a deliberate decision to set it at such a conservative agency, and to make it similarly conservative when they broke off into their own agency? And of course, the 'historical circumstances' only don't matter when they contradict the vision of the show. If history had shown that there were no black copywriters in 1966 I'm sure the rallying cry would go up that the show is just trying to be historically accurate. Why can't viewers hold the writers accountable for the parts of history that they choose to utilize? Would it have been so out of character if after breaking off to form SCDP they had broader hiring practices? Could've easily fit into the world of the show, imho. Hell, with a little tweaking they could've hired a black copywriter after the ad fiasco and it would've been totally believable. if you don't believe the writers should be criticized for these choices, you are sorta invalidated the entire field of art criticism in general.

What are they saying, how are they saying it, and what do you feel about what they're saying? All fair questions, imho.

But I get that for whatever reason there will always be ppl defending this show against these sorts of critiques.

You realize that it was a deliberate decision to set it at such a conservative agency, and to make it similarly conservative when they broke off into their own agency?

i do realise this. i just don't realise why it is incumbent on them not to do this.

Afaic they have free will and agency to make whatever choices they wanted, just as I have the free will and agency to criticize them for choices I feel are poorly made. Why is this a substantially poorer thing about which to criticize them than, say, writing an episode you found boring? If anything I find the political critiques much more resonant and important than criticisms of aesthetics or pace.

If anything I find the political critiques much more resonant and important than criticisms of aesthetics or pace

this is where we differ completely i guess.

^^^

FWIW I think Melissa's reading of Peggy is doing the character a massive disservice, that because she's not on a politicised frontline that she lacks drive of her agency of her own. You're being really reductive about the character to fit your critique.

Actually one of the interesting things about Peggy's character is that she's actually very uncomfortable on a politicised frontline, the discussion about eg civil rights from last season. The whole point of Mad Men is that it's viewing the changes of the 60s through a conservative lens through the eyes of people who are seeing the world they're used to slipping away, which is kind of the opposite of the way we're used to looking at them with the benefit of decades of hindsight. (The interesting thing about Don is that he's caught between these two impulses).

If it was a show about people forcing their way up from the bottom it would be completely different, although by no means less interesting, but other writers have done that.

it's a shame that mad men, unlike all other tv ever, has failed to perfectly represent an exact time in history.

lol, this is like when ppl argue on the politics threads that the only complaint against obama is that he's not perfect.

I think the thing to me is that there's no way a person with Peggy's story ever existed, so I find her inherently uninteresting on the level of watching her career arc play out. She's a bizarre character to me. Inarticulate, flat, disinterested in the world, petulant, almost actively bad at her job whenever we get to see her do it. Elisabeth Moss doesn't help the flatness to me. If I had to name a single reason that Mad Men does not appeal to me, I would cite Peggy. She doesn't make any sense to me for a character in her position. She seems like a writerly creation through and through, designed to buck expectation for what people would expect out of a character like her, without much critical thought put into what expectations for her character actually made sense for her context and which ones could be interestingly subverted. x-post

there's no way a person with Peggy's story ever existed

Why not?

God knows Mad Men has its flaws but that post confirms my suspicion that you're complaining about the writers choosing to present her as a conflicted and imperfect human being rather than a feminist strawwoman.

maybe you should assume ppl are arguing in good faith and that there isn't some hidden man-hating feminazi agenda?

Yes because that's exactly what I said in my post.

that post confirms my suspicion that you're complaining about the writers choosing to present her as a conflicted and imperfect human being rather than a feminist strawwoman.

no, that's exactly what you said in your post ^

I have no desire for her to be a feminist, or at least not a self-identified one or a perfect one or someone who even necessarily cares about the plight of other women. But I don't believe that there were women like her, women with no drive or initial ambition or particular verbal or social skills who became copywriters through off-hand remarks about baskets full of kisses to some guy who apparently thought such an utterance was comparable to watching a dog walk on its hind legs. Even Megan's brand of ambition makes far more sense to me than Peggy's.

Okay let's go read Mad Style & talk about that:
http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/2012/04/mad-style-far-away-places.html

I don't believe that there were women like her, women with no drive or initial ambition or particular verbal or social skills who became copywriters through off-hand remarks about baskets full of kisses to some guy who apparently thought such an utterance was comparable to watching a dog walk on its hind legs

subjective misanthropy...

Not even sure what you mean by that? But I'm going out for a few hours now. Have fun while I'm gone.

Other than the presentation this week, I'm not seeing much evidence that Peggy isn't good at her job, or lacks drive (quite the opposite in the last couple of seasons).

off-hand remarks about baskets full of kisses to some guy who apparently thought such an utterance was comparable to watching a dog walk on its hind legs

This was about Don realising that you're better-placed to sell things to women if you get in people who at least slightly understand them rather than people like Freddie Rumsden.

there's no way a person with Peggy's story ever existed,

this does not compute.

why would anyone assume that peggy had no drive or ambition or verbal skills!?

i guess Melissa has gone - but if someone could try to explain what she meant by this? is she referring to a specific aspect of her story here? or..??

But I don't believe that there were women like her, women with no drive or initial ambition or particular verbal or social skills who became copywriters through off-hand remarks about baskets full of kisses to some guy who apparently thought such an utterance was comparable to watching a dog walk on its hind legs. Even Megan's brand of ambition makes far more sense to me than Peggy's.

this makes no sense to me. peggy isn't a perfectly realized character, but she does strike me as generally credible. she's got a lot of drive and ambition, exceptional intelligence and insight, good verbal and at least decent social skills. she's nowhere near to me as absurd in her role as pete, but i accept the less-than-credible aspects of pete's character in the name of dramatic/narrative intent.

i don't think that political critiques of the show's construction and assumption are inherently off-base or uninteresting, but i do think that the decision to make SCDP a fairly conservative and old-fashioned social environment is a valid one. as has been suggested, the show's basic point-of-view represents an increasingly obsolete culture's bewilderment and reluctance in the face of change, not the attempts of change agents to recreate the world. it could do a "better" job of telling both stories, or a wider variety of stories, but i think it gains something, thematically, from focusing as closely as it does on this dysfunctional white boys' club.

Well, Peggy isn't portrayed as a female copywriter with drive like a high profile, female copywriter of that time who has been interviewed a lot in regards to the show's accuracy. Since that individual, who was pretty awesome in her field, excelled then Mad Men is doing a disservice to the portrayal of women by not showing Peggy as highly motivated and very successful. Except when it's not.

All clear now, right?

imo the show has been set up to show a group of people straddling two generations. if this was a show that was set in our time, the first season would have shown Don flirting with some cute younger lady who was into texting on a blackberry while he was still relying on his office phone, and season 4 would have all the youth of the office using smartphones and the olds in the office saying "do we need an 'app' for this campaign?" with no idea how to use an iphone

It's worth pointing out as well that even the mighty Don Draper only got his job because Roger offered him one while drunk.

We don't know that for sure! Don may have said that Roger offered him a job. It's one of the better ambiguities of the show.

And Don is of course a completely historically inaccurate portrayal of secret farmboys whose mothers were prostitutes who died in childbirth.

or, it would be if a person with such a story could ever have existed.

sheesh what is going on here

rmde at complaints about "accuracy"

if you think about it though the x files is even more far-fetched than mad men

i mean why would scully just abandon her beliefs halfway through???

this character is so poorly formed, and after a whole handful of scenes in two episodes! AWFUL

sudden realization that the other person Megan reminds me of (besides Freddy Mercury), especially in this shot, is Joan Crawford:

http://wpc.4d27.edgecastcdn.net/004D27/Television/MadMenS5/MadStyleS5E6/ms21.jpg

i think melissa's criticism are valid, even if they dont totally diminish the show in my mind. if you're gonna make a show about powerful white people yet again then you leave yourself open to that. but i think they (the writers) are trying pretty valiantly to avoid the standard 1960s tropes, those condescending progressive tales of the 60s as "when it all changed."

before this evolved into hack n slash, i was very on board with the points on the laziness of this show to set dress with "period" characters that aren't really period
sigh xpost, just agreeing with ryan

it's kind of the document of powerful white men in their heyday, before we finally started busting down some of those walls

constantly bumbling along, wondering why they can't figure some things out, when anyone who wasn't a privileged white dude would be able to relate to people they're marketing too much better

sadly almost all their clients are dumb white dudes, too

yah, i think a vast majority of the "you have a FEMALE COPY WRITER?!" over the past few seasons has come from the old, dumb white clients that come in for a meeting. nobody in the industry seems surprised.

moving on, I'm hoping that Bert's admonishment at the end of the episode means that we're going to get more forward thrust till the end of the season now that we've established where all the main characters are in relationship to the end of last season.

it seems important to me that in the beginning sterling cooper wasn't a particularly big, important, or good ad agency, and was getting by pretty much on don's brilliance alone. if they were forward-thinking in the slightest then it would be a completely different show (or couldn't even exist at all), but as it is roger's already coasting and bert is in charge of the day to day despite being a hundred and fifty years old, so it makes sense that it's a situation where change is going to come especially slowly.

you think Bert is in charge why now?