MAD MEN on AMC - Seasons 7(a) & & 7(b)

pro and con analysis (not endorsing as i've only seen the first eight eps)

It’s one thing, it turns out, to ask those responsible for the texture of fictional TV worlds to re-create the 1960s, quite another to get them to take that re-creation and make it scruffier, meaner, more disappointing, more real; to accept that while the ideal 1964 might contain artefacts and costumes from 1964 alone, the perfectly real 1964 would be packed with the fashions of 1963 and 1962 and the distressed remnants of the purchases of the 1950s; to accept that banal interiors, clashing colours, tawdry novelties and dull messiness are also ideals in their way, ideals whose incorporation into costume drama might deter the viewer’s suspicion that the designers of Mad Men are answering a bigger share of the question ‘Why am I watching this?’ than the writers would like....

The writers of Mad Men consistently smother racial and gay storylines. They’ll start them, but they won’t follow through. The ugliness, mean-mindedness and contemptuousness of the things people say in private about groups they feel allowed to hate, the epithets, the jokes, the vicious folk legends – they’re not here. Mad Men’s enactments of past racial prejudice and homophobia are more vinegar than acid, and when they have power, they peter out.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n07/james-meek/the-shock-of-the-pretty

The ugliness, mean-mindedness and contemptuousness of the things people say in private about groups they feel allowed to hate, the epithets, the jokes, the vicious folk legends – they’re not here.

all I have to say is "blackface"

Towards the middle, in and around Civil Rights legislation, I think the show is very good on the kind of polite-but-cutting racism that I imagine was the norm at places such as Sterling-Cooper. Things like the water balloon from the window, or Bert's alarm when they put Dawn in the front lobby. And the show doesn't let Draper off the hook; when tasteless jokes are made behind closed doors, he usually laughs along with everybody else.

They didn't really dodge anything with Sal Romano's story; they just, unfortunately, abandoned it. (Even though it's been made clear he'll never return, I still hold out hope he'll turn up in the spring.)

Don's politics are entertainingly inscrutable - he'll privately acknowledge that the Vietnam war is wrong or that certain racist or sexist practices are wrong, but then in practice/public he'll happily go along with/profit from these very things. standard white American male hypocrisy/denial I suppose...

#ad exec

after all, in one of the s1 beatnik episodes he sez "There is no system. The universe is indifferent."

(count me in on thinking, at least at first blush, the literal hidden identity is too leaden a metaphor, and a gothic touch that doesn't belong on this show)

I've never cared for the secret identity either. He's better as a cipher than as a Gatsby type who recreated himself.

and yet there is a good joke by one of the Campbell Mafia: "no one knows Draper; that guy could be Batman." Well, he is! In a grey flannel suit.

I like the secret identity mainly because the Dick/Anna scenes are really nice and peaceful (for the most part). I think their relationship is one of the most moving parts of the show.

He's better as a cipher than as a Gatsby type who recreated himself.

the latter is kinda of required for the former to work tho

I like secret identity shit generally, and I think in MM's case it serves as a nicely melodramatic counterpoint to the more placid and subtle plot threads.

by which I mean his being a cipher to a lot of other people - his family, his coworkers etc. - requires that he be hiding something critical/never discusses his past etc. But that kind of secrecy wouldn't make sense if it was extended to the audience, as that would be exceedingly difficult to maintain for the main character of a show

xp

but I know quite a few ciphers who aren't blessed with secret pasts. They're bores and prigs whose aim is to be as conventional as possible.

He could have a different secret that the audience DOESN'T know about! omg.

Robert Morse will do a Q&A for How to Succeed at this Brooklyn mini-MM/film fest next month; Weiner will appear at the other two.

http://www.bam.org/film/2015/mad-men-at-the-movies

How to Succeed was such a smash on Broadway, btw, that Jack and Jackie went to see it.

Some of the best lines in season 1 are throwaways or scene-enders, like when Pete and Trudy are cabbing to their new Park Ave apartment, and after being all chirpy she frowns out the window and blurts, "The Armory... When are they going to tear that dinosaur down?"

(It's still there, amazingly.)

That was a great article.

pretty good read on Pete in it.

AV Club week. I dunno if i can take those plaids.

http://www.avclub.com/article/its-mad-men-week-v-club-217224

Saw the Mad Men exhibit at Museum of Moving Image yesterday. Never seen that place so crowded. They were also showing the Godfather and some No Wave Movies, I figure one of those may have contributed to the crowds.

Still, some surprisingly fun stuff for a fan.

I was at the 6pm No Wave movies, struggling to stay awake.

Despite having music supervised the movie Blank City, (and designed the poster/DVD artwork) and having a history of working with the music side of no wave, I have not made it through many of the actual no wave movies.

Young Willem Dafoe is very beautiful in The Loveless. Sort of a '50s fetish object (but none of it was shot in NYC, i don't think).

man i wish some of that museum stuff would come to the UK. mind you hardly anyone gives a stuff about the show here.

That's not entirely true...

Weiner on MM and the Jews:

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/30/matthew_weiner_on_mad_men_and_the_jewish_experience_it%E2%80%99s_the_same_story_as_don%E2%80%99s_identity/

the Rachel Menken character was really well drawn and acted btw

Despite having music supervised the movie Blank City, (and designed the poster/DVD artwork) and having a history of working with the music side of no wave, I have not made it through many of the actual no wave movies.

Oh cool! Loved that documentary a lot - and admittedly, most of the no wave movies I've seen were only because they were playing in the background at the old Amok Books in the 80s.

thanks!

"It ends the way it should end.. "

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/26/john-slattery-on-saying-goodbye-to-mad-men-s-roger-sterling-and-turning-down-empire.html

Very short, and no hints about the first episode (the writer's pre-screened it). I like this line: "Like Bob Dylan, another Sixties antihero Don resembles in so many ways, he needs a steam shovel to keep away the dead."

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/the-agony-of-saying-farewell-to-mad-men-20150403

so characters who might show up again; Sal, Rachel Menken, Neve Campbell.. who else? i have *no idea* what might happen plotwise.

Gotta have Glenn back one last time.

ha yeah. he'll have a goatee by now.

cracking Season 7a re-cap from the Slate people here
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/04/03/everything_that_happened_in_mad_men_season_7_part_1_in_4_minutes.html

i have *no idea* what might happen plotwise.

Same here. TV shows have been such a miniscule part of my life the past 20+ years, I can't believe how invested I am in this. I think I'm actually on edge, and not having any idea where they're going is part of that. Maybe it's the way they've designed the show, or maybe it's just a given--maybe it's true of any show by default--but they could move the story in any direction imaginable. (Not that it's a story, but rather a whole bunch of stories: Don's, Peggy's, Joan's, Sally's, etc. I guess Don's is the biggest guessing game, whether he's your favourite character or not--probably not for most viewers.)

http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2015/04/mad_men_pete_campbell_s_receding_hairline_from_season_1_to_the_season_7.html

As I'd been planning, went back and watched "The Suitcase" in advance of tonight. Just as great second time around. 1) I'd forgotten all about Danny Siegel. 2) I mentioned earlier that I thought, that article upthread to the contrary, that the show didn't really dodge the racism of its day, that it could be brilliantly cruel in a very offhanded way. Ida's "If I wanted to see two Negros fight, I'd throw a dollar bill out the window" is the kind of line I had in mind. (Don's preference for Liston is also illustrative; notwithstanding that it makes sense that he'd prefer the silent, unreadable Liston, he also stops just short of describing Ali/Clay as "uppity.") 3) Megan pops in for one scene, with Peggy in the washroom. So strange to see her in that role again.

AMC is rerunning seasons 6 and 7 right now, currently on the s6 episode "favors" where sally catches don in the act

"If I wanted to see two Negros fight, I'd throw a dollar bill out the window"

carefully avoiding the word ppl who'd say this would be most likely to use.

Anyone who's seen a doughnut can fill in the holes...

Roger's mustache

^^^^

omg another day or two until I get to see moustache

(out of town right now)

and Cosgrove is as cute as ever. I forgot what happened to his eye.

one of the chevy guys shot him on a hunting trip

didn't he go hunting with some clients and get shot?

this ep feels very hallucinatory but I don't think any characters are literally hallucinating

welp.

very true

The office scenes remind me of my mom explaining working in an office in the 70s, and I just started cringing all over