"Mad Men" on AMC (US) - (Spoilers Within)

[C-dot]

A friend at work recently started watch MM, but said he wasn't enjoying it because there was nobody in it he could identify with - they were all cheats, monsters, badly socialized narcissists... just not heroic. I guess he doesn't share my view that we're all flawed - and we're all the more interesting for it.

Beyond not sharing your view (which, ironically, I find to be very healthy and well adjusted lol) I think your friend would rather idolize a character than identify with them. We can all identify with some part of some character in Mad Men, but idolizing would be very difficult. They're too darn human for that.

 

[Noirblack]

As long as we're in the stellar motherhood vein ...

Do any of y'all detect a whiff of sexism in the depiction of the mother characters? The writers give the major mom characters plenty of opportunity to show how bad they are at the job, and even the not so bad ones (relatively minor characters all, so far) ain't so good. The big exception is the new mom, Joan (who certainly came amply equipped for the task). Whereas the father characters are given a free ride, or nearly so, and not a one of them has shown us much to admire in that regard.

I dunno, maybe that's all deliberate. Maybe we viewers are giving the dads a free ride, as perhaps people in general did back during the period depicted, and perhaps do still. The writers do indeed show us lousy fathering as well, yet it doesn't seem such a prominent topic of conversation.

As much as I like the show, I think most of the characters - mothers and fathers, males and females - come off pretty badly.

On the female side, Don's biological mother was a prostitute and died giving him birth. The woman who raised him was supposed to be quite mean to him. Peggy had a baby and gave it away for adoption. Not exactly mother of the year material. Peggy's mother is pretty dreadful towards Peggy. Betty is just plain and simply a bad mother. Marie Calvert? Nasty! Joan is now a prostitute herself. As to what kind of mother she will be portrayed as, we will have to stay tuned. Am I correctly recalling that her baby was fathered by Roger?

OK, so Roger is an unknowing father to the Joan's baby. He consented to prostituting his former lover and the mother of his child, making him a pimp. He also has blown through two of his own marriages so far, and is busy on wrecking Marie's marriage. Burt Cooper also consented to Joan prostituting herself. That is the worst thing we have seen him do, but there could be quite a back story about how he built the company - rich people don't get that way by being nice. Pete Campbell is a certified ball of slime. Ken Cosgrove is one of the few male characters that we haven't seen doing too much that is bad. If I recall correctly, he was present when the Jaguar dealer made his request for Joan, but it was Pete who took it to the partners. Ken merely suggested to the dealer that he could arrange other redheads for the car dealer. He's probably done those kinds of things for lots of clients. Harry Crane is more of a jerk than an immoral person. Lot's of people liked Lane, but let's not forget that he cheated on his wife and stole company money. He was also an absentee father, keeping his son at school in England. That would probably have been par for the course for anyone in his situation, but imagine how his child would feel about his father throughout the rest of his life.

And then there's Don... He stole a man's identity in order to escape his own past. He rejected his brother when he reached out to him because of his fear of his past. He cheated on Betty whenever he had the chance. Is there any question that he will soon be cheating on Megan? He isn't much of a father. He has taken his kids on trips, but we don't see him being very affectionate towards them. (Although he did get drunk, build a playhouse, and bring home a dog for his daughter all in one day!) Does anyone else remember him saying at one point that he does not feel anything? I'm certain that he said he feels no emotions and that he observes people and what they do. It is these observations that make him a good advertising man. He understands the emotions that drive people, but he does not have these emotions. Anyway, he has behaved himself this season, but that can't last long. He is highly immoral. I did find it interesting that he was the only one who objected to Joan prostituting herself. Could it tie into the fact that his mother was a prostitute?

 

[Doctor Strange]

What's your point? Sounds like a realistic depiction of human nature to me.

I'M KIDDING! As I have said repeatedly, everything on the show is VERY exaggerated for dramatic effect. Still, we somehow love all these nasty folks!

 

[tonyb]

These people are paragons of virtue in comparison to several people I know well enough to say I really do know. I suspect that's true of many of us. (I believe it was Mary Karr who defined a "dysfunctional family" as any family with more than one member.)

As I recall, the partners, with the exception of Sir Slimeball, didn't actually approve Joan's efforts in securing the Jaguar account. Pete portrayed it that way to Joan, but the partners all exited the room, Don ahead of the rest, without any count of yeas and nays. It could be argued that by not saying no way, no how, they gave it a tacit nod, but there's no doubt that Pete engineered it all, and essentially lied to Joan about the others' feelings on the matter.

This is a tale about an advertising agency, after all, where superficiality is the stock in trade. It's all about how things can be made to appear.

 

[Angus Forbes]

Well, most of humanity is pretty dysfunctional in one way or another. Even the highest-functioning folks are a bit weird, somehow off, self-destructive, repressed or inhibited, etc., in some way. "Normal" and "well adjusted" are myths. In fact, dangerous myths, because they allow folks who consider themselves such to feel superior to people with more obvious problems and disadvantages. That sense of superiority is a pretty nasty dysfunction itself, and has caused loads of suffering throughout the world.

Ahhh . . . the fundamental point of disagreement: Are we all really sociopaths, or is a small segment of the population who really are sociopaths using the media to (a) discredit everyone else and our traditional culture, thereby elevating themselves and assuming a posture of superiority as enlightened critics of the rest of us, and (b) cash in on the lowest common denominator so they can live the LA lifestyle? Regarding feelings of superiority: How is non-judgmentalism working out for us, culturally? Now comes our supposed modern hero, Don Draper, who in reality is nothing more than a very handsome coward; a deserter of the Army, his family, and his brother; and a compulsive philanderer. Well, I guess that's OK too, whatever floats his boat. Besides, all men are really like this, aren't they?, or at least the men of the 1950's . . .

 

[Doctor Strange]

I don't think we're all sociopaths, I've just personally given up on maintaining any kind of moral high ground regarding people's behavior... which is all over the map, and more often self-serving than for the greater good. And while I always look to myth and fiction for the truths of humanity, I recognize that something like Mad Men is essentially entertainment... though I do think it contains a lot of accuracy about how people deal with themselves and one another.

I always come back to Casy in The Grapes of Wrath, the preacher who lost his calling:

"Maybe there ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue, they's just what people does. Some things folks do is nice and some ain't so nice, and that's all any man's got a right to say."

 

[fortworthgal]

...And while I always look to myth and fiction for the truths of humanity, I recognize that something like Mad Men is essentially entertainment... though I do think it contains a lot of accuracy about how people deal with themselves and one another.

I agree with this, and frankly, I don't want to watch a show about normal, moral folks who pay their bills on time and never do anything salacious. :lol:

 

[MrBern]

Jon Hamm pimping The NewYorker Iphone app

[video=youtube;KTiCulvL-lA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTiCulvL-lA&feature=player_embedded[/video]

 

[MrBern]

this is a few months old but has some nice shots

http://www.nypost.com/pagesixmag/issues/20120308/Mad+Woman+Bad+Girl

 

[MrBern]

'Mad Men': Elisabeth Moss Was Kept In The Dark About Peggy's Quitting Episode

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/mad-men-elisabeth-moss-quitting-episode_n_1821792.html

bottom line

"[Elisabeth Moss] is going to be on the show next year,” series creator Weiner revealed to TVLine earlier this month. “I can’t say how much, in what capacity or what [her story] is going to be, but she has not left the show.”

 

[Mr Vim]

Re-watching the season five finale, after the scene where Pete is truly honest about himself to Beth (the woman he had an affair with) made me wonder something... could these characters, if they were real, ever fix their social issues and move on with their lives? It seems to me Pete really needs to talk with a professional about his thoughts, and I wonder where that would take him. The same thing with Don... he shows he's a good person inside, but dear lord has he done some bad things... will he ever reconcile? And what would that person be like?

 

[MrBern]

1952-53

 

[MrBern]

Premiere Spoiler

Filming away
http://www.deadline.com/2012/10/mad-men-hawaii-season-6-premiere-secret-shoot/

and here, confirmed:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-mad-men-hawaii-season-6-premiere-20121018,0,3656637.story

or here
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2012/10/mad-men-season-six-jon-hamm-jessica-pare-hawaii

 

[MrBern]

The SCENE nightclub....

Obituary for owner of a notable `60s NYC nightclub
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/nyregion/steve-paul-owner-of-the-former-scene-nightclub-dies-at-71.html?hpw

 

[MrBern]

Christina Hendricks Johnny Walker Advert

" Its classic...."


[video=youtube;dzof7Z8wS8k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzof7Z8wS8k[/video]

 

[MrBern]

Happy Holidays

 

[Doctor Strange]

Season six begins April 7...

with another two-hour premiere!

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/mad-men-set-to-return-on-april-7/

 

[AmateisGal]

with another two-hour premiere!

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/mad-men-set-to-return-on-april-7/

Yay! Excited to see what happens.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Still's from season 6
Given Mad Men showrunner Matthew Weiner’s predilection for secrecy, especially when it comes to season premieres, fans of the Emmy-winning AMC show are often starved for information on their favorite characters. It now appears the Mad Men crew might have just thrown their audience a nice bone.

Posted below, a series of stills released by the network depict what looks to be a cocktail party attended by a majority of the show’s central characters. Who knows? Perhaps some clues into the new season’s offering are present if you look close enough…

Mad Men is set to return with a two-hour premiere on April 7.

 

[AmateisGal]

Don Draper's daughter sure is growing up!