2 posts tagged “mad men”

For any Mad Men fans who don't read Alan Sepinwall's blog, here's an interview with Matt Weiner about the show. There's a list of highlights and a transcript of the entire conversation.

I love Weiner's response to this question:

People lied this year about a lot of things.

I think they did last year, I don't think people were attuned to it. There were a lot of comments last year, "Why did she say that? We saw that she did something else." It's because she was lying!

I find it incredible that any fans of Mad Men, of all shows, don't get this. People lie every day. Anyone who watches MM and doesn't understand that, and can't accept that from the characters, should be watching reruns of Matlock.

Of all the comments Weiner makes, this is my favorite:

I can say one thing in advance: the Kennedy assassination is very well-trod territory, and I just don't see myself adding new to that. But I might start the day before it. Or I might do what I did with a lot of historical events, which is to put it in the background and show people's personal events overtaking it. That's one of the things I love about the finale. Here's the Cuban Missile Crisis, which other than the assassination was the defining moment of the '60s. It really changed people's lives. There is not one account, not one news report that says it was anything but completely catastrophic to people's personal lives and their perception of the world. I tried to get that feeling in there, but to show that, like any crisis, it's an excuse to tell the truth.

Writing is all about telling the truth, and Weiner does it better than most.

Not only do I watch a lot of television, I also spend a fair amount of time on-line talking about it. Maybe it's because I encounter so many more people at one time when I'm on-line than I do in real life, but I'm often surrounded by assholes. There are the regular crimes like name-calling, gasbagging and nitpicking, and then there are the two crimes that irritate me so much that I wish I were in charge of the inter-webs so I could ban the perpetrators asses forever.

This comment below (in bolded text), about Betty Draper, a character on Mad Men, is an extreme example of both crimes. (For the uninitiated, Mad Men is a show set in a Manhattan ad agency in the early '60s. Betty is married to Don Draper, the main character, and she is the women Betty Friedan wrote about in The Feminine Mystique.) Can you name the crimes?

"Like Betty, lots of women were depressed ...because they were stifled creatively and felt trapped by marriage and motherhood. They weren't necessarily "crazy." They were struggling with their identities and yes, self-medicating with booze."

"...but I do sympathize with her because being a suburban mom isn't easy nowadays...I can't imagine how stressful it was in the 1950s-1960s when you were expected to be perfect and have no life outside the confines of your home...and you had to be obedient to a selfish husband like Don."

"Interestingly, Betty Draper ...most certainly is suffering the malaise of the "modern" suburban housewife."

I'd like to argue this point, as my mother *was* one of those suburban housewives.

She wasn't depressed (my father was) she wasn't alcoholic (she would be after my father died, nearlt 40 years later) she *did* have to be obedient to my father, who was very often verbally abusive to all of us.

But when he was not there, she watched her soaps, fed her family, did the laundry, rushed just before my father got home to make it look as if she'd cleaned all day, visited with the neighbors - especially the elderly ones (and ran errands for them - on foot, as she didn't drive, but the grocery store was just down the street) as well as those her own age, and *spent time* (not just "quality time") with her children.

I knew my mother - her favorite color, movie, book (she read a lot too - her library card number was famous at our local branch) singer, actress, flowers, perfume, other things i can't recall right now, as well as her values and beliefs (and the way she protected me from my father, or at least comforted me after).

She was taught that the best thing you could do was to help other people. I admired her in that (if not in that if you were unhappy you should cure it by helping others). She was brought up by nuns after being removed by the state from a crazy mother in a large Catholic family that only grew larger before she got back. (after marriage, she was.. if not Protestant, at least in no way Catholic)

She was into walking and taking vitamins (none of which helped my asthma - though i learned to take lots of pills at once (pantothenic acid is something you *never* want to chew))

My father worked two jobs, so that she could stay home and take care of us. Which she did a very good job of (even if the cleaning was an afterthought (and her cooking wasn't that great - I gained a lot of weight after I left home - perhaps the girls on 90210 have my mother as a cook - i was 105 when I left).

The only thing she didn't teach us was that, for her daughter, the world would not be the same.

I don't think my mother was unhappy as a housewife. I don't remember her aspiring to be anything else (or anything). And I really think she was part of the glue that made good neighborhoods, well- behaved children (who weren't automatons, but were just polite, responsible citizens) and kept the elderly from having to go to nursing homes.

There may still be women like this. I just think my mother's priorities were pretty darn good.

When i was 19, she went back to work, and had no time for us (my brother was 13). I missed her.

When I was 22, the family moved to another state and I did not.

When my father was dying she quit to care for him and didn't go back(though she thought of it). she ran around with her friends for a while and then stopped, and then she watched a lot of tv and read a lot, she drank too much, so that when she started having health issues that affected her balance, we didn't notice, thinking she was drunk.

(at this point i must stop to gripe about Lexie Grey saying she's an ACOA, when her childhood was perfect. just because her father is a drunk *now*, that does *not* put her in that class. ACOA is more developmental, i think. a way to survive learned in childhood. my father was not an alcholic then either - he just blew up like one (something Thatcher and Susan never did - but I bet Ellis did.)

Back to my point - my mother would have said that life is what you make it - and she did good (unlike Betty) cared less for appearances than for good manners and politeness and giving to others, and she made the world a better place, both then, and in children who grew up resposible and not adding to the burdens of others in society (unlike siblings of friends who've done drugs, committed thefts, ended up in jail or unmarried with children they could not support).

Of course, when she chose not to have a funeral (both my parents chose this), all the people who admired her and loved her for all the good she did for them, were upset that they could not gather to praise her, and were angry at *me* but...

Perhaps Betty does feel unfulfilled, but I don't see any aspirations toward any kind of "work" or even "charity" or volunteerism in her (unlike my mother). She only cares about how she looks to others. And more and more, she really does seem a spoiled (or at least needy and damaged) child.

And, as "needy and damaged" goes, Meredith Grey (while perhaps whiny) is a far better (fictional) person than she is - at least *she* always gathers her friends in support of whichever friend needs it most, making a family out of those who are not her blood, while Betty couldn't be bothered with those who *are.* (at least not till they grow up to people who will "shame her" in front of her friends (and btw, where *are* those friends? her neighbors have husbands who cheat too. is she too "image" oriented to even gripe to them?))

Time's up. The crimes are 1) too much information; and 2) seeing everything through the prism of your own experience.  They generally go hand in hand, although occasionally I see one without the other . It's possible to see everything through the prism of your own experience without the TMI, but it's impossible to have the TMI alone. The very nature of TMI means you see everything through The Prism.

I won't go so far as to say that personal experience should never influence  your impressions. It's impossible to be completely objective all the time. But it is possible to interpret fiction subjectively if you accept that very few things are black and white. TMI and The Prism combine to create an even bigger crime - It's All About Me. IAAM with an emphasis on The Prism leads to people being sensitive to the tiniest perceived slight; as well, it's a symptom of severe myopia. "That can't be true because it didn't happen to me/we didn't do it that way in our family/my uncle was in the same situation and this is what happened to him." It's opinion as fact.

IAAM with an emphasis on TMI leads to "Oh my God, I don't want to know this about you." It's irrelevant to the discussion, and it's discussion as therapy. I mean, I know Road Runner is cheaper than counseling, but I wish people could keep at least a few things to themselves. In the worst case, the relevant discussion comes to a screeching halt, either because people don't know what to say (I can sometimes feel the discomfort), or because it results in endless expressions of sympathy. I know I'm being heartless, but please, what does this poster's asthma, or her fluctuations in weight because her mother didn't cook for her when she was 19 years old have to do with Betty Draper's slow, on-screen breakdown because her husband cheats on her and her entire life is a sham? How is this-

When I was 22, the family moved to another state and I did not.

related to anything having to do with Mad Men?

Great fiction always tells the truth, and great characters don't have to be nice people. Instead of watching this brilliant show and learning that truth comes in many forms,  the only thing this poster learns from Mad Men is how much or how little it mirrors her own life. It's television viewing as narcissism.