Mad Men

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Murdoch
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Re: Mad Men

#151 Post by Murdoch » Tue Apr 30, 2013 12:56 pm

Personally, I found every season but five to be a snoozefest, so I'm only watching out of that season's greatness and that this is the second to last season. I agree with you, Black Hat, about Don. I've never seen a show so obsessed with such a dull character when everything going on around him is of much greater interest. It certainly isn't helping that this season's basically a variation on Don's marriage to Betty, I can only spend so many seasons watching the main character do the same thing over and over before I change the channel. I wouldn't mind the slow self-destruction if Don weren't so boring, but his lack of emotion or personality just makes the whole thing drag that much more. But the girlfriend's obsessed and intent on me watching every episode with her so I'll just sit by and wait for Pete to come on (his takedown of Harry was one of the best parts of Sunday's ep).

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Black Hat
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Re: Mad Men

#152 Post by Black Hat » Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:13 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:Mad Men's focus is his slow decomposition. It's not always the most exciting thing - and it's often quite frustrating to watch him make these decisions, but he's the same character we met in the first episode, just worse for the wear after nearly a decade has gone by without helping himself.
Agreed. I think the issue I have is that it's abundantly clear where Don is headed and him briefly getting better to only fall off again I find repetitive but as you alluded to understandable. One of the issues I have with his relationship with Linda Cardellini is that in this past episode he was legitimately worried about her and to me I haven't seen anything between the two of them to establish the level of concern that he had for.

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Black Hat
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Re: Mad Men

#153 Post by Black Hat » Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:28 pm

Matt wrote:I feel like history was always an important backdrop to the show, but now the events of the Sixties are driving the narrative and Weiner is making the characters into reactors to a plotless series of events. Have you noticed how news reports have audibly and visually intruded on every episode this season?
Excellent point. The MLK assassination episode the other night felt disingenuous to me. Throughout the show the social and political change happening around them, especially to do with race, has been as you said very much a backdrop. With The Flood it was all of a sudden front and center to the point where outside of Pete & Abe I just didn't buy any of these characters reacting that strongly to MLK's murder.
Murdoch wrote:I wouldn't mind the slow self-destruction if Don weren't so boring, but his lack of emotion or personality just makes the whole thing drag that much more.
The scenes with Don, especially since he stopped caring about his work, more and more have the feel of a soap opera lets have our bad boy stud on screen do bad boy studly things to keep the women still watching. The only interesting moment this year outside of maybe a little bit of the stuff with his son & listening in on Peggy
SpoilerShow
Was when Betty told him he'd crawl to Canada on his knees if it was one of his girlfriends. As surprising as it was to hear Betty call him out like that it felt totally real. Frankly I would have liked more of a reaction from Don to her calling him on his shit.

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Matt
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Re: Mad Men

#154 Post by Matt » Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:33 pm

I think this most recent episode marks the long-delayed blossoming of Don's feelings for other people. Or at least the beginning of his ability to notice and express them. That's not really gripping television to me, though.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Mad Men

#155 Post by hearthesilence » Tue Apr 30, 2013 2:27 pm

I like Mad Men, it's probably my favorite TV show on the air right now, but I also think it's ridiculously overrated. I get the feeling people give it way too much credit simply because television has such low standards. (That, and Hollywood studio films have gotten so poor in general.)

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mfunk9786
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Re: Mad Men

#156 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Apr 30, 2013 3:24 pm

I'm starting to think maybe this is just general backlash towards the show perhaps sticking around too long. Because the complaints y'all have about it have always been there

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starmanof51
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Re: Mad Men

#157 Post by starmanof51 » Tue Apr 30, 2013 5:53 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:I'm starting to think maybe this is just general backlash towards the show perhaps sticking around too long. Because the complaints y'all have about it have always been there
Yeah, I can't detect much quality difference between seasons, I generally like them all about the same, including this one. Maybe I prefer the first just because the Whitman/Draper twist is the only real joker in the deck. Same things that can make it difficult to access now have been kicking around from day 1, which of course would be a valid criticism in its own right.

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Matt
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Re: Mad Men

#158 Post by Matt » Tue Apr 30, 2013 6:56 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:I'm starting to think maybe this is just general backlash towards the show perhaps sticking around too long. Because the complaints y'all have about it have always been there
That's kind of an insulting way to dismiss our criticisms. I'm not some griper on Twitter. I'm a fan and sometime defender of the show and have watched each season, closely, more than once. I'm not participating in some kind of faceless backlash just to be like the cool kids who are "so over" this show.

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Black Hat
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Re: Mad Men

#159 Post by Black Hat » Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:24 pm

I'm with Matt mfunk, your dismissal of our critiques reeked of I don't want to hear anybody pissing on my step obnoxiousness. These criticisms haven't been there always as there here have been different sides to Don's character explored. This season, as Murdoch said it's basically a variation of his marriage to Betty. I understand that's who Don is and that's partly the point but at least make his female counterpart interesting. Like The Sopranos with Tony, the show is trying to make the show all about Don but the problem is his character and storyline is nowhere near as dominant or as interesting as Tony was. Furthermore Mad Men's supporting cast is a million times stronger than The Sopranos. All this is to say nothing of the sudden interjection of race into the show last Sunday which felt disingenuous. Either you address it from the beginning of the show or you don't. You can't all of a sudden after 10 years have gone by with these characters expect the audience to buy that these people care so much about MLK's assassination

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mfunk9786
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Re: Mad Men

#160 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Apr 30, 2013 7:48 pm

Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude or anything, I just don't think we're getting a different product. And Matt, Weiner has stated that the show will go beyond the 60s... I think this will be the last season we get within them.

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Matt
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Re: Mad Men

#161 Post by Matt » Tue Apr 30, 2013 11:51 pm

Naturally, I don't take at face value anything Weiner says about the future of the show. If he says it goes beyond the '60s, then that probably means the series finale concludes on January 1, 1970.

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Mad Men

#162 Post by Andre Jurieu » Wed May 01, 2013 4:23 pm

Black Hat wrote:All this is to say nothing of the sudden interjection of race into the show last Sunday which felt disingenuous. Either you address it from the beginning of the show or you don't. You can't all of a sudden after 10 years have gone by with these characters expect the audience to buy that these people care so much about MLK's assassination
That seems like a terribly restrictive guideline for any piece of long-running (or long-form) art. The culture and industry being explored within the show will obviously be influenced by the events that took place within the era, so I'm not sure I want these characters and the show to fixate on just a few specific aspects of life that were introduced in the 1st couple of episodes. If that's the case, we would be stuck with a show about the womanizing and office-politics that take place within a vacuum. Personally, I think it would be disingenuous if they just ignored everything that was changing within society during this period and only focused on advertising - which is a profession that is incredibly influenced by alterations in society. I also think the show has been addressing the issue of race in delicate ways, particularly over the past few seasons, so I don't think it just showed up out of nowhere this past Sunday. I always thought it felt more realistic that the civil-rights battle sort of takes place in the background of the lives of these characters, until it finally and suddenly erupts into the foreground, which kind of highlights the ways in which the movement was disconnected and subtly present within the society, especially considering the relative comfort that these characters enjoy.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Mad Men

#163 Post by Roger Ryan » Wed May 01, 2013 4:48 pm

Certainly the last major assassination (JFK) was dealt with in a similar manner to MLK on the show. Most of the notable historic events only creep into the lives of the characters (the Richard Speck murders), but it's understandable that an assassination on the scale of MLK would have a more-pronounced effect. I suspect that the show will play off of the main characters' responses to the death of King when Robert Kennedy is assassinated (only two months later).

As to the time-frame, the series has kept to a fairly strict pacing within each season with usually about two to four weeks elapsing between episodes (this most recent episode took place in early April '68 - PLANET OF THE APES opened in the U.S. the day before King's assassination). Once Season 7 was announced as the final season, I suspected the series would only cover a ten-year period.

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Matt
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Re: Mad Men

#164 Post by Matt » Wed May 01, 2013 4:55 pm

Yeah, but it was really bracing when the show skipped ahead 14 months between seasons 1 and 2 and 7 months between seasons 4 and 5. I wish they had kept up with those dizzying leaps, but I suppose there's only so much you can do apart from recasting when you have child actors on the show (though they've had 4 Bobbys now, and he never seems to get any older) and don't want to use aging makeup on your stars (though Pete's hairline is certainly a wonder this season and last).

bdlover
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Re: Mad Men

#165 Post by bdlover » Thu May 02, 2013 1:15 am

Black Hat wrote:outside of Pete & Abe I just didn't buy any of these characters reacting that strongly to MLK's murder.
Absolutely. MLK was not viewed positively by the American public of the time, as this polling data shows. Probably the worst anachronism that Weiner has ever let slip into the show, and for cowardly reasons too. Count me disappointed.

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Mad Men

#166 Post by Andre Jurieu » Thu May 02, 2013 12:29 pm

Sorry, why should polling data have anything to do with the how writers develop their characters on this show? Are Weiner & co. supposed to only allow 12% of their characters to sympathize with the people deeply effected by MLK's assassination? Because that seems absurdly restrictive to me. If we're going to allow statistics control an art-form, then I guess Weiner needs to do some research and find out a demographic breakdown of views on MLK within the Manhattan advertising industry during the period, because to be as statistically accurate as possible we'll have to get an precise reflection of the population being examined. What percentage of female copywriters viewed MLK favorably? What about red-head single-mothers making more than $15,000 annually?

I'm also not sure any characters had an extreme reaction to MLK's death other than Peggy's secretary (which seems obvious) and Pete (which sort of seemed purposely artificial and exaggerated, but also plausible due to the turmoil in his personal life). Every other character just seemed to be pondering how it would effect their business, going through the motions, and acting sympathetic because they felt it was the proper reaction. It's not like every old white guy on the show started bawling uncontrollably. Even Abe is more engaged by this because of his career and political viewpoint, rather than because of any real sympathy for the man's death. Overall, I thought these were plausible reactions for a geographic region that leans slightly progressive that is influenced somewhat by art.

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Murdoch
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Re: Mad Men

#167 Post by Murdoch » Thu May 02, 2013 2:40 pm

Statistics are no guideline for a fictional TV show, but it did seem disingenuous to watch a bunch of rich white people in the 60s act like they were profoundly affected by the death of a civil rights leader. Still, I think some of the responses above read like the entire agency was overwhelmed with grief, when really Don reacted as he does to any sad news/historic tragedy, Roger made a joke, Harry worried about numbers, and Pete used it as an excuse to let out his anger about his separation and try to force a reconciliation. Not exactly out of step with the characters.

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Mad Men

#168 Post by Andre Jurieu » Thu May 02, 2013 2:58 pm

Yeah, I just don't see any evidence that Weiner was ever attempting to convey that these particular rich white people (and that's really only the higher-level male managers/partners at the agency) were profoundly affected by the death of a civil rights leader. In fact, I was kind of surprised that the episode didn't really examine the direct impact that the death had on these characters' lives, aside from Peggy's secretary. If anything it treated the death as an event that only impacted their lives in somewhat limited terms. Instead, for most characters, it acted like an obstacle that they had to overcome to continue through and maintain the routine events within their lives. As your list of reactions demonstrates (and I'd add Joan's awkward hug of Dawn to the list), these rich white people kind of just acted like rich white people who want to mimic the idea of sympathy when they really have no connection to the actual event. That type of muted, pantomime reaction is what made Don's soliloquy (? - I don't know what else to call) about pretending to love his kid until a moment that overwhelms him with emotional connection so effective - because we've basically been watching a bunch of rich white people pretend to care about a death that they could not possibly have a real connection with.

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Re: Mad Men

#169 Post by bdlover » Thu May 02, 2013 11:51 pm

Weiner makes great play of the show's 'veracity' and the level of research upon which it is based. When the show then indulges in a painfully obvious and extended anachronism it is reasonable to question why. Closing the office early, disrupting an awards ceremony, expressing their shame, disgust and sadness (whether they mean it or not) - is this the behaviour one would expect from a community of rich white Republicans in the late 1960s, whom history tells us would have been utterly indifferent to, if not slightly pleased by, the death of an unpopular anti-war radical? Or is this the behaviour that an audience in 2013 would like to see, said radical having since been elevated to the status of a national icon? If the latter, is there really any way to view this as an artistic decision rather than a cynically commercial one?

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Re: Mad Men

#170 Post by gcgiles1dollarbin » Fri May 03, 2013 11:28 am

At the same time, the white folks were as much in fear of the black riots that would inevitably follow the assassination. While Pete Campbell's sympathy seems grossly exaggerated (and probably just a sublimation of his home frustrations, as Murdoch pointed out), the rest were tetchy, I took it, mainly because of the social instability created by inflammatory events like these that threatened their urban environment. There is a film of Robert Kennedy's speech in Indiana following the MLK assassination, during which he desperately attempts to assuage the anger igniting in the aftermath. More anecdotally, my father told me that he and other white people felt like the world was falling apart after the one-two punches of the MLK and RFK assassinations, and he was hardly a working-class union democrat with progressive racial attitudes. It had more to do with fear than grief, I think. I'll be curious to see how the show handles the second assassination.

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warren oates
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Re: Mad Men

#171 Post by warren oates » Fri May 03, 2013 11:41 am

bdlover wrote:...disrupting an awards ceremony...
The episode was painstakingly historically accurate, at least as far as the awards ceremony goes.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Mad Men

#172 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri May 03, 2013 12:02 pm

That's a pretty amazing commitment to historical accuracy.

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Mad Men

#173 Post by Andre Jurieu » Fri May 03, 2013 12:02 pm

bdlover wrote:Weiner makes great play of the show's 'veracity' and the level of research upon which it is based. When the show then indulges in a painfully obvious and extended anachronism it is reasonable to question why. Closing the office early, disrupting an awards ceremony, expressing their shame, disgust and sadness (whether they mean it or not) - is this the behaviour one would expect from a community of rich white Republicans in the late 1960s, whom history tells us would have been utterly indifferent to, if not slightly pleased by, the death of an unpopular anti-war radical? Or is this the behaviour that an audience in 2013 would like to see, said radical having since been elevated to the status of a national icon? If the latter, is there really any way to view this as an artistic decision rather than a cynically commercial one?
The poll being referenced does not provide us data from March or April of 1968 and we have no idea if the characteristics of the population within the poll accurately reflect the demographics or opinions of the people and industry being examined by the show. The poll also only conveys general opinions on how favorable MLK was at a point in time, but does not clearly demonstrate that 44-63% of the population believed MLK to be a "anti-war radical". While Roger Sterling, Burt Cooper, or Don Draper might vote MLK to be a -1 or -2 (which, again, I wouldn't state conclusively based on their character history), that's far different from them turning to each other and saying "Man, that is great news! We won! Hope you enjoy hell, asshole!" when they hear about his assassination. I would think that, if these characters lean towards viewing MLK unfavorably it's because they are unhappy with the fact that he's causing a disruption to their sense of normalcy. Yet, Don has certainly demonstrated a general level of courtesy and respect to the African-Americans that have surrounded him in his daily life, including his treatment of his secretary, Dawn. In fact, Cooper is the only one who has demonstrated his bigotry and even then his sense of decorum and commerce seems to trump all other matters.

I'd have to see some proof that Weiner claims that his extensive research into every aspect of society at the time produces a near flawless recreation of the era. As far as I've seen, he's stated that he tries to do as much research as possible and that a great deal of it is focused on the advertising industry itself and timing of events within pop-culture. I haven't seen much about how he researches popular opinions and how he ensures his characters precisely mirror the collective viewpoints of the era. As far as I know he treats his characters as individuals with their own history and perspective. Even if they are rich white Republicans in the 1960s (which isn't the case for a lot of the characters), I don't think we can conclusively state what these people believe or how they would personally react unless we base it on their past behavior. In that aspect, their reactions seemed entirely reasonable. I'm also thinking that being a rich white Republican living in Manhattan and New York, who works in the advertising industry during the 1960s, is a lot different than being rich white Republican living and working in other parts of America during the 1960s.

MLK was a prominent figure in America at the time, so I'm sure the news of his death might have disrupted an industry awards ceremony, if only because it was news. As conveyed by the shot of Megan's award, the ceremony did continue on after that brief break. I thought the immediate reactions from Peggy and Megan were completely reasonable for characters their age, especially with their established backgrounds. Closing the office early might have been a show of respect for some, but it was also a function of the fact that some of the city was in chaos and the work-day was being disrupted considerably. Employees were having trouble getting to work and meetings were being cancelled. Of course, some people decided to keep working and continue taking meetings, just as the awards ceremony resumed, and just as the real estate agent attempted to convince Peggy to take advantage of the situation. I also fail to really see that much disgust and sadness in the reactions, other than Pete's decidedly extreme display, which seems to be just Pete directing his frustrations in another direction. Don is the enigma of the situation because he's pantomiming a proper reaction until something personal finally breaks through the barrier and prompts him to re-examine his connections. Everyone else is simply being respectful considering they are surrounded by co-workers and low-level workers that have a more personal connection to the death. It's not like after arriving to work the next morning upon hearing the news every white guy in the office would be high-fiving each other, cracking open a few beers, and starting an office sing-a-long based on the racist tunes their fathers passed down to them. Offices are a very restrained and cautious place in most cases, with very few people willing to make overt demonstrations of their political or personal views, and generally attempting to remain sensitive and respectful of their co-workers.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Mad Men

#174 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri May 03, 2013 12:07 pm

Also, the death of a prominent person who is somewhat disliked can result in a lot more good feelings towards that person almost immediately, or at least displaced grief. Even Joan, who clearly didn't comprehend the entire impact of King's death, got in on the act. I don't know why we're supposed to come into this episode with the presumption that New York City was full of people who had utterly zero remorse for the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. It's always a lot more complicated than those poll numbers would suggest. He was a newsworthy figure at the time, a well known figure and a controversial figure - and even if the folks that comprise Mad Men's universe weren't all the biggest King boosters, it's silly to suggest that they'd be outwardly happy about his assassination (or happy at all, quite frankly).
Last edited by mfunk9786 on Sat May 04, 2013 10:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Black Hat
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Re: Mad Men

#175 Post by Black Hat » Sat May 04, 2013 1:42 am

Andre Jurieu wrote: That seems like a terribly restrictive guideline for any piece of long-running (or long-form) art. The culture and industry being explored within the show will obviously be influenced by the events that took place within the era, so I'm not sure I want these characters and the show to fixate on just a few specific aspects of life that were introduced in the 1st couple of episodes. If that's the case, we would be stuck with a show about the womanizing and office-politics that take place within a vacuum. Personally, I think it would be disingenuous if they just ignored everything that was changing within society
I certainly am not in favor of restrictions or guidelines anywhere but what I have a problem with is when the evolution does not match up with the evolving. I agree that it is disingenuous of the show to ignore the social and cultural change of the time period which is something I've struggled with accepting but Weiner when confronted about it has explicitly stated that his show is not about any of that and does in fact exist in a vacuum. His insistence on telling his story this way and then flipping the script without in my view enough of a build up is a perplexing choice. The two episodes, last week's MLK assassination episode & the JFK assassination episode, that deviated from this formula are at best clumsy and awkward, at worst meandering snoozefests of pointlessness that are in my opinion the worst of the show.

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