well I have really really been non productive lately, which is too bad because I would like to be a more writerly person overall…
What’s new? not much! I have finally gotten really into Mad Men, after two seasons of consciously avoiding it. Here are some bullet points on what I think:
1) I love the pace of the show and how slow it is, and how it will start a plotline and then drop it for a couple of episodes and then start up again, or sometimes plots that go nowhere and aren’t resolved. I think the JJ Abrams shows created a viewer that is willing to pay attention to every little thing and is eventually rewarded with a pat resolution, so it’s nice to see a show that moves away from that format and towards something more difficult (and ‘realistic,’ although that is a word I am pretty reluctant to use when talking about any kind of television) I like reading message boards about mad men and watching viewers either flip out or like speculate pat endings for the different mad men plotlines
2) On that note, the show is very, very slow and is basically designed to watch on DVD as opposed to as weekly episodes. I wonder if this is true of most television shows? I would love to see the business numbers on that, whether programs are being developed for syndication or dvd sales as opposed to broadcast and how that reflects in commercial breaks, story arcs, other aspects of writing…
3) And here’s the part I will have the most to say about, which is the show’s relationship or engagement with the 60s, both as a historical decade and as an aesthetic familiar to popular culture. I wish that I could make a chart of all of the “60s’” things that mad men buys into and all of the things that it doesn’t. This is what it would look like
buys into: clothes and cocktails as markers of the decade, lurching towards kennedy assassination as focal point of early 60s, 60s personas like the betty friedan housewife and the helen gurley brown single career girl, the sexy secretary, the village beatnik, the organization man,
does not buy into (this is more complicated and will need clarification): 60s as ‘clean’ or repressed (this is the thomas frank touch), family structure as central to either this decade or the medium of television itself (don’s family is secondary, and doesn’t operate as a family, the televisual family is a weird spectral reference for the audience, almost) 60s as the age of liberalization (all of the mad men are republicans, which is a wonderful touch! )
4) related to 3: I am also fasicnated by mad men’s treatment of race– so far, people of color have only been seen in service positions as extras but there have been a couple of storylines hinting at civil rights–kinsey goes down to the freedom rides, and betty has a dream about medgar evers. the draper’s housekeeper, carla, has been developed a little bit, but not much. I am really interested to see where this goes and what it ends up saying
5) finally, i was thinking about this in a pedagogical situation and that I would like to teach the entire season, or better, the entire program. I so far mostly teach just episodes, which is kind of unbelievable, especially since television is getting smarter and smarter. I think the next course I propose will be about entire programs, or at least big chunks of them!