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

having breaking down don hanging around that cliff was a nice foreboding touch

also don trying to school the blonde girl in his methods of inner and outer deception lol what a goon

we can do this i will teach you how to live the lie

I have noticed that most of these CONTEMPORARY GOLDEN AGE TV shows are kinda what we usta call soap operas, or in Grandma Morbius' case "my stories."

btw Letterman years ago used to drop "my stories" into his conversations with Paul and it killed me every time.

we've had this debate every season. it's a melodrama, a very good one.

oh gosh lets not start on the soap opera thing again

im no mad men apologist but its obvs a lot more than a melodrama let alone a soap opera its concerned with society and shit cmon

melodrama's can be concerned with society! i just dont see it as a dig. it's also middlebrow. that's also fine! it's ok everyone.

you can take it seriously too, if you want. you can analyze it if you like doing that. no one will laugh you.

"I trust we’ll see you here next year for episode one of Holloway-Harris: The Cocaine Years."

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/may/18/mad-men-recap-season-seven-episode-14-person-to-person-warning-spoilers

melodrama's can be concerned with society! i just dont see it as a dig. it's also middlebrow. that's also fine! it's ok everyone.

― ryan, Monday, May 18, 2015 12:54 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i see weve reached the willfully obtuse soap operas are good actually stage in record time

i specifically didnt say soap opera!

"i quite enjoy the middlebrow vapidity of its metatextual analysis tbh, buy me a latte?"

we can do this i will teach you how to live the lie

― lag∞n, Monday, May 18, 2015 4:49 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i will teach u how to become the man who drinks at work

i will teach you how to become... hamm

step 1: be at work

Joyce Carol Oates @JoyceCarolOates · 3h 3 hours ago
Creator of "Mad Men" could not discover a single profound/ dramatic defining act for "Don Draper" w/ which to conclude saga.

...when old ppl tweeting goes wrong

Wow this was a great ending. I like the ambiguity of the very end too, it's just as plausible that after that last shot Don went back to work and made that ad, or 15 minutes later hysterically threw himself off the cliff.

Everyone got happy endings, so yay. So glad Joan got rid of that rich controlling jerk and is running her own business.

hah that guy bolted at the first signs of life, so outta there

nothing i've said is pejorative. i pretty much love this show unreservedly, flaws and all. im using melodrama as a loose classification for a type of storytelling that the show generally engages in. beautiful people behaving badly and, often, as you put it, pretty "lurid" plots. soap opera doesnt fit because they tend to be more or less open ended.

i feel like the ppl detracting from the finale wanted there to be some sort of explosive ending, and like, what the fuck, this isn't breaking bad or an action show, he was never gonna die dramatically onscreen or do some otherwise insane huge gesture

nor was anyone else

there are aspects of melodrama but if someone was like what kind of show is this and you were all "a melodrama" that wld not be a very good description

haha fair enough--and not totally different from what im trying to say!

Thought it was funny all the warnings Roger was throwing out, so glad they didn't kill off any characters on screen. People are horrible.

it's a melodrama, a very good one.

― ryan, Monday, May 18, 2015 12:52 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you can quote the rest of what i said too!

anecdote in this Salon wrapup def captures the mind of the typical "creative director":

“Mad Men” owes an enormous debt to “The Conquest of Cool” by Thomas Frank, a 1997 academic text that examines how what we see as the progressive, inclusive themes of the ’60s were in fact outright manufactured by advertisers in order to mold a new generation of consumers and a new kind of “hip consumerism.” It’s a book that changed the way I thought about the era—and irrevocably affected the way I see advertising, too. It’s also a book that articulates the really awful truths underpinning “Mad Men.” Don Draper didn’t write that advertisement because someone named Bob Backer did; Don didn’t believe in his meditation at Big Sur because, among other things, he never existed. But people did go to Big Sur to attempt to make their lives better; people chanted “om” many times, hoping for peace and harmony. Irony and cynicism prevent us from really feeling that Don might have gotten somewhere with his meditations in California. But that’s just because we’ve all learned our lessons too well—if there is something true or pure or beautiful in the world, then someone has made it into an advertisement to sell a product. We distrust because we know better...

One line from Coca-Cola’s official history of “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” made me laugh. Billy Davis, the music director for the Coke account, had a problem with the idea for the spot when it was pitched to him. He said: “Well, if I could do something for everybody in the world, it would not be to buy them a Coke… I’d buy everyone a home first and share with them in peace and love.” Backer, the creative director, responded with one of the most confident, full-of-shit lines of spin in history: “OK, that sounds good. Let’s write that and I’ll show you how Coke fits right into the concept.”

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/18/mad_men_finale_recap_someday_people_are_going_to_brag_that_they_worked_with_you/

we've had this debate every season. it's a melodrama, a very good one.

― ryan, Monday, May 18, 2015 12:52 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

never mind.

just admit that u were playing the role of condescending soap operas are good actually guy in this conversation and we can move on

i wonder if they'd already planned this ending when roger dropped acid. both him and don going through the counterculture to reach a life epiphany that somehow just allows them to go on being themselves

just admit that u were playing the role of condescending soap operas are good actually guy in this conversation and we can move on

yikes im sorry if i came across condescending but i literally did not mean to be "soap operas are actually good" because i don't really think they're good or bad? just a thing that's out there. like melodramas and middlebrow entertainment. im for it all, if it's done well. peace!

nothing personal im just a student of this conversation and its patterns

fwiw i watched the young in the restless and high school and it was actually good.

in high school

melodrama's can be concerned with society! i just dont see it as a dig. it's also middlebrow. that's also fine! it's ok everyone.

― ryan, Monday, May 18, 2015 12:54 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean this is better than the usual stage 2 rejoinder but m/l cannon

real soap operas are kind of amazing and bizarre forms

they just like churn on and on and move sooo slowly can u imagine writing one, heavy purgatory vibes

i would say MM partly belongs to a genre that peaked in the '50s in films and live TV drama, the Soul-Searching Corporate Man Drama -- practiced by Serling, Chayefsky, The Apartment, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and others, all acknowledged by Weiner.

so i watched game of thrones after mad men and now hear the theme song lyrics as "Man Whoooo... drinks at work / Man Whooo ... drinks at work / drinks at work drinks at work drinks at work."

xps: (my only point with that post was that we don't need to be anxious about mad men really "deserving" all this discussion and/or analysis--and that calling it a soap opera or melodrama isn't something that adds anything to the discussion as far as i can tell, as if we need to establish that it's not a soap opera before taking it seriously or not.)

i like the idea of the Soul-Searching Corporate Man Drama notion, here perhaps fleshed out against a backdrop of other (though also limited) experiences of that time.

If something reaches me emotionally, which Mad Men did, many times, I think it's worth analyzing, whatever you call it.

imo the defining thing about soap operas is that they constantly inject some sort of interpersonal drama and have no real ending -- the assumption is that you will show up daily and watch some slice of life until all the people on screen kill each other or die

um this is ilx soap operas are actually more important than "serious" dramas

TS soap operas vs teen pop

otm

The more I think about it the more I like the reading that Don left the ashram and went home to come up w the Coke ad. It has the right amount of cynicism and hope all rolled into one.

someone a few weeks ago mentioned that mad men doesn't get enough credit for being really funny and i was reminded of that with this episode a few times. one of the funnier episodes over all, even. especially the peggy scenes.

watching the reruns over the past week was impressive too--it just sucks you right back in. feel like 98% of everything Roger said in the series was somehow hilarious and amazing.