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

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.

Weiner is doing an interview w/ audience at the NY Public Library this week, so i'm sure "Did Don do the Coke ad?" will be asked.

ya roger has the perfect smug man one liners u want to hate him but... you cant

Roger didn't like Psycho or The Apartment, so I can hate him.

that interpretation seems so unnecessarily literal to me, sorry

xxp

you know what else bummed me out about this episode (am I really the only person who felt that Stan-Peggy scene was terrible?) was that Harry did not get punished for being such a worthless shitbag - would've liked him to receive some comeuppance but eh

i liked stan-peggy :)

especially the peggy scenes

one of the marathon episodes i caught was a season 5 one where don is repeatedly calling peggy at the office trying to figure out where megan is and upon receiving one of the calls peggy picks up and shouts "PIZZA HOUSE" into it and i died laughing

don's consciousness expanding until it becomes one with the universe in the form of a coke ad is a pretty amazing ending. don literally making the coke ad is less amazing but also acceptable.

stan-peggy was a little hasty, which is why it made me think of the cocaine scene earlier. it certainly fits thematically with everything else in the episode. it was worth it for moss's performance in that scene though.

If Don didn't go back, then what is your take on it? All of the characters remarking "Oh he does this, he'll be back", Peggy making it clear that he would be welcomed back, etc. Don finding inner peace wouldn't mean he would have to go travelling or live on a hippie commune or something. He could be content and secure in his person and his position in life and bring that back to the only place he has ever really felt at home.

I don't think it matters whether the character of Don Draper did the Coke ad or not! It's one of those things where people forget that fiction is a line of thought as much as it is a narrative of events.

Don Draper didn't create the Coke ad. The idea of Don Draper, broken advertising man who experiences spiritual enlightenment, created the ad.

after taking a few years off from the show it was noticeable how much more confident peggy was, like her off handed sarcasm "anything for a friend" when joan offers a ton of money for that side work was so not the old uptight peggy

Roger flopping back in bed in the last ep was a genuine *fans self* moment.

ryan seems to know what I'm saying

the spirit of Don is with the spirit of all those other advertisers in the fictional advertising land in the sky

did tony get whacked/did don write the ad

don's consciousness expanding until it becomes one with the universe in the form of a coke ad is a pretty amazing ending. don literally making the coke ad is less amazing but also acceptable.

― ryan, Monday, May 18, 2015 1:46 PM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

feel like its both its neither its all its nothing its... mad

in last week's episode roger said something about ken being willing to stay with them because he liked pete's nose in his ass too much to leave, and i missed it the first time but the expression on pete's face, a kind of resigned nod, just killed me.

sorry, two weeks ago.

The character doesn't go travelling or live in a hippie commune or return to advertising, he ends when the credits roll.

One thing I've read a few times today about Peggy/Stan: that it only worked because so much goodwill had been invested in Peggy (i.e., that outside of that, it wasn't particularly well done or believable). So I don't think you're alone, shakey. I'm a case in point: I liked it fine, and because I like Peggy so much, don't feel the need to question it.

like even if he did make the ad it had to start with the universal unconscious thats just life man

otm^

if it was deadly important that it be explicitly one way or another then i imagine they would have made it more explicit.

xxp its total fan service but so the eff what.

why can't writers just end things on ways that ~make you think~ without audiences asking them what literally happened

I never watched The Sopranos but I have heard they ran into the same prob

Nobody is saying it is deadly important. Certainly there is room between "This is what happened after the show without a doubt" and "The character ends with the ends credits, it's only a show, LOL".

if it was deadly important that it be explicitly one way or another then i imagine they would have made it more explicit.

― ryan, Monday, May 18, 2015 1:50 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe it was secretly explicit like the sopranos and we wont know til someone writes multiple 10k word blog posts on the topic

He could be content and secure in his person and his position in life and bring that back to the only place he has ever really felt at home.

it's p clear he never really felt at home anywhere. he's not Dick Whitman (he can't be, for obvious reasons) and he's not Don Draper anymore either (as Stephanie's "you're not my family" remark lays bare, in addition to no one in his old life, including his former wives, children, coworkers, having any need for him, as was also explicitly stated). at the end of the show, to me he's nobody - reflective of the true meditative state - he's cast it all off, and that enlightenment takes the form of... a coke ad.

I don't really care what happens to him after the same as I don't care what happens after the screen went black in Sopranos. it's just speculative, to no end really.

xxp