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Mad Men and the problem with shallow readings
It’s been a while since I’ve written here. I’ll be trying to rectify that. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s not a TV show but a piece of piss-poor criticism that’s inspired me to write. I finally got around to reading Daniel Mendelsohn’s piece on Mad Men in The New York Review of Books and…well…wow. What a piece…
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Mad Men: “Out of Town”
If season two of Mad Men was about long-term bonds and understandings coming to an end, this season looks to be the chaotic aftermath of that. Under conditions of extreme pressure and energy, novel forms blink into and out of existence, quantum states superimpose, and out of the soup new structures crystallize. This is true…
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Homer J. is one suave bastard
“We” love Mad Men so much around here that “we’re” going to post this bit of Simpson-y goodness for y’all. From next week’s “Treehouse of Horror XIX”.
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Mad Men review: “The Gold Violin”
Salvatore and Kitty are the model of a modern couple. Sharing common interests and household chores in their boldly decorated apartment, on the surface they’re everything Pete and Trudy, for example, are not. But we know who Salvatore is, and no matter how hard the mama’s boy from Baltimore tries, his interests lie elsewhere. Seeing…
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Mad Men review: “The New Girl”
You’re never going to get that corner office until you start treating Don as an equal. And no one will tell you this, but you can’t be a man. Don’t even try. Be a woman. It’s powerful business when done correctly. – Bobbie Barrett. The boys in the office might think the new piece of…
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Mad Men review: “Three Sundays”
For those viewers completely turned against Don Draper after last week’s events, I doubt three weekends in church and some time in the confessional are enough. Particularly as it wasn’t Don asking forgiveness. The confession from Peggy’s sister was more about indicting Peggy than seeking absolution, more about a jealous older sister complaining about her…
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Mad Men review: “The Benefactor”
Matt Weiner is a stickler for historical verisimilitude. Whether it’s the shade of a woman’s hair, the length of her skirt, or the night CBS aired an episode of The Defenders. “The Benefactor” aired in the spring of 1962, and its three regular sponsors pulled their ads for the night. The episode was controversial at…
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Mad Men review: “For Those Who Think Young”
Fourteen months, thousands of cigarettes, and one beard later, we return to the offices of Sterling-Cooper and its denizens. In the first season of Mad Men, creator Matthew Weiner braced his agency against the rising tide of youth culture. But even against the backdrop of JFK’s generational campaign, 1960 was still dominated by the ways…