I’ve taken plenty of shots at Mad Men over the past few days, and I’d like to clarify: when you watch Mad Men, you aren’t watching a bad show. It’s just… well, here.
Because it is somewhat stylishly done,occasionally well-designed, and produced with overall aplomb, it is easy to ignore that Mad Men is a period-piece soap opera. Its better production values represent higher budgets and the benefits of a [weekly], rather than daily, schedule. It is cursed by the same ridiculous plots, unlikely characters, and preposterous acting as any of Grandma’s “stories.”
Seriously: take, for example, Pete Campbell’s attempt to blackmail Don Draper by revealing his Secret Past. This, and the fact that the primary character has a Secret Past of this sort to begin with, are unadulterated The Young and the Restless material.
Aesthetically, the show is hell of appealing, and most of the plots that actually revolve around the advertising business itself are genuinely interesting; the crime is that they aren’t the focus of the show. The star isn’t a particular concept or idea, but a character. He’s completely humorless and distant, which is fine if you’re Jack Bauer and you respond by axing terrorists in the chest, running a terrorist over with a bulldozer, running up a wall Bo Jackson-style and snapping a terrorist’s neck, etc., etc. Instead, Don Draper responds by staring at walls (always staring at walls, this guy) and maybe driving drunk or hanging out in dubious company. And even this would be okay if we had reason to care, but again, he’s humorless and distant, and we don’t.
Much of the show is about privileged people stumbling through their privileged lives. This works in shows like Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm, because they acknowledge how unsympathetic and ridiculous their problems are. Most shows about rich people are comedies, and for a reason: nobody cares about the rich man’s problems, no matter how many times Don manufactures quandaries for himself. Breaking Bad‘s Walter White does the same thing, but the most important difference is that we understand how and why he gets into these messes. With Don, it’s just, “unsatisfied man who has emotional issues, apparently. Remember, everybody, Secret Past.”
A common line of discussion is the show’s focus on gender issues in the 1960s. Some of it is valuable — the string of crap Peggy has to deal with is reflective of the crap that women have to deal with today, and the necessary compromising of her ideals is uncomfortably familiar. Any authority the show holds on the subject of gender issues, though, is damaged by its lead female protagonist, who the writers chose to write, from the beginning, as a mentally unstable person. I get that the show is trying to illustrate a common double standard (men are rebels, women are crazy). But they could have accomplished this while still writing Betty Draper as an emotionally mature adult, like, despite his selfish actions, Don is, and most male characters on the show are. Instead, she’s more of a bizarre curiosity than anything, and there’s little to nothing to take away from her presence on the show.
My television viewing choices certainly can’t be described as high-minded. I have watched every episode of 24 that has ever aired. I thought Jericho was awesome. I watch Real Time with Bill Maher. These are all dumb shows, and Mad Men is better than these. It’s a show with an intriguing premise that occasionally has some absolutely killer moments. But it’s miles removed from what television has shown us it’s capable of producing, and given how much the show gets right, it’s a disappointment.
Postscript: I would engage Matt in a fistfight for the privilege of taking Christina Hendricks out on a date. He would win.
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Well, yeah.
Who is Jon Bois?
So, ummm…when is Matt coming back
Larry Tate had the same existential issues but he had two Darren’s and bunch of witches mixed in. He still moved moved the soap.
I’ve tried twice before to “get into” this show and it has failed. I started watching the marathon on AMC last night and I felt myself getting hooked.
Now you may have talked me out of it. Thanks for saving me the time. Now what am I supposed to do?
It’s miles removed from being able to produce itself into CSI: 60′s.
I was avoiding adding a bring back Matt comment, but how dare you.
BRING. BACK. MATT.
It’s not The Wire, or The Sopranos, or Breaking Bad, or, hell, probably even Lost, but it’s still better than almost anything else on TV these days. I mean, now that 24 and Lost are over, what dramas do we have that show this kind of commitment to good television and worthwhile artistic expression at all? You could probably count them on one hand.
Josh, SoA and Justified.
What year did you graduate from NYU?
This reads like an article Matt would lampoon. I hope he does next week.
BTW this is more like Dallas than a mid-day soap. Everyone sure hated Dallas.
Indeed, just like The Wire is ruined by Lt. Daniels secret past and its unsatisfactory evaluation of gender roles.
remember though, aesthetically it is HELL OF appealing. Victory to us all!
I’d have to say that I’m pretty sure you can find the crazy v. rebel status in the men and women in the show.
Pete Campbell – crazy
Don Draper – rebel
Peggy Olson – rebel
the commie with the beard – wannabe rebel (crazy)
Betty Draper – not really crazy, just emotionally starving
Joan – rebel
Roger Sterling – rebel
Bert Cooper – crazy like your cool grandfather
Basically, the show does demonstrate both sides and the nuances of each character… but they’re just characters, not an entire gender. And I’m pretty sure Betty Draper is like the fourth female lead
Peggy Olson – female lead
Joan – second female lead
Whatever slut Draper is banging – third female lead
Betty Draper – fourth female lead
it must be hard to criticize a show you’ve only watch three episodes of…
My advice: hook or crook pictures of the chick from Modern Family with the huge tits at the beach and only post those for the rest of the day.
George Steinbrenner dies this morning…should have been you, Bois!!!
/AT&T better not fuck around with AMC and cost me this show
What drama (besides The Wire) isn’t basically a soap opera?
You know, the secret past is what defines Don Draper. Through that, we realize that the Don Draper he portrays to other people most of the time is just an act. Seeing the way he grew up, the way he was in the war, and then the way he reacted to the real Don Draper’s wife finding out his secret (“What are you going to do to me?”) showed us that Dick Whitman is just a scared little boy and that being Don Draper is an escape.
I also don’t think anyone feels sympathetic to the problems the characters encounter. We know they’re responsible for them, but it doesn’t make it any less interesting to see how they deal with the problems.
I also think your understanding of Betty Draper is poor. Who she is doesn’t matter when it comes to her. Who she is actually just a reflection on Don.
I think the politics (sexual, social and otherwise) are actually the main character aside from the actual living humans. Same goes for say, Rescue me, where the main character isn’t really Tommy Gavin – it’s New York City. The characters are forced to just bounce around within that other omniscient character.
As far as “soap opera” is concerned, I don’t think so. Andrew Weiner said during one of the recent marathons that the show is about minutia – and the characters interaction with what otherwise aren’t “end of the world” situations – a look, a pat on the shoulder, drinking with your employees – all pretty mundane. But for someone (and you can’t always tell who), that interaction had hidden meanings that are often only received, and not consciously given.
And I wouldn’t call Draper’s women “whores” per se. Hell, I’d do him. He’s like sex Pringles.
It took me a long time to finally listen to my friends and start watching Mad Men. I dislike watching shows that are set in the past for some reason, and after hearing how Don Draper was a bastard, I avoided it.
However, after all the praise for it, and a friend buying me the first season of the show, I sat down and started watching it. After a while the fact it’s set in the sixties didn’t affect me, and Draper is actually a very good guy but with a tortured history.
I now love the show, and hope it keeps on producing quality. I also hope Peggy gets run over by a combine harvester.
There’s a tight race for president of the Irritating Wives’ Club between Betty Draper and Skyler White.
Rita from Dexter has gotta be up there to
Congratulations on demonstrating to us through the last week that you know nothing about television. Bring Back Matt.
You prefer plot over story, that’s fine. Some shows do great story, some do great plot. Too few do both. But don’t demean a great show because planes aren’t crashing and terrorists aren’t getting head-stomped.
Not any more.
/always said in Inspector Clouseau’s accent.
Mad Men is a beautiful show but it’s a free country.
Christ. Where is Matt and who is this hack?
Where’s Matt? How the hell did you get control of this blog? “Oh, the fan base of the blog I’m guest writing has a rabid following for a show. Even though I myself point out that I appreciate it for a lot of the reasons they do, let me tear it down and use fucking *Jericho* as an example of a show I prefer.” Also: as was said before, most episodic tv shows can be considered soap operas. The Sopranos can be argued as such, ffs. Now try telling me *that* wasn’t amazing television.
I hope Matt never uses you as a guest again, you suck at it. Not only unfunny, but come on. Louie is primed to be the best show on television, but Mad Men is over-rated? A sweeping, amazingly acted period piece is inferior to a stand up comedian… how did you put it? “taking the worldview and observations that inform his comedy, and using them for a different purpose”? Like, what, A TV SHOW? No. Go away. You suck.
Ugh, I’m done reading this until Matt gets back.
@Upstate Underdog: Yeah, the first version of that comment mentioned SoA. I haven’t been able to catch any of Justified yet so I don’t know about that one firsthand.
But they definitely were included in the “count on one hand” number.
Damn, man. I was wondering why everyone wanted Matt back so bad.
We get it, you don’t like Mad Men. It doesn’t make you special.
Wow. You guys bitch more than children.
I want to believe Louis CK would mock someone who claimed his show is better than Mad Men.
Oh, and didn’t Shakespeare employ the “secret past” concept in a couple of his plays? Yeah, but his plays are just soap operas on stage….
Call the waa-mbulance. Someone on the internet told me what to think, and now someone replacing him thinks different things!
/cue pitchforks
The link about the lack of humor in Mad Men is pretty spot on. They do seem to go out of their way to exclude anything even remotely light. I can’t recall off the top of my head, but even that episode with the Italy trip probably had a dolphin murder or some shit.
Ocho, no humor? Since when was Freddie Rumsen pissing himself not considered hilarious???
BRING BACK MARK!
Or the lawnmower accident?
Freddie playing a symphony with his pants zipper?
Or any part with Roger?
Just remembered that after I hit submit. Funny how that works. Also, Roger Sterling’s good for some levity episode to episode.
Still, through a combination of tone and subject matter, AMC puts out arguably two of the darkest shows on television right now, aside from the occasional impromptu hospital bed handjob or lawnmower amputation.
^^
And how about when Freddie burst out of his office, only to play Mozart using his pants’ zippers when Cosgrove was introducing himself to Jane?
I have tried a few times to watch and get into Mad Men (lol) but that show blows even more than Louie.
Dexter will be back soon and Archer/Always Sunny/The League
Just remembered my personal favorite:
Peggy: “I am so high”
In other news, bloggers exist and sometimes they don’t like things.
Byrd – Matthew Weiner, not Andrew.
I wouldn’t say “Mad Men” is humorless. You have to enjoy subtlety to get its humor, and someone who’s seen every episode of “24″ isn’t going to get into a show for its subtlety. Ain’t nothing wrong with that, but it’s also no reason to try to tear it down.
“This, and the fact that the primary character has a Secret Past of this sort to begin with, are unadulterated The Young and the Restless material.”
Uh, so per this logic, The Great Gatsby is equivalent to a daytime soap?
When you boil down a story’s plot points to broad dramatic tropes, like Secret Past or Love Triangle, yes, you are bound to find commonalities with all sorts of storytelling, good and bad, soaps included. But that kind of reasoning oversimplifies things, and in doing so, misses the point. The mark of good storytelling isn’t avoiding using any sort of basic plot device that’s been used before–that’d be damn near impossible in this day and age; rather, good storytelling involves developing these tropes in ways that are unique and organic to the characters, and then using them to examine the human condition. And Mad Men excels at doing both those things.
That said, can we get back to making dick jokes and staring at Christina Hendricks’ jugs?
So he’s upset that Don isn’t cracking jokes left and right…while comparing Mad Men to Arrested Development and Curb, two of the best comedies ever. Mad Men is a DRAMA. A show like Dexter, bless its little heart, is far more ridiculous than Mad Men will ever be. You boil it down and the story of Don Draper is the story of the failed American dream; the commenter who mentioned Gatsby isn’t that far off. But now every TV show or film involving “secrets” and “emotion” is dumb? Not even 24 escaped that. Who wrote this critique, a frat boy?
Bravo. *cough* I want Matt back. He knows what I like. You’re not my real dad. *cough*
Nice piece Jon. While I’ve not watched every episode of 24, I do appreciate the sentiment. The show is well done, very artistic and I will watch season 4, but it’s not the be all end all of TV shows
and Draper is actually a very good guy but with a tortured history
Yeah, he had a poor childhood but in what way shape or form is he a “good guy.” It took Betty finding out that he was cheating on her and lying to her for him to actually show remorse. That’s not the sign of a good guy, but a guy who is upset he got caught.
Anybody who thinks Mad Men is humorless has never actually watched it. Some weeks, it’s the funniest show on TV.
Christ almighty, someone on the internet doesn’t think that Mad Men is the show to end all shows, quick, unfasten my corset and retrieve the smelling salts.
Is there really anything all that objectionable about someone giving their opinion that Mad Men, while being an excellent show frequently bordering on the great, is not necessarily worthy of the plaudits being tossed its way.
Frankly, I think that it’s not unfair to suggest that Mad Men is not quite on the level of The Wire (universally I think, and a small club of other shows, depending on personal preference), a comparison that is not unheard of. I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest that while Mad Men often highlights some of the larger social issues of 1960′s America; indisputably, the show’s primary emphasis is on the personal entanglements of its characters and a (sublimely crafted) aesthetic.
While terrifically crafted shows like Mad Men are certainly worthy of much of the high praise and analysis that gets thrown their way, I think it’s correct to reserve a place above them for shows that either exceed them in craft (Breaking Bad) or are able to contribute something to the larger dialogue in the way that The Wire (and Louis, promisingly) has.
I’m not trying to create a straw-man here either, the OP clearly was comparing Mad Men to “what television has shown us it’s capable of producing”, which I’ll infer to be referencing The Wire, Breaking Bad and The Sopranos at a minimum. The fact that Mad Men fails to reach the bar set by such shows speaks more to their success than to Mad Men’s failings. The fact that someone has the gall to suggest that Mad Men might not be the GREATEST SHOW EVAR is no reason to get your shit out of shape and steer what could have been a nuanced discussion on the relative merits of craft and aesthetic into adhominemland. That is all.
Alison Brie. That is all.
Don’t worry kids. Matt will be back soon and you can all get back to gulping down his kool-aid.