Has Everyone Gone Mad?: Mad Men
Posted by Maggie
July 24th, 2007 at 10:21am
In Has Everyone Gone Mad?
It is purely a coincidence that the first entry into this new segment, Has Everyone Gone Mad?, also has the word “mad” in the title. This segment is dedicated to bucking conventional wisdom and delivering the hard truth about television trends. Or at least questioning some widely-held critical judgment and offering a small, shaded distinction of opinion. (I’m trying to make that not sound like “complaining.”)
Drinking at the office: Yet another way that Times Have Changed.
Mad Men is a show that thinks it’s bucking conventional wisdom and delivering truly edgy period drama (ad execs in the 50s! cigarettes! busty dames!), and many critics seem to be under this delusion, as well. But for some reason, everyone is blinded to an obvious truth: Mad Men is terrible. It’s full of “oh ho ho, look how backwards people were in the past!” moments, obvious sexual dalliances, and very little actual drama to speak of. And yet, Heather Havrilesky and Scott Tobias, normally paragons of taste and judgment, both recently praised it. Lavishly.
What the hell? Has everyone gone mad?
This is show where a character tells his rival he knows the rival stole something from his wastebasket, because “there’s no magical device that can make instantaneous copies” (paraphrase). Hardeehar. They don’t have Xerox. Those ignorant fools!
The thing is, as M.T. Anderson said far more eloquently in a speech I was lucky to hear recently, period drama often falls into this trap. It’s the trap of thinking we’re smarter than people from long ago, just because they smoked while pregnant or were sexist jerks. Isn’t it fun, to look back at those poor saps and laugh at all their mistakes? Aren’t we clever, knowing so much more than them?
I don’t know about you, but taking down easy targets like misguided historical people makes me feel icky. Everything that happened on Mad Men was so obviously Informed By the Characters’ Ignorance, it was impossible to feel for the characters as human beings. Compare this to an awesome show like Deadwood, that treats its uneducated, rough-and-tumble, fairly provincial group of whores, profiteers, and honest folks as multi-dimensional people capable of true insight. Just because they know nothing about Xerox machines and the internet doesn’t mean they don’t have compelling problems of their own.
It felt like every problem on Mad Men was only there because they didn’t have Xerox machines and the internet (and a little bit of gender equality and accurate health stats on cigarettes). That’s not drama. How are they supposed to know that they’re lacking those things? They know nothing about them! It’s just pointing out how things have changed; it’s not actually getting into the nitty-gritty of a time and place to see how things are actually the same. People are people. There should be something we can relate to, and not just sneer at.
I suspect that these critics are giving Mad Men a pass because the writer had something to do with the Sopranos at one point. I can’t understand why else they’re praising it, unless the whole world really has gone mad.
9 Comments Add your own
1. maggie's dad | July 24th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Figures. I started to get excited about this show until I realized that it was on AMC. Periodically this misnamed network (How about “American Movie Duds” or “Forgettable Films Channel” or “All Godfather – All the Time” or “The 20 old films Ted Turner didn’t buy repeated ad nauseum”) has tried to do dramatic series. They have all been dreadful.
2. katie | July 24th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
you forgot my favorite part! the new girl (and because she’s a secretary, she’s of course referred to as such) goes to the gyno to get on the pill. on her first day. on her lunch hour. and then sleeps with someone she knows is getting married that night. when he shows up drunk. at her house. because he knows where she lives? that she just got on the pill? who knows!
and we’re supposed to think that she started the day all naive and sweet. wow, the things girls did to marry their bosses in the 50s. they had no other goals at all. none.
3.
sara | July 24th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Well, it’s pretty naive to think that the pill will prevent pregnancy if you start it that day…silly ’50s people!
I couldn’t force myself to watch this because Elisabeth Moss is so irritating to me. Not sure why, it’s just her face. It annoys me.
4. Red Medicine | January 12th, 2010 at 4:09 am
You’re a fucking moron. Go watch Dexter or True Blood, little boy. Those shows have the blood and “cool action scenes” you obviously think makes for a stimulation drama.
Mad Men belongs in the same sentence as Kieslowski’s Dekalog and Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz.
5. J L | July 30th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
AMC is a good network and anybody who thinks it shows Godfather constantly is mistaken. The “Mad Men” show is still terrible. Latin cliches don’t make you look anymore correct either. You should try watching the network for more than a week. They have themed months, weeks and days. It makes sense if you spend a very small amount of time watching it you think they show the same movies. Because they do… for a small period of time. Then it changes to another actor or genre. They even have themed days so not everyday of the month is the same actor/genre special. Oh… well I guess you wouldn’t know that listening to everybody else “Maggie’s Dad.” Nice try Dad… you aren’t as wise as you project.
Nice judgment “Red Medicine” I wish you were my dad when I was younger. “You aren’t tough enough… go watch some horrible stuff to desensitize yourself! My logic wins I am all that is man!” Kudos to you Red Medicine. You are definitely a wise role model.
6. RB Rex | October 18th, 2010 at 7:51 am
Fully agree 100% I thought I was the only “mad” person who failed to find anything remotely redemptive about this series. it degrades people, and although women suffered injustices in those days, the producers/writers/directors of this drivel seem to think that all men spoke to women with utter profanity. Artistically, it is abysmal.
7. Dennis Moore | October 29th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
I completely agree with your critic, Mad Men is horrible. It is a wanna-be-clever series, but it ends up as Dallas or Dinasty. The guy that compares it to Dekalog, what a laugh!
8. Joey | March 19th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Yes! Glad to see somebody who said it was bad from the beginning. I might’ve said that had I known that the show existed. This show is terrible. You want to actually see an amazing show watch Breaking Bad, or The Wire, or Boomtown (2002-03 series). Mad Men is laughable. I can’t believe it took until 2010 for everybody to see how amazing Breaking Bad was and how much better it was. I will give Mad Men this, however. It is nowhere near as bad as Boardwalk empire.
9. Uto | June 1st, 2011 at 6:53 pm
I don’t thoroughly dislike the series, but Don’s wife keep irritating me. The way she constantly lights up a cigarette isn’t sexy at all, and I’m sorry for her, but she’s just terrible at horseback riding!
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