Mad Men
| Mad Men | |
|---|---|
| File:Madmenlogo.jpg Mad Men logo | |
| Genre | Drama |
| Created by | Matthew Weiner |
| Starring | Jon Hamm Elisabeth Moss Vincent Kartheiser January Jones Christina Hendricks |
| Opening theme | "A Beautiful Mine" by RJD2 |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 13 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Matthew Weiner |
| Production location | Los Angeles |
| Running time | approx. 47 min. |
| Original release | |
| Network | AMC |
| Release | July 19, 2007 – present |
Mad Men is an American television drama series created by Matthew Weiner. The show is broadcast in the United States on the cable network AMC. It premiered on July 19 2007 and ended its first season on October 18 2007. AMC has renewed the show for a second season.[1]
Set in New York City, Mad Men takes place in 1960s at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on New York City's Madison Avenue and centers on Don Draper, a high-level advertising executive, and the people in his life in and out of the office. It also depicts the changing social mores of early 1960s America.
Mad Men has received considerable critical acclaim and has won two awards at the 2007 Golden Globes, for Best Television Series - Drama and Best Actor in a Television Series - Drama for Jon Hamm.
Origin
Creator Matthew Weiner wrote the pilot of Mad Men in 2000 as a spec script when he was working as a staff writer for Becker. Television producer David Chase recruited Weiner to work as a writer on his HBO series The Sopranos after reading the pilot script.[2]
Chase remarked about the script and its author:
"It was lively, and it had something new to say. Here was someone [Weiner] who had written a story about advertising in the 1960s, and was looking at recent American history through that prism."[2]
Weiner set the pilot script aside for the next seven years, until The Sopranos was completing its final season and cable network AMC happened to be in the market for a new original series.[2]
Characters
- Don Draper (Jon Hamm): creative director and eventually junior partner of Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency; Draper is the series' protagonist. By his own deliberate choice little of his past is generally known; he was born Richard "Dick" Whitman, the illegitimate child of a prostitute who died during childbirth. He lived with his father and his father's wife until he was 10, at which time his father, a drunk, was kicked in the face by a horse and died. His mother "took up" with a new man, referred to as "Uncle Mac", and had another son named Adam (supposedly fathered by Don/Dick's father, though Adam was born after the death of Mr. Whitman and the appearance of Uncle Mac). During the rare glimpses into Don's past provided in the show, we learn that his childhood was unhappy, and his stepmother never allowed him to forget that he was a "whore child". (see ep. "Long Weekend", and "Hobo's Code" season 1). During military service in the Korean War, an officer named Don Draper was killed while the two were posted alone at an isolated base. "Dick" then switched identification tags with Draper and assumed his name, cutting off contact with his family and creating a new life for himself. Don Draper is a brilliant ad man and the award-winning star of Sterling Cooper — attracting and retaining major clients, commanding respect from those above and below him, being courted by rival firms, and generally living the picture-perfect "good life" of a successful businessman in the early 1960s. However, Don rarely seems happy with his "perfect" life: he drinks and smokes, and is prone to spells of moodiness. While he appears to love his wife, he had a brief affair with Rachel Menken and was previously involved with beatnik Midge Daniels. He has two children with his wife and appears to be an adoring father. However, when Pete Campbell threatens to expose his past, Don at least momentarily considered fleeing to Los Angeles and abandoning his wife and children. Bertram Cooper makes him a partner after Roger Sterling's most recent heart attack.
- Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss): the naive "new girl" at Sterling Cooper; Draper's new secretary. Her retiring nature covers a talent for advertising and a quiet determination to succeed. Eventually, Peggy becomes "the first woman copywriter at this place since the War," much to Joan Holloway's bemusement and Pete Campbell's chagrin. In a gruff but ultimately caring fashion, Draper mentors and supports her as she transforms from wide-eyed secretary to being one of the companies few non-secretarial female employees. Pete Campbell and others, however subject her to some emotional abuse. Due to her success on two recent copywriting assignments, Draper gives her a raise, and subsequently promotes her to junior copy writer, with her first account bringing her into more day-to-day contact with Campbell as the client's account manager. She also has an unwanted pregnancy following a brief affair with Campbell, and gives birth to a child.
- Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser): young junior account manager who sexually pursues Peggy, despite his recent marriage. He is not well liked by his immediate superiors, but is retained anyway because he comes from a formerly wealthy but still socially influential long-established Manhattan family. While Pete has displayed talent at his work on several occasions, he is inordinately eager to advance and will utilize unethical tactics to do so. At one point, he attempts to blackmail Draper into promoting him, threatening to reveal his real identity to Bertram Cooper. However, the ploy fails when Cooper responds with the scornful words, "Mister Campbell, Who cares?". Pete treats most of the women he knows with veiled contempt and emotional abuse, particularly his wife and Peggy Olsen.
- Betty Draper (January Jones): Don Draper's wife, and mother of their two children, Sally and Bobby; classic '50s homemaker, with the added intrigue of a past as a professional model. Draper still cares deeply for her but has long since fallen out of love. Betty is obsessed with keeping up appearances and sees a psychiatrist. She recently lost her mother, who also valued looks and appearances highly and encouraged Betty to stay slim so that she could attract a husband. Just as Don is on the surface the picture-perfect model of a successful early 60s businessman, Betty appears to be the model wife, but like her husband she sometimes expresses feelings of unfulfillment and dissatisfaction with her "perfect life". She is often lonely as Don spends most of his days and nights in Manhattan working and seeing other women. Don sees her as an excellent, caring mother, something that he never had in his own life, but does not treat her like an equal adult companion, the way he treats his mistresses. She knows nothing of her husband's origins, but wishes he was less remote and more involved in life at home. At the end of the season she reveals to her psychotherapist that she has known for some time that her husband has affairs.
- Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks): office manager at Sterling Cooper, who acts as a professional and social mentor, as well as a rival, to Peggy. Joan relishes playing the role of a femme fatale and was engaged in an affair with Roger Sterling before his heart attack. An intelligent and capable woman, Joan loves the glamourous, sexy life she leads, saying of Manhattan "This city is everything." Unlike Peggy, she doesn't strive to join the all-male cadre of Sterling Cooper's non-secretarial workforce, preferring to use her sex appeal to exercise control over the men around her. Joan is looking for a "more permanent arrangement", (i.e. husband, marriage, life in the suburbs), but despite her good looks and charm has yet to settle down. She is sexually active, and helps Peggy get a prescription for birth control pills. She lives with a female roommate, a friend from college, who is secretly in love with Joan and made one failed attempt to initiate a romantic relationship.
- Roger Sterling (John Slattery): one of the partners of Sterling Cooper, and a good friend of Don Draper. He is a former Navy man, whose father was also a partner at Sterling Cooper. He is cynical about the world he has helped to shape, which leads him to extensive womanizing and a degree of alcohol use that is excessive even by the standards of his co-workers. In the episode Red in the Face he makes a sexual advance on Draper's wife (while intoxicated), to which Don never knows about, but did, for a short while, antagonize his wife for "giggling at his jokes" and seeming oddly interested in his war stories. As a result of his lifestyle, Sterling suffers a heart attack in the episode "Long Weekend." He suffers a subsequent heart attack in the following episode after coming into the office to assuage the concerns of the Lucky Strike executives. He has a wife named Mona, whom he cheats on regularly, and a teenage daughter named Margaret, whom he struggles to communicate with. For all his roguish qualities, he does command considerable affection from his co-workers and family. Following his heart attack, we learn that despite his philandering and outwardly callous attitude, he does love and appreciate his family, and wishes he was a better husband and father.
- Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt): a pot-smoking art illustrator engaged in an affair with Draper. She is involved with the Beats and several proto-hippies, as well as making several references to Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Draper evidently ends their affair after he deduces that she is in love with someone else.
- Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis), Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton), and Harry Crane (Rich Sommer): a copywriter, an account executive and a media buyer, respectively. They serve as Pete's entourage, seeming to spend more office time drinking, flirting and gossiping than working. Of the trio, Harry is the only one who is married. His wife, Jennifer, works at a phone company and they seem to have one of the few really happy marriages in the show. Harry flirts with women, but he's faithful to his wife until he has too much to drink at an office party, and suffers consequences. Ken has literary aspirations and has been published in The Atlantic Monthly, an accomplishment that elicits jealousy from Pete Campbell. Paul has been involved with Joan in the past.
- Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff): Jewish head of a department store who becomes romantically involved with Draper after she comes to Sterling Cooper in search of an advertising agency to revamp her business' image. She is one of the kinder and more thoughtful people in Draper's world; their relationship becomes physically and emotionally close for a time, as he is able to tell her things he could never share with Midge Daniels or with his wife. When Don is blackmailed by Pete Campbell, he comes to Rachel with the suggestion that they run away together to Los Angeles. She reminds him of his duty to his children, and questions whether he would want to abandon his children after having grown up without a father. When Don persists, Rachel comes to the realization that he didn't want to run away with her, he just wanted to run away. She calls him a coward. Their friendship seems to collapse from that point on.
- Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt): the Italian-American art director at Sterling Cooper. He is a closeted homosexual who turns down a proposition from a Belle Jolie lipstick male employee midway through the season, admitting that he has thought about having relationships with men, but never acted on his impulse out of fear of discovery. He joins the other men of Sterling Cooper in their flirtations with the women in the workplace, in order to keep up the appearance that he is as interested in the opposite sex as they are. He speaks to his mother in Italian.
- Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse): The Senior Partner[3] of Sterling Cooper, a crafty old gentleman who is treated with considerable deference by Sterling and Draper. It is suggested that he knew Roger Sterling as a child, and keeps a picture of young Roger and Roger's father in his office. Cooper lectures Sterling about being dependent on smoking, and criticizes Draper for his love life (though not for his stolen identity). He has the erotic illustration The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife hung in his office and is a devotee of Atlas Shrugged and friend of its author, Ayn Rand. His office is decorated in a Japanese motif, and he requires visitors to remove their shoes before they enter his office, and also walks around the rest of Sterling Cooper in his socks. He is a very influential member of the Republican Party, and gets Sterling Cooper involved with the Nixon campaign. Cooper is not present in the office's day-to-day wranglings, but he is devoted to the business and quietly manages various challenges from behind the scenes.
- Francine Hanson (Anne Dudek): One of Betty Draper’s closest friends and neighbors, spends most afternoons gossiping with Betty about the neighborhood's newest resident, a divorcee named Helen Bishop. Francine, married to a man named Carlton, has just had her baby. In the dead heat, she struggles to keep cool while her blouses constantly seep with breast milk. Soon, Francine confides to Betty that she thinks Carlton is having an affair. The clues -- secret phone calls to Manhattan and the fact that Carlton sleeps at the Waldorf two nights a week -- make her wish she could just poison him.
Episodes
Themes
Mad Men depicts the society and culture of the early 1960s, highlighting cigarette smoking, drinking (alcoholic beverages), sexism, and racial bias as examples of how that era, not so long ago, was so radically different from the present.[4][5] Smoking, more common in 1960 than it is now, is featured throughout the series; almost every character can be seen smoking multiple times in the course of one episode.[4] In the pilot, representatives of Lucky Strike cigarettes come to Sterling Cooper looking for a new advertising campaign in the wake of a Reader's Digest report that smoking will lead to various health issues including lung cancer.[6] The show presents a culture where men who are engaged or married freely partake of sexual relationships with other women. The series also observes advertising as a corporate outlet for creativity for mainstream, middle-class, young, white men. The main character, Don Draper, observes at one point about Sterling-Cooper, "This place has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich."[7] Along with each of these examples, however, there are hints of the future and the radical changes of the later 1960s; Betty's anxiety, the Beats Draper discovers through Midge, even talk about how smoking is bad for health (usually dismissed or ignored). Characters also see stirrings of change in the ad industry itself, with the Volkswagen Beetle's "Think Small" ad campaign mentioned and dismissed by many at Sterling Cooper.
Reception
Mad Men has received highly positive critical response since its premiere. Viewership for the premiere at 10 p.m. on July 19, 2007, was higher than any other AMC original series to date.[8] A New York Times reviewer called the series groundbreaking for "luxuriating in the not-so-distant past."[5] The San Francisco Chronicle called Mad Men "stylized, visually arresting […] an adult drama of introspection and the inconvenience of modernity in a man's world".[9] A Chicago Sun-Times reviewer described the series as an "unsentimental portrayal of complicated 'whole people' who act with the more decent 1960 manners America has lost, while also playing grab-ass and crassly defaming subordinates."[10] The reaction at Entertainment Weekly was similar, noting how in the period in which Mad Men takes place, "play is part of work, sexual banter isn't yet harassment, and America is free of self-doubt, guilt, and countercultural confusion."[11] The Los Angeles Times said that the show had found "a strange and lovely space between nostalgia and political correctness".[12] The show also received critical praise for its historical accuracy – mainly its depictions of gender and racial bias, sexual harassment in the workplace, and the high prevalence of smoking and drinking.[13][2][12][14] The Washington Post agreed with most other reviews in regards to Mad Men's visual style, but disliked what was referred to as "lethargic" pacing of the storylines.[15] Mad Men has received a score of 77 (generally favorable reviews) on the media review website Metacritic.[16]
On June 20 2007, a consumer activist group called Commercial Alert filed a complaint with the United States Distilled Spirits Council alleging that Mad Men sponsor Jack Daniel's whiskey was violating liquor advertising standards since the show features "depictions of overt sexual activity" as well as irresponsible intoxication.[17] Jack Daniel's was mentioned by name in the fifth episode.
Among people who worked in advertising during the 1960s, opinions differ as to the show's realism. Jerry Della Femina, who worked as a copywriter in that era and later founded his own agency, said, "Picture a bunch of drunks talking to each other through a cloud of smoke — that's really what the '60s was." But Allen Rosenshine, another copywriter who went on to lead BBDO, called the show "a total fabrication."[18]
Mad Men has been picked up by AMC for a second season. In Canada, CTV has picked up the conventional and specialty television, broadband and video on demand rights.[19]
Time magazine's James Poniewozik named it the top new TV series of 2007.[20]
Awards and nominations
The series won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series - Drama and Jon Hamm won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Drama for his performance as Don Draper.
Additionally, the series won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best New Series. American Film Institute picked it as one of the ten best TV series of 2007.
The cast of Mad Men were nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, and Jon Hamm was nominated for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series.
The episode "Shoot" won the Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design for a Single Camera Television Series.
The Series was winner of a 2007 Peabody Award.
Production
Mad Men is shot on film and is broadcast in standard definition. It has been converted to high definition for video-on-demand availability from various cable affiliates.[21] Though Weiner's script for the pilot of Mad Men pre-dates The Sopranos, HBO, according to Weiner, was not interested in producing his script.[10] Alan Taylor, a director of multiple episodes of The Sopranos, directed the pilot of Mad Men and some subsequent episodes.[4] The writers, including Weiner, amassed volumes of research on the period in which Mad Men takes place so as to make all aspects of the series – including detailed set designs, costume design, and props – historically accurate,[2][4] producing an authentic visual style that garnered critical praise.[9][14][22] On the copious scenes featuring smoking, Weiner stated that "Doing this show without smoking would've been a joke. It would've been sanitary and it would've been phony."[4] Since the actors cannot, by law, smoke tobacco cigarettes in their workplace, they instead smoke herbal cigarettes.[4]
The opening title sequence features credits superimposed over a graphic animation of a business man in freefall, surrounded by skyscrapers with reflections of period advertising posters and billboards. The title sequence features the song "A Beautiful Mine" by RJD2. The titles pay homage to celebrated designer and adman Saul Bass's skyscraper filled opening titles for Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) and falling man movie poster for Vertigo (1958). Weiner has listed Hitchcock as a major influence on the visual style of the series.[4] Other cinematic and New York references include the casting of Robert Morse in the role of senior partner. Morse starred in the original cast production of How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying on Broadway (1961) for which he won a Tony Award and again on film (1967).
In promotion for the show, AMC aired multiple commercials and a behind the scenes documentary on the making of Mad Men. The commercials, as well as the documentary, featured the song "You Know I'm No Good" by Amy Winehouse.[4] The documentary, in addition to trailers and sneak peeks of upcoming episodes, were released on the official AMC website. Mad Men was also made available at the iTunes Store on July 20 2007, along with the "making of" documentary.[23] The Mad Men DVD will be available in stores on July 1st. For more infomation visit AMC
International Broadcasters
| Country | Network | Weekly Schedule |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | Fox 8 | |
| Brazil | HBO | Saturdays 8:00pm |
| Bulgaria | Fox Life | |
| Canada | CTV | t.b.c. |
| Italy | Cult | Tuesdays |
| Thailand | True Series | Thursdays 9:00pm |
| Peru | HBO | Saturdays 10:00pm |
| Philippines | 2nd Avenue | |
| Portugal | Fox Next | |
| Norway | Viasat 4 | Sundays 8:00pm. Premiered on Sunday 20th April. |
| Sweden | Kanal 9 | |
| Turkey | e2 | |
| United Kingdom | BBC | BBC Four & BBC HD, Sundays 10:00pm; BBC Two, Tuesdays 11:20pm; BBC iPlayer |
| Spain | Canal+ | Thursdays 21:30pm. |
References
- ^ Levine, Stuart (2007-09-19). "AMC set to renew 'Mad Men'". Variety. Retrieved 2007-09-20.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b c d e Steinberg, Jacques (2007-07-18). "In Act 2, the TV Hit Man Becomes a Pitch Man". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-08-15.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ AMC Cast and Crew
- ^ a b c d e f g h Matthew Weiner et al. (2007). The Making of Mad Men (Documentary). AMC.
{{cite AV media}}: Explicit use of et al. in:|authors=(help) - ^ a b Stanley, Alessandra (2007-07-19). "Smoking, Drinking, Cheating and Selling". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". Mad Men. Season 1. Episode 1. 2007-07-19. AMC.
- ^ "New Amsterdam". Mad Men. Season 1. Episode 4. 2007-08-09. AMC.
- ^ Nordyke, Kimberly (2007-07-20). "AMC "Mad" about ratings for series bow". Reuters/Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b Goodman, Tim (2007-07-18). "New York in 1960, when the 'Mad Men' were in charge -- and everything was about to change". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b Elfman, Doug (2007-07-19). "'Men' behaving badly -- and honestly". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Tucker, Ken (2007-07-13). "Mad Men". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b McNamara, Mary (2007-07-19). "Back when men were 'Mad Men'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Lowry, Brian (2007-07-11). "Mad Men". Variety.com. Retrieved 2007-07-20.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b Salem, Rob (2007-07-19). "Lost in the '60s with Mad Men". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Shales, Tom (2007-07-19). "AMC's 'Mad Men': A Bunch of Cutthroats Without an Edge". Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Mad Men (AMC) - Reviews from Metacritic". Retrieved 2007-08-09.
- ^ Smith, Lynn (2007-06-21). "'Mad Men' and Jack Daniel's: Bad mix?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Erikson, Chris (2007-08-27). "Remembering the days when a business lunch came in a highball glass". New York Post. Retrieved 2007-08-31.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "CTV picks up critical favourite 'Mad Men'".
- ^ Poniewozik, James; Top 10 New TV Series; time.com
- ^ Haugsted, Linda (2007-06-25). "AMC Mad About VOD, HD Push for Mad Men". Multichannel News. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Poniewozik, James (2007-07-20). "Mad Men Watch: Lucky Strike". TIME. Retrieved 2007-07-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "AMC Announces Original Drama Series Mad Men To Launch on iTunes". PR Newswire. 2007-07-19. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)