tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post566224241219704900..comments2024-03-11T02:18:33.966-05:00Comments on Kritik: Mad World on Kritik: Mad Men Season 6.4 "Out in the Open" Guest Writer: Robert A. RushingAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200566567765991464noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-79376254840139836382014-05-04T19:18:12.717-05:002014-05-04T19:18:12.717-05:00I think Pollob Hasan's comment has really said...I think Pollob Hasan's comment has really said all that can be said about how the show moves sex out into the open. I am slightly confused about what exactly constitutes "erotic furniture,"but I'm sure Mel and Arlene will fill us in, in time.Rob Rushingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-82053236994398894152013-06-08T10:41:04.332-05:002013-06-08T10:41:04.332-05:00Sex toys can give us different types of enjoy. Whe...<br />Sex toys can give us different types of enjoy. 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So I can't say whether Garner is the sign either of stylistic/ cultural demotion or of some television sublime in the making. (Of course it makes sense as you're both suggesting for MM to be making some kind of statement about the old movie/TV hi/lo divide since, after the Sopranos it is probably the show most responsible for making nonsense of that hierarchy.)<br /><br />Rob, I think you are right that we are not being invited to fall in love with anything specifically countercultural as yet (with the possible exception of some great Megan accessories). We are either getting great culture from Don's resistant perspective (The Beatles) or we're getting snippets of what we can identify as counterculture in a form so refracted we can't really place it. <br /><br />Certainly at the end of last season in a way I felt really worked we got a strong alignment between Don and James Bond: perhaps the last iconic cinematic double for Don before the televisual revamp which Rob finds expressed in this episode at least.<br /><br />Does Abe look like Meathead (Rob Reiner) in All in the Family or is that an accident? Is Megan a Marlo Thomas type? Dawn a Julia type? If so does it mean anything that Stan seems to offer some weird cinematic cross between Joe Buck and Jeremiah Johnson? Or is that just the costume designer coming in with some "authentic" influences irrespective of these being cinematic contexts? <br /><br />For me anyway it's hard to know what counts this early in the arc of the season--I've never really predicted anything which is why I'm so amused by that weird character Bob who keeps turning up in certain scenes like some kind "pay attention to me" MacGuffin to be.<br /><br />But I guess that very uncertainty is so far working for me at level of holding my interest. That is, I'm as curious and in some ways more curious about what the show wants to say about the counterculture (aesthetically and otherwise) as I am about whether Don will get of out Hell, what will happen to Peggy, if Dawn's extra-SCDP story will develop, how Trudy will get Pete "under [her] thumb" etc. etc. I guess I feel as though whatever I may think about the show's original brilliance, its genre remains historical even if its leading man remains invested in Hollywood's (and America's) Golden Age. <br /><br />I think Matt W was on NPR offering his take on the connection quite recently and as is my habit I did not listen! They made a point of saying there would be no (plot) spoilers but for me his opinion on what I should be thinking about the relation between Don and the late 1960s is exactly what I don't want to spoil. :)MPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08984136164543370547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-53349896935587263242013-04-28T11:55:10.648-05:002013-04-28T11:55:10.648-05:00Thanks for the very interesting comments, everyone...Thanks for the very interesting comments, everyone. Lauren, I completely agree, and I have my own nostalgia for 1970s culture and aesthetics, which I do treat somewhat dismissively here (it's really just for rhetorical purposes). I think <i>Mad Men</i> is sort of inviting us to do so, no? With Stan's paunch, and Michael Ginsberg's really ridiculous hair, Paul Kinsey's absurd turn as a Hare Krishna, they're not really selling the counter culture as chic, and as we've already discussed, the show (or at least Don) positively avoids rock and roll. I expect this may change this season, but perhaps not—after all, Weiner is saying good bye to his fantasy decade and to the era that made his show (and him) famous.<br /><br />Sean, as far as James Garner, I have to confess to an intense attachment to <i>The Rockford Files</i> as a young boy. I really thought it was the best thing ever, and in particular thought that his gold Pontiac Firebird was the most awesome TV car ever. But I'm pretty sure that Jim Rockford's demigod status in my eyes still doesn't match the cultural prestige of Peck and others that Don gets compared to (not to mention the TV vs. film thing, which <i>Mad Men</i> has always so ably played around with). I guess that's part of my idea here—that the show is self-consciously turning from a "cinematic" "quality TV" experience in this episode into a television show, completely with cheesy music and cheap aesthetics—I doubt the experience will repeat, though!Rob Rushingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-14274937434010660692013-04-28T06:24:43.604-05:002013-04-28T06:24:43.604-05:00Finally saw the ep last night. There's a lot ...Finally saw the ep last night. There's a lot more there, and here, than I can process immediately. But Rob's consideration of style, both intratextual and extratextual, is wonderful, and full of enticing avenues. The stuff about sound, and crossing diegetic boundaries, is especially nice.<br /><br />I also appreciated Lauren's citation of one of the beloved sitcoms of my childhood (seen in reruns), <i>That Girl</i>. Its iterative/imaginative use of the cold open was one of the first televisual narrative devices to make me think about the medium's relationship to storytelling.<br /><br />One major objection to Rob's post. [Indignant, gesticulating:] In what universe does moving from Gregory Peck to James Garner constitute a fall? Not mine! <i>The Rockford Files</i>, like the aforementioned <i>That Girl</i>, exhibited the kind of playfulness of structure and persona that we all look for in TV today. Or that I look for in TV today, at any rate. Not to mention <i>Mad Men</i>'s genealogical tree. On what show did Weiner-mentor David Chase start to make his name? We hear its theme song when Livia visits Green Grove, in the pilot of that other show obsessed with the legacy of the 60s.Seannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-69430566772775808842013-04-24T13:29:48.560-05:002013-04-24T13:29:48.560-05:00Yes, I think that is right Helena. And as you dou...Yes, I think that is right Helena. And as you doubtless know Don has been directly compared to Dorian (at the beginning of S4). <br /><br />I have other thoughts on this episode but for the moment only time for a few remarks on style. Rob, you know I love this analysis and don't consider myself a visual aesthete; but one difference I have from you and Lilya is that I'm several years older. So for me Mad Men has moved into a period that I can actually remember (as opposed to one I can mostly remember from family photographs and reruns of shows like <i>The Avengers</i> and <i>The Man [and Girl] From UNCLE</i> (which I always loved).<br /><br />So as young girl in the late 60s and the double digits and teens by the mid-to-late 70s, there were indeed some stylistic things <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ocha_PlYSU0/T4ti77pF5HI/AAAAAAAAEBo/FcqNWuSMkXU/s1600/the-partridge-family-bus.jpg" rel="nofollow">I'd rather forget</a>. But it wasn't all that bad. For one thing there was my mom who always looked beautiful to me (and still does). When I was really young, there was Marlo Thomas in <i>That Girl</i> who (along with Laurie Partridge I must confess) was a total girl crush for me. IIRC <i>That Girl</i> grew like Mad Men from mid-60s understated through early 70s "kinda now" but without ever becoming vulgar or even excessive (in my memory). Another female TV character I remember thinking of as so beautiful when I was little was Julia--a character <a href="http://dvdclassicsparadise.com/images/T/Julia.jpg" rel="nofollow">who somewhat resembles Dawn in MM</a>.<br />Later on there were also the tastefully furnished early 70s interiors of all the rich people Columbo pursued. In 1970, though I was too young to see the actual movie just yet <a href="http://91.121.99.44/img/flm/pic/orig/102/Love-Story-5-10233.jpg" rel="nofollow">this fetching couple was all the rage</a>. By the time I was picking out my own clothes there was Mrs. Kotter whose clothes were kinda awesome, I thought, Rhoda, and later a thing for the 20s when The Great Gatsby became a movie (which was the first time I read it). I would be lying if I said I didn't like Farrah's hair on Charlie's Angels--though that was for sure excessive. Though in retrospect what I like least is how the female body type idealized in the mid-70s is stick thin without looking terribly fit (as opposed say to Grace Kelly's slimness from the early 60s or Joan's amplitude). On the male front there were of course rock stars aplenty--which as I've remarked before, MM has kept stylistically at bay for as long as it could. None of this is in the least to disagree with you about your two points: 1) that MM made us fall in love with the early 60s aesthetic and 2) that that aesthetic is now changing. But what I do suggest is that although clearly more excessive in comparison to mid-century modern restraint, the late 60s (seen also in period movies like Diary of a Mad Housewife) and the early/mid 70s (which I remember clearly not only from TV but from the fashion I was dying to wear as I became style conscious) have an aesthetic that MM may well incite some desire for (even though it's hard to imagine that Don will be the vehicle). What encapsulates this the most for me after a quick poke around the web is <a href="http://www.chezgrae.com/modsquad/images/introall4.jpg" rel="nofollow">this image from what I remember thinking of as a "cool" show</a> (which began in '68 and may turn out to be a Sally D. favorite for all I know). Of course to a young girl looking at this shot c. 1970, the least cool thing in the shot is the 40-something guy dressed like you know who (though without DD's je ne sais quoi to be sure). That--and doubtless the fact that punk came in the 80s and reset my aesthetic preferences for what I thought would be the rest of my life--may well be why the first time I looked twice at men's suits I was in my 40s and watching Mad Men! MPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08984136164543370547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-49978364964803956902013-04-24T09:42:30.363-05:002013-04-24T09:42:30.363-05:00As things change around Don while he remains, outw...As things change around Don while he remains, outwardly, unchanged he is more and more like Dorian Gray but with the corruption held tightly within him, in his head and in his heart. Something is going to give. Helenanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-50577416395110529322013-04-23T13:53:32.144-05:002013-04-23T13:53:32.144-05:00I would definitely not notice these things. I lik...I would definitely not notice these things. I liked this episode and this blog though. Thanks.Jez Bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-44264727195770788942013-04-22T16:05:41.003-05:002013-04-22T16:05:41.003-05:00A wonderful aesthetic analysis, Rob, and I'll ...A wonderful aesthetic analysis, Rob, and I'll have more to say later after others have weighed in; but wanted to share this image I found while looking for a suitable photo of Times Square in 1968. I knew that Stan's getup reminded me of Midnight Cowboy but did not realize how close it was until I<br />stumbled across this:<br />http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_n5KMEaGMNoA/TE8zekP-fDI/AAAAAAAAAVA/2wowBxXP7AM/s1600/1968+TIMES+SQUARE+NYC+vintage+photo+MIDNIGHT+COWBOY+1960s+film+still+C.JPGMPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08984136164543370547noreply@blogger.com