Mad Men

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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Mad Men

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I'd read the AVC review and, while well written and with a keen eye for detail, not all that persuasive, but the others you mention demonstrate the darker interpretations. So I am gladdened by that and thanks for pointing those out.
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Flex
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Re: Mad Men

Post by Flex »

No problem, man. Of course, none of then point out that Don is still obviously DB Cooper, which goes to show you how bullshit the recap industry really is.

Addendum: and, as far as I know, no Mad Men discussion outside of this board includes the term "Mike Love Rape Van".
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Mad Men

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It should be pointed out one of the sly jokes against conventionality is that in the first season, Pete gets a rifle, which he brings to the office. The rifle shows up every now and then thereafter, seeming to foreshadow as a reminder of Chekov's claim that if a gun is introduced in the first act, it better be fired by the end of the play. Nothing ever comes of Pete's rifle, tho. It was little touches like that against conventional narrative that made the show so special.

Also, something someone else found, from the first scene of the first episode of the final season. Note the sound Freddie makes at around 59 seconds.
[v][/v]

The fucking callbacks and circular nature of things on the show are either supremely clever or just masturbatorially clever.

Also, to add, Freddie is another character that I couldn't help but like. A guy with no illusions about how things work, especially after the AA experience, and seeks to avoid the drama and gamesmanship of office life, caring more about getting the job done than the ego of it all.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Mad Men

Post by Wolter »

I was underwhelmed, even though my first interpretation was the more cynical "Don has the opportunity to really grow and change and reconcile with his past, but only ends up being inspired to create more ads."

I thought the penultimate episode was a far better ending point.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Mad Men

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Wolter wrote:I was underwhelmed, even though my first interpretation was the more cynical "Don has the opportunity to really grow and change and reconcile with his past, but only ends up being inspired to create more ads."
Meaning your interpretation changed?
I thought the penultimate episode was a far better ending point.
Very much agreed. As well, if it all ended there, our last look at Peggy would have been her hangover strut with the tentacle porn print rather than the conventional happy ending shot with Stan. Funny that a show I hated to see end turned out to stay one episode too much. (That's actually too harsh but the finale was much less compelling than the penultimate episode.)
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Mad Men

Post by Wolter »

Oops. No. My interpretation stayed the same. But it was underwhelming.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Mad Men

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Jon Hamm talks about the ending: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/ ... view/?_r=0
Q. Do you have an interpretation of it?

A. I do. When we find Don in that place, and this stranger relates this story of not being heard or seen or understood or appreciated, the resonance for Don was total in that moment. There was a void staring at him. We see him in an incredibly vulnerable place, surrounded by strangers, and he reaches out to the only person he can at that moment, and it’s this stranger.

My take is that, the next day, he wakes up in this beautiful place, and has this serene moment of understanding, and realizes who he is. And who he is, is an advertising man. And so, this thing comes to him. There’s a way to see it in a completely cynical way, and say, “Wow, that’s awful.” But I think that for Don, it represents some kind of understanding and comfort in this incredibly unquiet, uncomfortable life that he has led.
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Re: Mad Men

Post by daredevil »

Just re-watched the finale. I mentioned In a previous post about the phone calls Don made. The call to Betty is so well done. When Don calls her Birdy...and then you don't know what else he says
as it cuts to Betty who just says "I know" pretty emotional.

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Re: Mad Men

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An alternative, meta theory about the finale to support the iconoclastic position (or cynical position, if you prefer) that I came up with on my bike ride, while pondering the bizarre conventional treatment of Peggy and Stan …

The finale, taken at face value and seeking to appreciate the creator's intent, is that of a happy ending for most of the principal characters. Peggy and Stan find love. Roger and Marie find love. Pete's reunited with his family and off to become a high-powered corporate exec. Joan is an independent business person, very much the model of 1970s feminism. Betty achieves a measure of autonomy, if only in taking charge of her death. Sally suggests a path of a maturity and responsibility greater than either of her parents. And Don finds he can mesh inner peace and his genius at creating persuasive ads. The characters are happy and the audience is happy because we all love happy endings, right?

Okay, what if that is actually all a commentary about the false promise of advertising? Don says in the pilot episode, "Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is OK. You are OK." And that's what we got with the finale, isn't it? Conveniently and conventionally so in most cases, which seems really odd for a show that so knowingly avoided or mocked convention. We have no way of knowing whether any of that happiness will last. Indeed, the series argued that happiness is always short-lived because the characters keep making the same mistakes, so we should assume that going forward relationships will end, egos will self-sabotage, business interests will reign supreme, because what has actually changed? The carousel always comes back around again. Commercials are the promise of happiness that the product does not deliver, yet we want to believe enough that we give in over and over. We want that happy ending. So, perhaps this finale is Weiner-as-Draper, selling us the happy ending that we know should be completely ridiculous if we've been paying attention for the past eight years. If we accept that everything works out, happiness and material success in an environment predicated on manipulation can co-exist, we demonstrate how the false promise of advertising works. The show has been, in part, about puncturing the myths of postwar America—about the nuclear family, about capitalism, about American progress, about sexism and racism, about power—yet if we accept that after everything the characters have been through, the happy ending is their reward, we're buying into the one myth that undergirds it all. And so the joke is on us if we accept that.

In this reading, then, Weiner is making the point about how advertising short-circuits our sense of history. Everything can be new again as long as we forget the past. Happiness is just a matter of accepting what the pitchman tells us it is, even as the show reveals that beneath the glamour is ugliness.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Flex
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Re: Mad Men

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I think that's a sound theory, imho
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Re: Mad Men

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Got a Rake? Sure!

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Re: Mad Men

Post by Kory »

Dr. Medulla wrote:An alternative, meta theory about the finale to support the iconoclastic position (or cynical position, if you prefer) that I came up with on my bike ride, while pondering the bizarre conventional treatment of Peggy and Stan …

The finale, taken at face value and seeking to appreciate the creator's intent, is that of a happy ending for most of the principal characters. Peggy and Stan find love. Roger and Marie find love. Pete's reunited with his family and off to become a high-powered corporate exec. Joan is an independent business person, very much the model of 1970s feminism. Betty achieves a measure of autonomy, if only in taking charge of her death. Sally suggests a path of a maturity and responsibility greater than either of her parents. And Don finds he can mesh inner peace and his genius at creating persuasive ads. The characters are happy and the audience is happy because we all love happy endings, right?

Okay, what if that is actually all a commentary about the false promise of advertising? Don says in the pilot episode, "Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is OK. You are OK." And that's what we got with the finale, isn't it? Conveniently and conventionally so in most cases, which seems really odd for a show that so knowingly avoided or mocked convention. We have no way of knowing whether any of that happiness will last. Indeed, the series argued that happiness is always short-lived because the characters keep making the same mistakes, so we should assume that going forward relationships will end, egos will self-sabotage, business interests will reign supreme, because what has actually changed? The carousel always comes back around again. Commercials are the promise of happiness that the product does not deliver, yet we want to believe enough that we give in over and over. We want that happy ending. So, perhaps this finale is Weiner-as-Draper, selling us the happy ending that we know should be completely ridiculous if we've been paying attention for the past eight years. If we accept that everything works out, happiness and material success in an environment predicated on manipulation can co-exist, we demonstrate how the false promise of advertising works. The show has been, in part, about puncturing the myths of postwar America—about the nuclear family, about capitalism, about American progress, about sexism and racism, about power—yet if we accept that after everything the characters have been through, the happy ending is their reward, we're buying into the one myth that undergirds it all. And so the joke is on us if we accept that.

In this reading, then, Weiner is making the point about how advertising short-circuits our sense of history. Everything can be new again as long as we forget the past. Happiness is just a matter of accepting what the pitchman tells us it is, even as the show reveals that beneath the glamour is ugliness.
I think this also makes a lot of sense if, as you mentioned earlier, Weiner knew how the show was going to end from the beginning. I did read an interview with him about a year ago, however, in which he notes that he'd like the ending to center around Don in the '80s looking back at his life. So how much he had planned out is up for debate, though that image doesn't preclude anything that happened in the episode.

Upon initial viewing, I had read the ending as Flex's #2 above — that the advertising world went on without Don and the Coke ad was made by somebody else. I'm not sure what it means anymore, but I sure like your newest theory.

I hated Peggy's wrap up. I'm totally fine with her being with Stan, but that shit seemed so shoehorned in, it's almost like it didn't dawn on Weiner to write that until they were filming that episode. Very unsatisfying, but also lends credibility to the above.
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Re: Mad Men

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I read that Max Weiner confirmed that Don thought of the idea for the Coca Cola ad. I got that feeling when some of the girls at the retreat looked
like some of the girls in the commercial.
Image

Also, the lady that took Don to the therapy session at the end, was Helen Slater. i thought she looked familiar.

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Mad Men

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Tangentially Mad Men or Mad Men-esque, but a real life 70s luxury apartment preserved: http://pictorial.jezebel.com/this-very- ... 1755563738
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Re: Mad Men

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Dr. Medulla wrote:Tangentially Mad Men or Mad Men-esque, but a real life 70s luxury apartment preserved: http://pictorial.jezebel.com/this-very- ... 1755563738
I saw that yesterday. Remarkably cheap price. Unfortunately, it's now off the market,

I hope that this doesn't mean in ten or so years, we are going to be praising the mauve and forest green decor of the 80s.
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