( this paragraph mentions a possible spoiler for Mad Men )Mad Men is an excellent show, deserving of being nominated of the awards, and makes me think of HBO programming. It's one of my favorites and it's a pleasure to watch when I want drama with thought. I like watching historical pieces that take off some of the veneer of the period, and this show really works on an ensemble level because it highlights pieces of different experiences. Don, Betty, Pete, Peggy, and Carla and Sal to different extents, showed various sections of the period and social realities.
Back to that 'consequences' line, maybe the new season will the new agency crashing and burning, leaving Don to actually lose something that
he values of consequence and not something Jon Hamm can look hot while emoting about for one episode. Because as of now, the punishments have not been distributed so evenly, yeah Don 'lost' his family but he's never been that invested in it. If he were, he most likely wouldn't have lost it. Don, and the show, thrives at the agency and every 'loss' for Don in the workplace has, so far, turned into a win. And I've enjoyed watching it: that scene where Duck thinks he has Don trapped and Don just continues doing his 'can't nobody hold me down' dance, was one of my favorites.
Don and Sal both cheat while on a business trip but Sal is gay so now Don has something over on him; and sure Don doesn't go and fire him right away but when Sal is sexually harassed by one of the biggest accounts (and the new agency's ONLY big account), then Don acts like having sex for a job is something that 'people like Sal' just automatically do and not something that Don, himself, does.
Joan, fulfilling a goal and thinkingly marrying up, ends up chained to a rapist who is now going to Vietnam. (I have never wished more fervently for a fictional death before, but please let that dose of reality happen from Weiner's pen). And Peggy, who is moving up in the ad business, of course had an unwanted pregnancy after having a relationship with Pete.
But the show is realistic and those kind of things happen all the time, right? Especially back then.
Mad Men is a show with the main objective, besides telling Weiner's vision, is also really big on entertaining and keeping it's supremely wealthy audience. Maybe more of a hyper stylized reality full of attractive people. The realism angle has legs, it's what I use to be okay with the little amount of screen time characters of color get and when they are shown, most often they have magic dust on their trail; in that time period, from those characters viewpoint, there wouldn't be much interaction with minorities. There goes realism.
Truth can be stranger in fiction. What often happens in 'real life' would be called implausible if put to screen or paper. Why is it so often the realism angle is only brought up to cushion the bad things?
What is reality is that a group of people, headed by Weiner put together stories and fashion events to create this show. There are a group of people, one person if my suspicions of Weiner are correct, who decide what consequences are doled out. Not the fickleness of fate churning out realism.
Now, I still hold out hope that this is misdirection because I remember Weiner playing a similar line about Joan's return. I still think highly of this show and I will definitely be tuning in when it returns.
I've had this post open up for hours, so the rambling is kind of apparent. A more pensive icon would probably be more appropriate but I love my tiny angry GINJA man ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
