Ad Men don’t like Mad Men
Variety tells us that real-life advertising execs are complaining about Mad Men.
George Packer, who started in advertising in New York as a 20-something in the ’60s, laments, “Yeah, we all drank like fish and smoked like chimneys and screwed our brains out, but it wasn’t like that!”
Packer, who works as a blurb consultant and runs the popular Ad Rants blog, says he hates the show mostly because it gets period details wrong. The IBM Selectric came on the market in 1961, not 1960, for example.
Ummm…wrong? Or just nitpicky?
“I think it’s because a lot of people in advertising on the creative side are frustrated screenwriters,” says Packer. “There’s a certain snideness, ‘If I really had the time I could write rings around those guys.’ But then a lot of people in advertising are basically lazy.”
This reminds me of what was said about a show I loved, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. If it’s a hospital show, doctors and nurses will slam it. If it’s a cop show, cops hate it. If it’s based in New York, residents will bitch every time characters take the wrong subway to get to a particular part of town. But if you write a show about comedy television writers, then comedy television writers will bitch about it, and generally, these are people who also write reviews of television shows…which is a lot of what killed Studio 60.
Mad Men doesn’t have a huge audience, but it hasn’t alienated advertisers. It seems, however, to have alienated, well, Mad men.
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:38 pm
OT: Rich Sommer, who plays Harry, has a blog.
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:41 pm
More OT: but what does konagod think?
Also: this Packer dude sounds like he’s eating some sour grapes.
And all reviews aside, I thought Studio 60 was terrible. I tried to like it, but between the stalkerish behavior of Danny, the lack of chemistry between Matt and Harriet, the lecturing, and the fact that most of the skits they showed were not funny….I couldn’t watch it anymore
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Yeah, I’m not talking about Studio 60.
BUT
I work in advertising. You know, now, not then. And it was a bit of a Larry Tate moment (‘It’s toasted’). But I’m also a songwriter, and although no song gets constructed they way On the Dark Side did in Eddie and the Cruisers, it is still a great onscreen musical moment.
My point, fellas, as that this is great storytelling, not a history lesson.
Thanks, Maur; I’ve added it to our blogroll. Why not? I’m just wild about Harry…
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:11 am
A few months ago on Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed Matthew Weiner. As I recall, he said that most of the ad men from that time that he spoke to while doing the first research (he wrote the pilot script in the 1990’s) told him that it was accurate. In fact, Jerry Della Femina, the advertising legend of the day, told him that his characters didn’t smoke and drink enough to be accurate.
To make the case more compelling, Weiner noted that a lot of the people from that time that he wanted to interview were long dead by the 90’s. The lifestyle killed a lot of them before they could reach old age.
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:42 am
I don’t think I can justify my love of Studio 60, a lot of people didn’t like it, although Arthur and I adored it. But the bad word of mouth at the outset could certainly have been influenced by the population in the way I described.
October 23rd, 2007 at 6:18 am
But Deborah – all the press I read before Studio 60 aired was positive. And I thought the pilot was very good. I won’t ask you to justify anything because taste is always highly subjective, but I don’t think I was influenced to dislike the show based on negative reviews.
October 23rd, 2007 at 6:31 am
Oh, I wasn’t talking about you personally, I mean the overall inability of the show to gain buzz, despite the fact that it improved with time (after the pilot it definitely slagged off, then picked up).
October 23rd, 2007 at 7:49 am
I would complain about how my profession is portrayed on TV, but rarely do I see a mid-level wage slave/secretary/purchasing agent.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:48 pm
It just didn’t hold my interest (Studio) and I was all excited about it. The funny moments in West Wing were stunning. This had a similar rhythm (or it did for me) which felt all wrong for a show about a comedy. I wanted to laugh more. I couldn’t get close enough to find out more.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:05 pm
maurinsky, I never see me on TV. No tech writers. No non-fiction authors. No witches. They should totally make a show about me, I’m interesting.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Deborah, you should consider writing a show about yourself, then! A show about a Bond obsessed, non-fiction and tech writing witch would be something I would want to watch.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:29 am
I could have costumes. I could change from Bond girl to witch to corporate personage. And I have a whacky kid and whacky coworkers and a whacky coven.
October 24th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
I don’t think wacky has an h. Even wen it’s a whacky coven.
October 25th, 2007 at 4:42 am
Actually, it’s an acceptable variant. I looked it up when I created a “Wacky Media” category on the Bond Blog. I started as “Whacky Media” then I switched and I’m not sure if I switched back. I know “wacky” is more correct but it looks funny to me.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:07 am
I worked in magazines and went to see The Devil Wears Prada with a friend who used to work for Self — we both hated it! For the cognescenti you only need to get certain details wrong for it to grate like fingernails on a blackboard.
Especially odd, since we both worked for the mag conglomerate the book is based on, if not at Vogue itself.
(I actually turned down a move to Vogue, when I worked at Mademoiselle — the fashion editors at Mlle scared me enuf catelogueing every piece of fabric on my body, I never would have been able to walk past those at Vogue.)