“Is [Mad Men] the artistic triumph that people claim it is? I’m still not convinced. Stripped of its iconic 60s couture and interiors, it seems like a fairly typical primetime drama.”

Perhaps branding is now understood by its practitioners as absolutely detachable from the thing branded; I’m happily not in a position to comment. But as a critique of television fiction, Parrette’s implication that there is an unremarkable ‘real’ Mad Men, lurking beneath clever branding, seems to me frankly wrong-headed. One might simply ignore this critique, were it not for the fact that it perpetuates a raft of ill-considered assumptions which are, alas, all too easy to run across in all kinds of television criticism, from the informal to the very formal.

There is something very slippery and dangerous about the idea that outward appearances are not intrinsic to a dramatic fiction. To say that Mad Men is remarkable because of its exquisite visual style should not actually be to demean it, as Parrette intends, for this visual style is NOT merely the window dressing, the ‘glamor’ (in the old sense of a deceiving spell). Style is intrinsic to what Mad Men is — as it ALWAYS is in television, however apparently unremarkable that styling might superficially seem. Perversely, given his supposed area of competence, Parrette devalues visual imagery by implying that there is an ‘interior,’ or something ‘beneath’ the surface which can be laid bare by someone cunning enough to bypass the glamor. This is a metaphor (and a prejudice) as old as European dramatic criticism: Aristotle in his Poetics favored the ‘inward’ over the ’spectacular,’ and his shadow apparently looms large over us. Parrette seems to want us to acknowledge that what we see is not really what we get with Mad Men, to jolt us out of the glamor’s enthrallment. But with screen media, what you see is in a very real sense not just what you get, but ALL you get.

I’m probably preaching to the converted in saying all this, but the point seemed worth making, because Mad Men raises interesting issues about how as a society we seem to view “authenticity” — and it’s always, apparently, something “stripped.”

That being said, MW has indicated that the show is as much about our contemporary era as it is about 1963. This has been a pretty surreal, extreme year for America in general. Can’t say it’s been a particularly good one, either. Maybe MW is merely reflecting the tumult and insanity that America has had to endure in 2009.

I suppose there’s also an argument that it was inevitable MM was going to go down this road, anyway. Dramas can’t survive on the same formulas (*cough* Lost, *cough*, Desperate Housewives, *cough*) for years on end without some creative or narrative evolution anymore.

C Carroll Adams, there’s really no need to be snotty.

http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/more_names/blog/2009/09/hamm_buys_mad_men.html

Is it Sen. McCain, or Grandpa Gene? Hope he didn’t feel her up by accident!
http://twitpic.com/jq8qw

On 25 Sept Francesk offered some hypotheticals based on current entertainment law. None of that was in effect in April 1963 when Bye Bye Birdie was released in road-show and the Mad Men episode took place.

Also on 25 September FreelanceWoman mentioned that ASCAP is a song writers union. ASCAP is a performance rights licensing organization, as is BMI. They license only music “mechanical rights” such as making records and performance of the music in restaurants. Use of music in scripted entertainment is covered by “synchronization” rights which are far more complicated to arrange, since they require approval of the authors, arrangers and publishers. If a particular performance is to be used as “source” music then the singers and musicians also must approve. All must be paid.

What is unknown are the terms of Ann-Margret’s contract for Bye Bye Birdie. At that time people working under my direction at another major movie studio prepared such contracts, all of which were boiler-plate in Hollywood. In those days ancillary uses were unknown, so were not covered. Only the top tier of stars would have approval of use of clips, but Ann-Margret would have the right to approve and be paid for her performance in a commercial. However, she would not have been asked to approve, nor would she have been compensated, if a look-alike made the commercial using the same music and custom lyrics. The concept of right of publicity as a tort was in the future.

To me the far more fascinating litigation issue is the use of the clip on Mad Men. Under current law and SAG contract Ann-Margret was entitled to approve and be compensated for use of that clip.

Days after the episode was shown Ann-Margret issued a statement to the entertainment press along the lines she received a phone call from an East Coast friend about the opening of Mad Men, so Ann-Margret had the chance to see it on the West Coast. That clip took her by surprise.

Okay, so who signed the waiver for Ann-Margret and who received the payment from LionsGate? Now these are questions that could very well form the basis of litigation.