Nov 042009
Pete curled up in his office while his secretary went out to get him something to warm him up. Then he complained about it.
Ken got down on his hands and knees to warm the secretaries up.
Which one of these people understands how to take care of accounts?
140 Responses to “Why Ken got the job”
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“Just because Weiner likes to challenge our expectations doesn’t change the fact that Mad Men shares a whole bunch of conventions with “lesser†shows.â€
The show does share the conventions of other television shows; it has to, because it is a television show. The medium is the medium. But the content is layered with references to “bunches†of cultural expression and media other than TV. I don’t watch a lot of network product; maybe there’ve been pertinent and expansive hints at the ideas expressed in La Notte, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, or Frank O’Hara’s poetry in last season’s CSI: Topeka, I’ve just missed them; that would be my loss.
The possible fact that not all the actors or grips may have ever read A Midsummer’s Night Dream or Turgenev is irrelevant. I haven’t read them either. But some of the writers obviously have. And by including those references we, the audience, have starting points that we can use if we choose to enhance and expand our understanding of many other interesting things. This isn’t a bug, it’s a feature to be enjoyed.
I share your disdain for the “Elitesâ€. Let’s round them up and burn them and all their books and magazines and DVDs and such. If I run into one around here, I’ll send him or her to the flogging pit immediately.
And I’ll counter your “It’s a despicable act of pure elitism.†with “ It’s hyperbolic act of overheated rhetoric.â€
Otherwise, have a nice day!
execution is everything.
King Lear is a version of the Cinderella folktale (which shares features of Chinese tales about foot bound beauties. the story existed long before Perrault wrote it down for the aristrocrats. In older versions, Cinderella has her stepsisters dance until they drop dead.
Shakespeare and Disney draw from the same sources. But the stories they tell are very different. While it's possible to look at Disney's Cinderella as a type of "Lear story," they really don't bear comparison because one has characters that have been stripped of complexity while the other deals with the raving of a lost soul.
#87 DRush76 – in case no one answered your question, Henry is the worthless governor's aide.
On Pete and Ken – Because Pete's gun was so prominently shown in the last episode, then he lost the promotion, then Kennedy was killed, etc., etc., does anyone think the finale might be the episode when Pete finally snaps and repeats that eerie performance when he waved the gun around the office? Pure speculation, but maybe Ken gets written out trying to be a hero, if he's not, in fact, Pete's target. Don't need a back story for a character who's not going to be around long.
Many here seem to be betting on suicide, accidental or otherwise, as the season ending cliffhanger. I'm not in that camp and don't think it's going to be Betty, despite the "Bye, Bye Birdie" thing. I think that's more of a marital reference.
such elitism. Personally, I found the king to be quite a complex character and I don't remember Cinderella going all psycho or nothing.
And you have a typo, I think you meant "sole."
She gets the shoe back in the end you know.
lom – please, have the prime rib AND the filet of sole.
esme – how are the sweetbreads?
Pete seems pretty visionary about where other industries need to go & how they need to be perceived, but not so much his own industry (marketing FAIL). He's also incredibly high maintenance & needy (which only seems permissible in established management — in my experience — where few folks are valued for their, um, common touch & don't usually have seamless people skills). Ken's a work horse. A non-threatening work horse. He's gonna do what you tell him to do, competently and cheerfully, without asking any annoying questions; he's going to keep his customers happy; and he's going to let upper management run the company & be in charge of the future (again, in my experience, this is an equation for success). But Pete's sort of ambition, acumen, sense of entitlement, and authority-worship (pre-Kennedy assassination) is ALSO a recipe for success, just not at Sterling Cooper today.
# 106. No. I think it would be the worst writing imaginable if Pete who has just spent several days angry and upset over Kennedy's public murder and even Oswalds public murder, then went out and commited public murder himself. It's illogical.
esme and less of me,
I think I finally know who you are. And I believe that I gave explicit instructions to have you both killed. Must I do everything myself around here?!?
(sigh) … enjoy the remainder of the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. If you hear anything in the fifth act, please don't turn around. It's nothing.
Trust me.
Your faithful schoolmate,
Prince Hamlet of Denmark
Cultural references aren't meaning, although apparently lots of people think they are. They are shortcuts, only understandable by the few who are "in the know." If the underlying story and characters are not compelling, and/or if the writers are relying on the references to make important points, then it's elitism. And ineffective.
During that scene where Betty sees both Don & Henry in the same shot, my husband said, "man, sometimes it's just like watching Falcon Crest." Yes, it's a soap opera, so is Hamlet for crissakes. But so what? It's a damn good soap opera, with all the trappings of great literature. Everyone wins.
#114 Donny Brook,
I never watched Falcon Crest. But I bet I would have, if I knew they were going to kill almost everyone in the cast in the last scene of a single episode.
(Sorry for the Hamlet spoiler.)
Soap operas are timid. Shakespeare had both the benefit of luscious language, and a huge set of balls.
(The Bard would leave his sack at the threshold I think.)
Ooooo!! Ooooo! Miss AB, Miss AB!! I wanna be Guilderberger. I wanna be Guilderberger. Isn't that the one Mr.Orange played in the movie. Or was that Vlad the Impaler?? or Lee Frickin' Harvey Oswald. I'm kinda confused. Got real light-headed, jumped . .up.. . too faaassst . .
(Swoooon to sofa stage left)
Must I die every time?? where is it writ? er. . .oh yeah.
Ixnay on the Amlet-hay, Ye could be tagged elitist-ay and dragged to the pillory.
Seriously, you just gave me another movie to throw in the "See again before the Big Sleep" queue, Anne B. Do you get residuals on this cultural deja vu stuff?
#115 "Hamlet spoiler"? Now who's being elitist?
So, you're saying that killing off the whole cast would be a good thing? Maybe you're just quoting Rosencranz and Guildenstern like a Python addict, I dunno. It's been years since I saw that one.
Donny Brook,
When I was 20 I watched a soap opera between classes. (When I could.) Then I made a wonderful, terrible decision: I would take my savings and do a semester abroad. I made this choice at the precise moment the soap-opera guy and girl I'd been following for months were going to make, you know. Sweet commercial interruptions.
They'd had their first kiss not two weeks before I stepped on the plane. I thought, What rotten luck! Awful timing! It'll be all over when I get back!
But I went, had a wonderful time — everybody does — and ended up extending the trip. (Another thing everybody does.) I stayed an extra month. And in the week I was back in Los Angeles full-time, I turned on the TV to find … that the soap opera girl and guy were still chatting over coffee. Not even close to, you know. Dessert.
I say again: soap operas are timid. They take forever to get to the point; they make everyone in the apartment complex around the pool have affairs only with each other; they force the guy with the revelation to back off from it, and say that it was all just a dream.
I watch Mad Men because it has the courage of its convictions. Even when those convictions make me uncomfortable, I love the courage.
Oh, and I brought up Rosencrantz and Guildenstern because it was funny, and less of me and esme are a riot. It totally fit.
I love this blog.
(#118 )
Maybe soap operas are "timid" and "take forever to get to the point" because : a) they're courting a different audience, one whose living situation allows them the time to follow these lengthy plotlines b) said audience hasn't had the chances to EXPERIENCE what great acting/writing in television "looks" like c) they don't cost over a million dollars per episode to produce and aren't enmeshed into an elitist web of high cultural expectations
Obviously, no one HERE is going to mistake Days of Our Lives for Mad Men, but people who haven't had the opportunity to "learn" discourses of what good TV should do aren't always going to be able to know that. Sure, they might be bored by the repetitiveness of the story-lines, but they may not necessarily associate that to the "trappings of cheap daytime dramas" like people here are wont to do.
And when you consider the fact that the DoOL franchise has been going on since 1965 and spawned over 11,000 episodes, you see that it obviously is speaking to a certain public.
Let's imagine that AMC decides to continue producing Mad Men for decades after Weiner is through with it. Do you honesty think it wouldn't eventually fall into redundancy and predictability, even if the main characters continued to be replaced? Producing a TV show is always a collaborative process, it takes time, effort, and cash to make it great. You can't just pull off a great moment in the way a writer thinks of a great sentence and writes it down "permanently"; the actors have to rehearse that moment, and then it must be filmed and edited within various time and budget constraints.
Finally, let's not forget that Weiner and his crew have just 13 episodes per year to give us; the Days of Our Lives team is producing 13 episodes in less than a MONTH! How "good" can the material be?
#118 I wasn't comparing it to Days of Our Lives, but to Falcon Crest, a nighttime prime time soap. They are slightly different animals. And yes, I do believe that after 3 years of "will they or won't they" regarding the Draper marriage, MM qualifies. If they get back together again this year, I will be severly disappointed.
Don and Betty wouldn't "get back together" because as far as we know they still are together. Maybe (hopefully) Betty will move forward with a separation, but if she stays with Don I wouldn't be surprised either. There are enough obstacles in her path to keep her from actually leaving. She tried once this season, but ended up returning home. I don't see it as a "will they or won't they" soap type of storyline at all. To me, it just seems real. Especially in their circle, in that time period.
#114- Donny Brook– I just tried to make a point up above that the cultural references are stepping off points, like the "Easter eggs", in computer games where we can find extra goodies if we want them. I don't feel we have to find them all to play and enjoy the game so to speak. I don't think MW relies on them to any major degree to tell an effective, fun story.
And I have to, respectfully, but completely disagree with any use of the term soap opera, (oops, I just see Anne B shakes the other appropriate but boring end of the proverbial snake) it's just not melodramatic enough to qualify for that label. The plotlines are really very realistic and everyday human. The psychology is developed in real time. There is little over-cooked ludicrous plot-twisting. It doesn't come near the soaper high bar to qualify to me.
"and/or if the writers are relying on the references to make important points, then it’s elitism. And ineffective
If they were relying on the extras, (I don't think they are) I would thoroughly agree that it would be bad, ineffective writing. But in any event, I just don't understand the "elitism" label be used at all. Even if the whole show was constructed of educated inside jokes, I fail to get how understanding the jokes would be "elitist". There's no force or coercion being used to make anyone have to appreciate any of it. It's all accessible to us all with a little work and some friends' opinions and observations.
That's why I'm behaving like a lunatic with the word and the concept. I just do not see how it applies. On lunch break I'll gazoogle around and try to find a definition to enlighten me. I will keep everyone posted. Unlike the WashPost, I love making retractions. Ask the narcissist Anne B. ha,ha.
Lunchtime.
The narcissist Anne B grandly AGREES.
I think, less of me, that this is the first time I've seen a writer offer a retration before having anything to retract. You will notice that I almost never retract a thing. I am the Fox News of this blog: I might be wrong but darn it, I'm sure!
Please don't take me as the enemy of soaps, all. They are so mockable. What was the one that put the female character (was her name Marlena?) in the cave or elevator shaft or whatever, for weeks?
We kept seeing the ads for that on Must See TV. It was awesome.
Narcissa, this is Macadamia. Thanks.
"On advice from counsel (see above#125), LOM has decided not to offer a retraction with regard to earlier comments concerning the use of terms soap opera and elitism, and since LOM is logging off LOM will not be able to explain this decision at this time."
No offense given or taken I trust. Have a cool day. I hope to be lurking later, keep it lively but do not shoot my pigeons please.
@122 Red Medicine — Can everyone agree that if it weren’t for Weiner’s skillful writing and the acting skills of Jon Hamm and January Jones, this particular element of the show would get TRASHED?
I guess yes. But the question is a little like asking Mary Todd Lincoln: "Well, other than THAT, how'd you like the play?"
I agree with #121. Perhaps my gut-feeling that Betty will die is a subconscious wish on my part for the conclusion of this somewhat redundant quality to Don and Betty’s troubled marriage.
Can everyone agree that if it weren’t for Weiner’s skillful writing and the acting skills of Jon Hamm and January Jones, this particular element of the show would get TRASHED? (It already has been, in some instances.)
over-cooked ludicrous plot-twisting
So, ending the first two seasons with unwanted pregnancies (one by a married man with someone not his wife) isn't enough for you?
I agree that MM does this very convincingly and very well, but dude, it's a soap. and I'm ok with that.
For what it's worth, I think that even a gritty show like The Wire featured numerous "soap opera" elements, like McNulty's dealings with his kids, and Shakima Greggs' romantic life.
well, I go off somewhere for a while and miss all the action.
l-o-m- you also get to be Sid Vicious. I'm proud of you, Honey Bunny. Or wait, is that supposed to be Pumpkin. hmmm. also Orange. coincidence?
at least I don't have to be that one that gets herself to a nunnery and then body surfs to that great gig in the sky.
esme,
At least Ophelia gets a few good lines out before she goes.
BTW, I love you.
smooches, anne b.
here's one for all the nutters. a little twangin' tom o' bedlam.
Speaking of nuts, I shall share a personal story.
I used to be able to name every nut that there was. And it used to drive my mother crazy, because she used to say, "More of Me, (I was younger then, it was true) if you don't stop naming nuts," and the joke was that we lived in Pine Nut, and I think that's what put it in my mind at that point. So she would hear me in the other room, and she'd just start yelling. I'd say, "Peanut. Hazelnut. Cashew nut. Macadamia nut." That was the one that would send her into going crazy. She'd say, "Would you stop naming nuts!" And my bloodhound Hubert used to be able to make this sound, he couldn't talk, but he'd go "rrrawr rrawr" and that sounded like Macadamia nut. Pine nut, which is a nut, but it's also the name of a town. Pistachio nut. Red pistachio nut. Natural, all natural white pistachio nut, etc.
Well I forgot the point.
I came back to attain satori and to be entertained, not necessarily in that order. Where for art Thou?
Have the sudden urge to watch Fred Willard MC a dog show.
Woof! Foiled!
Congratulate Ms. Darkly, she has uncloaked Rosenstern this time!
Buck Laughlin: Am I nuts? Something's wrong with his feet.
Trevor Beckwith: I never thought I'd find myself saying this, but you're right.
Buck Laughlin: He's got two left feet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAI3u8f2iRs
Well played.
Hoist upon my own petard up there @128 and it is as uncomfortable as it sounds, so here I forge once more into the void. Compare and contrast:
Mad Men ends not one but two, two I tells ya, seasons with unwanted pregnancies of different characters,
AND then read this small paragraph about part of the plot involving just John and Marlena from Days of Our Lives;
In 1991, Hall returned to Days of our Lives, and returned to her role as Dr. Marlena Evans. It was revealed that Marlena's supposed death in the plane crash was not true and Marlena had spent the previous four years in a coma. Soon afterwards, Wayne Northrop, the original portrayer of Roman Brady also returned to the show. In a stunning turn of events, Drake Hogestyn remained on the show through a piece of storytelling that revealed that his character was an impostor programmed with the memories of the real Roman Brady, and was a dangerous assassin. As a result, the fake Roman reverted to the name John Black. While Marlena attempted to reconcile with the real Roman, she and John could not deny their mutual attraction, and eventually the two had an affair that produced their daughter Belle, and led to Marlena and Roman's divorce.
We disagree I guess.
(Excuse my snark, I'm a might prickly in the morn.)
“Waiter, check please.â€
#133: Speaking of nuts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP5-qJSzDUg
…just another omnivorous media fan here. Once a fan of a "turgid supernatural soap opera"–and I've also attended many a local Shakespeare production. I mean–they've made movies of his stuff! They show them on TV!
Apparently I do need to brush up on my Turgenev. According to Wikipedia, his father was a chronic philanderer & his mother an heiress with an unhappy childhood who suffered in her marriage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Turgenev
esme I imagined this was us in a parallel universe.
"We met at Starbucks. Not at the same Starbucks but we saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other."
I think not_Bridget rhymes with Gidget.
There are no coincidences.
speaking of…
House of Yes (i said yes i will yes.)
there ARE coincidences.
l-o-m – Cookie said it was really nice to see you again when she was in PA.