"Mad Men" -- *Final* Season Official Thread (possible spoilers) (part 2)

I'd say that showing how good characters have to make the morally corrupted decision to harm other good characters out of self-preservation in such a way that we, as an audience, understand their choices even as we are disgusted by them is both heavy and substantive. I appreciate your thoughtful praise of Mad Men but don't understand your dismissal of BB without affording it the same thoughtfulness. Vince Gilligan in my opinion is just as much a "genius" as Matthew Weiner, only with the caveat that I think Gilligan's vision was more thoroughly fulfilled than Weiner's, who was a little wobbly on the dismount.

I mean, there was no character on Breaking Bad who strayed as far from character, was written as erratically, or reversed direction anywhere as much as Mad Men's Michael Ginsberg. Please explain how that one was treated sympathetically or was headed toward that particular endgame.

Mad Men's treatment of homosexuality fell somewhere between dismissive and obligatory after a promising start. Sal as a both a character and as a vehicle to explore of the issue of homosexuality was well introduced and the subplots developed, but then completely botched when Bryan Batt fell out with Weiner; other characters were continuously explored and developed even after their departure from Sterling Cooper, but Sal was written out, despite the complexities introduced (his crush on Ken, his marriage to Kitty, his discovery by Don, his compromising position with Lee Garner Jr., etc.). That his story was never completed was too easy in the context of the early/mid '60s but the show failed by not even trying, something Weiner would later declare he was proud of. The Kurt character was later used briefly to show some changing attitudes toward gays in the '60s but he was undeveloped and minor and thus it was hardly "tackled." And then I guess there was the character of Bob Benson, one of the characters introduced during the show's worst years, whose partner ended up being a murderous gigolo as a throwaway gag.

 

Oh, I see. This is simply about your perception that Breaking Bad is somehow a populist show whereas Mad Men is some form of higher art. I think both shows are worthy of watching and discussing.

 

You make good points, but I still see Mad Men as tackling these issues in a heavier way by far. Particularly with the Michael Ginsberg character. He was a very "human" and sensitive figure with an innate sense of market/audience. The subplot where he started going crazy when the supercomputer was installed in the agency to crunch numbers was hugely symbolic. His sensitivity gave rise to internalizing the inevitable battle between man and machine in the workplace and he lost it. As everyone knows who has worked in a marketing department, it can all be dehumanizing. I found everything compelling about that character: from his claim that he was born in a concentration camp to his sense of humor and ambitious way he appealed to the customer by stepping on Don's toes to the way he lost his mind.

I think there's no getting around the fact that BB and MM appealed more strongly to different demographics and types of people. The writing alone in Mad Men was a form of higher art. Just look at the way episode 1 of BB ended. You won't find anything so course on MM. Likewise look at how The Wheel ended in season 1 with Don's soliloquy about the carousel--BB never achieved that kind of writing.

"Well, technology is a glittering lure. But there's the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product. My first job, I was in-house at a fur company, with this old pro copywriter. Greek, named Teddy. And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is "new". Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of... calamine lotion. But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia. It's delicate... but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, "nostalgia" literally means, "the pain from an old wound". It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship. It's a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the Wheel. It's called a Carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around, and back home again... to a place where we know we are loved."

I mean this is just profound and hitting on universal truth in a way BB never could.

 

Get this book:

Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion: Matt Zoller Seitz, Max Dalton, Megan Abbott: 9781419720635: Amazon.com: Books

 

Some good analysis here guys.
Both great series.