Halp! Just finished binge watching Mad Men

[DrRingDing]

....all 7 series. OH is doing a sad as now she only has my stony pale and haggered face to look at.

Is there anything that compares apart from The Wire?

 

[DrRingDing]

OH said she would kick anyone who suggests Breaking Bad.

 

[8den]

Manhattan, Masters of Sex, show me a hero, Treme, Deadwood

 

[unrepentant85]

The Shield, Sons of Anarchy, The Blacklist, Suits.

 

[aqua]

Mad men is fantastic isn't it. We finally finished it before Xmas and I'm sad too

 

[Idris2002]

Boardwalk empire should be next on the list.

 

[Reno]

Boardwalk empire should be next on the list.

That's a series which was never as good as the talent involved would have you believe it should be. It has its moments, but I found it dissappointing.

Mad Men was so great because it was pretty singular.

As a period drama it wasn't dumbed down like most period dramas. It didn't try to appeal to the audience by crafting contemporary sensibilities onto the past (Downton Abbey is the most obvious of many offenders) so a young audience wouldn't be alienated from the characters. In Mad Men the relatively recent past was indeed a foreign country.

It's art direction was impeccable, better than that of most films, combining what was accurate for the period with a stylisation which reflected the films of the period. The show looked gorgeous and it wasn't style over content because the style was always in the service of the characters and their history. It was integral to a narrative about people who worked in advertising and who lived in a decade which saw huge changes.

The characters acted consistent, true to their nature and not in the service the plot as required by so many TV shows, where characters shift and change to move the in different directions (The Walking Dead, Orange is the New Black). This is why those who dismissed the show as a glossy soap are wrong. The show never resorted to the melodrama and the grinding plot mechanics of soaps.

I think it was a genuinely feminist show, not by giving you ass kicking action chicks (a very male view of empowered women who resolve problems the way men do) but by holding up a mirror to the ugly face of patriarchy. It made you understand and feel for a cold, potentially unlikeable character like Betty and how the restrictions and expectations placed on her by society made her the screwed up woman she was. It celebrated the gains women like Peggy or Joan made despite those obstacles and who had to work ten times as hard as the men to get there, without idealising them and without coming across as cheaply triumphant.

There has never been a show which charts an entire decade, not in the big events so much as in subtly, slowly shifting social attitudes and fashions and how that affects the psychology of its characters.

The only thing I've seen which I think compares to it on several of those points is Todd Haines' (currently acclaimed for his film Carol) HBO mini series Mildred Pierce which does for the 1930s what Mad Men did for the 60s and which has similarly rich characters, even if it unashamedly is a melodrama.

In terms of character writing the best series I've recently seen is the Amazon series Transparent.

 

[Idris2002]

Reno - I'd mostly agree with you about MM but I think you're being a bit too hard on BE. Sure, the latter was hit and miss, but I think that's inherent in the nature of Telly as a medium, especially when it tries to do things that used to be left to the novel.

 

[Spymaster]

Is there anything that compares apart from The Wire?

Yes.

I know I keep banging on about it but Suits ticks most of the Mad Men boxes.

 

[Spymaster]

Yes.

I know I keep banging on about it but Suits ticks most of the Mad Men boxes.

4 seasons on Netflix, 2 on Amazon.

 

[Red Cat]

Sometimes something is exceptional, I think Mad Men is exceptional, and can't be replaced. I'm coming to the end of it too and I don't expect that anything will come close to its richness and maturity.

 

[bimble]

....all 7 series. OH is doing a sad as now she only has my stony pale and haggered face to look at.

Is there anything that compares apart from The Wire?

Can't believe anyone would seriously compare those two. Mad men is just empty calories, in two weeks time you won't remember a thing about it apart from the clothes.

 

[Red Cat]

Can't believe anyone would seriously compare those two. Mad men is just empty calories, in two weeks time you won't remember a thing about it apart from the clothes.

But one of the themes is the difference between the glossy beautiful surface and the painful and messy struggle involved in being human underneath all that.

 

[Reno]

Can't believe anyone would seriously compare those two. Mad men is just empty calories, in two weeks time you won't remember a thing about it apart from the clothes.

I can't believe you've watched much or any of Mad Men. Or you are totally unable to look just slightly beyond its surface and encode subtext.

 

[bimble]

But one of the themes is the difference between the glossy beautiful surface and the painful and messy struggle involved in being human underneath all that.

Ok.. but that might have worked better if for instance the central character ever became more than a smart blank silhouette.

 

[bimble]

I can't believe you've watched much or any of Mad Men. Or you are totally unable to look just slightly beyond its surface and encode subtext.

I did, I promise, I found it very watchable, just (for me) it does not deserve to be compared to the wire in any way.

 

[Reno]

I did, I promise, I found it very watchable, just (for me) it does not deserve to be compared to the wire in any way.

(For me) it was superior to The Wire on the account that it featured compelling female lead characters (Kima was as transparently a token character as I've ever seen, does anybody ever talk about her ?) and that it didn't blow it with a poor final season.

 

[Red Cat]

Ok.. but that might have worked better if for instance the central character ever became more than a smart blank silhouette.

He was a false self, completely cut off from anything real in himself because that would have been too painful for him. The cardboard cut out nature of his character was a portrayal of a kind of personality not poor writing.

 

[DotCommunist]

Sons of Anarchy
Battlestar Galactica
Generation Kill
American Horror Story
Wolf Hall

thats enough to keep you going for now

 

[bimble]

He was a false self, completely cut off from anything real in himself because that would have been too painful for him. The cardboard cut out nature of his character was a portrayal of a kind of personality not poor writing.

So he really was just a flat silhouette in a sharp suit, there was nothing more to him, just like Betty was all pretty surface and hollow on the inside.. Ok.
Maybe we can just put this down to me being really shallow and not having watched all the way to the end, I just didn't think it was anything more than entertaining TV.

 

[8den]

(For me) it was superior to The Wire on the account that it featured compelling female lead characters (Kima was as transparently a token character as I've ever seen, does anybody ever talk about her ?) and that it didn't blow it with a poor final season.

Plenty of strong female characters on the wire Rhonda, Brianna, Beadie.

Drug dealers aren't know as a progressive employers and police dept are still mostly a male dominated workplace.

You might as well complain about the lack of women in band of brothers.

 

[8den]

Sons of Anarchy
Battlestar Galactica
Generation Kill
American Horror Story
Wolf Hall

thats enough to keep you going for now

Sons of Anarchy wore very thin and every series wrapped up the same way. The less said about their trip to "Ireland" the better.

 

[bimble]

Plenty of strong female characters on the wire Rhonda, Brianna, Beadie.

Drug dealers aren't know as a progressive employers and police dept are still mostly a male dominated workplace.

You might as well complain about the lack of women in band of brothers.

And.. Snoop! One of the most memorable and compelling female characters ever seen on screen.

 

[DotCommunist]

I tried with madmen but I don't find that period, social strata and world interesting. Plus they all smoke like bastards and that triggers me to smoke. Good thing rampant chauvanism isn't quite so easily transferred into my brain. Nah if I wanted to watch bourgois pricks from the olden days I might enjoy this but I don't.


Peaky Blinders was reasonably good. Series two includes Tom Hardy as a jewish london gangster

 

[Reno]

Plenty of strong female characters on the wire Rhonda, Brianna, Beadie.

Drug dealers aren't know as a progressive employers and police dept are still mostly a male dominated workplace.

You might as well complain about the lack of women in band of brothers.

I've already pointed out that Mad Men was about as much of a male environment. All of these female characters from The Wire are at best supporting characters and with the exception of Snoop, who was a woman basically passing as a man, I never see them getting discussed as opposed to how "cool" all the gangstas were. The women in Mad Men are at the centre of the series and as much of its narrative motor as the men and it critically deals with how they function in a male dominated environment.

I'll call out the dismissal of Mad Men is typical Internet misogyny. It has complicated, sometimes difficult female characters who aren't male fantasy action chicks and it is among other things about style and fashion. It deals with style and design as a theme and subject matter. It's never style over content, it's style is always a reflection of its society and characters and it's used with great intelligence. This is always suspect to heterosexual men who don't bother to look beyond the surface, because it's something they refuse to engage with as something which can be taken seriously. And while The Wire itself deals with this with huge intellgence and subtlety, much of its fan base comes from a white, male, heterosexual veneration for gangster culture, which is considered cool. The hero worship of some of its most despicable characters on the Internet has always disturbed me. Not a fault of the series itself, but I'm talking about how it gets discussed and why Mad Men gets dismissed in a space dominated by white, straight men. This goes hand in hand with the inexplicable hatred for female characters on series like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead.

 

[bimble]

I tried with madmen but I don't find that period, social strata and world interesting. Plus they all smoke like bastards and that triggers me to smoke. Good thing rampant chauvanism isn't quite so easily transferred into my brain. Nah if I wanted to watch bourgois pricks from the olden days I might enjoy this but I don't.

Peaky Blinders was reasonably good. Series two includes Tom Hardy as a jewish london gangster

For Jewish gangsters it's Boadwalk Empire all the way. And that has much nicer suits than Mad men too.

 

[Reno]

Ok.. but that might have worked better if for instance the central character ever became more than a smart blank silhouette.

One of the main influences on Mad Men.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As the series goes on Don Drapers blank silhouette cracks. You sure you watched the show ? I really find it hard to believe.

 

[Reno]

For Jewish gangsters it's Boadwalk Empire all the way. And that has much nicer suits than Mad men too.

...and more "cool" gangsters !

 

[8den]

I've already pointed out that Mad Men was about as much of a male environment. All of these female characters from The Wire are at best supporting characters and with the exception of Snoop who is a woman basically passing as a man, I never see them getting discussed as opposed to how "cool" all the gangstas were. The women in Mad Men are at the centre of the series.

I think the dismissal of Mad Men is typical Internet misogyny. It has complicated, sometimes difficult female characters who aren't male fantasy action chicks and it isn't just about style and fashion, it deals with it as a theme and subject matter. This is always suspect to heterosexual men who don't bother to look beyond the surface, because it's something they refuse to engage with as something which can be taken seriously. And while The Wire itself deals with this with huge intellgence and subtlety, much of its fan base comes from a white, male, heterosexual veneration for gangster culture, which is considered cool. The hero worship of some of its most despicable characters on the Internet has always disturbed me. Not a fault of the series itself, but I'm talking about how it gets discussed and why Mad Men gets dismissed.

I've seen only a little of man men. My wife had watched two series without me and I didn't want to play catch up.

I was merely pointing out there are plenty of strong female characters in the wire. Brianna talking her son into taking the fall for the entire organisation is a stand out scene in season one. And the scene in season 3 were mc Nulty confronts her about her sons murder is incredible. Both Bedie and Rhonda are both strong female characters.

I just dislike the claim that female characters are under written in the wire.

 

[8den]

For Jewish gangsters it's Boadwalk Empire all the way. And that has much nicer suits than Mad men too.

I just got really bored half way through I think season 3 of Boardwalk and it's constant tangents to under written characters.