The Legacy of Mad Men (eBook)

Contents 6
Editors and Contributors 11
Introduction: Where the Truth Still Lies 16
What Else Is There to Say About Mad Men? 16
Bibliography 23
Part I Mad Men’s Status: Television, Reputation, Fandom 25
Mad Men’s Legacy in the Quality Television Tradition 26
Right Time, Right Place 26
The Emergence of Quality Television 29
The Legacy of Mad Men 33
Bibliography 38
Mad Men, Maddicts, and Recapturing the Carousel Through Kodak Moments and Selfies 41
Introduction: A Meta-Slide Show 41
Sliding into Nostalgia 44
Slide 1: Old Wounds, Kodak Moments, and Acts of Preservation 45
Slide 2: Breaking the Rules 47
Slides 3 and 4: Playing with Time 48
Slides 5, 6, and 7: Invisible Labourers Outside of the Frame: Mothers, Domestic Workers, and Kodak Girls 49
Slides 8 and 9: Absence 52
Slides 10, 11, and 12: Pictures Speak Louder Than Words 53
Nostalgia as Generative 54
Bibliography 56
Mad Men and Complex Seriality 59
Introduction 59
From Narrative Complexity to Complex Seriality 60
Conceptual Originality and Drama with a Point of View 62
The Integration of Central Characters and Overarching Story 64
The Psychological Investigation of Character 66
Conclusions 70
Bibliography 72
Part II Gender and Race: The Complex Management of Power 75
The Depiction of the Civil Rights Movement on Mad Men 76
Capturing an Era 76
CRT: A Brief Overview 78
Race and Mad Men 79
Everyday Interactions 79
SCDP and the ‘Negro’ Market 82
The Civil Rights Movement and SCDP 83
The Real Civil Rights Movement and the Reel Civil Rights Movement 87
Conclusion 89
Bibliography 90
Mad Men, Women, and the Lure of Feminism 91
Preview: Watching Women on Mad Men 91
Feminist Continuities: The Way We’ve Always Been 94
Historical Difference and Feminist Progress: The Way We Really Were 98
Competing Feminist Frameworks/Competition Between Women 100
From Feminist Snares to Feminist Fantasies: Seeking an Alternative End 101
Bibliography 105
The Performativity of Labour and Femininity on Mad Men 108
Women of Service 111
Performativity 113
Affective Labour and Female Transformation 117
Bibliography 121
Mad Men, Corporate Culture, and Violence Against Women 123
Bourdieu’s Symbolic Violence 125
Kanter’s Corporate Work Roles 125
Joan and Peggy 126
Betty and Trudy 129
Rachel and Bobbie 131
Conclusion 135
Bibliography 136
Part III Mad Men’s Intermediality: Film, Music, Poetics 138
Don Draper and the Enduring Appeal of Antonioni’s La Notte 139
Bibliography 152
Mad Men’s Mid-Century Modern Times 154
Chaplin’s Labour Thesis in Modern Times 156
The Violence of ‘The Monolith’ 157
‘Human Existence Is Finite’ 159
‘That Machine Came for Us’ 162
Dehumanizing the Workplace in Our Modern Times 164
Bibliography 167
Dualities and Ambiguities: Mad Men’s Use of the Beatles, Nancy Sinatra, and Judy Collins in Seasons Five and Six 168
Bibliography 179
Using Bakhtin’s ‘Third Ear’ to Hear Mad Men’s Adspeak in the Everyday 181
Introduction 181
Background: Post-war Capitalism and Bakhtin 182
Season One 184
Proceeding Seasons 187
Conclusion: California Carnivalesque? 191
Bibliography 195
Mad Men and the Staging of Literature via Ken Cosgrove and His Problems 196
Bibliography 209
Part IV Endings and Legacies: The Final Season 210
Mad Men’s Finale and the Making of History 211
From Riches to Rags 212
Death of a Salesman 215
Back to Reality 218
Bibliography 221
Ending an Era and the Dismantling of Narrative ‘Machinery’ in Mad Men’s Finale 222
Moving ‘Forward’ 223
Accepting the Past, Achieving Stasis 227
Changing Places 231
A New Don? 233
Bibliography 235
What Jungian Psychology Can Tell Us About Don Draper’s Unexpected Embrace of Leonard in Mad Men’s Finale 237
Bibliography 249
Afterword: Reading Mad Men in the Era of Trump 251
The Gender Divide 253
Race, Power and Visibility 257
Conclusion 261
Bibliography 262
Index 263