Tag: Matthew Weiner

How do you say father in Mad Men? – Hilton

Conrad “Connie” Hilton (Chelcie Ross) first appears in S3E03 (My Old Kentucky Home) and Don makes him a drink. He calls later and then appears in S3E07 (Seven Twenty Three), which is when Peggy mentions his book.

“My mother gave me his book. He’s Catholic.”

– Peggy

Conrad’s character and the book (which I got through, and is okay) bring up themes of fatherhood throughout the season. He is constantly reminding Don of his duty to his family, and sliding into the absent fatherly role in Don’s life.

The following exchange rules:

“I don’t know what I’m more disturbed by: the fact that you don’t have a Bible or that there’s not a single family photo,” Connie.
“I’m easily distracted,” Don.
“You should have those things. They’ll make you feel better about what you do. Start showing up on time.”
“Maybe I’m late because I was spending time with my family reading the Bible.”

Don and Connie, S3E07

SIDE NOTE: Some times I get into conversations with people about this show, and have to defend it’s nihilism, it’s depressing characters, it’s bleakness… The complaints are valid, but, as a counter, it’s a pretty f*&(ing well-written series sometimes.

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Confessions of an advertising mad man, who may be a hillbilly

Don walks into the elevator and there’s Roger.

It’s S3E07 (Seven Twenty Three).

“Ogilvy wrote a book… Advertising is already up there with lawyers as the most reviled, this is not going to help,”

– Roger Sterling

Confessions of an Advertising Man is David Ogilvy’s ground-breaking book that makes up a lot of the meat in Mad Men. Creator Matthew Weiner admitted that he used it to pull plot points and motivation while crafting Mad Men.

It is the most important work of the period that shines light on the period.

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Layne Price, Tom Sawyer and the polarity of Mad Men and nostalgia

Standing in a hospital waiting room, Lane Pryce is talking with Don Draper after learning that he is staying in America because his replacement had his foot run over by a riding lawn mower.

It is S3E06, and the perfectly titled “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency.”

Ha. Classic.

Guy Mackendrick (Jamie Thomas King) is the ad man from London who gets aforementioned foot mangled and has his career ended. No golf, no sales. So it goes.

Back to the books.

Lane says to Don that he’s been reading a lot of American literature and that he is thinking of Tom Sawyer.

“I feel like I just attended my own funeral. I didn’t like the eulogy.”

Lane Pryce, S3E06 (Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency)

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an established American Lit classic, and tells the story of young rapscallion Tom and his adventures, sometimes with his buddy Huckleberry Finn. I won’t go into the whole plot, but, they live in the south, Tom cons a bunch of kids to paint a fence, there’s a murder, tons of racism and at one point the boys watch their own funeral as everyone is convinced they drowned in the river.

Oh, and, yes I am very proud that I got to use the word rapscallion. Simple pleasures.

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The decline and fall of empire, mad men and the hollow men

We are in season three, and after looking at Rand-esque super heroes, destruction of such hollow creations and a deep dive into the soul of the catastrophe of personality and its beauty, we come to the decline of Britain, the Vietnam war, patriarchy’s end and a whole shwack of things we can pull out of Mad Men because, well, why not?

It is S3E03 (My Old Kentucky Home), and Sally is reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I to her grandpa Gene.

The section is about the licentiousness of the Greeks.

“Just wait. All hell’s going to break loose,” says Gene.

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Quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again

It is season two. Peggy is skinny again (post baby), Harry Crane’s wife is pregnant, Trudy Campbell is not, Betty is taking horseback riding lessons and giving them in flirtation, Don’s blood pressure is up, and there is a photocopier in the office.

It is the future.

The president (JFK) is young and hot, the agency needs to match, and a hipster is reading Frank O’Hara in a bar at lunch.

“I don’t think you’d like it,”

Hipster to Don Draper
PLOTTIFY - Don Draper in an Emergency Starts a Meditation in Mad Men

It is S2E01 (For Those Who Think Young), and the collection is Meditations in an Emergency.

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Compson, Whitman, Draper: A name’s sound and fury

What’s in a name? What’s in a family? What is history? What is time?

I may or may not have just finished reading a certain author from the south and everything is up for grabs.

There are those books on the Mad Men reading list I’m curious to read (The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, The Last Picture Show) those I may not have wanted to read at all (Atlas Shrugged), and those I’m completely stoked to read.

Woman of Rome, Crying of Lot 49, and (even though I’ve read it before) the Sound and the Fury are among the latter.

Let’s set the scene and find out how one of the 20th century’s finest novels wound up in one of the 21st century’s finest shows.

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Agency of fools, the madness of Madison Avenue

Don’s been kicked out and is living in a hotel, Marilyn Monroe is dead, and there are tears everywhere.

Betty, alone at home choring away in S2E09 (Six Month Leave), sits down with a glass of wine and reads Katherine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools.

Sometimes, the Mad Men reading list gives you a title that is so on the nose, the discussion about the book writes itself.

Ship of fools… Hmmmm. I wonder how that could relate to the series, characters, themes and plot?

You could really take the title of this book and say it’s a direct allegory of those that inhabit Sterling Cooper’s halls. They are fools wandering about trying to navigate their Madison Avenue ship amid storms and calm waters.

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Hornblower the hero and broken men without honour

Peggy is visiting her sister, Anita, in S2E08 (A Night to Remember) and drops off C.S. Forester’s Hornblower in the West Indies for Anita’s husband, Gerry Respola, who’s laid up with a “bad back” and “hates his job.”

Gerry isn’t in the episode and no one’s seen reading the book, but it’s on screen, so I read it.

Basic summary: Horatio Hornblower is Commander-in-chief of His Majesty’s ships and vessels in the West Indies and trying to keep order in the post-Napoleonic War world. He fights pirates, revolutionaries, a hurricane and all the things you’d expect in a swashbuckling, sea-faring, tall ship adventure.

He is full of honour, does the right thing, and is loyal to his doting wife and son.

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The diamond Betty Draper and the sadness inside

It took us a season and change, but ladies and gents, it’s time to dig into some Fitzgerald.

Feels like Gatzby should have made its way into the plot by now, but I’ll take a short story. Let’s do it.

In S2E03 (The Benefactors) Arthur Chase (the hunky young horse rider Betty flirts with played by Gabriel Mann) says to Betty after a day of riding:

“You know the Scott Fitzgerald story “A Diamond as Big as the Ritz?” Her house is a slightly smaller version of my high school, and I realized why she was so happy all the time and she was so angry when she didn’t get what she wanted.”

(Arthur’s talking about his fiancee).

“All girls are like that,” Betty responds.

Classic Betty.

Arthur is sure, as all men are in these situations, he knows what Betty is thinking, and that Better must want him. Betty, Arthur “knows,” is not like that.

Betty snaps back, “You don’t know me.”

Arthur says she’s “so profoundly sad.”

“You’re wrong. I’m grateful.”

LIAR!

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It’s taking forever, the agony and ecstasy of it all

Two episodes into the second season of Mad Men and Peggy is visiting her mom and sister in Brooklyn. After an awkward meal full of undertones, nagging, guilt and jabs (you know mother-daughter-sister stuff), Peggy asks her mom (Katherine played by Myra Turley) if she has anything to drop off or pick up at the library.

“I have to renew the Agony and the Ecstasy. It’s taking forever,” says her mom.

And there it is, another book for the list.

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