Mad Men

Dream Come True TV

Gary R. Edgerton, Gary R. Edgerton

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780857730725
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Television

Don and Betty Draper live in a picture-perfect world. He is a hard-living advertising executive - a 'mad man' - on the fast track. She's a Bryn Mawr graduate and former fashion model, now a suburban princess, mother of three children. If they've everything, why are they so unhappy? Why is their dream come true not enough? This book explores, analyses, celebrates the world of "Mad Men" in all its aspects, and includes an interview with it's Executive Producer and an episode guide. Every few years a new television program comes along to capture and express the zeitgeist. "Mad Men" is now that show. Since premiering in July 2007, it's won many awards and is syndicated across the globe. Its imprint is evident throughout contemporary culture, from features to fashions and online debate. Its creator Matthew Weiner, a former exec producer on "The Sopranos", has created again compelling, complex characters, this time in the sophisticated go-go world of Madison Avenue through the 1960s, with the excessive drinking and smoking, as well as the playing out of the prejudices and anxieties of an era long neglected in popular culture.
"Mad Men" is a zeitgeist show of the early twenty-first century, this book demonstrates, partly because its characters are an earlier, confused and conflicted version of ourselves, trying to make the best of a future unfolding at breakneck speed.

 

Part One.
Industry and Authorship

1.

The Selling of Mad Men: A Production History

Gary R. Edgerton

At first blush, Mad Men may appear to be an overnight sensation. Since its debut on 19 July 2007, this widely acclaimed series has won one major award after another while exceeding the annual expectations of its production company, Lionsgate, and its network, AMC. For his part, creator and executive producer Matt Weiner has realized his wildest dream. Even before winning the 2008 Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series, he likened himself to Charlie at the end of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) because he’d ‘gotten everything he wanted’. At the same time, Weiner described the long and arduous eight-year process from researching and writing the first draft of his pilot script to the television premiere of Mad Men as being a lot like ‘pushing a rock up a hill that you don’t think ever has an end’ (Keveney, ‘“Mad Men” Stands Test of Time’). Mad Men was born out of Matt Weiner’s deep ‘dissatisfaction’ with the assembly-line storytelling and endless recycling of canned jokes that went along with being a staff writer on CBS’s Becker (1998–2004), a top-twenty prime-time series during his three years of working on the programme.

‘I was 35 years old’, recalls Weiner, ‘I had a job on a network sitcom. It was rated number nine, which means I was basically in major league baseball for my job. There’s 300 people in the country that have this job . . . I was like, what is wrong with me? Why am I unhappy?’ (NPR: Fresh Air, 22 August 2008).

In February 1999, Matt Weiner started writing ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ (1:1) as a spec script at nights and on weekends. He was married to an attractive and successful architect (Linda Brettler); they had three children at the time (now four); and his job was firmly situated within the mainstream television industry. He had successfully broken into the TV business and was working regularly. He was also handsomely compensated if not personally fulfilled. ‘I was at this point in my life where Don is’, Weiner explains (PaleyFest ’08). He was left thinking what Don Draper eventually gives voice to in the second episode of Mad Men when he says, ‘Who could not be happy with all this?’ (‘Ladies Room’, 1:2). Matt Weiner admits he was ‘driven by rage and resentment’, but also inspired by the newest breakout series on HBO – The Sopranos (PaleyFest ’08). It ‘had been on the air for about six episodes’, he remembers, ‘and there was such depth and complexity to the show, and at the same time it was so commercially successful’ (NPR: Fresh Air, 9 August 2007). Weiner thus wrote and rewrote ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ over the next year finishing it in early 2001. He then had his agent submit the script to various development departments at major production companies to see if there was any interest in optioning the screenplay. Time and again, word came back that no one was seriously interested in picking up and developing the project.

The feedback that Weiner received on ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ turned into a common refrain that he heard over and over again. The producers and story analysts who read the script were impressed by its quality, but they found the period nature of the piece problematic, not believing that it had enough popular appeal to sustain a weekly series, especially among the always coveted younger viewers. In addition, a number of the development executives were confused by the fact that ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ is a drama, since Matt Weiner’s reputation up to that point was based solely on his credits as a comedy writer. As a result, the script piled up nearly two years worth of rejections. He finally had his agent send ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ to David Chase who called Weiner back personally. ‘A week after he got it’, recalls Matt Weiner, ‘I was in New York on the show’ (NPR: Fresh Air, 9 August 2007). The Sopranos (HBO, 1999–2007) was then at the peak of its popularity, playing a leading role in turning HBO into the most talked about, widely celebrated, and profitable networks in all of television during the early 2000s. Dozens of original programmes are tested each year by the broadcast and cable-and-satellite networks, handicapped by critics and sampled by audiences. Most of these shows fall quickly by the wayside, as an estimated 75 per cent never make it beyond their first seasons. Still, breakout series do occasionally transform a few select networks into the hottest destinations on TV – and The Sopranos did just that for HBO during its initial six-season run that began on 10 January 1999 and ended on 10 June 2007.

Matt Weiner joined David Chase and company in 2003 during preparation for The Sopranos’ fifth season. In the previous fall, the series’ fourth season debuted on 15 September 2002 attracting an audience of 13.4 million, which not only won its time slot, but was placed ‘sixth for the entire week against all other prime-time programs, cable and broadcast’, despite HBO’s ‘built-in numerical disadvantage’. Even though Home Box Office was based on an entirely different business model than most of the rest of the US television industry, it had beaten all of the advertiser-supported networks at their own game. More significantly, it was also asserting once and for all that ‘the underlying assumptions that had driven television for six decades were no longer in effect’ (Castleman and Podrazik 419). Cable-and-satellite channels were now the first place to look for breakout programming on all of TV. Clearly the momentum in the industry had shifted unmistakably and irrevocably away from the traditional broadcast networks and more towards the cable-and-satellite sector of the business with The Sopranos providing HBO with the kind of signature series that it needed to compete for viewers with any channel on TV. In turn, the success of the show increased ‘the status of showrunners’, such as David Chase, and ‘transformed cable television into its own television universe, with its own rules’. Chase’s experience of realizing ‘his vision only by going to cable – ha[d now] become the model of how cable TV work[ed] in the post-Sopranos era’ (Weinman 49–50).

During his four-year tenure on The Sopranos’ creative team, Matt Weiner worked his way up from supervising producer (2003–04) to co-executive producer (2005–06) to finally executive producer (2006–07). Weiner admits in hindsight that ‘everything about [The Sopranos] influenced me’ (KCRW). ‘There was such depth and complexity to the show, and at the same time it was commercially successful . . . Then of course seeing how the sausage was made’ (NPR: Fresh Air, 9 August 2007). Weiner’s experience on The Sopranos was his first with a one-hour drama. More importantly, he was no longer being pressured to either dumb down or sweeten up his writing as he had been during his seven-year tenure at the broadcast networks. HBO and The Sopranos were also spearheading an alternative narrative style for television ‘in opposition to the regular networks’ where ‘the pacing (was slower), the storytelling (more fragmented) and the structure (organized around the lack of commercials)’ (Weinman 50). Chase encouraged the entire writing team to trust their imaginations and be as realistic and honest as possible with the storyline and characters. ‘David viewed himself as the audience and the people in the room’, reveals Weiner, ‘and if we liked and understood it, that’s what we did’ (NPR: Fresh Air, 9 August 2007). The impact on Weiner was liberating, making him ‘feel less alone’ (KCRW). Now an integral part of The Sopranos’ inner circle of above-the-line talent, he was no longer alienated professionally, but ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ was still languishing in development hell as an unproduced spec script.

Literally weeks after Weiner joined The Sopranos’ crew, Chase recommended the screenplay to HBO’s development department suggesting that ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ should be the source material for the network’s next original series once The Sopranos finished its fifth and (assumed at the time) final season. HBO’s former programming chief and newly installed chairman and chief executive officer, Chris Albrecht, counter-offered that HBO ‘would make Mad Men on the condition that Chase be executive producer’. Being a television journeyman and not yet a proven showrunner, Weiner understood and was open to this arrangement. He even invited Chase to ‘direct the pilot’. Despite being ‘very tempted’, David Chase finally decided against coming aboard the Mad Men project, ‘wanting to move away from weekly television’. Chase still continued to champion the script, however, as Weiner resubmitted it to HBO’s development department in 2004 (Handy 283). While admitting that ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ was ‘obviously written for HBO’, Weiner also acknowledges in retrospect that ‘he never got a straight explanation from the network for its pass’ (‘Smoke and Sympathy: A Toast to Mad Men’; Handy 283). Recognizing the groundswell of original programming on cable television, Weiner’s agent then sent the screenplay to Showtime, the USA Network and FX later in 2004 and early 2005; in short order, all three networks also declined participation, leaving the project open for consideration by development executives at an also-ran cable channel that was looking to raise its profile by making a serious move into original programming (‘Basic Cable Shows Get Emmy Nods’).

American Movie Classics was founded as a pay-TV network in 1984 by Rainbow Media, a subsidiary of Cablevision, the fifth largest cable provider in the United States. The channel stalled as a subscription service since its format of providing uncut, uninterrupted pre-1950 motion pictures was not sustainable in the increasingly competitive premium cable marketplace of the mid-1980s. Rainbow Media thus transitioned American Movie Classics into a basic cable channel in 1987, making it available to cable systems nationwide. Over the next two years, the network’s access to viewers skyrocketed from 7 million paying customers to 39 million basic cable households (Gomery 94). American Movie Classics’ first foray into original programming during the mid-1990s mirrored a similar awakening at HBO, Showtime, FX and the USA Network. The initiative at American Movie Classics was nevertheless short-lived as it only produced two half-hour dramedies, Remember WENN (1996–98), which followed the personal and professional lives of the resident staff at a Pittsburgh station during the Golden Age of Radio; and The Lot (1999–2001), set behind the scenes at the fictional film studio, Sylver Screen Pictures, during the 1930s. Both series were designed to complement the old-time movie fare on the channel, but neither programme enjoyed much success in attracting viewers.

By October 2002, with an available audience approaching 83 million cable households, a new executive team shifted direction at the network by updating its schedule to mostly post-1970 films in order to further broaden its appeal to a larger, younger audience. In March 2003, they shortened the network’s name from American Movie Classics to AMC; they also began rebranding the channel with a promotional campaign built around the slogan, ‘Long Live Cool’, as a way of repositioning it as a more hip and discriminating alternative cable network; and most significantly, they adopted ‘what could be called the HBO formula’ where AMC development executives went out of their way to recruit ‘top-notch talent and giving them a wide berth’ to produce programming that was edgy, sophisticated, and as innovative as anything on television (Alston). Within this context, Mad Men provided AMC’s executives with just the kind of passion project they were looking for from a now proven writer-producer with a pedigree that included The Sopranos. Vice president of scripted series and miniseries, Christina Wayne, initially showed interest in developing ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ during the spring of 2005. She scheduled a luncheon in May with her boss Robert Sorcher, executive vice president for programming, packaging, and production, where they asked Weiner, ‘what is the rest of the series?’ (‘A Conversation with Matthew Weiner’). Matt Weiner returned four months later with a treatment outlining the 13-episode narrative arc of Mad Men’s first season and they promptly greenlighted the pilot at a budget of $3 million (Schwartz).

Overall, Wayne, Sorcher and their new executive supervisor and general manager, Charles Collier, who joined AMC in early 2006, were all committed ‘to combining the network’s great movie library with high-end originals’ as a way of enhancing their position in the cable-and-satellite sector as ‘a quality player more than quantity’ (Becker). ‘Quality is a commercial decision’, observes Weiner (‘A Conversation with Matthew Weiner’). ‘I know when Christina and Rob first read [‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’] and met with me, they had a very clear agenda and a lot of it was trying to produce shows like HBO’ (PaleyFest ’08). Their aspiration was aesthetic as well as commercial. ‘We’re trying to do cinematic-television shows’, adds Collier, ‘series that stand side-by-side with the best movies on TV’ (Brodesser-Akner). AMC next commissioned the up-and-coming transmedia commercial house, @radical.media, to produce the pilot. It was shot over four weeks in April and May 2006 at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens (which was also the home base of The Sopranos), along with several on-location sites in midtown Manhattan (Elliott, ‘That 60’s Show’). Weiner actually cast the programme during the fall while simultaneously executive producing the sixth and final season of The Sopranos, which HBO extended from the usual 13 to 21 episodes at the last minute. In this way, season six of The Sopranos is divided into two parts with the first 12 episodes premiering between 12 March and 4 June 2006, followed by the final nine episodes between 8 April and 10 June 2007. Chase was supportive of Weiner throughout this hectic work period where he often found himself wearing two executive hats at once.

As an example, Matt Weiner told David Chase after the completion of a Sopranos production meeting early in December 2005 that he was leaving to start the casting process for Mad Men. Drawing on his Sopranos experience, Chase advised: ‘You’re going to hear [‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’] and it’s going to sound really bad. And when the right person reads it, it’ll sound good. Don’t change it, it’s good’ (‘Smoke and Sympathy: A Toast to Mad Men’). In addition, Weiner tapped several of his current Sopranos above-the-line colleagues to shoot the Mad Men pilot with Chase’s blessing. They were all on hiatus after finishing part one of season six, waiting around while part two was being prepared for production. For instance, veteran director, Alan Taylor (9 Sopranos episodes) and cinematographer Phil Abraham (47 Sopranos episodes) ended up shooting the Mad Men pilot on 35 mm film just as they had similarly lensed The Sopranos. More appropriately, though, they worked with Weiner to create a totally different look for this new series establishing ‘a somewhat mannered, classic visual style that is influenced more by cinema than TV.’ Mad Men’s template is further enhanced by production designer Robert Shaw’s (67 Sopranos episodes) sleek, modernist conception of the Sterling Cooper office complex and his more retro-treatment of the Drapers’ suburban colonial home, complete with a white picket fence encircling the front yard. Both of these t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Reading Contemporary Television
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Foreword: From Rod Serling to Roger Sterling
• Introduction: When Our Parents Became Us
• Part One. Industry and Authorship
• 1. The Selling of Mad Men: A Production History
• 2. ‘If It’s Too Easy, Then Usually There’s Something Wrong’: An Interview with Mad Men’s Executive Producer Scott Hornbacher
• 3. Don Draper Confronts the Maddest Men of the Sixties: Bob Dylan and George Lois
• Part Two. Visual and Aural Stylistics and Influences
• 4. ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’: Historicizing Visual Style in Mad Men
• 5. Uneasy Listening: Music, Sound, and Criticizing Camelot in Mad Men
• 6. Suggestive Silence in Season One
• Part Three. Narrative Dynamics and Genealogy
• 7. Learning to Live with Television in Mad Men
• 8. Space Ships and Time Machines: Mad Men and the Serial Condition
• 9. ‘The Catastrophe of My Personality’: Frank O’Hara, Don Draper and the Poetics of Mad Men
• Part Four. Sexual Politics and Gender Roles
• 10. Mad Women
• 11. Women on the Verge of the Second Wave
• 12. The Best of Everything: The Limits of Being a Working Girl in Mad Men
• Part Five. Cultural Memory and the American Dream
• 13. Men Behaving as Boys: The Culture of Mad Men
• 14. The Strange Career of Mad Men: Race, Paratexts and Civil Rights Memory
• 15. Mad Men: A Roots Tale of the Information Age
• Creative Team and Cast List
• Episode Guide