Mad Men #10: City Mice
So I flashed back yesterday on the last time we -- Ricochet member Misthiocracy included -- talked Mad Men:
Series creator Matthew Weiner once said that if he'd read Revolutionary Road earlier in his life he never would have created Mad Men.
It seems significant to me now, more than ever, that the soul of Mad Men is located firmly in the city, and not the suburbs. The former Mrs. Draper aside, we hardly even see what looks or feels suburban. What we get, week in and week out, is a long hard look at urban working and urban living. What we don't get is clumsy suburb-bashing. Heaven knows the suburbs are no paradise, but when it comes to these things, I'm with Matt Feeney --
somebody who, though not very fond of suburbs as a place to live or get stuck in traffic in, genuinely loathes suburbia as a target of satire and smug critical harangues. I also suspect that my loathing of the the critical trope “suburbia” has become so widely shared (I mean, everyone hates American Beauty by now, right?) as to have emerged as a tired counterpart to the suburbia trope itself [.]
Traditionalist conservative attacks on the suburbs focus on what's considered the artificial and alienating character of suburban development. The more prominent (and popular, and reflexive) attack from the left focuses on the kinds of people who live in suburbs -- that is, people who don't want to live in high-density urban environments. It's this second line of criticism that rankles this critic (how quickly it becomes one set of bourgeois preferences' assault on another!). Count it another point in Mad Men's favor that we're invited to spend the great majority of our time as viewers picking apart the lives of city mice.
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Re: Mad Men #10: City Mice
I feel like such an outsider when you post these because I've never watched. I heard two people on the radio tonight analyzing the show like it was the most important event in their lives.
Where do I go to catch up?
Aug '10
Re: Mad Men #10: City Mice
Tommy don't worry palo alto Los Angeles Istanbul truckstop Minneapolis these guys have cable ! they could be anywhere -- it just ain't that important all tv is soap opera tell me when it isn't ? rest is reporting (thank God)
Re: Mad Men #10: City Mice
Tommy De Seno: I feel like such an outsider when you post these because I've never watched. I heard two people on the radio tonight analyzing the show like it was the most important event in their lives.
Where do I go to catch up? · Sep 27 at 6:04pm
The critical fawning can get pretty cloying, Tommy, it's true. I'm just happy I can find the time to watch one good show on television. (Apparently the new show to love is Breaking Bad, of which I've seen exactly 0 seconds.) As for getting caught up, that's a great question -- above my pay grade for the moment, but I'll see what I can see...
Jun '10
Re: Mad Men #10: City Mice
I just like the Conrad Hilton redux on Mad Men... Just so funny to think of how we go from him to Paris.. a great argument that it's not the "gene's" that matter.
Aug '10
Re: Mad Men #10: City Mice
SPOILER ALERT! Considering that SCDP just lost its biggest client yesterday, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Conrad return, at least for a cameo, as this season starts to accelerate towards its conclusion.
Not necessarily at warp speed, mind you. But as James likes to point out at Lileks.com whenever he spots them in old movies and TV series, I'm wondering if anybody else caught the Obligatory Trek Connection last night.
Re: Mad Men #10: City Mice
Ed Driscoll
SPOILER ALERT!
Easy on the spoilers, at least one Ricocheter on the verge of watching the show writes to warn!