The show mad men, set in the late 1950s at what can be seen as start of the commercial industry , follows the lives of characters in a Madison avenue advertising agency, as well as that of their female counterparts. Although the show is based on men, its women characters are vital to depict representations that were typical of the programme’s setting. The context in which this modern drama is placed provides a perspective of the show that is both glamorised and exposed. An example of this would be the theme of self surveillance that the episode Shoot particularly focuses on.
Self-surveillance is the constant reviewing of ones personal image, and how it adheres to what dominant ideology promotes. Objectification of women is the predominant cause of female self-surveillance, and an example of this would be the popularity with cosmetic surgery, a trend that has been perpetuated by the constant imagery of “perfect” women. This view of what is considered beautiful combined with our own body dysmorphia fuels a need to correct, alter, and achieve “beauty”.
The origins of self-surveillance seem to bloom in the 20s. The term “Glamourous” was the key word in the advertisements used, and that was taken from a 19th century reference to enchantment and applied to the transformation of plain janes being turned into Hollywood material. In this era, consumerism could almost been seen as a new religion, following the loss of faith from the first world war. With renovation desired by all, advertising saw its chance to sell an image to the average woman and make her think it was attainable via the products they had to offer. Then, actual women were connected with these images and the birth of the It girl, or the flapper, maintained that women must attain a certain look with the help of the products being sold to her. Film stars were another addition to this marketing concept.
Whilst these girls were considered party-goers, the facets of women’s roles were added considerably as years went on, and by the 50s, the ideology of the Housewife was almost entirely dominant. The ultimate aspiration of having a businessman husband and two children was everything and the image of a housewife was in constant use for advertising household appliances. However, at the same time, the It girl still portrayed the glamourous side of this- yet it had been subtly altered so that glamour was intended for men. A woman had to look good for her husband, and being bombarded with these images promoted a sense of self-surveillance. After all, hegemony told us that if a woman lacked a husband she lacked a life.
There is still this physical assessment today, and whilst it sometimes is portrayed as female empowerment, there is the overpowering mentality that a woman is not worth anything to herself unless she is physically worth anything to others.
The usage of this pivotal ideology, combined with its reflection of the culture’s origin, gives mad men a depth which enables satirical reference to feminine hegemony. With it’s social, historical, and cultural context, mad men has the ability to make denotations and connotations about the subject matter.
Within Laura Mulvey’s “Visual And Other Pleasures”, the ideology of the “camera ready” woman is analysed, and this stems from self-surveillance in part. Her theory of the male gaze entails how the female role in media is based mainly on an idea of beauty which average women must achieve, yet Mulvey argues that this standard is one created by a male mindset of desire. Female attributes are valued based on male perspectives of female image; therefore all aspirations of vanity are harboured on behalf of male ideology.
This view of women as “perfect” is evident throughout the entire series of mad men, and prominently in ‘Shoot’ with all the main female characters. We have Betty Draper, a former model admired for her immaculately groomed looks, particularly her resemblance of Grace Kelly. Joan Holloway is Marilyn-esque in her curves and her manners. If we compare them we could say that they are at opposite ends of the “glamour” spectrum in terms of families, relationships, careers and attitudes. Betty has a perfect house, husband and two children, and her career is to be a housewife. Joan on the other hand is single in a marital sense but is having an affair with her boss, has no children and a secretarial job. Having said this, their common link is that of beauty, and the effect it has on their lives and the men in it. They are objectified, and often to their detriment.
Representing the complete opposite of this glossy duo, Peggy Olson fails completely to acheive the male gaze. She is frumpy, wears sack-like clothing and never seems to flutter her eyelashes to get her own way. At first glance, the text makes Peggy seem like the girl who nobody wants to be, with the men of the office being almost feminine in their vicious gossiping about her – or a “piece of fruit that went real bad, real fast” as one of them artfully concludes. But reflecting further on Betty and Joan, Peggy seems to have a somewhat less tough time by comparison. In fact, within her opening chapter discussing the remaining mentality of this era (but applied in context to a beauty pageant), Laura Mulvey uses a quote that correlates well with the show, to how wrong we are with our first impression of Betty and Joan, disdainfully referring to Bob Hope’s theory that “pretty girls just don’t have those problems…that plain girls have in finding a husband or making a successful career” (Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures, 1970). Mad Men here inverts his archetypal view by showing the sorrow that the ‘pretty girls’ experience and the benefits of being a Plain Jane. For example, Peggy is taken semi-seriously in terms of her career as a junior copywriter, and says that she is “the first girl to do any writing in this office since the war” which highlights the progression she has made so far. Yet, no matter how well Joan does her job she will still always be subservient to a patriarchal collective. Having said this, Joan points out that they may be another real reason why Peggy gets work when she comments “I heard you were being considered for an account because a client’s wife saw you and thought it’d be ok if he [the husband] worked with you”. So whether or not Peggy achieves more because she isn’t a threat to any woman or because she is smart enough is yet to be known but at least she does surpass her fellow secretaries. Amidst this argument, Holloway’s role as the ‘Other Woman’ also causes Peggy to point out scathingly “I know what men think of you, that you’re looking for a husband and you’re fun… and not in that order”. Betty’s downside to life is that she is struggling to cope with the loneliness of her housewife role and needs therapy, however Peggy does not have the ’good wife’ charade to keep up and instigate a breakdown. Not being married and not focusing mainly on capturing a man’s attention could well connote she has more freedom than both opposing female characters.
This observation of the pros and cons of being the office geek is not to say that only certain characters here undergo isolation, but rather that Mad Men comments about how the behind-the-scenes damage of being “camera ready” is on a par with the maltreatment endured by the more unattractive girls. This is how I view the representation, considering the modern context in which I am familiar with. It seems that Mad Men has been created specifically in this era because it will be more apparent to us that it is a parody than it would to any other person of previous eras. While someone else who remembers when more old fashioned mentalities were common ideology will see smatterings of normality in Mad Men, younger audiences will find it to be a world away from what they see in their contextual media. An example of this can be seen in the modern “Vintage” adverts that have become recently popular to promote modern products. Stella Artois’ current advertisement uses a sixties style poster of a man playing on a piano that a pin up type girl is draped over. Her retro bathing suit emphasizes her figure, and she is shot so we see her from behind. In this day and age we see the irony, a pastiche of the classic imagery. If it were to exist in the era in which it emulates, then the characters may become less of a joke, and more something to aspire to. In the same way, Mad Men takes advantage of being broadcast in the 21st century to create the effect of hindsight, a sense of looking back on the past knowingly; acknowledging the glamour yet criticizing the faults. Whilst mad men does run the risk of implying that the fast-paced shiny world of advertising is slick and covetable, it will never actually promote this because of its modern audience, and their ability to discern the negative aspects of the era. Another modern source reinforces my view, as Bill Clinton recognised and remarked, “If I keep watching this program, will I ever find a happy person?”.
Butler’s idea of performative gender can also be related back to Mad Men. Her theory encapsulates the notion that whilst gender is an essential part of self that is fixed, sexuality is not.
(I think I need more butler stuff here but not sure)
This could be seen almost as contradictory to Mulvey’s argument of how females are portrayed, because a male gaze dictates that females should be a sort of “helpless maiden”, whilst Butler claims that females don’t have to be essentially feminine. However, with Mad Men I find that both theories apply and that they are not mutually exclusive.
The most prominent example in episode nine would be the end sequence in which Betty shoots her neighbours pigeons as payback for him scaring her children. We see, at first, a glamorous woman in a see-through negligee and full make up gazing up at the sky angelically, and this adheres to Mulvey’s Male Gaze. Here, Betty is unchangeably and unashamedly female in terms of appearance. Then, Butler’s theory of fluidity in sexuality proves its point as Betty turns her shotgun on the pigeons, a move completed with a cigarette dangling out of on corner of her mouth like James Dean. She may look like an immaculate representation of glamour, but her actions connote a sense of masculinity that opposes her initial image. It could be seen that Mad Men has used the irony and the comedy of this to show that, in ensuring her children are happy, her matriarchal role has transformed her into a fiercely masculine force.
There are, of course, also less specific examples of gender theory throughout Mad Men, and not just in female representation. The structure of the show could be said to be the men’s profession itself, and their chosen career seems a strange parallel to their characters. They are dominant and patriarchal, and most if not all of them would have been soldiers in the recent second world war. Having said this, their job often entails selling female products to women, and in their board meetings we constantly see that for advertising campaigns they put themselves into a female mindset. At one point the art director lapses into sounding incredibly camp by predicting the women’s opinion of Jackie Kennedy: “It’s like their better-looking sister married a handsome Senator and now she’s going to live in the White House? I’m practically jealous.” Similarly, Betty’s advisor on her fashion shoot adapts the flexibility of his gender into his profession. Overall, the men swap sexuality as often as the women do.
In my opinion, the visual style of mad men is one of the most arresting factors. Its set design often seems to be chosen for the for two reasons- to evoke the era as glamorously as possible, and to display the characters outfits. The former is essential here, as the show relies on its context to give the drama meaning. Furthermore, as Mad Men documents the origin of mass consumerism, the importance of gadget-filled offices and perfect homes [lays a major part in the characters values.
Often within frames there is as much glamour as possible crammed in- the theatre bar alone has decadent chandeliers which are shot from below to ensure the audience knows how dauntingly tall they are. The offices in Madison Avenue have a different sort of embellishment, as it conveys a Bauhaus theme and their walls are covered with Rothko style paintings, which show the appreciation for modernity, and possibly expense. To a lesser importance, the visuals of the opening credits remind me somewhat of the iconic Bond sequences with the suited silhouette. To me, Mad Men’s use of this brings along Bond’s sense of luxury, and sophistication and also the satirical element, because the Bond character can at times be suave to the point of tastelessness.
These views that hold double connotations are often seen in Shoot, and even nature is seen to be controlled as something eden-esque, when at Betty’s suburban home, everything is saturated with colour- all blue cloudless skies and impossibly green grass. In fact, when Betty starts modelling, the fake background for the Coca-Cola campaign is rather similar to her own garden at the beginning of the episode. When she asks playfully how the bottles she is holding are already open, the art director satirically comments “we don’t want life to look difficult now, do we?”, suggesting perhaps the main mockery of Mad Men- that what we see on screen has in fact been manipulated much in the style of the advertising campaigns that the characters fabricate.
The other striking part of the style is within the outfits. Just to carrying out the menial task of trimming leaves, Betty Draper is dressed like a model in flawless make-up and a smart Capri-pant outfit. Creepily, her daughter has the exact same mini version, possibly pointing out via the duplication just how manufactured these female representations are. Every woman in the theatre wears cocktail dresses and perfectly tailored full skirted dresses seem normal for casual wear. In the office, secretarial uniform is less glamorous but is still elegant, showing waists and curve nonetheless. In fact, Peggy Olson is frowned upon for not helping her silhouette and looking plain.
Another observation of visual style is the way that costumes often co-ordinate with backgrounds or objects. Belts are matched with teacups, ties with settees, even suit and dress tones with drapes and interiors. This gives further sense of image orchestration, that the shows creators have made them synchronised in order to subtly emulate that the perfection we see is fake.
The use of semiotics is another technique employed in the production of Mad Men. Amongst other semioticians, Barthes suggests that signs are used to create meaning about the world, and emphatically concludes that these representations are formed by how the audience receives them. This factor is useful for relying on when symbols are used to create ambivalent meaning in Mad Men- an example being that all audiences see the presence of a fridge is only ever in the background when the scene is solely inhabited by women. In the 1950s, this could have been interpreted as a positive reinforcement that the women’s’ domain was always domestic. The contemporary audience may just see the fridge as representation of the woman’s prior role and restraint in the era, thus finding the semiotics to have a negative implication.
Often, Mad Men deliberately inverts meaning rather than just suggesting a possible significance, and the subplot involving Betty and her neighbour’s pigeons uses this. When we first see them flying, the sky is blue and the mood is serene, giving them an almost heavenly connotation. Subversion ensues when she takes this sign of peace and starts shooting at it, and the gun that she uses is no longer seen as part of her children’s toy box but a means of venting frustration, and rather rebelliously directing it at God if we are to extend the perception of the pigeons to the status of divinity.
Furthermore, the gun transforms Betty from being a housewife to James Dean in Giant, passive to aggressive, woman to man. One item added to a scene, and the entire view of a housewife gazing dreamily up into the sky at the pretty birds has been turned completely on its head. The alternative view of this subplot is that the birds represent Betty’s dreams. At in the beginning, they are limitless and unharmed, like Betty’s desire to go back to modelling. Then they get attacked by the dog, mirroring the vulnerability of Betty’s attempt to escape. When she takes the gun and shoots at them, it can possibly be seen that by threatening them she is quelling her dreams, lest they hurt her again by their failure to take flight.
Whether or not the creators of the show intended it, I couldn’t help but consider that this use of implication mirrors the revolutions of the age. In the same way that images in the show are being altered in terms of representation, the late 50s underwent a reinvention of sorts. Men are employed in jobs where they are required to think like a woman. Secretaries such as Peggy are being shown as gradually attaining a higher office status, and even fashion’s rapid change is shown at betty’s casting, when she arrives in a ball gown only to be greeted by younger girls with short skirts and nonchalant demeanours. Overall, this could be construed as part of the post-modern mockery that Mad Men uses to highlight the 1950s status quo.
What i have found to be most prolific about Mad Men’s ideology is that it is deliberately alternative in its representation of 1950s America, in particular the ideology of the “Hollywood Woman”. The creators of the show have, through visual style and connotation, shown the golden age of American culture to be far from its idealised state, and by doing this it has re-interpreted the myth of glamour from the 1950s. Although it goes so far as to presume that self-surveillence is being promoted through its visual style, it alters the connotations of this to challenge the classic Hollywood myth.
