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"Art reflects the time it was created in" doesn't seem like a controversial statement to me. That art sometimes leads broader culture or identifies prevalent trends before broader society does also seems uncontroversial. Art being constrained and influenced by popular media tools available is also uncontroversial. I get that goons are dumb and incapable of thinking more than two minutes in either direction but come on.
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Dec 15, 2020 05:41
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Duck's inadequacy comes from the fact that a man in his unit killed fiddy men.
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Dec 16, 2020 17:35
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I sold equipment to Theranos and it was wild. Like sitting at a table and negotiating with Sunny. My boss was obsessed with meeting Elizabeth Holmes and I was like, "It's a scam, save your time." Still, that commission paid for my wedding. I was selling crap, so game recognizes game I guess.
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Dec 19, 2020 22:55
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My Mother laughed when that aired because that is what my grossvater used to do.
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Dec 21, 2020 06:14
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The Klowner posted:My brother got me a bottle of whiskey for Christmas. I have never had whiskey in my life before. I'm hoping you are joking but if not, uhhh, what whiskey was it? If you aren't used to hard liquor, buy a good bottle of vermouth (Carpano is a solid call), some bitters and make Manhattans. Modern Manhattans are like 3/4th whiskey and 1/4th vemouth but originally the ratios were reversed because it was designed to hide the poor quality of the whiskey. I drink a lot of 50/50 manhattans because it makes the bottles disappear at the same rate so I don't have a hotdogs-and-buns scenario. If you have a favorite amaro you can substitute the vermouth with the amaro which is also quite tasty. Pre-prohibition old fashions (the kind without muddled fruit) are also great.
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Dec 28, 2020 19:57
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Shageletic posted:Yeah Don's an emotional guy, even a sentimental one, but its really only honed to make himself more money. Like Pete's ability to read tea leaves. These people's gifts or what have you are honed to their business. Everything Don does is him escaping his past. Making women whores to own the woman that raised him and the woman who birthed him. Being better at being counter-cultural while effortlessly succeeding in the culture. Earning fat stacks of cash is part of that but money is really just part of the class identity he is seeking. Because Jimmy is fundamentally right: Don is garbage. And he knows it. So he asserts himself by putting others down. He's Trumpian in that way: holding the higher ground doesn't matter if the other party is willing to drag you down into the mud.
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Jan 10, 2021 04:02
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Gaius Marius posted:They're not gonna know the context and are just gonna glaze over it. Your way overthinking it. Dig up.
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Jan 14, 2021 05:02
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Gaius Marius posted:Yes a lot of resonance with the show and this season in particular, however it also sucked. Dirty beatniks so self absorbed they can only write about themselves, disgusting. If you told me paul kinsey wrote that I'd believe you. In that way, Mad Men is very much a product of it's time. Self-made conventional compassionate conservative from America's heartland is a romantic soul who is cool on a level that those lefty loser city-slickers can never reach. He even helps out women and blacks based on their individual merits because it is all about the individual which he can see irrespective of identity whereas the left only sees the group they belong to though homosexuality remains inherently deviant. He can tolerate that deviance but also feels it ought be exploited. I had missed a lot of the Christian imagery when I watched it but that plays into it too. It's all very W's America.
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Jan 29, 2021 04:47
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Don Draper is a man who loves life. Don Draper is a man who will not sacrifice his love nor his values.
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Jan 29, 2021 08:53
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Pete is a complex character. He's the best character on the show. If children are a burdensome obligation (something he was undoubtedly told many times) why would you go out of your way to adopt? If having children will make your spouse (the only person who loves you in an unqualified manner), why wouldn't you give them what they want? Why does your spouse love you, when you are a grimy unlovable person (something you undoubtedly know to be true)? What is wrong with them? Why can't you provide your spouse what they need? Why can't you succeed? When you look in the mirror, you don't see what is wrong with you. You aren't the most handsome man but you basically look fine. So why does everyone treat you like some hideous goblin? And what the gently caress is wrong with the one person who doesn't? Why do they accept you? Are they having their father give you money to mock you? Is that what it is? Are you some kind of a joke, a doormat to them? gently caress them! You just want to be loved but you are clearly unlovable so why does this seemingly normal person love you? Are you just some loving clown? You are creative, your ideas are just as good as Don or Paul. OK, maybe not as good but they are still pretty solid ideas and at least worth considering. Why do people see greatness in them and just treat you like a joke? And then there is Rodger. He's got a lineage. But you've got a better lineage. Why do people respect him when he's at least as much of a fuckup as you are. Why doesn't anybody love me and what is wrong with the people who do love me? Set a timer and say that to yourself everyday at the top of the hour every hour. And a few times in between. Maybe ever 15 minutes or so when you are stressed or just are alone like when you take a poop or just close your eyes for a moment. Live in that skin for a while. Then Pete makes total and complete sense.
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Jan 29, 2021 10:07
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The show goes to great lengths to show how hollow Don is but it's the whole "you can't make an anti-war" movie. Showing that man be professionally recognized, becoming incredibly wealthy, banging hot women and owning the libs because he's unbelievably awesome is. . . not the rebuke of the conservative culture of the aughts Mad Men's creators think it is. Sure, Don is hollow on the inside or whatever but if you think about the hierarchy of needs, Don can afford to be self-indulgent about his hollowness. And it's not like there are counterweights to Don's emptiness. Sure Don's broken but so are Peter, Rodger, Cooper, Peggy, Betty, etc. Confessions of a Mask this ain't because Don's hollowness is a shared phenomenon because of the "man in a grey suit" era as opposed to something really special about Don.
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Jan 31, 2021 01:16
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sebmojo posted:Is it trying to be a rebuke of the conservative culture of the aughts? How? Like Science Fiction, period pieces reflect the time they are made in more than the time they represent. The self-made wealthy Conservative Everyman owning snobbish liberal elitists absolutely speaks to popular conscious of 2007 and 2008. Talking about Don's emptiness as a counter to that is absolutely what they wanted to convey if you listen to their interviews but given how the character of Don Draper was and is received, uhhh, they didn't do a great job communicating that.
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Jan 31, 2021 01:38
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pentyne posted:yeah because 2007 was the only time in history there was a culture perception of self made men owning a bunch of ivory tower intellectuals. But having a conservative (anti)hero in 2007 is absolutely making a statement.
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Jan 31, 2021 01:56
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sebmojo posted:i mean i guess, I just don't see that wealthy everymen owning liberal elites is a big or even particularly noticeable part of MM - there's a couple of scenes with hippies/beatniks, but i didn't feel like don owned them, it was more just a culture clash? It's hard to find old interviews but it shouldn't be surprising that Weiner was very public about how he felt people weren't "getting" what he was trying to say with Don Draper and how he is a tragic character as opposed to captain awesome. But Weiner glamorizes his subject to the point that it's hard not to walk away with sympathy towards the captain awesome interpretation. Weiner clearly likes womanizing very much. He also likes wealth very much. Mad Men is opposed to the conservative values Don represents in the same way Paths of Glory is antiwar.
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Jan 31, 2021 02:19
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Yoshi Wins posted:Don is obviously very unhappy, and people who don't watch dramas closely don't watch Mad Men for long, because they think nothing happens. Don can afford to be unhappy in the self-indulgent way he is. Mad Men was a major cultural phenomenon. Up until 2012, it was easier to strike up a conversation with a stranger by talking about Mad Men than Breaking bad. VinylonUnderground fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jan 31, 2021 |
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Jan 31, 2021 02:21
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pentyne posted:you're like the equivalent of the Harry Potter fan who says every bad guy is just like Voldemort It's literally the reverse.
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Jan 31, 2021 02:22
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You might want to spoiler an interview that talks about things several seasons in advance of this thread.
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Jan 31, 2021 02:42
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Yoshi Wins posted:What do you mean? Don's emptiness comes off as Pete's, "Everything is so easy for you" pout.
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Jan 31, 2021 02:56
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Yoshi Wins posted:I'm not being deliberately obtuse here. I still don't understand. I think it is the kind of pain that only a certain class of person can have. His pain is just another form of self-indulgence. But that's not my point. My point is that the show is against the "man in the grey suit" era the way Paths of Glory is antiwar (feel free to insert whichever other not-actually-antiwar movie that purports to be antiwar here). Weiner loves the things he is telling us are bad too much to actually portray them as bad. He shows them as being awesome all the time. Then he shows Don being alone and sad with the subtlety of a trombone. He can tell us these things are bad in interviews. He can have what amount to fourth wall breaking scenes where he says these things are bad. But when he actually shows them, he revels in the spectacle and lets his love, not his revulsion, shine through. S1&S2 spend a lot of time doing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCUPqf2sslk&t=65s
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Jan 31, 2021 04:14
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pentyne posted:In the 60s the idea of a wealthy, successful provider who cheats on his spouse isn't seen as automatically being "the bad guy". This isn't some new or radical concept there are still large pockets of people in tyool 2021 who think "stand by your man" is the only answer to a married man doing anything wrong. So you think Paths of Glory is an effective antiwar movie?
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Jan 31, 2021 19:21
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While I think the criticisms I'm presenting do apply to the series as a whole, I'm not spoilering things because I'm keeping my commentary contemporary with the thread itself. For example the jetsetters are a good foreshadowing of the doldrums of some of the later seasons and those do a fair job deglamorizing Don's lifestyle. Being a pathetic loser who pays women to slap him and then having the one friend he has left top himself is very much not glamorous. We know Weiner likes being a grimy little pimp and his love of all the "bad" things about Don shines through in the product. I don't think the show is effective (and certainly not up to the point in the narrative where this thread is) at actually condemning these things. Instead it revels in them and then does a quick sad trombone scene to clumsily communicate that these things it presents as good are, in fact, bad. VinylonUnderground fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jan 31, 2021 |
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Jan 31, 2021 19:25
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Escobarbarian posted:This feels like a trick because.....yes? It is the original example given in the "you can't make an antiwar movie" argument. If you think it is an effective antiwar movie, then, sure. Mad Men is also effective.
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Feb 1, 2021 05:21
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pentyne posted:The black girlfriend thing was pretty eye opening too, aside from the weird racism it really did give the vibe that he felt like he was 'woke' for deigning to be with her. That is still 100% a thing, weird racism and all. Woke white dudes deigning to date black women is something all of my straight black lady friends have experienced. The terminology changes but the experience doesn't. He's fundamentally a contrarian, so dating a woman below his status is part of tweaking his nose at the system. The woman is a prop and incidental.
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Feb 3, 2021 09:15
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Absolutely one of the funniest scenes in the show.
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Feb 3, 2021 16:56
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von Metternich posted:The gimmick of Jon Hamm walking through his own memories was used much better in Young Doctor’s Notebook, where Jon Hamn watches his younger self (Daniel Radcliffe) becoming an opium addict. It’s way funnier than it sounds, I promise! As an aside, that reminded me of one of the greatest stories ever of a person playing themselves in just the most predictable way.
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Feb 10, 2021 03:58
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The Klowner posted:Is it morally justified for a man to cheat on his wife if he's gay? Can he be blamed? If it's a matter of context, what is the limit? For example, if there's a difference for gays in America 1963 versus 2021, what year is the inflection point? It's hard to pick a time, but I'd probably go with June 25th, 1978. The Gay Freedom Day Parade and Milk's rallying cry of "You must come out!" Without mass action, staying in the closet is just survival (still is in many places). Nine years after Stonewall, so there is plenty of momentum so the Johnny-come-latelies no longer have an excuse. If you wanted to go with something negative rather than positive, you could pick some time in 1981/1982 when GRIDS/Gay Cancer exploded into the public consciousness. At that point MSMs maintaining a lavender marriage would be a health threat to their wives.
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Feb 10, 2021 19:05
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McSpanky posted:Indeed. I think I remember why I had you ignored, Shbobdb. The button is right there buddy, nobody is stopping you. It's better than posting about posters, which is some really tired poo poo.
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Feb 11, 2021 08:16
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2/3rds divorce rate comes from somewhere.
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Feb 16, 2021 23:33
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Breaking Bad is one of those show we look back at years later and go “yeah it was good but why did it come to dominate pop culture for a short burst of time?” Whilst Mad Men ages like fine wine. I strongly disagree. Mad Men is way more a piece of its time, to its detriment. Breaking Bad is so good it actively makes me angry every time I watch it. Mad Men is nice. Breaking Bad also never really hit a doldrums period whereas at least two seasons of Mad Men could be easily excised. It's a real Sopranos situation where it just drops like a stone for a few seasons and spins its wheels. Breaking Bad was nonstop adrenaline throughout.
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Feb 18, 2021 05:22
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Torquemada posted:Breaking Bad is to Mad Men as The Shield is to The Wire. I strongly prefer The Shield so that actually holds for me.
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Feb 18, 2021 08:04
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UNRULY_HOUSEGUEST posted:I honestly had to check to make sure that the guy whose prior take was that Don Draper is too much an avatar for vicarious fantasy and fuckin' Paths of Glory is effectively a pro-war film is also of the opinion that Breaking Bad and The Shield, shows singularly driven by power-abusing white suburbanite guys running over all the rules, are the best TV for being nonstop adrenaline thrill rides. Pick a lane my man Just because Paths of Glory isn't an effective anti-war movie doesn't mean it isn't a good movie. A movie can be good while also failing to accomplish what it sets out to do. Mad Men is absolutely lifestyle porn created by a man who adores that kind of thing and his adoration is all over it. He's also ashamed of it. The white male power fantasy of Breaking Bad and the Shield (and the power fantasy gone awry) is great TV. I do think Breaking Bad does a better job of making Walt the villain than Mad Men does but part of that is that Walter is also "evil" in a more visceral way while Don is alienated from the evil he does much like how he is alienated from everything.
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Feb 20, 2021 01:36
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Xealot posted:It feels like comparing Star Wars and Interstellar..."I mean, they're both about space, right?" Star Wars ripped off Flash Gordon and made it better. I'd rather watch Star Wars than what it was aping. Interstellar is a shoddy 2001-like that really just made me want to watch 2001 or Sunshine again.
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Feb 20, 2021 01:37
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Shageletic posted:Walt dies killing nazis with a huge machine gun??? He goes out on his own terms. It's pretty much the perfect ending.
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Feb 20, 2021 04:23
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Shageletic posted:But you said BB made Walt out to be a villain? Yes. I'm not sure where you are seeing the contradiction? He's a much more effective villain that Don. Walt is driven by pride. Don is passive, he's a catalyst who remains fundamentally unchanged. A man liberated by death vs golden handcuffs of the patriarchy. Just because they are a villain doesn't mean they can't have some measure of redemption. That's also part of what makes a villain compelling instead of just lifestyle porn. Somebody fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Feb 20, 2021 |
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Feb 20, 2021 18:35
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CharlestheHammer posted:I mean saved the day by a problem he caused, entirely by his own greed. "Saved the day" is also pretty restrained. He's destroyed his family, left a trail of bodies in his wake with a massive power vacuum -- plus a dangerous drug is more popular than ever because of what he did. Freeing Jesse, killing Nazis and going out on his own terms with his creation offers some redemption but I don't think you can call Walt "redeemed".
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Feb 20, 2021 18:37
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Shageletic posted:I'm confused. You said you didnt like Mad Men bc it was valorizing bad men. Breaking Bad is valorizing bad men. And you like BB because it valorizes him even harder? I never said I didn't like Mad Men. I like it quite a lot. I think Mad Men fails to condemn bad men.
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Feb 20, 2021 20:08
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Sure. I just think that one of the things that Weiner talks about a lot in interviews is the fundamental hollowness of Don. I just don't think he actually does a good job translating that to the screen where Don is Captain Awesome followed by *sad trombone*. It alternates between Frank and his Brother talking about "Those were the days!" at Shadynasty's and a middle schooler's idea of being "deep". Don Draper is a clove cigarette. And Weiner loving loves clove cigarettes. In Mad Men you have an awesome man being awesome (but he is sad inside because he is deep and has real feelings. ). In Breaking Bad you have a small pathetic man freed by death (that starts at the pilot and ends at the finale).
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Feb 20, 2021 20:47
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Shageletic posted:Is this a negative? If so, Breaking Bad does that even worse. Nah. Other people are vibing on what I'm saying but since you are misunderstanding me, I want to focus on this. Walt is a small man liberated by death and despite being a male fantasy, he dies a small man. That is what makes good drama. Don is a totally awesome dude who is totally amazing with "sad dog" moments. That is what makes bad fanfics. In terms of my original "you can't make an anti-war movie" argument, Vince has a lot of sympathy for small pathetic men. I think Breaking Bad does an effective job showing what Walt's power fantasy ends up becoming while telegraphing it the entire time in an organic way. The first lesson of chemistry is "hot glass looks like cold glass". That leads to burned fingers. Vince's sympathy makes a sad pathetic man seem awesome. Contrast that with Mad Men. "You can't make an anti-war movie" because here Weiner adores sexual violence and wealth. Weiner's sympathy makes a suave dude who is wealthy and can just "grab them by the pussy" seem awesome.
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Feb 21, 2021 08:59
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niethan posted:Don seems pathetic, not awesome, like at least half the time. Only when a *sad trombone* is playing.
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Feb 21, 2021 09:07
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Gets walked back immediately. Used to establish that "Don is a heel" which is a great example of Weiner "telling" with a *sad trombone*. Last one starts to be something. But by that point the show has established that Don has a clear "type" and it ain't Betty. Betty is the "type" he feels he needs to pursue as a function of the mask he wants to present (as I said before, "Confessions of a Mask" this ain't). Don losing Betty isn't a thing. The only "show" aspect of Don losing Betty that might be bad would be a Rodger parallel where Don could go from being "really rich" to "rich" like how Rodger had to go from being "really really rich" to "really rich". You'll forgive me if I don't give a poo poo.
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Feb 21, 2021 09:26
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