Matthew Weiner Interview in the Spring 2014 Paris Review

Matthew Weiner is interviewed by Semi Chellas in the Spring 2014 edition of the Paris Review. There is so much to analyze in the short preview provided online, that I cannot wait to delve into the full piece later tonight.   

 As for now, Weiner answers, "The driving question for the series is, Who are we? When we talk about “we,” who is that? In the pilot, Pete Campbell has this line, “Adding money and education doesn’t take the rude edge out of people.” Sophisticated anti-Semitism."He talks about the pressure to assimilate and "becoming white." Rachel Menken is a member of "the nose-job generation," which is why she understands Don, "because they're both trying desperately to be white American males."

And he reveals...Peggy is actually his favorite character.

Mad Men Season 6: Now Available on Netflix

 

Quick note that season 6 of Mad Men is now available on Netflix. Good news if you plan on rewatching the final few episodes as catch up.

Netflix and Mad Men are usually pretty strategic as to when they release seasons to the cult fans. Close enough to the premiere date to make them relevant and buzzed about, and close enough that those serious about catching up to to watch the show real-time, probably already purchased it on iTunes.

Either way, I know what I'm doing tonight.

Also new on Netflix for the month of April:

Braveheart,  Click, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Coneheads, The English Patient, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Jumanji, A League of Their Own, Mean Girls, Look Who's Talking Now, Rocky, Scary Movie 3, Sense and Sensibility, The Terminator, and more.

Season 7 Episode Title and Extremely Brief Synopsis Uncovered

SpoilerTV.com has revealed the title of the Season 7 premiere and a ridiculously brief and vague synopsis (as is every type of spoiler for Mad Men). The episode will be called Time Zones. It seems pretty obvious that this is in reference to the New York City/Los Angeles time difference. It sounds like there will be some cross-country attempts, and possibly fails, at communication. 

In terms of the synopsis, here goes:

Don makes a friend; Joan has drinks with a client; Roger receives a perplexing phone call; Peggy hears new work.

Now let's try that again: 

Don makes a friend (It's gotta be a girl, no? Maybe not. Didn't know Don could make platonic friends. That'll be fun; Joan has drinks with a client (Remember that time...? Yeah you remember it. On another note, this could be the beginning of the Joan takeover we've all been waiting for. Joan and Peggy starting their own firm?); Roger receives a perplexing phone call (I'm thinking his funds have diminished, or someone unfortunately has passed, but that's just too predictable, maybe he becomes too into LSD and this leads to health issues?); Peggy hears new work (because she's Don now and she's going to have to make some really big decisions, what is good for Peggy's Career isn't necessarily what is good for Peggy).

The Anachronisms and Historical Inaccuracies in Mad Men

Matthew Weiner is quite the perfectionist when it comes to period detail accuracy. It has been said that personalized notepads have been made for most ad men/women at the firm, tucked away in drawers that may never be opened. A team of experts make sure the props, historical data, and references are all perfectly correct. It has been said that Weiner even makes cast members wear period-appropriate undergarments.

But hey, we all slip. Here are the times audience members freakishly looked into the details of Mad Men, and won: 

In the very first episode of the very first season, Don Draper tells Pete Campbell, "I had a report just like that, and it's not like there's some magic machine that makes identical copies of things." Hm...there actually was. The first photocopier was released by Xerox in 1959, and would have been well-known, especially by someone like Don Draper.  But I would let it slide, it was definitely a rookie move.

When it is discovered that Betty in fact has the mind of a child, in Season 1, episode 4, "The Ladies Room," she tells the psychiatrist that her neighbor had a jealous attitude that brought her back to sorority days. The only problem is, Betty attended Bryn Mawr, which has no sororities. 

 

Marshall McLuhan's famous phrase, "The medium is the message" became popularized in his 1964 Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Joan quotes the media theorist in Season one, episode six, "Babylon," when letting Peggy know (coldly, duh) that she has received a promotion, where she gets more responsibility but equal pay. She says, "Well you know what they say, the medium is the message." Peggy shouldn't "know what they say," as it is only 1960.

Ken Cosgrove asks Jane to a Mets game at Shea Stadium in Season 2, episode 7, "The Gold Violin." The episode was set in 1962 and Shea Stadium didn't open til 1964. He should have asked her to a game at the Polo Grounds, where the Mets were playing at the time.  

The grand opening of Shea Stadium on April 17th, 1964

No Dylan on the radio. In Season 2, episode 11, "The Jet Set," Peggy says that she heard Bob Dylan on the radio. The episode is set in 1962, when Dylan hadn't produced any singles, just after his ill-fated debut album that most likely hadn't made it to radio.

In Season 3, episode 2, "Love Among the Ruins,"  it is clear that Lane Pryce has a three-volume Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED has been around since the 1800s, but this specific edition wasn't printed until 1987.

In Season 3, episode 3, "My Old Kentucky Home," you may remember Roger Sterling's blackface performance. The drummer was using a crash cymbal that wasn't available until the seventies.

Don is shown watching a nighttime NFL game on TV in Season 4, episode 1, "Public Relations."

 Prime-time football didn't actually begin until 1970, and the episode is set in 1964.  

In Season 6, episode 4, "To Have and to Hold," Joan references having dinner at Le Cirque. The New York City restaurant opened in 1974, but this specific episode takes place in 1968.

This, as Weiner calls it "terrible error," was actually heavily buzzed about. I guess what happened was, many Mad Men fans also happened to be New York City restaurant buffs. Even so, Matthew Weiner doesn't sweat it, "I think the pleasure some people get from the mistake makes more entertainment for the show.”

 

Ok, now this one is quite ridiculous. Font designer Mark Simonson noticed that the sign on the Sterling Cooper building uses Gil Sans, but the font was not in popular use until the seventies.

 

The windows of the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce office in the Time Life Building face the Swiss Bank Tower, but the tower wasn't built until 1990. 

As far as language goes, there are a lot of phrases that slip out of the writer's post-millennium minds into the scripts of the '60s. Characters have said things like "In a good place," "on the same page," "loose lips sink ships," and other phrases years before they were invented or popularized.  Hey, who would have know that in the sixties most people used "ought to" instead of the more modern "need to." I guess the Mad Men writers should have.

For the last and final season of Mad Men, I'm sure Weiner has his fact-checkers working overtime.

See more anachronisms on Vulture.com.