Not as Advertised: The Women of Mad Men
“Nothing fits both sides of a woman better than Playtex.” This headline is one of many female directed ads that appear on the AMC hit show Mad Men. Set in the 1960’s, Mad Men takes place during a time period where men are the bread winners and women are the pretty housewives. The show follows the activities at Sterling Cooper, a fictional advertising agency in New York. These men who work in the field of advertising are labeled as “mad men”. The show dives down deeper into the social rules of gender and allows the viewer to see what it was actually like during these times. Mad Men accomplishes this by capturing how characters live their everyday lives. As the show continues, the characters evolve and fans get better insight on how females and males were supposed to act and think during the time period. While the show focuses on both male and female
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After Don and Betty get divorced, Don starts seeing another woman named Megan. As the relationship goes on, Don figures out that Megan is not what he has come to expect from a woman. She is a complete opposite of Don’s ex-wife Betty. Megan’s character represents the new type of woman in society. She is a young beautiful woman who wants a life full of variety. Having her own goals and desires, Megan is a puzzle that Don cannot solve. He often finds himself frustrated at times because he cannot understand her lifestyle. Don is used to a woman not having a job and having plenty of time for him. Unlike Betty however, Megan does not stay at home while Don is away doing his business. Megan actually has dreams of her own and is an upcoming actress. This usually leaves Don to fend for himself while she is out and about with her own career. While watching Mad Men at this point in the series, the audience can see how much the culture has
This phenomenon suggests that all women are required to remain loyal wives and stay at home mothers who aspire to achieve perfection. In “Mirrors of Masculinity: Representation and Identity in Advertising Images,” Jonathon E. Schroeder and Detlev Zwick claim that “highly abstract connections are made between the models, a lifestyle, and the brand” resulting in a need to associate these products with a specific way of living (25). Instead of simply displaying these luxurious bracelets and handbags, the ad creates an elegant environment through the incorporation of sophisticated items. The women are dressed elegantly in dresses and blouses, adding a conservative element to the ad. The ad presents a rather stereotypical image of the very successful heads-of-household type mothers who have brunch with other elite women in an exclusive circle. Everything from the merchandise they sport to the champagne glasses down to the neatly manicured fingernails provides insight into the class of women presented in this ad. The body language of the women strips the image of the reality element and instead appears to be staged or frozen in time. This directly contributes to the concept of the gendered American dream that urges women to put up a picture-perfect image for the world to see. Instead of embracing individual struggle and realities, the American dream encourages women to live out a fabricated
Common sense seems to dictate that commercials just advertise products. But in reality, advertising is a multi-headed beast that targets specific genders, races, ages, etc. In “Men’s Men & Women’s Women”, author Steve Craig focuses on one head of the beast: gender. Craig suggests that, “Advertisers . . . portray different images to men and women in order to exploit the different deep seated motivations and anxieties connected to gender identity.” In other words, advertisers manipulate consumers’ fantasies to sell their product. In this essay, I will be analyzing four different commercials that focuses on appealing to specific genders.
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader has the experience to understand what it was like to live in an insane asylum during the 1960’s. Kesey shows the reader the world within the asylum of Portland Oregon and all the relationships and social standings that happen within it. The three major characters’ groups, Nurse Ratched, the Black Boys, and McMurphy show how their level of power effects how they are treated in the asylum. Nurse Ratched is the head of the ward and controls everything that goes on in it, as she has the highest authority in the ward and sabotages the patients with her daily rules and rituals. These rituals include her servants, the Black Boys, doing anything she tells them to do with the patients.
Ken Kesey's award-winning novel, "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest", was adapted into a film in 1975 written and directed by New York City native Bo Goldman and Czech director Milos Forman. Towards the end of the novel and film, Chief Bromden escapes from the ward. This scene is conveyed differently in the novel and film; however, there are evident similarities between each form of media. This scene is important to the plot because it wraps up the entire storyline. In the film and novel, similarities within Chief Bromden’s escape from the ward include the way Chief escaped, how he couldn't hear anyone in the ward due to being deaf, and how McMurphy assisted Bromden with gaining his confidence to lift the panel and throw it through the window. McMurphy essentially changed Bromden to help him break out of the asylum and back into the real world.
Believe it or not, gender scripts shape our everyday lives. The way we think, act, or even the way we interact with one another is undeniably influenced by gender roles. References toward gender are placed subliminally around us in ads, billboards, and on the television. These messages subconsciously tell us as a society what is acceptable behavior and what is not. As learned in class, gender scripts are socially constructed behaviors that society sets for all of us to follow. If someone behaves differently from the already established norms, that person is looked as weird or as an outcast from the rest of the group. The iconic film Love and Basketball allows us as viewers to see gender scripts being defied and role reversal emerged.
Don Draper, the protagonist of the show, is emotionally isolated yet narcissistic, trapped in a suffocation of his own ego. Yet he seems to be the most liberal when it comes to serious female contribution in the workplace, although continues to sexualise those who haven’t proved their worthy capabilities to him. He is able to view Peggy and Joan as women who have alternative purposes than to please his sexual desires. Despite this modernist ‘transition’ of observing woman in a new light, he is still the one who gets to make the decision of what use each female character is to him. The male characters expectantly possess the dominating role within the show, as they did in 1960s society. In Mad Men, everyone chain-smokes, every executive starts drinking before lunch, every man is a chauvinistic pig, every male employee viciously competitive and jealous of his colleagues, with the endless succession of leering junior execs and crude jokes and abusive behaviour. (Mendelsohn, 2011, 5) The men are consumed within the competitive environment of the advertisement agency, adultery, drinking and smoking just accessories to the life-style of the alpha male. The female characters are ultimately more complex because they have less freedom.
Since its inception, American mass media and entertainment has had an indelible impression on how our culture develops our collective identity. Mass media’s grip on cultural perspective has unprecedented power in molding how society communicates, why we communicate and what the communication ultimately means in our everyday lives. Say what you will about television, but what has been made excruciatingly clear over the past few decades is that the small screen is a teacher and what it teaches us more than anything is our roles in civility. Representation is key in this respect. Generally, much of television is concerns heterosexual, white males and their constituents, most of which are too white, heterosexual and male. In the age of being able to access television shows with a few clicks of one’s phone or computer, media’s presence continues to envelope the lives and perspectives of everyone. Young people who are growing up with new technologies that beam copious amounts of mass media influencers by the second are especially affected--their identities become cookie-cut before they even enter kindergarten. The AMC drama series, Mad Men is a marvel that has won four consecutive Emmy-awards for Best Drama Series and continues to receive glowing reviews every season. The wildly popular and critically-acclaimed television drama series expresses every concerning aspect of media’s representation of “US”, our history, our ideals and beliefs. What is perhaps most interesting about this award-winning show is how it always generates a dialogue about the state of our current cultural identity, saying so much about the nature of gender roles, sexuality, race and more. It is a reminder that whilst we are being entertained, we are also having our...
When Marcus and Kevin are working the failed drug bust, all the employees involved in the scene at the gas station are males because this scene results in fighting, chasing, and shooting. All of these are stereotypical predominately male actions. After completing their assignment, Marcus arrives home from work expecting a hot meal and is disappointed when there is only take out. This pulls in gender ideology and the idea of the second shift by exampling male working stereotypes and female caretaking stereotypes. When returning to headquarters the next day Marcus suggests they take on their future assignment of escorting the sisters to the Hamptons and Kevin states, “I didn’t join the FBI to become a nanny I want to be on the streets where the action is.” This effectively shows traditional gender ideology as well. They believe as males they deserve to be front and center in the action, and that caretaking jobs were designed for women, not the other way around. In another aspect when the agents disguise themselves as the sisters, transforming themselves from African American males to white blonde females. In doing so they must mimic not only how they have already seen Brittney and Tiffany present themselves, but also how their peers in the Hamptons would expect to see them dress and act. This brings into play centerfold syndrome. This means that women are often
The chosen sequence I will analyze is the Production/Editing of the film No Country for Old Men. This film which came out in 2007 was based on the novel written by Cormac MaCarthy of the same name. The movie was written/adapted, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen (a.k.a. the Coen brothers). The film is often referred to as a neo-western thriller due to its degree of genre mixing as it tells the story of an ordinary man whom by chance stumbles on a fortune that is not his, and the ensuing cat-and-mouse drama as the paths of three men are brought together into the desert landscape of 1980s Texas.
In viewing 12 Angry Men, we see face to face exactly what man really is capable of being. We see different views, different opinions of men such as altruism, egoism, good and evil. It is no doubt that human beings possess either one or any of these characteristics, which make them unique. It is safe to say that our actions, beliefs, and choices separate us from animals and non-livings. The 20th century English philosopher, Martin Hollis, once said, “Free will – the ability to make decisions about how to act – is what distinguishes people from non-human animals and machines 1”. He went to describe human beings as “self conscious, rational, creative. We can fall in love, write sonnets or plan for tomorrow. We are capable of faith, hope and charity, and for that matter, of envy, hated and malice. We know truth from error, right from wrong 2.” Human nature by definition is “Characteristics or qualities that make human beings different from anything else”. With this said, the topic of human nature has been around for a very long time, it is a complex subject with no right or wrong answer. An American rabbi, Samuel Umen, gave examples of contradictions of human nature in his book, Images of Man. “He is compassionate, generous, loving and forgiving, but also cruel, vengeful, selfish and vindictive 3”. Existentialism by definition is, “The belief that existence comes before essence, that is, that who you are is only determined by you yourself, and not merely an accident of birth”. A French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, is the most famous and influential 20th - century existentialist. He summed up human nature as “existence precedes essence”. In his book, Existentialism and Human Emotions, he explained what he meant by this. “It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will be something, and he himself will have made what he will be 4”. After watching 12 Angry Men, the prominent view on human nature that is best portrayed in the movie is that people are free to be whatever they want because as Sartre said, “people create themselves every moment of everyday according to the choices they make 5”.
Ambrose Bierce once said “Prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.” (This quote goes along with exactly what Steinbeck portrays throughout his well-known novel “Of Mice and Men.” As Steinbeck is writing the story he has many different goals, trying to show just how difficult it was for workers and people during the Great Depression era, and also help the reader better understand and connect with each character (Attell). He uses the many different character personalities to present major themes throughout, two of the major themes being powerlessness and prejudice towards many of the characters. During this time it was extremely difficult for individuals to find and have a set place to
Gender stereotypes and biasses exist in media. In most situations, women are associated with more negative stereotypes and their portrayals can “undermine their presence by being “hyper-attractive” or “hyper-sexual” and/or passive” (Smith, 2008). In The Wolf of Wall Street women are objectified. They are treated
In the essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,” author and philosopher Susan Bordo discusses the history and current state of male representation in advertisements. While using her feminist background, Bordo compares and contrasts the aspects of how men and women are portrayed in the public eye. She claims that there has been a paradigm shift the media with the theory that not just women are being objectified in the public eye, but also men too. Since the mid-1970s, with the introduction of Calvin Klein commercials, men have started to become more dehumanized and regarded as sex symbols. In a similar fashion to how Bordo describes gender, race plays a similar role in the media. People of all different ethnicities and cultures are being categorized into an oversimplified and usually unfair image by the media over basic characteristics.
In the first three episodes of the series Mad Men the main character Don Draper works for a company that creates ads, in the 1960’s, his boss at this company is Rodger Sterling. In the first episode the company that Draper works for is trying to come up with an ad that convinces people that cigarettes are not bad for people’s health. Don Drapper is a high up executive ad man at the company he works for and is trying to find new clients to create ads for. Peggy Olsen, another main character is just starting at the company as Don Drapper’s new secretary. Betty Draper is Don Draper’s wife, they have two kids together. Peter Campbell is a 26 year old up and coming sales man for the same company and works alongside Don Draper. In episode two the company is trying to come up with an ad for right guard spray deodorant. Also Betty Draper is having problems with maintaining control of her
Through the mass media, our patriarchal capitalist system has created the illusion that Women’s Liberation has progressed when gender equality policies were introduced, such as “equal salaries” and the right to vote. It has convinced the common North American woman to believe that she is not socially restrained, that her accomplishments can be unlimited, that she is in total charge and control of her life. However, conventional norms veiled deeply and expressed indirectly in the mass media continue to dictate and subdue lives according to gender. Seemingly innocent short TV ads, still remarkably traditional in depicting gender roles, condone and reinforce gender oppression. This paper will focus on the underlying imagery of several advertisements, which help perpetuate gender oppression and reinforce the patriarchial system.