Unpopular Entertainment Opinions • Page 77

If you’re ever going to tackle the prestige dramas, there are so many more worth your time.

 

I meant a show where the characters are chauvinist pigs sorry that wasn't clear

 

I know but I still stand by what I posted. There’s so many things going on in this show that reducing the it down to that because most the male characters are assholes is just weird to me.

 

Mad Men is the best of the new wave of Prestige TV incl. BB and Thrones but not as good as Sopranos or Wire. Its about as good as Deadwood

 

Did you miss the part where the creator has done the very same things that the male characters do and how that changes the tone of their depiction entirely? I know @iCarly Rae Jepsen is never one to suffer creeps gladly.

 

Weiner is a prick and should go kick rocks and never work again. I still think the show and everyone else involved who aren’t anything like him shouldn’t be lumped in with his terrible actions.

 

You really can’t see why the creator of a show that constantly degrades women degrading women would turn someone off to watching the show?

Also @tdlyon you need to watch Fleabag like a week ago. You owe it to yourself.

 

I can see how that could turn someone off from the show but calling it “the sexual harassment show” disregards the vast majority of why the show is great.

The racism shown in The Wire is despicable but that doesn’t make the show “the racist show” or something.

 

Uuhhhhhhhh, no. No it doesn’t. But this is more like Manhattan, where sure it’s beautifully shot and tons of talented people were involved, but at the end of the day it’s the movie where Woody wrote himself to make out with a teenager.

 

I just can’t agree with that. I think that’s an oversimplification of the whole show.

 

As long as everyone agrees Weiner is awful and should never get work again, that’s the important thing. Hopefully the disastrous Romanoffs was enough to make him go away, but I’m sure that’s too much wishful thinking.

 

Except it’s not like a Manhattan situation at all? In Manhattan, the age issue is treated like background noise or a minor stumbling block on an otherwise perfectly fine relationship. Whereas you have to be completely not watching Mad Men at all to get the impression that the show is fine with the countless shitty things its characters do. Even if Weiner himself were to come out and be like “actually I think all of those characters were good people and I wish I was them,” that doesn’t at all change the fact that *the show* doesn’t come to that conclusion in the slightest

 

A lot of talented women wrote on Mad Men. It has a lot to say about women. Fair enough to avoid it because Weiner is a shithead, but it’s a very complex show.

 

Yeah, fuck Matt Wiener forever but that shouldn't take away from the work that other people did on the show. Fine if you feel uncomfortable watching it b/c of his involvement, tho

 

His behavior and thoughts on women color everything that happened on the show. We’ve even discussed before the fact that one of the biggest examples of misogyny that he got patted on the back for making a “commentary” with wasn’t actually intended to be that at all and was really just him writing in a story where a woman is hurt and no one gives it a second thought. The fact that he objectifies and demeans women in real life (and while making this) completely changes the use of male gaze and misogyny as a whole. He did not invent hiding behind “satire” to engage in toxic tropes and portrayals that would otherwise not be tolerated.

 

Also saying that women were involved in the show is a ridiculous thing to bring up and not at all what I take issue with. Women have done great work on basically every show or movie since the dawn of time that was created by an abuser or scumbag, and the loss of what could have been created in better environments is incalculable. Saying that his motivations for the show or “message” in including those aspects are made entirely suspect by his behavior doesn’t have anything to do with what the women did in front of and behind the camera during its run.

Edit to add: It’s also just another way that having awful men running rampant hurts women as creators and artists, because writing off their work to avoid monetary or social support often means doing the same to the women who have nothing to do with it. Like I know Maggie Gyllenhaal is doing incredible work on The Deuce right now, but I can’t support her without also propping up James Franco and it sucks.

 

How does it change the use of those things?

What parts of Mad Men are him hiding behind satire? If anything, all of their actions are presented very matter-of-fact.

Also that’s a bizarre way to look at satire in the first place. What is an example of something that is actually hiding behind satire? What would be the purpose of “engaging in toxic tropes and portrayals” in one’s art just to consciously undercut them? There are attempts at satire that fail to be the satire that its creator intended, sure, but that’s obviously not the same thing.

 

If Weiner were the only one who wrote/directed the show, that’d make more sense to me. But a lot of women did write and direct the show, so there was a larger contribution to the way the show worked beyond him/his predilections

 

Because it isn’t making a statement on them or condemning them or holding a mirror up to ourselves, it’s reveling in them. A man who personally degrades women and wants to see them naked/subordinated/feels entitled to them making a show where that happens from the pilot to the finale is not something to be ignored. People can’t just make objectifying shows or movies like they used to without being rightfully called out, so framing it as a period piece and claiming to be against it is one of the only ways to get away with doing so now. There are tons of examples of abhorrent behavior being shown without being endorsed in media, but the argument that this is one of them falls apart when you know who he is.

 

I said this in my first post but Mad Men is not at all reveling in that stuff.

Sure, agreed. We should be cognizant of that fact. But “man has shitty views, man makes show where things related to those views happen, therefore show itself is excusing or embracing those views” is a gigantic leap to make. Let alone “man *made the show* as an excuse to portray those things”

Again, agreed. You just lose me completely with:

There’s two things here. You’re claiming Mad Men is an objectifying show rather than just a show that depicts objectification, which I completely disagree with. And then you’re making an even bigger claim that Weiner made Mad Men *with the purpose of it being* an objectifying show, which is just a wild claim

 

I don't like this argument simply because I think even taking into account Weiner's shitty thoughts or behavior, Mad Men itself pretty clearly does not embrace those things. Even if it were just him behind everything, if it actually was his goal to depict an objectifying or sexist show then he failed horribly.

 

Men make art to objectify women literally every single day. And just as many hide behind, “Oh hey I’m totally on your side, men are the worst,” as an insidious way of continuing to do so. It happens in circles related to this website constantly, and in Hollywood just as much.

 

Ok, agreed. Where I disagree is with Mad Men being art that does that. Therefore I do not agree that what you're saying applies here

 

I agree, what I’m more saying is if there’s an argument that Weiner’s involvement recontextualizes the content of the filmmaking, my counter to that would be the many women who wrote and directed for the show (in addition to all those who wrote and directed who weren’t Matthew Weiner) is enough to largely repudiate that idea

 

The writers room for majority of the series was almost exclusively women, no?