Intertextuality of mad men

One of the key features that make 'mad men' post modern is its heavy use of intertexuality. One of the intertexual references  is from the opening sequence of 'casino royale'. It also uses influences from Saulbass like the images of silohettes and the falling man. Also the falling man is an intertexual reference from 911 when the man is falling down the building. The name as well plays upon the word 'mad men' because this is what the advertising people in manhatten are called.

Post mordernism and what makes mad men post modern

It a representation of the past represented in the present. Fragmented audiences are usually associated with post modernism. Post modern programmes provoke audiences with racism and sexism and they interplay the audience with presant ideas and those in the past.

Mad Men

Its retro and contains sexism. Its fragmented as its shown at 2am on BBC4. Its taking something from the past and putting it into fiction. It is also has intertextual references to 911 in the intro and the key issue is identity.

Representation of gender

The men in the series are very sexist and seem to think they can sleep with whoever they want. Women are treated like a piece of meat. Men are represented as very masculine especially 'Don'. They are not emotional or sensative, the only one that is like that is one of the male characters who is gay. He is very stereotyped. Some of the women charcters are powerful but they don't seem to have as much power and authority as the men. The men seem to rule everything and be in charge. Men seem to dominate the whole series as alot of the buisness scenes seem to have only men or just one woman. They also seem to make many sexist remarks to women and the women don't say amything. For example in the first episode a new girl enters a lift with 3 men and they seem to laughing and making jokes about one of their collegues getting married and say many domeaning things about women in front of the new girl and she doesnt seem to say anything and they think its acceptable. This shows how little respect men have to the opposite gender.

The opening of mad men

At the beginning we see a cartoon figure of a man walking into his office. We do see his face which creates a sense of mystery. There are many intertextual references aswell in the opening like when everything collapses and then he starts falling down the building which is a bit like 911 which is pastiche. Also he is in black which gives another sense of mystery towards him and makes the audience think that he is mysterious. There is also a pastiche from Hitchcocks film 'vertigo'. The slow motion aswell in the opening sequence suggests that he is in a dream where he is watching his life go by. A dream of somebody falling often means there anxious and it could mean that Don is full of anxiety. The women posters for when he is falling down could represent the women becoming stronger and the men are becoming weaker and that could be down to him especially when the womens foot kicks him as he falls. This could metaphorically be his downfall. Towards the end the figure falls and looks into a blank slate this could signify that he deosnt really know the people that he socialises with and even himself eventhough he had loads of women on the go and also that he is being stripped of his identity.

post modernism

Post modernism plays with ideas from reality. It rejects the idea that any media product or text is of any greater value than another.

"distinction between media and reality have collapsed. Anything can be art, all ideas of the truth are competative" Mcdougall J

banksy (postmodern artist)