Mad Men: Dream Come True TV (Reading Contemporary Television)

Mad Men: Dream Come True TV (Reading Contemporary Television)

by Gary R . Edgerton (Author)

Synopsis

Don and Betty Draper live in a picture-perfect world. He is a hard-living advertising executive - a 'mad man' - on the fast track. She's a Bryn Mawr graduate and former fashion model, now a suburban princess, mother of three children. If they've everything, why are they so unhappy? Why is their dream come true not enough? This book explores, analyses, celebrates the world of Mad Men in all its aspects, and includes an interview with it's Executive Producer and an episode guide. Every few years a new television program comes along to capture and express the zeitgeist. Mad Men is now that show. Since premiering in July 2007, it's won many awards and is syndicated across the globe. Its imprint is evident throughout contemporary culture, from features to fashions and online debate. Its creator Matthew Weiner, a former exec producer on The Sopranos , has created again compelling, complex characters, this time in the sophisticated go-go world of Madison Avenue through the 1960s, with the excessive drinking and smoking, as well as the playing out of the prejudices and anxieties of an era long neglected in popular culture. Mad Men is a zeitgeist show of the early twenty-first century, this book demonstrates, partly because its characters are an earlier, confused and conflicted version of ourselves, trying to make the best of a future unfolding at breakneck speed.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Publisher: I B Tauris & Co Ltd
Published: 13 Dec 2010

ISBN 10: 1848853793
ISBN 13: 9781848853799

Media Reviews
'In this stunning collection, a stellar lineup of television scholars explains why Mad Men is the most important work of filmed entertainmentA on any America screen in the past decade.' - Thomas Schatz, author of The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era; 'A terrific set of essays that not only sheds light on Mad Men but also on the role that TV plays in depicting the American dreams-and nightmares-of the Baby Boom past.' - Lynn Spigel, author of Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America; 'Matthew Weiner's Mad Men is all about the hidden meanings behind sleek surfaces and evasive silences, and Gary Edgerton's collection of essays cleverly mines those depths for a rich bounty of treasure ... one thoughtful readable chapter after another.' - David Bianculli, TVWorthWatching.com, TV critic, NPR's Fresh Air; 'Some of the leading names in television studies bring their analytical abilities to one of the best television shows of all time. A winning collection - highly recommended!' - Roberta Pearson, editor of Reading Lost: Perspectives on a Hit Television Show
Author Bio
Gary R. Edgerton is Eminent Scholar, Professor, and Chair of the Communication and Theatre Arts Department at Old Dominion University. He has published eight books, more than seventy-five essays on a wide assortment of media and culture topics, and is co-editor of the Journal of Popular Film and Television.