Billy Parrott, manager of the New York Public Library's Battery Park City branch, has compiled a "Mad Men Reading List" that consists of books that have been given screen time on the popular AMC TV series ( books like Mary McCarthy's 1963 novel, The Group.)
"Now, the day after the show, people come in and start asking about stuff," Parrott told the New York Daily News ("'Mad Men,' Book By Book," October 3).
Maybe Mad Men will do for books what Oprah's Book Club once did. And maybe Parrott will publish a Mad Men Reader that will contain information about the books the characters in the show read as well as brief biographies of the authors.
Showing posts with label Mad Men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mad Men. Show all posts
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Mad Men And The Color Line
Michael Ross's theroot.com article, "The Other Mad Men" is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of black people in the advertising business .
Let's hope the producers of AMC's popular series, Mad Men, read it and decide to follow Ross's suggestion to put "some darker faces in the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce."
Let's hope the producers of AMC's popular series, Mad Men, read it and decide to follow Ross's suggestion to put "some darker faces in the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce."
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Mad Men: White, Rich, Het People
I don't have cable, so I'm not able to watch Mad Men when it's broadcast. But I have been able to see the show on DVD. At this writing, I've seen season one and the first five episodes of season two. I like the show very much but like Renee Martin in her blog post, "Really Jon Hamm?" for Womanist Musings, I am troubled by the inadequate portrayal of black people and gays.
Associated Press TV writer Frazier Moore writes that in the fourth season (premiering July 25), "the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce agency" has been relocated to the Time-Life Building. If Matthew Weiner, creator and head writer of Mad Men, meticulously researches the show, then he should know that Gordon Parks, the famed black photographer, was a staff writer for Life magazine around the time the show is set. I'm quite sure that in the sixties, there were a handful of blacks and gays in the advertising business as well as other areas of the media. Although you wouldn't know that judging by the episodes of the show that I've seen so far. Not all blacks were elevator operators and janitors.
But if Mad Men is about what Renee Martin calls "the angst of White, rich, het people," it's because the people who run the show (per the DVD bonus behind-the-scenes features), fit that category and can only see the world from that perspective.
Associated Press TV writer Frazier Moore writes that in the fourth season (premiering July 25), "the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce agency" has been relocated to the Time-Life Building. If Matthew Weiner, creator and head writer of Mad Men, meticulously researches the show, then he should know that Gordon Parks, the famed black photographer, was a staff writer for Life magazine around the time the show is set. I'm quite sure that in the sixties, there were a handful of blacks and gays in the advertising business as well as other areas of the media. Although you wouldn't know that judging by the episodes of the show that I've seen so far. Not all blacks were elevator operators and janitors.
But if Mad Men is about what Renee Martin calls "the angst of White, rich, het people," it's because the people who run the show (per the DVD bonus behind-the-scenes features), fit that category and can only see the world from that perspective.
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