Returning: Mad Men

The third season of Mad Men finally arrives to Australian screens at 8:30pm Thursday February 25th on Movie Extra (SBS has Season 2 mid year).

To get you in the mood here are some thoughts from creator Matthew Weiner from a Q&A that was supplied to TV Tonight.

Q: Why do you think this show has been such a success?
MW: I think that the success of the show is related to a couple of things. One of which, I think it takes you to another place. It is beautifully done and it is done with great care and detail, and the audience is carried through that with great comfort and a little bit of nostalgia. And another thing is that I think the storytelling of the show is so character based that you recognize the people. They are not symbols. The characters are going through these experiences that we all have. They are all different ages and all different types of people, so it is not like there is just one person. In the end, I think the storytelling itself, you never know what is going to happen and that is the kind of entertainment that has been out of style for a little bit.

Do you think there is a fascination with the 60’s?
I have always thought that. I wrote the script a long time ago. It turns out the fascination with the 60’s is right now and not seven years ago when I wrote it. This was a golden era in the United States. It was the height of our power. The height of our artistic influence. The height of our financial influence. The height of our creative influence. It was a time when the different ethnicities were coming into power in the culture and were starting to be appreciated. I think we look back on that as something… it is our childhood, so it doesn’t matter what it was. Any chance to look at home movies no matter how ugly they are is always interesting to people. I think there is a little bit of wishing… I wish I could eat steak. I wish I could drink scotch. I wish I could smoke cigarettes. I think there is a little bit of that also. I like to think that part of it is just sort of seeing – and not to be pretentious about it – but like when you read Jane Austin and you see all the rules that are there. It is a great way to tell a story, as long as there are social convections. I mean the second episode of the show was about how it is not polite to talk about yourself and that is good manners. That is not part of our culture anymore because all we do is talk about ourselves, and so you have this character whose wife wants to go to a psychiatrist and he is like, ‘Why are you so vain? Why do you want to talk about yourself all the time?’ And meanwhile, his entire existence is based on, ‘Stop asking me that, you don’t need to know about that.’ So you know, I think there is a little poison presented in the show that people enjoy getting, but I think it is sort of presented in a pastoral sort of way. Although as glamorous and as well directed and art directed and designed as the show is, my intention was to create a feeling of reality and I think that has been really good. And I think that has a lot to do with clutter and dirt and not just picking the best thing from that year but picking a lot of different kinds of things.

Were you obsessed with the 60’s? If yes, why?
I am not particularly obsessed with it. I think I am more interested with the 50’s, but I am interested in life right now. All I know is that I had a very good education and my understanding of history is that nothing changes and every time there is a technological breakthrough people freak out and they run to religion and they run farther into religion and then astrology and everything sort of eventually swings back the other way. In the United States, it is always sort of split down the middle. It has always been red states and blue states, and so that… there is an irony right away when we look back at history and say, ‘Oh look at how simple we were. Look at Ozzie and Harriet… Look at this ideal family. Look at “Father Knows Best.”’ And as soon as I realized after reading and meeting people from the period, they were laughing at this stuff, too, I kind of said well that is how I kind of feel sometimes in the culture right now. I look at this, and I was saying that George Bush’s election… he won by three mislabeled ballots, but it will be processed in history that he won that election and that there was a movement of conservatism in the United States. People will even forget that 9/11 happened after the election. People will forget that because it is the way that history was told. It is said that this was the direction it was going. So when I look back at 1960 and what happened with Kennedy and Nixon and whatever side you are on politically, it just was interesting to see. We tell the history to serve ourselves. We simplify it. We look at people like our moms and say, ‘You didn’t have that problem.’ Our dads, ‘You didn’t have that problem.’ No one wants to think about their parents having sex, but you really don’t want to think about your parents cheating on each other or even just having the desire to cheat on each other.

So this is a social commentary because you could have set it in present times but didn’t?
I could have set it in present times and it is a social commentary. I look at it as science fiction.

Past fiction?
Yes, past fiction sure. Absolutely, but science fiction is always telling a story about human beings, it just happens to be that you can serve away all of the cultural aspects of it. But I am very interested in that part of American culture because it is here. This is our golden era. This comes in and out. This is who we are. There is a big part of American culture that is about inventing yourself. The country had really sort of, I think, I can say this very generally, when you look at what happens between 1960 to 1970 something was happening in the United States and things have slowly been undone in a strange way since then. So, I wanted to put us back at the beginning and say why don’t we do this again and do it right.