Mad Men, Women, and Children Essays on Gender and Generation

by Marcovitch, Heather; Batty, Nancy; Arosteguy, Katie; Ciasullo, Ann M.; Crate, Joan; Dole, Carol M.; Farrell, Hannah; Lane, Jr., Joseph H.; Marotte, Mary Ruth; Mauldin, Beth; Reid, Andrea; Rasmussen, Angela B.; Ventura, Patricia; Watson, Elwood, PhD; Wilso

• ISBN13: 9780739173787
• ISBN10: 0739173782
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-08-02
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

As rich and complex as The Sopranos or The Wire, Mad Men demands a critical look at its narrative and characters as representative of both the period it depicts and of our memories and assumptions of the period. Mad Men, Women, and Children: Essays on Gender and Generation, edited by Heather Marcovitch and Nancy Batty, focuses on women and children, two groups that are not only identified together in this period (women characters in this show are often treated as coddled children and the children look to their parents as models of adult behaviors) but are also two groups who are beginning to gain political and social rights in this period. The connections between the women of Mad Men, early second-wave feminism, and contemporary third-wave feminism and post-feminism invite discussion in nearly every episode. These characters are further contextualized in light of historical figures and events, from the death of Marilyn Monroe and the assassination of Kennedy to the March on Washington and the bohemian counterculture. Moreover, the points of view of the children, who are now adult viewers of Mad Men, bridge the 1960s to the social and cultural concerns of today. Mad Men, Women, and Children presents an examination of these characters and issues in light of 1960s feminist writers such as Betty Friedan and popular writers such as Helen Gurley Brown, of historical events like the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Liberation Movement, and as lenses through which to view the sensibilities of the early 1960s.

Author Biography

Nancy E. Batty is professor of English at Red Deer College, where she has taught American and international literature and science fiction for almost twenty years.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction	p. ix
The Working Girl	p. 1
Sex, Novels, and the Working Girl: Mad Men and Women's Bestsellers of the 1960s	p. 3
What Do a Meaningless Secretary and a Humorless Bitch Have in Common? Everything.: Or Joan, Peggy, and the Convergence of Mad Men's Career Girls	p. 19
Not a "Jackie," Not a "Marilyn": Mad Men and the Threat of Peggy Olson	p. 33
Joey, Joan, and the Gold-Plated Necklace	p. 45
Mad Men?: The Portrayal of Mad Women in the Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of Mad Men's First Season	p. 57
Utopian Visions and Social Realities	p. 75
Is This the Traditional American Family We've Been Hearing So Much About?: Marriage, Children, and Family Values in Mad Men	p. 77
I he Good Place that Cannot Be: Visual Representations of Utopia on Mad Men	p. 91
Curia: A Woman of Quiet Strength and Dignity	p. 105
Beautiful Girls, Feminist Consciousness, and Civil Rights	p. 123
Mad Men's Generations: Domesticity and the Family	p. 137
"It Was All a Fog": Motherhood and the Birth Experience in Mad Men	p. 139
Tearing Out the Kitchen	p. 159
Bishops, Knights, and Pawns: Mad Men and Narrative Strategy	p. 173
Mad Men's Epoch-Eclipse: Marking Time with Sally Draper	p. 191
Index	p. 207
Contributors	p. 211
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