| August 31, 2009 | Some of the Best "Mad Men" Are Women |
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A few days ago my friend Allyson updated her Facebook status to say that she has been disappointed in "Mad Men" so far this season. And she is not the only one. In some ways I understand where the sentiment is coming from, but I don't agree. While the episodes have been slightly slower paced this season (less Don Draper affairs and binge drinking, for sure), the character development -- particularly the female characters -- has been the best on television. Plus, this season the show is building toward an event that will have a monstrous impact on everyone -- president JFK's assassination on November 22, 1963. (Did you catch the date on Roger Sterling's daughter's wedding invitations? They showed it in close-up. It's Nov, 23, 1963 -- the day after JFK was assassinated -- so it's very unlikely the wedding is going to happen.) The character development in Season 3 has been fascinating, particularly the main female characters: Peggy Olson, Joan Holloway, and Betty Draper as well as closeted gay adman Salvatore Romano who did finally have a tryst with a guy. (Read New York mag's Aug 17 interview with Brian Batt who plays Sal for some insights on Sal's love life.) People keep commenting that Peggy is slowly becoming the female version of Don Draper with everything that entails. But what does it mean for a woman to be Don Draper? In an interview posted today in the Canadian National Post, Elizabeth Moss who plays Peggy said of "Mad Men" Season Three:
Though she is ambitious and also has a dark secret and "gets" what it means to sell a great creative idea, there's no question that Peggy is different than Don. She's more awkward -- certainly painful to watch in some scenes like the one when she sang into the mirror doing that Ann Margaret "Bye Bye Birdie" routine. But what makes her fascinating is that, despite her awkwardness and perhaps naivete, she still exudes confidence in her career and even a strange confidence in her strange sexual dalliances with Pete Campbell and the random guy she picked up at the bar this season. In this Times Online piece "Mad Men: The real Mad women," Mary Wells Lawrence (one of the 1960s adwomen who provided real-life inspiration for the character of Peggy Olson) -- now in her eighties -- says "Mad Men" is not an accurate representation about what things were really like in the ad agencies of the 1960s. I particularly love the quote where she says: "We weren't lusting after each other. We were lusting after ourselves. We were all crazy about ourselves. Crazy about the talent that we all felt we had. When you are that self-centered, you don't have room for romance with anyone else." (Reminds me of Vassar College. But for some reason, also makes me want to read Wells Lawrence's autobiography "A Big Life in Advertising".) It's surprising that a show called "Mad Men," has some of the best written and complex female characters on television, but it shouldn't be when you realize that the majority of the show's writers are women. This Wall Street Journal article "The Women Behind 'Mad Men'" says that seven of the nine members of the "Mad Men" writing team are women and women directed five of the 13 episodes in the third season. This is pretty amazing, especially if you consider the fact that "of the roughly 13,400 members of Directors Guild of America, only about 1,000 (7%) are listed as female directors." With its slick '60s style and constant cocktail consumption, it seems like it would be easy for me and probably most people to feel a little nostalgic for the days of "Mad Men," but despite the fab outfits, I'm not nostalgic for the sad options available, particularly for the women of 1963, but also for everyone. I'm very curious to see how the women's movement and the civil rights movement will affect these characters. "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner said something I liked that about Season 3 in his June 2009 Rolling Stone interview:
Labels: allyson, americanculture, madmen, nostalgia, tv, women posted by Jess Barron @ 2:44 PM 
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| December 4, 2006 | Who's on Top in 2006? |
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The Yahoo! Top Searches of 2006 are now live, and I wrote a post for the corporate blog, Yodel Anecdotal discussing some of the most interesting top searches. Check it out. I'm going to be on MSNBC's "The Most" with Alison Stewart again on Tuesday, Dec 5 at 12:15 PT / 3:15 ET to discuss the year's top searches. Fun, fun. Do tune in. What do you think? Why has Britney been the #1 most-searched person on Yahoo! for 5 of the past 6 years? Are you the one searching for her? Labels: 2006, britney, msnbc, searches, tv, yahoo, yodelanecdotal posted by Jess Barron @ 10:55 PM
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| June 1, 2006 | Relax. Look into the Camera and Smile. |
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I think I've mentioned the weekly radio interviews I've been doing for the Yahoo! Buzz team to discuss what's popular based on the searches people are conducting on Yahoo!. The interviews are usually pretty fun. Some of my favorite radio shows of the past 2 weeks are The John Carney Show on KMOX-AM in St. Louis and The Morning Buzz on WHEB-FM in Manchester. We talk about everything from Florence Henderson to 3-armed babies. It's a blast, except sometimes waking up at 4 or 5 a.m. is a bit rough. And now we've added video to the repertoire. Heather and I worked with the awesome folks at ABC News NOW to pitch a weekly online video interview about the top Yahoo! searches. It's happening every Friday, and it's cool stuff. You should check it out. As if that wasn't enough, last Monday I ended up on MSNBC's "The Most" being interviewed by Alison Stewart about the summer's hottest concert tours as decided by the searches being condcted on Yahoo!. They had a professional at the station to put on my make-up. "How do you like to have your make-up done?" she asked me. "I don't know. What do people usually ask for?" I said, perplexed. My idea of applying make-up is a tube of bright red lipstick, and I realize that might be a bit too dramatic and high contrast for an on-camera interview about internet searches. "They usally say anything from 'natural' to 'glamorous.'" "Hmmm. Can I stay more to the natural side..." I said. "but maybe slightly glamorous?" I figured I might as well see what magic she could work. I was trying to watch what she was doing so I could learn some make-up tricks. "You look like an actress, but I can't think of her name." "Who?" No one's ever told me I look like anyone. "I'll think of it..... Marcia Cross from 'Desperate Housewives.' She has such great skin." "Hmmm." I said, wondering if this meant I also had great skin, but thinking it was probably just the red hair. Fifteen minutes later she was finished. The faux eyelashes were very glam, but I kept worrying they'd fall off when I blinked. Being interviewed for TV from a remote studio is pretty weird. You have an ear piece in your ear, and a microphone clipped to your shirt, and you usually don't see the host/journalist who is interviewing you. Instead of seeing their face, you hear their voice in your ear and you look into a big TV camera as if you are talking to another person. You smile, but it's hard to know if the other person is smiling back. The camera lens is dark and blank. I sometimes wonder if I'm keeping my shoulders back and my hair out of my eyes or if I have something caught in my teeth. Talking to the radio DJs I can wear my pajamas and sprawl out with my laptop on the couch or the floor. It's nice not to hafta worry about the faux eyelashes or if I look weird when I'm laughing. Labels: buzz, camera, make-up, msnbc, radio, tv, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 11:15 PM
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| May 26, 2005 | "These are some giant pants..." |
One of the most interesting things about being on TV for a few minutes during a morning news program is that a blogger gal named Carrie (who I haven't met)  saw me and recognized me. She wrote:
Seriously, my own mother almost missed my momentary morning-television appearance, but bloggers nationwide were recognizing me. If you're curious, you can go and watch the video of this segment. posted by Jess Barron @ 5:33 PM
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| March 27, 2000 | Living in LA Is Like Living Inside a Cartoon |
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I've said it once, and I'll say it again: living in L.A. is like living inside a cartoon. It is everything that spending my formative years within inches of a television screen prepared me for. Sometimes when I'm walking through my well-manicured West L.A. neighborhood under palm trees and sunny skies, I expect a team of key grips to come through and slide away the lush back-drop. It's as if everything around you has been digitally enhanced. Flowers are blooming year-round; you can always smell Eucalyptus trees and honeysuckle. And my neighbors even talk to me when I pass them on the street! But, get this: I work for a start-up Web company (Scour.com), and our office is on Maple Drive in Beverly Hills. How many start-up companies have offices in the 90210 zip code?! If I didn't know any better, I'd swear I was on television. Labels: la, losangeles, scour, tv posted by Jess Barron @ 9:54 PM
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