Postwar Gender and Feminism


WEEK 5

 

For Tuesday

1. Read Mad Men Pilot - Draft Script

Mad Men 1x1 - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.pdf  

2. Watch the Pilot Episode, and watch Episode 2 as well.

3. Pre-write assignment

 

 

For Thursday

1. Mad Men 1x4, and watch Episode 3 and Episode 4.

Mad Men 1x4 - New Amsterdam.pdf  

2. Read Beauvoir, The Second Sex, selected passages from Chapter 10. [Skip the Introduction and only read the portions from chapter 10. Chapter 10 starts on page 8 of the PDF.]

beauvoir_second_sex_sle.pdf  

 

 

 

 

 

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I will explain these group prezis on Tuesday!

 

In-class group talks—groups of three (or four) focus on the script and screen versions of one episode.

 

Take us through the structure of the episode. How it is organized? What are the major storylines and how are they woven together? What are the character arcs for the major (and minor?) players in this episode and how are they woven? Talk about any striking ways the dialogue and description in the script get interpreted on the screen, through acting, directing, cinematography.

 

Finally, only to support your presentation regarding the episode's engineering: you may point out any significant differences between the script and screen versions. These include changes within scenes, of wording or details; cutting or resequencing of scenes. Give us your working theory as to why the creators made these changes.

 

Each group will be assigned to one of the following episodes:

 

1x4 Tue 9/26

1x6 Thu 10/3

1x8 Thu 10/3

1x11 Thu 10/5

1x12 Thu 10/5

 

 

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Resources for reading/viewing of Mad Men

 

Contemporary Reception of the TV Show:

 

Fortune Magazine: "Meet the Women Who Put Words in Don Draper's Mouth" (May 2015).

New York Times: "The Women of Hollywood Speak Out" (2015).

Slate: "Mad Men and Race: The series’ handling of race has been painfully accurate" (March 2012).

The Conversation: "Why Mad Men’s treatment of black Americans is a problem" (May 2014).

HuffPost: "Hola, Mad Men ! Where Are the Latinos in Your Manhattan?" (2014).

 

Relevant Source Material From the Historical Era:

 

THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE, by Betty Friedan. (1963). The Feminine Mystique-Full Text.pdf

Helen Gurley Brown's 1962 bestseller: Helen Gurley Brown - Sex and the single girl (1962).pdf

In case you were curious about Enovid and its approval

1950s Suburban white culture

 

Another translation of Beauvoir's The Independent Woman

A link to the entire text of The Second Sex