MATTHEW WEINER'S 'MAD MEN' AND THE ARBITRARINESS OF SOCIAL NORMS

In this paper, I propose a theoretical model of the audience reaction to Matthew Weiner's TV show Mad Men. It specifies four kinds of visual pleasure and offers two testable implications. Firstly, via a progressist approach, the viewer takes the show as a source of criticism of certain social norms specific to the American society of the 60s overcome by the 2000s. Secondly, in a critical approach, the viewer interprets the show as the - attack on both norms of the 60s and of the 2000s. The author tests these approaches by analyzing a number of scenes that involve issues of gender, class, and environment. He finds that the second approach is more plausible because both the filmmaker and the viewer belong to the same era.