Mad Men response

B1. Discuss the audience appeal of your three main texts. [30]

Mad Men, season 5 episode 11 appeals to a niche audience. This is because the production and the channel it is shown on is 'AMC' an American cable show. Audiences in Britain would have to subscribe in able to watch Mad Men. The episode received directing and writing nominations at the 2012 Primetime Emmy Awards as well as Lead Actor, Lead Actress and Supporting Actress in a drama series. The episode also received critical acclaim from TV journalists along with nominations at the Emmy's it boosts the audiences appeal as it shows the show is successful.
The advertising for season 5 of Mad Men was marketed by Sky Atlantic with the tag line "The four-time Emmy Winner is back" showing more of the audiences appeal as it shows that the program has won awards and been nominated for them.

Through the mise-en-scene you can see clear representations of the 1960s because of the attention to detail. Joan Harris portrayed by Christina Hendricks was styled to represent a female within the 60s.  Her hair style and make up is typical to the time period as well as the way she dresses. She has been styled to emphasise her 'hour-glass' figure, which is shown through her flattering dresses which cling to her body- going in at the waist. The hour-glass figure of hers is one that women during the 60s wanted.
"A top-notch episode full of closed-door talks and identity politics," in Mad Men you can see references to identity politics, you can also see this within Sky Atlantics advertisement for the program. A wide shot is used to capture Jon Hamm's character, Don Draper, looking into what appears (through the mise-en-scene) as a shop window. You can see that it's Jon Draper looking into the window as you can see his reflection in the window. In the shop window there's a display of two mannequins, one male and one female. The male is constructed sitting down fully clothed on an old fashioned chair, the woman has no clothes on and has been constructed to represent women as sexual objects. The female mannequin is captured standing on a slightly raised platform in front of the male mannequin clearly showing men's power over women during the 60s.

In terms of uses and gratifications, the audience would find escapism within the program as they're learning about another time. This links with 'retrophilia' where the audience enjoy watching and learning things about the past. Retrophilia also links in with information that the audience would get from the program as it gives the audience authentic information on the 1960s due to the amount of detail within the program.

Within this episode we see Peggy Olson's departure from the company, through research and looking at various fan websites and the guardian newspaper discussions I found that audiences were shocked with this departure. In the episode a wide shot is used to capture Peggy waiting with contents from her desk for an elevator. The shot captures her smiling as you hear non-diegetic music "You really got me" playing as she walks out of the frame. The music at the end of this shot was described as "a massive musical climax" on the Guardian's page the post then went on to say "This rush of rock'n'roll seemed significant, as if it was representative of all the exciting adventures yet to come for Peggy."

Audiences/ fans of the show took to forums and blogs and posted comments such as "Peggy's departure came as a surprise" (the Guardian), "There’s a lot to process here, but I’m going to start with the obvious. Peggy Olson! WTF," (fans blog). These comments show shock within the audience at Peggy's departure and show that Mad Men is character driven rather than plot driven as the audience(s) follow the stories of the characters on the show. Compared to Lost, the fans of Mad Men are much more active as they discuss the scenarios that happen within certain episodes on blogs with other fans. Some fans review and conduct a deep discussion on the program/ episode. For example 'The Orange Couch' looked at season 5 episode 11 on their YouTube channel and opened a deep discussion about the themes and scenarios within that particular episode showing/ confirming the audience of Mad Men take a more active role.
The forums and blogs created by the fans offer them gratification and social integration as they can debate the themes within the program with others which could boost the appeal of the show.