This is a discussion board post that I wrote for one of the online classes that I teach. The discussion prompt asked the students to describe two works of art with a similar theme. I went first to give them an idea of what we were looking for.
Mad Men is a serial television drama that ran on the AMC cable channel for seven seasons, airing its final episode in 2015. The primary theme of Mad Men is United States culture in the 1960s, seen through the perspective of the advertising industry. Other main themes are personal relationships, the search for identity, women in the workforce, alcoholism and the Civil Rights movement. The series was created by Matthew Weiner, who had previously worked as a writer for the HBO series The Sopranos.
The series follows the exploits of fictional copywriter and creative director Donald Draper (born Dick Whitman) and his relationships with his two (successive) wives, his children, many mistresses, and his young protégé in his ad agency, Peggy Olson.
A major theme toward the end of the series is the concept of enlightenment. SPOILER ALERT: In Season Seven, Don's first wife, Betty, learns that she has inoperable lung cancer and decides to forgo chemotherapy or radiation treatment. She accepts her fate and chooses not to fight the cancer. I suppose it is debatable as to whether this is an enlightened decision or not, but the last time we see Betty onscreen, she is walking up a flight of stairs toward a source of light, and above her head is a light fixture that symbolically represents a halo.
(screenshot from Mad Men, via Netflix)
This is a perfect example of how film and television are the natural successors to the art of painting. Weiner here is referencing any number of paintings that represent the ascension of the Virgin Mary into heaven. One of the best-known examples is by Titian.
Titian, Assumption of the Virgin (Venice, ca. 1516-1518; oil on wood, 22' 6" x 11' 10") (Kleiner 643)
These two images both show a woman moving upward, with each woman's head symbolically surrounded by light, suggesting enlightenment.
In the last episode of the series, the same formal device is used in an image of Don Draper, when Don has literally experienced enlightenment at a "hippie" retreat on the California coast.
(screenshot from Mad Men, via Netflix)
Here's another of my favorite images from the series.
(screenshot from Mad Men, via Netflix)
Betty is verbally sparring with a rival female neighbor, and their cigarettes symbolically take the place of swords. There are many examples in the history of western painting of sword fighting, and again Weiner is providing an update on a traditional formal device.
Edward Hartley
Works cited:
"Matthew Weiner." Internet Movie Database. Web. IMDb.com Retrieved 15 June 2016
Kleiner, Fred and Christian J. Mamiya. Art Through the Ages. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005.
Beautifully written.
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