Mad Men, brought to you by women

Betty Draper takes aim at stereotypes, thanks to Mad Men’s women writers

If you’re anything like me, you can barely contain your excitement that season 3 of Mad Men begins on Sunday. It took me awhile to get around to watching the show (I didn’t bother to get a converter when TV went digital, and won’t shell out for cable), but finally my coworker Dana Goldstein convinced me: “Ann, it’s all about sexism and vintage fashion. How can you not watch?”

And indeed, I love how the show paints an unvarnished picture of ’50s gender roles and how the female characters are so three-dimensional. They don’t easily map onto the sorts of stereotypes prevalent in TV shows and movies set in all decades. The bookish achiever (Peggy) is also kind of a slut. The slut (Joan) is also kind of a bookish achiever. And the devoted wife (Betty) is primed for a feminist awakening. (I’ve often wondered if the character was named after Betty Friedan.)

So I wasn’t surprised to learn that 7 of the show’s 9 writers are women, and in this upcoming season, women directed 5 of the 13 episodes. Compare that to elsewhere in Hollywood…

According to the Directors Guild of America, the labor union that
represents film and television directors, about 13% of its 8,000
directors are female. Women comprised 23% of television writers during
the 2007 to 2008 prime-time season, a 12 percentage point decrease from
the same period a year earlier. Nearly 80% of TV programs in the 2007
to 2008 prime-time season had no women writers…

Maybe if all TV shows and movies had a better proportion of women writers, actresses wouldn’t be considered past their prime at age 35 and would be given way more substantive leading roles. Turns out women-written movies and shows also tend to be pretty fucking popular.

I did notice that the seven Mad Men writers pictured all appeared to be white. While the show has touched on the issue of race (namely, when lead character Don Draper has an affair with a Jewish woman, and when one of the copywriters dates a black woman), it is a far less common theme than gender. I wonder if that would change, too, if the demographics of the writers did.

Who else is counting the minutes ’til Sunday night?

Related:
Funny ladies of Hollywood discuss getting “old”
An Entourage of Their Own
Unnoticed sexism: Movie Trailer Narrators
Women Make Money at the Movies, But Don’t Say Much
On roles for women of color in Hollywood

Also see Amanda’s writing about Mad Men, and two posts on Racialicious. (But be forewarned, they’re spoiler-ridden!) Plus, watch Jezebel’s 15 feminist moments from Mad Men.