Not just ‘another humourless bitch’: feminist fans' reception of Mad Men

Abstract

Set prior to the emergence of the women's movement of the 1960s, Mad Men provides a unique text with which to examine feminist engagements with a series that simultaneously proffers feminist and antifeminist messages that suggests a negotiation by viewers between gender representations of the past and in the present. The complexity of the text and the related multiplicity of interpretations call for further study of audience reception. This paper examines initial results of a qualitative, cross-generational study with self-identified feminists and fans of the series Mad Men.

Acknowledgements

An analysis of the initial interviews for this project was presented at the Console-ing Passions 2011 conference in Adelaide, Australia. Some of the additional analysis was presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies 2012 conference in Boston, Massachusetts. Thanks are due to Susan J. Douglas, Keir Keightley, and Robin Means Coleman for their comments on previous versions of this work. I would also like to thank Amanda Lotz, Karen Vered, and the two anonymous reviewers for providing helpful feedback on this paper. Finally, my biggest debt of gratitude is owed to the women who participated in this project.

Notes

^1. Use of Williams' article is not intended as an argument that female spectators are the only spectators who juggle subject positions. Given that the portrayals of women on the series are arguably more diverse than those of the men, this study focuses on the experiences of female spectators.

^2. Due to space constraints, I have chosen to limit these themes to major themes mentioned by the first interviewee and raised in the subsequent interviews.

^3. Based on my findings, I have chosen to use the rather clunky phrase ‘women's movement of the 1960s’ rather than ‘second-wave feminism’ to describe the feminism alluded to in the series.

^4. For collections of textual and critical, historical analyses of the series, see Carveth and South (2010); Edgerton (2011); Stoddart (2011); Marcovitch and Batty (2012); and Goodlad, Kaganovsky, and Rushing (2013).

^5. See Haralovich's chapter in Edgerton (2011). Kearney (2011) offers insight into reception of feminism on the series from a production angle. Finally, Mittell's (2010) blog reminds us that fandom is not necessary to make media meaningful.

^6. For an examination of the group Viewers for Quality Television, see Brower (1992).

^7. When asked to define feminism, all five participants stated that feminism at its most basic level is concerned with equality. Due to the series' setting in the workplace and the relevance of career issues to the participants' positions, discussions relating feminism to the series often involve the opportunity to have both a family and a career, a major struggle of most of the show's female characters. It is important to note that these discussions should not be read as implying that feminism means simply the ability to choose career, family, or both. All five women describe issues other than workforce participation, such as reproductive rights, queer rights, and rape, as feminist concerns. Three of the participants explicitly state that oppression of women is systemic.

^8. Although in the decades since Radway and Williams proposed these ideas, it has become taken for granted that viewers will identify with different characters, examining how and which characters viewers relate to still provides insight into how they make meaning with television.

^9. In terms of the show's realism, Ashley believes the women's struggles are accurate, but overall, the participants' view the series' as dramatized and limited in scope. Barbara describes the series' use of 1960s products and fashion as ‘kitsch’, and Ruth stresses that the series does not reflect her experience of urban life or the business world in the 1960s.

^10. For an extended discussion of the adequacy of the wave model, see Laughlin et al. (2010).

^11. See Ciasullo's chapter in Marcovitch and Batty (2012).

^12. Nicole and Barbara identify as radical activists, yet they recognize that radical change is not available to the women on the series and acknowledge as positive the small changes the women are able to make within their historical contexts.

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Notes on contributors

Monique Bourdage

Monique Bourdage is a PhD candidate in Communication Studies at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include the intersections of gender with music performance and technologies, domestic cultures and technologies, audience reception, and creative labour. She is particularly interested in media from or representing the USA during the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries.