Mad Men - an HBO show by any other name?

While watching the series premier of Mad Men on AMC, I was straining to see the similarities between this show and the show its creator- Matthew Weiner - used to write for, The Sopranos. Usually, writer/producers leave the stifling confines of network TV for the liberating ad-free world of HBO (the 3 Davids are all former network scribes). So, what happens when they go the other way, and what influence is more powerful in determining the flavor of a show - the network brand or a staff writer? This is sort of a flawed question, b/c Weiner isn't David Chase, but still, I think you could look at Mad Men and ask whether it was an HBO-type show just by seeing how much it resembled the show Weiner used to write for.

AMC (and F/X, which has a few critically acclaimed shows like Rescue Me and The Shield) aren't network TV, but still, they have ads. Therefore, shows on those networks are broken up, interrupted by distracting advertising, and can't allow much in the way of swearing, nudity, violence, etc. Perhaps they're less likely to stand by a ratings challenged show, though its worth noting that even HBO has its limits in that regard. What I identify with HBO shows goes beyond profanity and violence. Its dramas (I'm thinking primarily of The Sopranos and The Wire, though I'm going to check out Deadwood and 6 Feet Under to see if it applies to them) seem to be:

• more serialized - the stories unfold over many episodes, and not much is wrapped up in each ep
  
• more dense in terms of plotlines and information doled out by the narration
• less redundant in terms of that information
  
• slower-paced - more scenes that work to develop character and don't advance the plot
  

I've surmised that these qualities are direct results of not having the interruption of ads. According to this theory, no show on an ad-driven network (like Man Men) could possess these qualities and maintain enough of an audience to survive for a few seasons. The ads take a viewer's attention away from the narrative, and if the show is too complex, then the viewer will become lost. Mind you, complex shows like The Sopranos or The Wire can be shown on ad-driven networks in syndication and have a significant audience b/c they've already built up an audience on distraction-free HBO. But to start out on the distraction-heavy medium of ad-TV and gain an audience while maintaining narrative complexity of this nature - impossible!

There's also a certain moral position on class in America that some HBO shows share (again, I'm thinking of The Sopranos, The Wire, maybe Deadwood): there is not one hierarchy but many, some on the right side of the law, others on the wrong side, though there seems to be very little meaningful difference between the two. Protagonists pursue success on their own terms, trying to climb the ladder and beat the other guy while vaguely aware that the whole point of their existence - to climb that ladder - may be utterly bereft of meaning.

I can't think of any network shows that address themes of class, power, and culture in that way. Though I can't say for sure, I've heard that ad-driven cable net shows like The Shield, Rescue Me, and Battlestar Gallactica do. As far as Mad Men goes, so far it seems to resemble the HBO thematic preoccupations. One of the main characters - Don Draper - is at or near the top of the game, but seems to slip into reveries every now and then, perhaps having doubts about the life he's living (but, unlike Tony Soprano, he can't blame it on not getting in on the ground floor). There's also the detached wit of those HBO shows, the way they occasionally cue us to laugh at the whole backwards culture, so seldom seen on network TV and even the aforementioned ad-driven cable net shows, which are more geared towards getting us to identify with the protagonist. Again, Man Men seems to be mocking the culture as much as it presents it as hip and appealing.

One way Weiner could maintain a certain integrity while working on advertising-driven TV: by having his show be about advertising. Its a bit too early to tell, but it seems to take a somewhat cynical approach towards advertising in general. The show would seem to offer more opportunities for product placement than any scripted show in TV history. But what does it mean for a brand to be featured in a show that's message is: ads are lies created to manipulate the masses into buying things they had no previous intention of buying, to convince them, as the protagonist so eloquently put it, that everything is OK? So, there's two questions: does a brand (like Lucky Strike, which was featured in the first ep and, not coincidentally, just stopped selling products in North America last year) suffer from being featured in the show; does a brand suffer from being featured in the interstitial ads during the show?

The answer to question two is most likely no, but perhaps sales wouldn't be boosted as much as if the product were featured in a more ad/product-friendly show.

In the end, I hope that this show, along with the other show created by an HBO ex-pat - Damages) embody some of the characteristics of The Sopranos. Given the lasting popularity of that show, in syndication and on DVD, maybe TV execs of all stripes will get the message that there's an audience for that type of show. Even if its inevitably watered-down, that distinct mix of narrative complexity, detached wit, and class consciousness that HBO pioneered in the beginning of this decade would be a welcome change from what we've seen so far.

The Coming Era of Visual Storytelling: Building to Last

I've been kicking around the idea of applying meme-tracking to the study of the proliferation of certain stylistic and narrative elements in movies, TV shows, and online video. Also, I'd like to track the popularity of individual texts.

The first step would be to log which movies, shows, videos had certain elements (non-linear plotting, infidelity, a female protagonist, dense information within scenes, intricately woven subplots) or were of a certain genre. The second step would be to track the popularity of a text or an element within texts over the course of many years. Step 3 would involve making some falsifiable hypotheses that would be supported or debunked by the data.

Let's go ahead and skip to step 3. Some films have stuck around. Others haven't. Now that we've started to make more and more films and TV shows available on DVD (and soon online), I think its worth asking why it is this way. Perhaps critics cause films and TV shows to stick around by drawing the public's attention to them, or perhaps some inherent quality of the texts caused them to stick around and the critics merely recognize these characteristics. Of course, the elements themselves might not matter as much as the frequency with which they change. We might be able to see more clearly the degree of variety and familiarity that is demanded by the public.

I don't think we can really say at this point whether either of these are true because until relatively recently, films and then TV shows were seen as a transient medium. Their economic and cultural value were temporary. They had expiration dates. Just within the past few years, with the expanding inexpensive and accessible libraries of motion picture texts on DVD (soon to be online), we're getting our first glimpse of what texts are still valued by the general public well after their release. To some degree, this happened with books, but even there, some amount of capital was required to take the book into a 2nd, 3rd, 4th printing.

And here we get to the "so what" of it: people (especially vendors and owners of texts) never really cared about what separated a classic text from a temporarily successful text because it didn't matter, economically speaking. If a film, TV show, or book were popular within the first year of its release, then it would get syndicated, or re-released, or go to a second printing. All texts (except maybe oral legends) cost money to keep going, and the best way to get that money was to make it popular right away. Any text's initial popularity is a reflection of its immediate relevancy as well the strength of the promotional campaign behind it, NOT qualities which might make it of value to people living in a different culture (either on another continent or in another era). Stories weren't built to last because it wasn't in the producer/distributor/ owner's best interest.

We trundled along, mixing advertising (time-sensitive messages that are intended to distract) with storytelling, for the better part of a century. Given the available technology and the high cost of storage and distribution, this made economic sense. But now things change. With the dramatic fall in storage and distribution cost, it is significantly cheaper to keep an old title selling than to produce a new one. For the first time in the history of commercial storytelling, the economic emphasis should be on creating a lasting product.

In terms of examining culture, its always been important to ask what makes classic stories so enduring and universal. Culture (particularly storytelling) has been yoked to commerce for so long that the only studies of storytelling that were read widely and mattered to those outside the academy were ones that pertained to stories that produced profit. Now, the study of the classic story can get that outside momentum behind it.

So, what makes a classic story? Joseph Campbell's pretty much got this covered, but to speak about it in more practical and exact terms, I'd love to examine the films and TV shows that have been produced so far.

A few testable hypotheses:

1. So-called "body genres" (porn, horror, and melodrama) are somewhat similar in narrative structure (simple, unvarying), and popularity arc (steep drop off after a brief period of time).
2. Films and TV shows that are unified and complex (in terms of the threads of the narrative) are likely to have a less steep drop off in their popularity arc than films and TV shows with simpler narratives. In terms of commerce, these stories have a longer "shelf life" than others assuming the appeal of all other things - the timeliness/timelessness of the themes and content, the acting style, and other elements that may go in and out of fashion - is equal.
   
3. Certain critics, over the years, have been more adept at picking movies that did poorly initially but sold well later and continue to sell well decades since its initial release than others. There's a problem of causality here - did the critic's praise result in higher ticket sales, or was the inherent superiority of the story responsible, and the critic's and public's reaction merely an inevitable result of those qualities?
   

My hope is that we can get past the rather defensive stance that all genres, subject matters, and styles are equal. When theorists use this term (or imply that it is the case by rescuing oft-overlook and maligned genres like the aforementioned body genres), its a value judgment - a soap is no worse or less important than a highly rated, critically acclaimed prime time show like Seinfeld; a forgotten B film from the 50's is no less important than a Hitchcock film. OK, fine. Though they can be considered equal, different types of films, shows, and videos are not the same in terms of their style and content (rather obviously, since that is what is typically used to tell them apart) as well as (less obviously) their "patterns of popularity": how quickly they fade from the public's consciousness, how often they return to it.

Then there are those movies, TV shows, and especially songs that weren't all that popular to begin with, then sank under the radar for years, maybe decades, only to resurface later. When you dig one of these long forgotten texts up, you feel this proprietary need to defend it. It feels rare. But maybe we can set this personal passion aside and look at things with some distance. Of course, the existing history of visual storytelling is tainted for the reasons I mentioned (lasting popularity relied on initial popularity in a way it doesn't have to anymore), but if we correct for things like differences in advertising budget and pay special attention to the texts and characteristics that weren't so popular initially but stuck around and grew in stature over the years, then we might begin to understand the qualities that make a visual story a classic.

You Tube - Public Television

The more I follow the circuitous pathways from comments to YouTubers' profiles to their favorite videos to that persons' posted videos, the more I'm sure that YouTube is not about being entertained or enlightened in the traditional sense but about finding people who are similar to you. YouTube is unlike so many other online video sites b/c its primarily used as a social networking tool.

People seek out media that espouses viewpoints consonant with their own all the time, but when it comes to film, TV, and music, they've had pretty limited choices. I don't think you could find this video of kids blowing stuff up on any other medium. The closest thing might be Maximum Exposure on TV, which features the obligatory "don't try this at home, kids" voice, but mostly makes a mockery of attempts to temper the audience's delight in watching carnage.

So there are people on YouTube watching other people get hurt, or blow shit up, and then there are people watching "9/11 is an inside job" docs. There are people watching ironic mashups, and there are people making earnest fan tribute videos to soap opera characters. In short, there is nothing remotely resembling a cultural, moral, or aesthetic consensus on YouTube (other than a universal bias towards youth). Unlike TV, this is not a storytelling medium (even reality shows, which favor lifestyle and culture over story, possess narratives). Its enough to simply signify who you are by posting of montage of you and your friends blowing stuff up.

When someone says "I hate your video," what they really seem to be saying is "I hate you," or at least "I mock your value system." Again, I think what separates YouTube from traditional media is the extent to which our preferences and production of media represents ourselves. I can share this person's love of Slayer and Slipknot, but I think that blowing shit up is a dangerous, annoying attempt to assert one's diminishing authority in the face of a modernized world in which the person in question can't fit in or compete. I'm relatively sure that said person would think I was a stuck-up prick for thinking so. But that's the variety of opinions that we're dealing with online.

Certainly, YouTubers still have some overlapping interests. One Tuber may seem to be exclusively interested in Cameros and explosions, but his preference for a comedy sketch might put him in the same audience as someone who hates Cameros and is indifferent towards explosions. It would appear that diversity of lifestyle and value system within a fan group is less prevalent on YouTube than it is w/ other media, but the linked nature and the search function (and what people choose for tags, and the fact that the middle frame of each video represents it) connect diverse viewers in ways that cable TV - with its certain channels for certain interests - doesn't.

Something tells me that diversity of one's media diet depended on two things:

• A paternalistic media oligarchy that deemed certain types of diversity of values reflected in our media to be necessary for civic health (the high-minded ideals behind public TV programming)
• Imperfect search technology that gives us some of what we're looking for, but also some things that we weren't looking for.
  

We can even search for people, but those people have some values we agree with, and others we don't (just as in real life), and that's good. But what happens when no one is there to impose diversity? What happens when the search technology gets so good that no one has to be confronted by values they don't agree with? I can't shake this nebulous fear that we'll all hate each other a little bit more in the future.