Mad Men — Layers of Meaning

- Hi, I'm Michael.

This is Lessons from the Screenplay.

Don Draper, the protagonist of the television series Mad Men knows how to tell a good story.

After all, his success as a 1960s advertising executive hinges on creating an emotional bond between a consumer and a product.

To do this, Don uses all the tools at his disposal.

There's the slogan, or text, of a marketing campaign.

- Bell Jolie Lipstick, mark your man.

- There's the deeper meaning being created, the subtext.

- She wants to tell the world, he's mine.

He belongs to me, not you.

She marks her man with her lips.

- And finally, there's symbolic imagery, evocative visuals that enhance the power of this meaning.

The writers of Mad Men use these same tools to craft emotionally resonant stories.

In each episode, we watch characters struggle to maintain stoic facades in order to disguise the pain that lives just below the surface.

So today, I want to examine one particular episode of Mad Men, the acclaimed season one finale, titled The Wheel.

To explore how the writers use text, subtext, and symbolic imagery to create layers of meaning, and to see how Don Draper himself brings all these story telling tools to bear in one of the show's most powerful and memorable pitches.

Let's take a look at Mad Men's The Wheel.

In his book, Story, Robert McKee explains the difference between text and subtext.

"Text means the sensory surface of a work of art.

"In film, it's the images onscreen and the soundtrack "of the dialogue, music, and sound effects.

"What we see. What we hear.

"What people say. What people do.

"Subtext is the life under that surface, "thoughts and feelings both known and unknown, "hidden by behavior."

The text is simply what is happening on the surface of a story.

And in this episode, it's used to set up Don's plot line.

- I went to the athletic club today and learned that Kodak still isn't happy with the campaign for their new slide projector.

- Don's objective in this episode is to put together a pitch to try to win a big account: Kodak.

- They call it the donut, or the wheel.

They're expecting something along those lines.

- But in addition to setting up Don's plot, the text also introduces the theme of Don's arc in this episode.

- Don has been continually prioritizing work over family, but more importantly, Don is struggling to understand what family even means.

- All of this set up happens on a textual level.

We see and hear Duck give Don his assignment: - If you could find a way to put the wheel in the future, into something with some legs, you could make me look good my first month here.

- And witness Don choose work over family.

- I don't think you want to go.

- I'm sorry, was I unclear about that?

- When Don does his big pitch to Kodak at the end of the episode, the client assumes his pitch will operate on this literal level of text.

- So have you figured out a way to work the wheel into it?

- We know it's hard because wheels aren't really seen as exciting technology, even though they are the original.

- Don acknowledges that most advertising works this way, by introducing a surface level novelty or gimmick.

- But there's the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash.

If they have a sentimental bond with the product.

- Don is talking about creating a deeper level of meaning, subtext.

In this episode, subtext is used to push characters along their arcs, and communicate their mental state to the audience.

In particular, subtext does the heavy lifting in every beat of Betty's storyline.

Betty's story begins when her friend, Francine, makes an unscheduled visit.

Francine has opened her phone bill to discover that her husband has been having an affair.

- Do you know he spends two nights a week at the Waldorf?

I'm so stupid.

- The text of the scene is pretty straight forward.

But there is a moment of subtext that creates the inciting incident of Betty's arc.

- Both characters understand the meaning of this exchange, even though neither of them acknowledge it in the text.

Francine is implying that Don is also unfaithful.

After Francine leaves, Betty retrieves her own phone bill from Don's office.

Without a single line of dialogue, we understand that Betty is now suspicious of Don.

Later, because we know Betty's mental state, we understand that when she tells Don about the incident with Francine, she's actually interrogating him about their own marriage.

- Sit with me.

- This makes the scene loaded with subtext, as it's clear to the audience that Betty is not really talking about the other couple at all.

- And Don, does not pass the test.

- So afterward, Betty opens the phone bill and calls one of the numbers, to discover that Don has been secretly talking to her psychiatrist.

- This sets up the final beat of her character arc, which takes place at Betty's therapy session.

Her psychiatrist thinks it's business as usual.

- But we understand via subtext that she's actually using Dr. Wayne to confront Don about his infidelity.

- Betty suspects Don's infidelity, confirms her suspicions, and confronts him, all without mentioning it to him in a single line of text.

Don also understands the power of subtext.

Returning to his pitch to Kodak, after Don again acknowledges the power of a straight forward textual approach, - He presents the specific subtext he envisions for this campaign.

- Right before introducing the final tool that he uses to emotionally affect an audience, symbolic imagery.

Within this episode and throughout Mad Men, the show's creators borrow imagery loaded with cultural meaning and then manipulate that imagery to enhance the emotion of the story.

For example, when Pete Campbell exchanges a wedding gift for a gun, a symbol of power and masculinity, - Same price as a chip and dip.

- He's really telegraphing how emasculated and lost he feels.

When Lane Pryce's wife buys him a Jaguar, not knowing that he's lost everything, Lane ironically uses the symbol of freedom to try to take his own life.

And after Don and Peggy spend a dramatic evening trying to develop a pitch for a suitcase, an object that represents travel, Don has a vision of a much more permanent departure.

The Wheel episode also borrows symbolic imagery associated with the client Don is pitching to.

As he struggles to come up with the perfect pitch for Kodak's slide projector, a device often used to display happy family photos, each step of his journey is punctuated by photographic imagery.

When Don finds a childhood photograph of him and his estranged brother Adam, he's inspired to get back in touch with him.

- His name is Adam Whitman.

- But the promise of that family photo, quickly disappears in the tragic reality.

- Jesus, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but he hung himself.

- What?

- Don avoids the pain of this revelation by drinking and working even harder.

Asking Harry for help on the Kodak pitch.

The conversation turns to Harry's brief dabble in photography and why he thinks photos have such emotional power.

- The simple cultural meaning of photos representing happy family memories is complicated by the events of Don's journey.

But the full power of photographs isn't demonstrated until the last moments of Don's presentation to Kodak, as they win him the sale, and complete his arc.

As he begins his slide show, Don once again artfully uses all the tools at his disposal.

- Don uses the text of the presentation, the words that he's speaking, - To explain the subtext they want to convey to the consumer.

- And he uses symbolic imagery, actual slides, - To enhance the emotion of his pitch.

- But at the same time that Don is using these tools on his clients, - It's not called the wheel.

- The show's creators are using these tools on us.

- It's called a carousel.

- In the text of the scene Don is simply pitching Kodak, completing his plot line for the episode.

But because we've seen the problems he's facing in his marriage, and the painful revelations he's experienced, his words are loaded with subtext.

And finally, there's symbolic imagery.

- It let's us travel the way a child travels.

- The family photos that Don has chosen to use - Round and around, and back home again.

- Demonstrating that he might finally appreciate the importance of family.

- To a place where we know we are loved.

- The episode concludes with one final powerful symbolic image.

- Hello? - Don?

- When Don arrives home ready to embrace his family and spend Thanksgiving with them.

- I'm coming with you.

- You are?

- Daddy's coming with you.

- Daddy! - Daddy!

- An image that lasts only a moment, before the truth is revealed.

- Hello?

- That happy family doesn't exist for Don.

- Hello?

- It's merely a place he now aches to go again.

- Good luck at your next meeting.

- It's no accident that Mad Men is set in the world of mid 20th century American advertising.

There's no better time and place to explore the gap between appearances and reality, between what people say and what they actually mean.

Just as advertisers create and use iconic images to shape our hopes and dreams, the writers of Mad Men definitely use these same images to reveal the inner contradictions of their characters' lives.

And for us, just like for Don Draper, there lies surprising complexity, pain, and emotion beneath the surface of every episode of Mad Men.

I love the subtext fueled drama of Mad Men, but I also love watching the show because it's fun to think about advertising.

It's not really that different from film making.

You're trying to manipulate an audience into having an emotional reaction while sharing information with them.

If you want to get your Don Draper on and learn more about marketing, there are a bunch of marketing classes available on Skillshare.

For example, I recently checked out the class Brand Management: Creating what Sets You Apart.

The class is an introduction into what branding really means.

And it applies whether you're starting a company, or simply trying to figure out your own personal brand as a creator.

You can check out this class as well as the thousands of other classes available on Skillshare by clicking on the link in the description below.

The first 1000 people to use this link, will get a two month free trial of Skillshare premium membership.

Thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this video.

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