AMC, purveyors of some pretty great TV shows, have just released the promotional poster for season 5 of Mad Men, like a plate of bacon before the over-analytical dogs that are the show’s fans.
Um, that analogy might need some work.
Anyway, producer Matthew Weiner says that the poster is, “a nonverbal representation of where my head is at and where the show will be. By the end of the season, I guarantee you’ll know what it is about.” You guarantee, Mr. Weiner? I will have you know that I am incredibly stupid, sir, and I resent your implication. I have no concept of meaning or subtext. I still believe that The Sopranos ended with the family going to sing Journey songs on karaoke night.
Okay, not really, but I just tend to get reactionary about people making assumptions about me.
Also, AMC marketing VP Linda Schupack, adds that it suggests “Don Draper’s ongoing struggle to define who he is to himself and to those around him” which sounds interesting. Anyway, here’s the poster:
My theories on its meaning:
Looking at the reflection, possibly Don Draper will become a ghost and go around trying to help people, hopefully being hilarious, ala Beetlejuice, and – since he’s Don Draper – probably sleeping with a lot of female ghosts.
It could also be that season 5 is a re-working of the classic 1987 comedy Mannequin (or possibly Mannequin 2: On The Move, though that seems less likely), which I don’t think many fans would see coming. This is, of course, contingent on Andrew McCarthy and Kim Catrall being available.
Possibility 3: that tan mannequin with the beige blob at its feet is actually a T-1000 Terminator (you never know – they might come in beige), and season 5 of Mad Men is going in some CRAZY new directions.
Don Draper is going to quit his job and become a “living statue” for hire. That or a window dresser. Or both.
Season 5 is all about pajamas, pajamas, pajamas!
That’s what I’ve got at this point. Theories?
The Byronic Man 
February 29, 2012 at 3:48 am
Don Draper’s reflection is an analogy for looking into his immediate past. The world of 1950’s New York is going away this season, to be replaced by 1960’s New York. His reflection is but a memory of what it was like to wear a suit to work. The naked mannequins reflect the discarding of the standard business attire in favor of hippy garments which smell of Patchouli. tWithin a few episodes, the entire cast will be wearing dhashiki’s, Nehru jackets and dungarees. The cigarettes and high-balls replaced by incense and badly rolled joints.
The season finale will likely involve the whole gang dropping acid while they listen to The Jefferson Airplane. The otherwise mellow, good trip will be thrown into turmoil when Christina Hendricks shows up, bra-less, with her new boyfriend, a Negro named Blaque Powuh, from Chicago.
Or maybe, you’re right and it’s a terminator thing.
February 29, 2012 at 6:49 am
Sorry, whenever someone mentions Christina Hendricks I lose some of my motor functions. What were you saying?
February 29, 2012 at 6:59 am
I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have that reaction.
February 29, 2012 at 4:48 am
I prefer the ghost theory. ESPECIALLY if it can go partially “Scrooged” and that woman who played Ghost of Christmas Present – Carol Kane – can be his new post-human secretary. Or wife. Or… something. He’ll be put in his place. It will be awesome.
February 29, 2012 at 6:50 am
I would give anything for the season premiere to be a chain-clad spirit telling Draper to change his ways, and that he’s going to be visited by 3 ghosts, just to witness the reactions of fans.
February 29, 2012 at 2:47 pm
Especially if the spirit can be the Jewish woman who ran the department store from season 1. Actually… I might be turning this into Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and no one wants that. No one.
February 29, 2012 at 4:48 am
Either Don Draper is considering a sex change – hence his focus on the naked female form – and likes the mannequin’s boob size and shape. Or, he admires the Hefner-esque quality of the mannequin in the chair, hanging out in his smoking pajamas accompanied by a naked woman, and will be starting the next Playboy Magazine.
February 29, 2012 at 6:51 am
Or both?
February 29, 2012 at 7:33 am
Too good to be true.
February 29, 2012 at 6:25 am
My guess is since there is the “classic” reflection in the window, Don has a split personality disorder problem by the end of the season and finds himself working at Macy’s.
February 29, 2012 at 6:54 am
Maybe it’s a Tyler Durden thing, and he’s been Christina Hendricks the whole time.
February 29, 2012 at 7:09 am
Ohhhh! There you go!
February 29, 2012 at 6:39 am
The man is dressed. The woman is nude. This is a statement about society’s ongoing manifestation of the objectification and subserviance of women, as “reflected” in the ingrained belief system of a successful, “modern” male. Of course, the fact that Draper appears to be looking back at himself at the same time, defines the inner conversation males have about said objectification. This mostly consists of “Wow, did you see the tits on that babe?”
February 29, 2012 at 6:55 am
I’d say that sounds pretty dead on.
February 29, 2012 at 6:48 am
Ugh, why didn’t they just stick to the poster that was being protested as a reminder of 9/11? I liked that one better.
February 29, 2012 at 11:55 am
You know, I don’t remember that one. I’ll look it up. Hopefully it won’t remind me of any particular national tragedies. I hate that.
February 29, 2012 at 12:24 pm
It was just being compared to the Falling Man photo. Seriously not a big deal, but you know how things get blown out of proportion.
February 29, 2012 at 9:06 am
You should have put a Christina Hendricks picture… mmmm….
February 29, 2012 at 11:54 am
Always a good policy. Even if it’s a post about ‘how to put out a forest fire properly.’
February 29, 2012 at 11:23 am
The posters on the NYC subway are different. They just have a picture of the falling man from the opening sequence. Each one has a different word. Jealousy. Greed. Lust. That simplifies things.
February 29, 2012 at 11:53 am
Yes, but who is the falling man? WHO IS THE FALLING MAN? WILL THEY EVER REVEAL?
February 29, 2012 at 11:58 am
I’m just hoping Betty Draper reprises the scene in Season 1 where she shoots the neighbor’s pigeons while dressed in a white negligee and with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. Maybe the implication is that she’ll shoot Don (or Hugh Hefner) while standing naked in a puddle of her own flesh. Yup, I’m sure of it.
Just in case you haven’t seen it in a while. Great moments in TV.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltl0EQ9O7Gg)
February 29, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Can’t wait for Don’s return. Back to gratuitous smoking and drinking and chasing women. He’d be a hero for any red-blooded boy who grew up the same time I did. Come to think about it, I kinda wish I could be him now. Thanks for the laughs.
February 29, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Maybe this is the year that he will actually BE mad. Over women’s rights. Nekkid mannequins in storefronts really set the women’s movement back.
February 29, 2012 at 2:04 pm
And the mannequin just pushes Draper over the edge. “Oh, that does it! These girls – no, these women – deserve equal pay! Equal rights! Equal dignity!”
February 29, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Precisely.
February 29, 2012 at 3:55 pm
I don’t watch Mad Men, but I’m liking possibility 3.
Then again, maybe they are taking the show in the direction of the Twilight Zone and we’re about to find out that Draper is actually a mannequin and he has been selfishly taking advantage of his time out in the real world, while his mannequin friends languish in an abandoned department store collecting dust.
February 29, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Don, unable to understand his own identity or what is real, resorts to blow-up dolls and mannequins instead of women to satisfy his carnal desires, while falling from status and success into a Hefneresque mockery of himself, lounging around in old, fraying, once-expensive looking pajamas and reflecting on the man he used to be. Eventually this drives him mad and he begins talking to mannequins in public, wearing a fedora and a woman’s marabou-trimmed robe.
February 29, 2012 at 6:54 pm
Is it possible Don Draper was a ghost this whole time like in The Sixth Sense? Or is he really just a boy with the ability to see mannequins everywhere he looks just like in The Sixth Sense?
February 29, 2012 at 9:23 pm
That’s impossible!Maybe this is the year that he will actually BE mad. Over women’s rights.
February 29, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Oh, now I really can’t wait for season 5. Perhaps Don gets into the up-and-coming adult film industry (I have no idea when this became up-and-coming).
March 1, 2012 at 11:15 am
I like your sense of humor. This line was great, “I will have you know that I am incredibly stupid, sir, and I resent your implication. I have no concept of meaning or subtext.” I’ll have to remember that one the next time someone tries to have an existential conversation with me (which why that happens I’ll never know, maybe because I know a lot of teachers and lawyers). By the first mention of The Art of War I’m twitching.
March 1, 2012 at 10:33 pm
My theory? Who cares what the poster depicts. He’s Don fucking Draper, and if Matthew Weiner (if it’s the same Matthew Weiner who was a bouncer at Ozzie’s when I was a freshman in college…I owe you a ginormous thank you for getting my fake ID back, like 37 times) wants to get all existential this season? So be it.
I DO like spooky, funnyish things though, so that’d be kind of cool. Unless Betty becomes a ghost. She scares me.
March 3, 2012 at 5:26 am
Betty would be an ice demon. I. Do. Not. Like. Her.
March 5, 2012 at 7:21 am
All wrong. I think he just likes that robe.
March 11, 2012 at 12:12 am
We’re still seeing repeats of the last season. 1950’s America was so cliché it’s amusing! And I love the production value and clothes. As to what it all means, hey who gives a f*k, I certainly don’t; I just enjoy the ‘moment’ of each episode and often have fits of laughter that have me crying….considering I knew some ad.men, Australian ones that is, who were nothing like those in this series. The poster? He’s a man torn between two loves, women and work. But, just maybe in the new series, that is in the past and he becomes an upgraded and New Age Renaissance Man in keeping with the ’60s…all in Capital letters, please!! :oD