Tag Archive for 'Mad Men'

Christina Hendricks Says, Hey Haters! Lay Off My Body

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on February 16, 2010
in Actresses
. 9 Comments

Gotta love that in NY during fashion week when the skinny girls are running around the runways that the woman who makes the cover of NY Magazine’s fashion issue is a normal sized woman.  Let’s make this crystal clear.  Christina Hendricks is not big.  She is not fat.  She is beautiful.

Here’s what she said about the ridiculousness that was the tizzy at last month’s Golden Globes over the fact that there is a woman working in Hollywood that actually has with boobs, hips and a butt.  Newsflash Hollywood – most of us outside of your zip code actually do have these body parts.

It kind of hurt my feelings at first,” she says. “Anytime someone talks about your figure constantly, you get nervous, you get really self-conscious. I was working my butt off on the show, and then all anyone was talking about was my body!”

As for the body question, she’ll answer it when asked, but mostly it bores her. “It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” she says. “Back when I was modeling, if someone said ‘I’m fasting,’ I would say, ‘Can’t we talk about something else?

I love her.

Woman of the Hourglass (NY Magazine)

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Tags: Christina Hendricks, Mad Men

Sexism Watch: Golden Globe Edition

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on January 20, 2010
in Sexism
. 12 Comments

To the anonymous stylist who said this about Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) and her dress:

“You don’t put a big girl in a big dress. That’s rule number one.”

FUCK YOU!

This woman is perfectly shaped!  There is nothing big about her!

I hate you and I don’t even know who you are.

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Tags: Christina Hendricks, Mad Men

Digging a Little Deeper: Mad Men and Women Writers

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on August 14, 2009
in TV and Women Writers
. 6 Comments
Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson

Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson

Last week the Wall Street Journal published a piece The Women Behind Mad Men hailing basically hailing the show as being dominated by women writers.

I’m a big fan of Mad Men and am looking forward to the new season starting this Sunday.  But, one of the things I have learned since I started writing this site is to play close attention to titles because they mean a lot in Hollywood.  So while I give props to Matthew Weiner the creator, showrunner and dominant writer and voice on the show for hiring women (cause there are shows out there that don’t have any women writers like Conan O’Brien and David Letterman), it is important to keep straight the roles these women play in the Hollywood writer food chain.

(We all know it is very bad out there for women writers in Hollywood.  Look at my piece from earlier this week.  Women make up about a quarter of all writers in Hollywood.)

Everyone knows this show is all about Matthew Weiner.  It’s his baby.  He first pitched it to HBO since he worked on The Sopranos and they passed.  (I am sure they are kicking themselves now.)  So it went to AMC and it was that network’s first original series and it put them on the map.

While on the big screen the writer gets the credit for actually writing the script, TV is very different.  What all writers and producers on TV want is to get their names on an episode.  That becomes their calling card and enables them to use it for their next gig.

In TV the most important writing job is executive producer.  Here’s the rest of the hierachy: co-executive producer;  supervising producer; consulting producer; producer, co-producer, associate producer, executive story editor, story editor, and staff writer.

So let’s look at the women featured in the story and their titles:

Lisa Albert – Supervising producer

Marti Noxon – Consulting Producer

Maria Jacquemetton- Consulting Producer

Dahvi Waller- Co-Producer

Robin Veith- Executive Story Edior

Cathryn Humphris- Executive Story Editor

Kater Gordon- Staff Writer

There are no women executive producers or co-executive producers on Mad Men.  Those are the top jobs.  For example on Grey’s Anatomy aside from Shonda Rhimes the creator and Betsy Beers the non writing executive producer, there is another female c0-executive producer (Krista Vernoff) and a female co-executive producer (Joan Rater.)  Granted, Grey’s is a network show and has more writers and money.

I’m still not sold on Mad Men being a bastion a women’s influence.  I never felt that while watching the show.  Even though the article says 7 out of 9 writers are women (the list I have has 5 male writers but one might be a non-writing executive producer and 8 women), Weiner writes a lot and gets writing credit on most episodes of this show.   In season 1 he has a writing credit on 7 out of 13 episodes. The women have writing credits in season 1 are: Maria Jacquemetton (3 episodes), Bridget Bedard, Lisa Albert and Robin Veith.

In season 2 he has a credit on 10 out of 13 episodes.  The women with writing credits in season 2 are: Lisa Albert (2 episodes), Maria Jacquemetton (3 episodes), Robin Veith (3 episodes), Jane Anderson, Marti Noxon, Kater Gordon.  Robin Veith is the only woman who has a singular writing credit on an episode.

So as we go into season 3 I will be looking at the writing credits and hoping that these women have an influence onscreen, but if the story is to be believed and women are leading the way in the writing of the show they should have the appropriate credits on the episodes and in their job titles.

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Tags: Mad Men, Marti Noxon, Matthew Weiner, Shonda Rhimes, Wall Street Journal