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For us fans, the anticipation of tomorrow night's Mad Men season premiere has us squirming in our seats. We love it for the drama, for the nostalgia, for the clothes—andfor the way it smashes the very glamor with which it lures us in. Video artist Elisa Kreisinger has found a perfect way to ring in the new season that's part celebration, part takedown: subversive remixes. Kreisinger, who "consumes pop culture, critiques it, and then creates from it," is a huge fan of Mad Men. But she also wanted to tease out unexplored themes, call out the show's blind spots, and further claw at its carefully constructed facade. With her new Mad Men remixes, she wanted to "bridge that gap between being a fan and being a critic of something," she says. "Everybody is a critical viewer, and thank god for that."
We are, of course, hardest on the ones we love. Here are three ways to revel in the season premiere while still giving Mad Men the scrutiny it deserves:
This fall, two new series are bringing the retro style of AMC's Mad Men to network television. The substance has been lost in the translation.
NBC’s The Playboy Club and ABC’s Pan Am haven't been shy about co-opting Matthew Weiner's high-brow hit. Both shows trade in mythologized versions of the big-city 1960's, drawing on the era's iconic professions—the Playboy bunnies of Chicago's eponymous venue and the Pan Am flight attendants working out of New York's JFK airport. The opening sequence of Pan Am features exhilarating tracking shots of the airport that mirror the first glimpse of Sterling Cooper’s Madison Avenue office.