Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Egregious Mad Men History Gaffe


mm

Whoops!: In season 1, episode 6, Joan implies to Peggy that she need not personally thank Don for her new copywriting gig by motioning to her own comely face and remarking, "You know what they say, the medium is the message." A clever reference, for sure, but rather unfortunately anachronistic; they didn't start saying this until four years later, after it was coined by Marshall McLuhan in his renowned 1964 book Understanding Media.

(At last, our advanced degree in American media and culture pays off. Makes the tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt totally worth it. Yep.)

10 comments:

Jessica / Lola Vintage said...

I love going on imdb and reading the goofs in my favorite movies/shows!
I'm so glad your degree is paying off, this post is my first laugh of the morning. ;)

alexkeller said...

hehe
haven't watched the show yet. i'll need to catch up on all the seasons....
have the book, though - should read it.

Unknown said...

he he he! I've only watched a couple episodes but I want to see more.

Gigi said...

That's hilarious! Good on you for picking up on that good! Ahh, vindication ;)

Mother Midnight Vintage said...

these are the things in life that make me grin that evil grin that is reserved for when someone who picked on you as a child is caught falling down in public, filmed, and then posted on youtube.
HUZZZZZAAAAHHH!

Huzzah! Vintage said...

i too love reading imdb for continuity and historical errors (though I rarely catch them myself ~ hence this very self-congratulatory blog post)!

Desiree said...

I love that you noticed this and I love that you went to grad school for American media and culture. That's what I studied in undergrad. We're twins! ^_~

Huzzah! Vintage said...

Happy to hear that I'm not the only one who studied something that renders an otherwise capable person completely and utterly unemployable!

Katie from Interrobangs Anonymous said...

This must be shared: http://vimeo.com/8022406

Huzzah! Vintage said...

the only thing that would make that McLuhan stop-motion video better is if it said at the end "submitted in partial satisfaction of the M.A. in Media Studies at University X"!