AS Media Assessment 2

I will be assessing the opening sequence of Mad Men [season 1: episode 1]. In this sequence, there are many camera angles that give a representation of gender along with the mise en scene. The first camera shot I noticed was the track shot which is used in the pub to show that the pub is mostly men and if there is a woman, she is accompanied by a man which suggests to me that there wasn’t many women who went to the pub together. In addition, the track shot also showed that nearly everyone in the pub was a smoker, this suggests that people went to a pub to socialise and smoking was part of socialising the whole bar was predominantly male which shows how women didn’t really socialise with each other in New York in the 50s. The next camera shot I assessed was the over the shoulder shot which was used when looking over the shoulder of Don when he was working at the pub, this links to representation of gender because there was lipstick on the napkin Don was using to write on which signifies that Don plays the women. This over the shoulder shot shows the importance of Don as a character and how he has his own table that means he may have the money to buy a table or he is a regular and has a table reserved. The next camera angle was a close up, tilt shot when Don has just woke up from a night with a girl, this shot shows that she’s the one lying down and telling Don to get up, this shows a different side of the stereotypical women in the 50s, this woman also has her own business as a drawer which shows she is not apart of the norm for women in the 50s. The next angle I assessed is a low angle when Don stood above his girl, which shows how dominant Don is and signifies the male dominance in the 50s the woman is laid on the bed in a provocative manor which may somehow signify that she is trying to tell him that its just a casual meet up and she wants to keep it that way. There is another low angle shot in the office when Joan is stood above Penny to show the more dominant and more experienced woman, Joan is a classic stereotypical woman in the 50s because she says to Penny to get some new clothes to show her ‘qualities’ which Joan already does to be very provocative towards the males in the office. The birds eye view, whip pan which is moving fast down the skyscraper, this signifies the classic men’s workplace in the 50s and shows how superior they are to a women’s workplace. I think this bird’s eye view was used to show how superior a men’s workplace was in the 50s in New York. A track shot is the next camera angle, which was taken in the office, which shows the whole executive floor and how the women are all in one room and have no

space, while the men have their own work space in an office and the women just get type writers this shows how the men did the main work and the most important work. There is a pull focus medium close up when the girl opened the door for Don, which is a focus that she isn’t like other females. Also, there is a deep focus camera shot in the lift when the men are being rude to Polly, this show the amount of dominance men had in the workplace. Finally, there is a close up of Dons draw which has some shirts in which suggests that staying out is a regular occurrence for Don and displays how he may be hiding someone at home like a girlfriend and as Don was putting on his shirt, his boss asked him if he had a good night, this suggests that he does this a lot and as his boss didn’t sound surprised that he was out on a work night.