Representation of gender in Mad Men

Representation of gender in Mad Men-

In the scene from season 1 episode 1 of Mad Men, we could see that the main message to a modern audience was that women are objects just there for the entertainment of men. In the clip, a women gets into a lift surrounded by men, who talk about her as if she was a possession rather than a person. Also, the clip showed that women themselves believed that the only way for them to do well in their job, was to play up to the fact that the men would only like them if they dressed and acted how the men wanted them to.

We can see how this is presented through:

• Camera
• Sound
• Editing
• Mise-en-scene

Camera-

The scene starts with an ariel shot of the old fashioned cars below, next to the office building. Then there are close up shots of the characters, particularly the women. This suggests to me that the women are one of the main focuses of the audience, as they are a main focus of the men working in the office. This shows that women were only looked at/ judged based on their appearance, as there are few, if any, close up shots of the men. 

Sound-

There is a lot of diegetic sound in this clip, as well as non-diegetic through the use of the 1950s style music used. There is also synchronous sound such as type writers in the background, but their is less diegetic sound in the women's area of the office than in the men's area. This would be done to suggest that the women are only there to work and type, whilst the men are there to run the important parts of the business.

Editing-
The shots used in this scene were, cut, shot reverse shot (when the men where having a conversation), cross cutting and continuity editing. The shot reverse shots within conversations that the characters are having, show that each character has dialogue, yet there are no shot reverse shots between a man and a women. This suggests that the men didn't want to talk to the women, and only liked to look at them.

Mise-en-scene-
The props used in this scene were all accurate to the time period of the 1950s which helps set the scene and make it feel more realistic. The typewriters which are used do a good job showing the type of work a woman would do in those times which is good to extenuate the inequality in the importance that the jobs that women had compared to the men.