Comments on: 1960, I am SO over you!

By: Kenneth tokel

Kenneth tokel — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:10:44 +0000

I just googled this phrase after watching the madmen dvd and being quite annoyed with the ever modern “so” sneaking in. I can’t imagine this was deliberate on the part of the creator. I can see how when reading the writer’s script this may have appeared innocuous. However, the actor’s choice when delivering the line was to accentuate the “so” in a way reflective of modern vernacular. If this were read without emphasis on the “so” it may have sounded less conspicuous.
Of course, even if the creator had missed the “so” on scirpt, he would have had the chance to edit it out…so….who knows what he was thinking. But it sure as hell took me out of the era and the story.

By: dansj30

dansj30 — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:31:05 +0000

“The other is that while in many ways we, the royal we, the global we, have changed so much since 1960, in many ways we really haven’t. Perhaps this was a little wink from Joan that she’s not so different from us, after all.”

Soooo true … I’m with you, Deborah/Roberta.

And to prove the point, what perspective does MW give us when Joan delivers the line? Looking in the mirror.

The next line … “Shalimar?” Boom, we’re back in 1960.

Love the show. Cool blog.
DJ

By: Roberta Lipp

Roberta Lipp — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:55:05 +0000

‘Tis true what you say about Buffy. This probably applies to all the ones I mentioned as well; when you, as the writer/creator of a movie/show/universe, develop language tone and slang that is close to reality but has the qualities (tight, insular, not-questioned), it comes off as That’s just the way we talk (only BETTER). Every fictional universe of any quality has its language; this serves as its soundtrack. I think a lot of times we like movies and shows based on liking the music. NYPD Blue and Law and Order; two New York City cop shows from around the same time period. Both felt ‘real’ in different ways. Totally different music.
Is Mad Men how they REALLY talked? Maybe kinda sorta probably mostly… as much as any show that gets it right, but again, it has a music to it.

By: Deborah Lipp

Deborah Lipp — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:30:08 +0000

Great insight.

I was just thinking about this yesterday. Arthur and I went to see Juno on Friday night (see it! See! It!) and this is a movie that has been criticized for having a too-precious, too-self-aware teen slang. But what I thought was, those critics aren’t Buffy fans.

Whedon knew that if he tried to mimic current teen slang, it would (a) not sound quite right and (b) be dated the minute the episodes aired. So instead, he invented his own teen slang, a Buffyverse slang, and it sounded fresh and right without in any way reflecting the way people talk. I thought Juno did that. It sounded right without necessarily being a study in sociological linguistics (and it passed the Bring a Real Teenager With You test).

Mad Men needs to sound right and feel right. And it does.

The reason I found “1960 I am so over you” jarring is because I actually remember when I noticed people had started saying that. “So” shifted in language.

Now, if I think about it, in the mid-1990s, “so” went from stressing adjectives (“I am so tired,” “I am so hungry”) to emphasizing verbs (I specifically remember hearing Danny Bonaduce on the radio around 1996 saying “I am SO suing” and being struck by how weird and funny that phrasing was, and discussing it with a co-worker). “I am so suing,” “I am so kicking your ass;” I don’t think these were said until the 1990s. While “over you” is not a verb, it is a slang phrase, and “so” on top of a slang phrase feels more modern than it actually is.

By: Roberta Lipp

Roberta Lipp — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:39:58 +0000

That’s a really interesting HUGE topic, the changeover from movies and TV not accurately reflecting slang to where we are now. I know that part of what has excited me about a new movie or show has been that it feels more right (to my ears, again) than anything had, previously. Sixteen Candles did that, and later, My So-Called Life, and in fact, Friends. It was the tone and vocabulary itself that was the draw.

That’s another thing that is fascinating and fresh about Mad Men (again, going back to, this isn’t one of those movies, but the people who watched them). This is the first time we are viewing this era with the slang back in place. The movies and TV of the times didn’t. Far and Away, from a few years back, tried to feel like one of those movies, not like real life. This is the first time we’re looking at what we’re looking at. The first time we’re viewing, onscreen, Betty Draper say, from within her hangover, Shit!.

By: Deborah Lipp

Deborah Lipp — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:48:32 +0000

Monique, your praise is much appreciated.

I am older than I look. I was born in 1961, which means that no, I wasn’t speaking the vernacular of 1960, but I am not far from it. In a suburban household in the early and mid-sixties, “The Sixties” and the “groovy” and the “hippie” and all that permeated only slowly.

In the world of my youth, men no longer wore hats, but they didn’t wear jeans. Women paid careful attention to this year’s hemline, and pulled out the sewing machine obediently. Girls and boys took different classes (shop for boys, cooking for girls) and girls were not allowed to wear pants to school. So I do have a sense of it.

One thing that is important, and which you obliquely refer to, is that movies didn’t necessarily reflect slang. I’m not talking about saying fuck, I’m talking about colloquial speech. Films were expected to be somewhat more proper.

By the way, Monique, literature is much more reliable than movies in that regard. The Hayes Code didn’t touch novels, which were frank and racy. Homosexuality and abortion and all sorts of things were in the novels of the day.

By: Monique R

Monique R — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 18:40:04 +0000

Don’t discount anything, this is a discussion, and I LOVE your blog. It’s just weird to see such confident assertions of things based on what sounds right today. It’s like thinking people didn’t say f**k or f**ker back then because it’s not in literature or movies. They did. They’ve been saying it since the 1200’s according to the OED. So our ears are unreliable. And yeah, I’m sure they make a lot of mistakes on the show. This one didn’t take me out of it personally. Love love love this blog and MAD MEN!!!

By: Deborah Lipp

Deborah Lipp — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:15:05 +0000

Monique, neither Roberta nor I are experts, and we're not selling ourselves as such. This is a fan site. We hope an excellent fan site, but that's for our readers to decide. I'm sure you're right about the movie quote; it's been at least 2 years since I last saw Pillow Talk, and I've never seen Midnight Lace, but I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of your memory. Nonetheless, the use of "so" in this way does scream "today." It may not technically be an anachronism, but it is jarring. Listen, I saw the movie Zodiac last night, and they were talking about faxes in the 1970s. And yes, faxes existed. And some people had them. But the rural cops made faces at the urban cops for thinking they had such high-tech stuff. Faxes existed but were out of place in 1975. I have a song recorded in the early 1930s that uses "rock and roll." Nonetheless, it's not a phrase that belongs in a 1930s period piece. We're not linguists and we're not hunting for the earliest citation. We're writers and we're working from our ears for language. Doing the research to check: Is this really an anachronism? Is fascinating, and the Gods know I really appreciate your input in that regard (that's why blogs have comment areas; to encourage participation). But I'm not going to discount the "ear" entirely either.

By: Seymour, MSW

Seymour, MSW — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:24:54 +0000

You are such an amazing writer…

As a non-viewer, you offer quite a perspective on the show and its draw.

And your insight is, as always, attractively distinct.

Thank you for sharing it.

By: Roberta Lipp

Roberta Lipp — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 11:51:26 +0000

Hunh. Iiiinteresting. Well, that makes me want to kill myself a little. But I won't. Looks like Pillow Talk and Midnight Lace this weekend. (But I'm right about dickhead, aren't I?)