{"id":2659,"date":"2008-10-27T07:23:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T07:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/the-man-behind-mad-men.html"},"modified":"2008-10-27T07:23:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T07:23:00","slug":"the-man-behind-mad-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/the-man-behind-mad-men.html","title":{"rendered":"The man behind “Mad Men”"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>A reader sent me this link, to a fascinating interview<\/a> with Matthew Weiner, the genius behind my latest obsession, “Mad Men”<\/a>. (After last night’s pitch-perfect season finale, I can’t believe I now to have to wait nine months for the next season to start. Argh. The episode was set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and included a scene with the Jesuit Fr. Gill, above, urging people to go to confession before it’s too late.) <\/p>\n

Among other things, Weiner talks about the show’s Catholicism: <\/p>\n

Just from the Catholic point of view, I’ve had wonderful consultation from amazing clergy, most notably Jim Van Dyke in New York City. Part of his job is shepherding older priests who are retired, and he would ask them for all the details, he’s the one who gave me the great detail of Father Gill doing the modern Grace, and Peggy’s mom going “Now, are you gonna say Grace?” Everyone Catholic has said that was right on the money.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you’re a Mad Men fanatic, check out the rest<\/a> of the interview.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/b> Fr. Jim Martin takes a typically Jesuitical view of the show — and offers some wonderful insight and analysis on its spiritual\/religious iconography and atmosphere right here<\/a>. Speaking for myself, I also wondered about the priest’s garb when he was in the pulpit — until I thought that maybe, just maybe, it was a special prayer service, not a mass, hastily put together for the faithful who were terrified of what the looming nuclear war might bring. Things like that were not uncommon in the days after 9\/11 — which the Cuban missile crisis eerily echoed (or, perhaps, foreshadowed?) in the episode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reader sent me this link, to a fascinating interview with Matthew Weiner, the genius behind my latest obsession, “Mad Men”. (After last night’s pitch-perfect season finale, I can’t believe I now to have to wait nine months for the next season to start. Argh. The episode was set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-this-and-that"],"yoast_head":"\nThe man behind "Mad Men" - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/10\/the-man-behind-mad-men.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The man behind "Mad Men" - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A reader sent me this link, to a fascinating interview with Matthew Weiner, the genius behind my latest obsession, “Mad Men”. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}