Creator of Mad Men Matthew Weiner was recently in Paris to participate in a kind of yearly world fair of TV series.

(Unfortunately, I got wind of it only one week before the event, and tickets were long sold out.)

Weiner appeared on two panels, the first one to talk about Mad Men‘s coming finale (I’ll post an update to the review I wrote last year once the show is over), the second one on his cinematic influences.

In the latter, Weiner talked about the hypocrisy of his own network, AMC, which had no compunction in displaying very violent scenes in its show Breaking Bad, but deleted Mad Men scenes in which characters could be seen getting high or laid.

The fair was hosted by Paris’s city council, which might explain why the image and sound are mismatched in the second video. (In my libertarian days, I would have blamed it on public workers.)

I thus decided to extract the audio and repost it on YouTube with a static picture of Weiner. I also transcribed his statements.

It’s all below.

N.B.: Before you remind me: yes, I know that Weiner is not allowed to cook bagels on Saturdays. That doesn’t make his point wrong, nor does it prevent Mad Men from being high culture.



