Americana: Cinema Weekend at the Museum / Mad (Wo)men Special Event / Mad Men, 2007

Americana: Cinema Weekend at the Museum | A rich weekend of films inspired by the exhibition Tom Wesselmann: All Out / From the Marie and Jose Mugrabi Collection.
Artistic Director: Karin Rywkind Segal

The screenings will be accompanied by introductions from the Museum’s curators and guest lecturers.

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Mad Men
Two Episodes from Season One: Babylon and The Hobo Code

USA, 2007 | Created by: Matthew Weiner | Cast: Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks | English with Hebrew subtitles

Matthew Weiner’s acclaimed series Mad Men returns to the world of Madison Avenue advertising in the early 1960s—a moment when American consumer culture, television, and advertising were reshaping society and redefining ideas of happiness, success, femininity, and desire. At its center is Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the charismatic creative director of the Sterling Cooper advertising agency, alongside Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), a young secretary beginning to forge her own path in a profession dominated almost entirely by men.

The two episodes presented at the Museum revolve around Sterling Cooper’s campaign for the Belle Jolie lipstick brand, marking a pivotal moment in Peggy’s professional development. Her unexpected creative insight earns her first opportunity as a copywriter, setting her on an extraordinary career path. The lipstick is presented as both a means of self-expression and a marker of romantic possession, revealing how consumer products become entwined with desire, identity, and gender expectations.

The connection to Tom Wesselmann’s work is almost immediate. In both, lips, the female body, and consumer goods become iconic images drawn from the visual language of postwar America, where advertising, sexuality, and consumer culture are inseparably intertwined. Yet these episodes also expose the mechanisms through which such images.are constructed as products of the male gaze. Peggy begins as one of the women subjected to that gaze, but gradually becomes the person who shapes it—crafting the images, the desires they evoke, and the language through which they are marketed.

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Note: Film introductions will be in Hebrew.
The number of participants is limited | Advance reservations are required for all participants.
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For more information on “Americana: Cinema Weekend at the Museum” and the full screening program >

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The screening is sponsored by yes