‘Mad Men’ creator Matthew Weiner: 'I really value Israeli creativity'

"I really value it, not only as our cultural tradition but also as a creative force."

By HANNAH BROWN
‘MAD MEN’ creator Matthew Weiner (photo credit: COURTESY OF MISHKENOT SHA'ANANIM)
‘MAD MEN’ creator Matthew Weiner
(photo credit: COURTESY OF MISHKENOT SHA'ANANIM)
This year’s Jerusalem Writers Festival, which would have been held this week at Mishkenot Sha’ananim had it not been for the coronavirus outbreak, is taking place virtually, with Zoom meetings with distinguished guests.
One of these guests, Mad Men creator and novelist Matthew Weiner, spoke on Wednesday evening with Ron Leshem, the Israeli author and producer of such shows as Euphoria (both the Israeli and US versions), in a wide-ranging chat in which he pondered the current crisis, his television career, the future of entertainment and his own Jewish identity.
Saying that he regrets not being able to participate in the festival in person, Weiner, who has visited Israel, said that he values Israeli creativity and that he is well aware of how much Israel is currently shaping the entertainment world.
“I don’t know if people are aware of how much conversation there is in Israel, how much debate there is, always, about the creative, and I’m saying this as someone who has spent more time with Israelis than in Israel. I really value it, not only as our cultural tradition but also as a creative force.... [Israelis] are responsible for a lot of it: the freedom that’s given, even in a commercial atmosphere, that so many of our entertainment right now is remakes of Israeli stuff.”
He said that he sees himself very much part of the Jewish tradition of creativity that he feels is very much alive in Israel: “So for me as a writer, to engage with Israeli writers, Jewish writers, it’s a privilege and I value it, and I do consider myself part of it... and I want to visit soon again.... I do consider myself part of a very noble and important tradition that is filled with discord and discourse and argument and all that, and I appreciate it. Send my love.”
But, of course, he couldn’t come this year, as he is self-isolating at home like most of the world. “My daily routine is like everyone else’s. It takes me two hours to do something that used to take me five minutes.... I’m not easily bored, but I’m having a lot of trouble concentrating.”
Asked by Leshem about how he feels the entertainment world will be affected by the pandemic, he said, “It’s a time when people really want comfort, they’re into reruns, they’re not into trying new things,” and he doubts people will want “to watch these massive amounts of dystopian entertainment we’ve been exposed to in the last two years. I don’t think anyone wants to see the end of the world again.”
Speaking against the economic inequality that the pandemic has exposed in the US, where the death rate for people of lower socioeconomic status has been disproportionately high, he said that on the positive side, “I know this is going to stimulate many writers’ imaginations.”
Weiner said that he very much considers himself part of the tradition of Jewish writers, and, when asked to speculate on why so many Jews are drawn into storytelling, said, “You are an outsider and you see a lot, and the fact that you also are white allows you to be an outsider who can speak in a place where a lot of people of color and actual outsiders have been ignored.... Jewish males in particular have been allowed to pass in that world. There was a saying for the ’50s comedy writers: ‘Think Yiddish, write British.’ So there was a way in.”
He said that people who grew up feeling like privileged insiders couldn’t see the absurdity of life enough to comment on it, in the way that Jews can.
“There is something particularly Jewish [about writing]; we have a culture that really values [storytelling]. I used to joke with [Italian-American] David Chase [the creator of The Sopranos, a series on which Weiner worked as a writer, before he made Mad Men] that Italians and Jews are so similar. What is it? Is it the mother? or whatever, and I would say, you know, they’re not that similar.... In my family, we were allowed and encouraged to be artists. Being a writer was super-valued,” he said, noting that his parents were second-generation Americans who were professionals and placed a premium on creativity.
WEINER ADMITTED that he never expected Mad Men to become a hugely successful Emmy-winning series, and noted that it went very much against the grain of what was on television in the 2000s, when it was turned down by dozens of networks before being purchased by AMC.
While the series has been criticized for having a hero who is not conventionally likable, Weiner said, “Likability is a dangerous road to go down, because then your hero winds up being the most boring thing in the show, and you end up following the villain.”
After Mad Men, he made the Amazon series The Romanoffs, a show in which each episode followed different characters who had a tenuous connection to the Romanoff family.
“I wanted to explore questions of identity and how we’re all similar.... I could have done 10 more years of The Romanoffs.”
Writing Heather, the Totality, his 2017 novel about a sociopathic construction worker who targets a young girl and changes the destiny of her entire family, was an interesting change from working in television.
“When you’re writing a screenplay, it’s just a blueprint. When you’re writing fiction, prose, poetry, the thing you’re writing is the thing” that people will actually read.
For more information about the digital version of the Jerusalem Writer’s Festival, go to the website at http://fest.mishkenot.org.il/en/home/a/main/


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