The creator of Mad Men has hit back
over the controversial ‘Falling Man’ style poster for the series by
claiming that it is being used by the media to ‘exploit’ 9/11.Matthew
Weiner said it was ‘ridiculous’ to say he was being insensitive by
using the billboards, which features a man in a suit tumbling through
the sky.He also claimed
the image of a businessman falling out of a window had been around since
before the September 11 2001 attacks - even though Mad Men was first
shown in 2007.Weiner was branded ‘cruel’ and
‘tasteless’ over the use of the advert for the fifth season of Mad Men
by families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11.The
billboard was put up all over Manhattan including streets close to
Ground Zero and shows the black shadow of a man falling against a white
background.New Yorkers
said it reminded them of the iconic image of the ‘Falling Man’ who
hurled himself out of the World Trade Centre to escape the burning
buildingHe and dozens of others chose to commit suicide rather than burn to death during the attack which killed 2,977 people.

In
an interview with Salon.com Weiner said that the media were just using
the Mad Men poster as an ‘excuse to show that picture (the Falling Man)
again’.He said: ‘I think they’re (the
media) exploiting 9/11. The thing that I realized was that a lot more
people did not know what the show was: ‘That
image is the show. It’s been a part of the show since the beginning. To
suggest that I’m not reverent to the tragedy is ridiculous. I hate to
say it, but a businessman falling out of a window is a symbol that far
precedes that event.’





Cruel: Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, has been called 'cruel' and 'tasteless' for using the 'Falling Man' style image


Weiner said that journalists were
just looking for an excuse to ‘trot out’ the Falling Man picture which
was ‘always a controversial picture to someone who lived through it’.
He
said: ‘As someone who was very, very involved in the (Mad Men
advertising) campaign, and trying to get people to watch the show, I was
stunned that someone would try to bring it up again.’
His robust comments are unlikely to
satisfy outraged 9/11 families including Deborah Burlingame, whose
father Charles was the pilot of the jet which crashed into the Pentagon
on 9/11.
She has said that Weiner was ‘stupid’ for ‘evoking the tragic memory of those poor souls’ who died during the terrorist attack.


Ms
Burlingame has said: ‘I think this advertiser has decided that creating
a controversy, at the expense of the thousands of people who will be
hurt by this image of man falling to his certain death, is worth it.’
John
Feal, who heads the Fealgood Foundation supporting 9/11 emergency
workers, has also said the advert ‘lacks sensitivity’ because for some
the disaster will ‘always be an open wound’.
The fifth season of Mad Men is due to premier in the US this Sunday.


AMC,
the network on which Mad Men is shown in America, has defended the use
of the advert and said it was a metaphor for the turmoil experience by
Don Draper, the main characterhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2117175/Mad-Men-creator-Matthew-Weiner-hits-9-11-Falling-Man-poster-row.html