Elias Kresinger is a master of manipulation.
The video remixer uses clips from television shows to construct her own personal, pop-culture narratives.
Her latest, “Mad Men: Set Me Free,” is an alternative anthem of womanhood, a bold mash-up sung by the female characters of the award-winning AMC drama that reframes their depiction as mere trophy wives, dsposable secretaries, and objects of affection.
Set to the tune of the Supremes’s “You Keep Me Hanging On,” the work was composed with Marc Faletti (@marcfaletti), a mash-up artist best known for his remixes of ‘80s prom classics, and has been viewed more than 13,000 times on Vimeo since posting on Monday. On her site, Pop Culture Pirate, Kreisgner offered this explanation:
“When you’re culturally ‘poor’ for representation, both queer and feminist, you have to reuse the things you have access to, whether it be for subtext, your own entertainment or for critique. My hope was that I could turn the mixed feelings I had about the retro-sexual roles of women in Mad Men into something practical: product that my feminist theory addressed in theory only.”
Kreisgner first garnered acclaim for her Queer Carrie Project, a remix series that tweaked Sex and the City into a lesbian narrative, along with Queer Housewives of New York City.
This isn’t the first time she’s worked with Mad Men, either.
Last week, she posted “QueerMen: Don Loves Roger,” which subverts the relationship between to two main male characters in a manner that would certainly shock Betty Draper.
