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From the Blog

Jan

there’s one more kid that’ll never go to school

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

When Ross Douthat, New York Times columnist, writes another column about abortion, I don’t feel obligated to comment. Better bloggers than I can field it – IOZ and Amanda Marcotte taking a slow jog infield, waving me off, raising their gloves and squinting – without trouble. But when Douthat talks about pop culture, he’s trundled into my yard.

The American entertainment industry has never been comfortable with the act of abortion. Film or television characters might consider the procedure, but even on the most libertine programs (a “Mad Men,” a “Sex and the City”), they’re more likely to have a change of heart than actually go through with it.

We have two possibilities here. Either:

(1) Douthat hasn’t watched the last three seasons of Mad Men. To call Mad Men a “libertine program” is like calling Apocalypse Now a “rousing call to arms.” Mad Men builds its storyline off the consequences of libertine behavior, not indulgence in it. People hook up and get pregnant. Don goes on a drinking binge and loses a weekend. Drunken office parties become opportunities for humiliation or (as we saw in S3) mutilation. Comparing Mad Men to Sex and the City, where the consequence of cheating on your boyfriend with your (now married) ex is to go shoe shopping, is just daft.

Or,

(2) Douthat made the same mistake that most of male America (and I include myself in that) made with the first couple seasons of Mad Men, which was to presume that Don Draper’s behavior is meant to be emulated. In that sense, Draper’s teetering walk on the brink of tragedy could be called “libertine.” If you’re completely deaf to a show’s tone, context and narrative, sure.

So which is it? Is Douthat uninformed or gullible? Given that he references MTV’s “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” a few paragraphs later – shows I’ll bet my paycheck he doesn’t watch – I’m going with #1.

There’s nothing wrong with speaking about a pop culture icon that you know little about. Douthat’s a busy man, doing whatever it is he does, and he might not have time to watch every new show on the menu. I sure don’t, and I’m supposed to write about it! But there’s a difference between using a show you haven’t seen as a reference and using a show you haven’t seen as an argument.

Douthat’s thesis, in this column, is that “the American entertainment industry has never been comfortable with the act of abortion.” To support that thesis, he has to present evidence from the American entertainment industry. His evidence: four shows he hasn’t watched, an MTV special that he fast-forwarded through, and a fair-to-middling poem from the New Yorker. Compelling!

Douthat’s problem, if I have to choose just one, is an unwillingness to own up to the authority he wants. He tries to invent a public groundswell of abortion reticence in order to advance his argument that nobody really wants an abortion. He’d be a more interesting author if he dropped this quest and simply thundered from the mountaintop: I say thee NAY, etc. He’s more convincing that way. Everyone believes Ross Douthat wants to speak with the Voice of God. No one believes he watches “Teen Mom.”

Oct

I got you, babe

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

Man, that Internet sure seems divided on the season finale of Mad Men, eh? First, let’s talk about the season as a whole.

Doesn't that sound like fun?

If the last few seasons have been about shedding the trappings of the past, S4 is about considering who you really are. S3 ended with our heroes taking a stand – breaking out of the old ways of doing business and forming a risky new concern. S4 is about looking around as the dust settles and asking, “Okay. What now?”

With Peggy and Pete, this questioning makes sense. They’re both young; they’re at the stage in their lives when they should be asking these questions. Pete has lost his father (S2) and he still wants to take advantage of the ties that wealth and connection allow him (S3, S4). But he’s defining himself through his work. And not just by having a lucrative job that will provide for his family – note how he turns down that offer from Chaough. He likes being a partner. He takes enough pride in it to call Roger out on being lazy. He also takes enough pride in it to gloat when Ken shows up. So it’s not all admirable, but it’s character.

And to think I wanted to be you ... oh, crap, I still do.

Peggy is already defining herself as a “career woman” as S4 kicks off. Now it’s just a question of living with the consequences of that choice. She’s forced to confront that choice directly, and memorably, in “The Suitcase” – choosing between a birthday dinner with her boyfriend and staying in the office. She also has to choose between a conventional romantic life (courtship, engagement, marriage, kids) and the bohemian life of 60s Greenwich Village hipsters. The process of discovery has been rocky for her, but she’s stayed true to what she wants throughout.

(It’s also a little sad that Peggy Olsen is a more sex-positive female character than most female characters on primetime dramas set in the modern day. She wants sex, she has some, it’s great, la-di-da. Sometimes it’s with the wrong guy, like Duck. Sometimes it doesn’t end well, like with her last boyfriend. But she marches on, unscarred)

The process of uncovering “what now?” has been the most dramatic for Don because Don’s already an adult. At least notionally. And yet he never really had a childhood, not a pleasant one anyway, and what little he had he wants to repress. Free of Betty and his children, he has the opportunity to date around. Women present themselves to him: his secretary Allison, his fetching neighbor, the actress Bethany van Nuys, Dr. Faye, his new secretary Megan. It’s an adolescent fantasy: rich, single, living on your own in the big city. And yet we see how hollow it is. The dingy apartment, the drunken one-night stands, the lost contact with his children.

Don gets a clean break with his past when Anna dies. With her gone, he’s free to be whoever he says he is. And, as the final episode showed us, Don is happy being the man he was before. Don Draper is the type of man (as predicted by Dr. Faye) who marries his secretary. Or the model on his photoshoot. And yet he hasn’t remained completely inert. He’s drinking less. He respects Peggy and Pete more. He’s growing a little more wary of Roger – the man’s a friend, but he’s also a mirror that shows the future. And he’s come to terms (for now) with Betty.

S4 presented Don with an opportunity to change. And, with a few small exceptions, he said, “You know what? I’m good. Thanks, though.”

Retching in terror once every five years is a small price to pay.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, S4 presented Don with a choice between Faye, Bethany and Betty. Faye is smart, warm, supportive and mature. She pushes Don to confront his past. Bethany was young, gorgeous and good at presenting herself. She wanted everything Don had to offer. When Don seemed torn between those two, Megan split the difference. She’s young, gorgeous, warm and supportive. She’s clever but not smart enough to challenge Don. She’s a way for Don to hedge his bets. And that’s something Don’s always excelled at – holding off on signing a contract for as long as possible; bargaining with Pete to keep the DoD off his back. When given a choice between three blondes, Don goes with the brunette and thinks he’s making progress.

More importantly, Megan doesn’t know who Don was before. And that’s crucial. If Don is going to change himself in S4 – or do what he thinks is changing himself – he needs someone who doesn’t know his past. As soon as Don let Faye in on his secret, a world of trouble fell from his shoulders. But she was disqualified from becoming Mrs. Donald Draper.

(That being said, I’m not in love with this development. What sort of plots will it lead to in Seasons 5 and 6? “A visitor from the past forces Megan to confront Don’s true identity”, etc? Shocking)

Of course she's surprised. But she still has the speech rehearsed.

When I recapped the first four episodes of S4, I said that this season would be about dismantling the myth of Don Draper. The season finale puts a capstone on that. Don Draper will not get out of the Sixties intact. When he gets out of one scrape, his first instinct is to retreat to the behavior that got him in trouble in the first place. He’s saved from an FBI background check, and the first thing he does is ogle his secretary (literally, right after she drops the Beatles tickets on his desk). He loses Lucky Strike and he publishes a full-page ad in the Times. We may deplore one and admire the other, but they come from the same place.

“I’m living like there’s no tomorrow,” Draper tells Rachel Mencken in the pilot, “because there isn’t one.” That hasn’t changed in five years. Dick Whitman has been living a borrowed life since his near-death experience in Korea. He doesn’t think about building a future. He thinks about what will get him through today. Just to tide them over; just a little more time; just a little more room. Draper’s idea of planning for the future is to propose to a woman he barely knows with a ring he got three days ago.

Has there been any change? Yes, but not in him.

Note what happens when Draper announces his engagement to the partners. There’s a room of blank faces. The first person to congratulate him is the person in the room who knows him the least: Lane Pryce. And when Megan is invited in and Lane congratulates her too, Pete corrects him. “You don’t say ‘congratulations’ to the bride,” he says, adding an unspoken of Don Draper to the end. “You say ‘best wishes’.” And really, that’s all we can offer this poor girl. Our best wishes in dealing with this mess.

Who the hell's that?

Oct

that old Irish mother of mine

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

In the comments section of the AV Club, particularly when discussing Mad Men, there’s an overused turn of phrase: “on the nose.” It’s used when the symbolism in a given episode is a little too obvious.^* Mad Men has earned reams of critical acclaim for the way its dialogue, cinematography and performances are all arranged to hint at a theme without hammering it in. In a given episode, the characters talk about, focus on and move toward everything but what they truly want. It forces the watcher to engage. That’s what makes Mad Men, at the moment, the best thing on television.

HBO’s Boardwalk Empire is on the nose.

boardwalk-empire-steve-buscemi

It started in the pilot, with Atlantic City treasurer Enoch Thompson (Steve Buscemi) crowing with his ward bosses over how corrupt he was. He didn’t quite rub his hands and cackle, but that may have been an acting choice. Buscemi delivers his lines with a stiff formality. I can’t tell whether it’s part of the character – Thompson, at the height of his power, tiring of his facade – or Buscemi’s fatigue with the material. In any case, Buscemi is the least satisfying part of the show for me. He hardly revels in his power the way we want our gangsters to: Michael Corleone ordering the death of his enemies, Joe Pesci threatening to bash someone’s head in. He’s history’s most neurotic capo.

It continued in the second episode, where we learned that Margaret Nicholson (Kelly MacDonald) was the world’s most precocious Irish housewife. Smart enough to quote George Sand from memory but not smart enough to avoid marrying an abusive Kraut, the writers have made her the Voice of the Socially Conscious Woman. Which is a role the show needs, to be sure, but not quite as blunt. We don’t need a character in 1920 judging 1920 with the voice of 2010. That’s the sort of shit I expect from a Heinlein novel. She’s Boardwalk Empire‘s stab at Peggy Olsen, but Peggy at least has boldness if not perfect foresight. MacDonald’s too retiring to cheer for. It doesn’t help that she has the worst Irish accent since Back to the Future III.

And it continued in the fourth episode, with the further exploration of Chalky White (Michael K. Williams). Being one of those legendarily rabid Wire fans, I made a conscious effort not to put too much weight on Williams’s shoulders. “He’s a different character in this show,” I said. “He’s not Time Travelin’ Omar.” But the speech he gave before interrogating the Klansman reeked of cheap melodrama. Other writers on Overthinking It (Fenzel in particular) have decried the recent need to give every protagonist a backstory, and this episode really hammered home why.^**

boardwalk-empire-michael-williams

Williams’s speech ground the pace of the interrogation scene to a halt. It had built to a beautiful thrum of suspense, with the Sheriff hooding the prisoner and walking off. Next scene, Williams enters. We saw how torn up he was over his man getting killed. We know this is an HBO show about gangsters, so we’re expecting some violence. And we get … a speech. A long one, too. Because we wouldn’t believe that a black man in 1920 would be murderously mad at the Klan unless he had some personal involvement with them, like his papa getting lynched.

The scene’s almost saved when Williams quietly unfolds the leather parcel he brought in: a vast array of metal tools. “These my daddy’s tools,” he says.

And then the Klansman asks, “W-what are you going to do with them?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. You’ve been handcuffed to a chair for twenty-four hours by Atlantic City’s corrupt sheriff. You’re still wearing your Grand Cyclops costume. A scarred black man has just been telling you about the time his father got lynched. And he’s fondling a pair of bolt cutters with a gleam in his eye. The fuck you think is going to happen?

(deep breath)

Perhaps I’m being too harsh. I might have had high expectations going in, since I’d seen all of the above actors in exceptional pieces of art before (Reservoir Dogs; No Country for Old Men; The Wire, etc). Oddly enough, it’s the characters I had no real expectations of who’ve impressed me the most.

boardwalk-empire-michael-shannon

I love Michael Shannon’s unpredictable Prohibition agent. I can still make myself laugh recalling him struggling for breath as he hoists a dying witness into a dentist’s chair. “You got something to boost his system? Give him some pep?” I love Shea Wigham’s understated brutality as Enoch Thompson’s thuggish brother. I’m liking Paz de la Huerta more than I thought I might. She comes off as a vapid sexpot, but it’s a three-dimensional vapid sexpot; she’s not shallow for lack of characterization, if that makes any sense. I like Gretchen Mol, who not only showed some fire in the fourth episode but seemed to mean it, too. And I love the quietly suffering Eddie.

So of course I’ll continue watching it. It’s an HBO series, so it’s allowed to build slow. As a show about the games of power played with an ensemble cast of excellent actors, it’s better than 90% of what’s on TV today. I’m scraping the burned bits off my filet mignon here. It’s good TV; it’s better than I deserve.

But will someone tell the writers to shut up and let the actors do their job? There was a fantastic bit in the fourth episode where Buscemi’s character is getting dressed for the day. “Get my shoes,” he tells Eddie. “Which ones?” Eddie asks. Buscemi stares at his valet in frustrated disbelief and points at the suit he’s wearing. Eddie nods and hustles toward the closet. That wordless exchange said more about their characters than a paragraph of text could – and it was funny, too. More of that, please; less of the other thing.

________________________
^* Formally, “on the nose” means “I’m worried all my friends got it too, and I won’t need to explain it to them.”

^**In a good story, we discover a character through their actions and their words. In a mediocre story, we discover a character through exposition – what they or other people say about them. And backstory is exposition. “You didn’t hear about how his parents were killed in 9/11, by the terrorist he let escape when he was serving in Operation Desert Storm, which he only enlisted in to make his daddy proud?” If you want to show me a conflicted character, then tell the actor to act conflicted. Or, even better, script a conflict! Don’t talk at me.

Sep

but you see I’m on a losing streak?

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

mad men

Last time I talked about Mad Men, I predicted that “[t]his season should mark Don becoming less relevant and Peggy and Pete moreso. They’re the face of the ‘youth culture’ that’s going to become more important as the Sixties roll on.” Well, the last few episodes (Ep5 through Ep8) have not been about youth culture. But otherwise I was right.

Pete and Peggy were each born into certain roles – Pete the blue-blood, Peggy the homemaker. In the first three seasons, each of them chafed (Peggy more than Pete) in the life they were born into. Pete doesn’t have a social consciousness that a contemporary audience would recognize. But his earnest attempts to sell Admiral televisions to African-Americans seem more genuine, albeit mercantile, than Kinsey marching in Alabama. Peggy had a chance at being a mother thrust upon her in Season 1 and decided she wouldn’t have it. The two of them have stepped out of their cradles and into their careers.

In S4, they take charge in more dramatic fashion. Pete takes the initiative in trying to impress the Japanese clients in “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.” Sure, he gets a lot of the details wrong – Pete’s doing double-duty as the Baby Boom and as a comic foil for Don. But Pete’s not coasting on his Ivy League connections any more. Note especially his confrontation with Roger in that episode. Roger and Pete come from the same world, but they no longer take the same sides.

(Tangent: I thought Roger taking refuge in patriotism was particularly clunky. Bombastic speeches about fallen comrades? Joan thanking him for making the world a safer place? What the fuck’s with this Aaron Sorkin bullshit? If I wanted protagonists talking about what the scene was about, I’d watch network television)

Pete throws his weight around when Ken Cosgrove returns to the office, reminding Cosgrove that they’re no longer peers. Ken – and I love Aaron Statton more than I should – swallows his pride and agrees. This isn’t supposed to endear us to Pete, even as a power play, but it’s more progress in the same vein. Pete’s no longer relying on his family name to one-up people. Now he’s relying on his career.

Is this what Don would do? It feels like what Don would do. I'll ask Don.

Peggy, meanwhile, struggles with being a career woman. Well, let me rephrase that. Every drama since General Hospital has devoted a B storyline to the woman who has to choose between Falling In Love and Pursuing Her Dreams, or between Raising A Family and Success In The Workplace. This is nothing new, and Mad Men wouldn’t be noteworthy for depicting it. Thankfully, Weiner and company have avoided the most obvious pitfalls and struck their own path.

(Tangent: … with the unfortunate exception of Peggy’s arc in S1. I can’t find any interpretation of Peggy’s behavior regarding her pregnancy that I’m comfortable with. Either she didn’t know she was pregnant [unlikely], she knew but she imagined it would just go away if left untended [unlikely] or she had a secret plan to deal with her pregnancy that we never saw on camera [poor writing choice]. It’s possible I missed something, since I wasn’t watching the show as closely back then. Still, I’m happier to be past it)

Peggy is not choosing between Raising a Family and Success In The Workplace. She’s made that choice. She’s a career woman. She wants to design compelling ads, the way Don does. Her struggle comes not from her internal conflict – which she acknowledges but moves past with little trouble – but from getting the rest of the world to accept her.

No one believes that she wants to do what Don does. Her boyfriend thinks she wants a traditional relationship, which is why his birthday surprise for her is dinner with her parents. Her coworkers think she got where she did either by sleeping with Don (Allison) or by being frigid (Eddie Rumsen, the new art director). And Don doesn’t understand why she can’t just abandon the rest of the world and plunge herself into work.

Peggy’s stopped ignoring the jibes that people mutter behind her back and started firing back. Sometimes she’s harsher than she needs to be, like when she yells at Eddie. Sometimes she’s more daring than a man in her position would have to be, like when she challenges Stan to work in the nude. Sometimes, like with Don, she just breaks down.

This pencil's a little dull ...

But Peggy remains the optimistic center of the show because each time she succeeds. Rumsen leaves her be – or at least acknowledges that Peggy’s someone he doesn’t have to worry about. Stan, having been broken in a way that most fraternities would frown on, treats Peggy with genial respect.

And Peggy and Don? No talk about them would be complete without recapping “The Suitcase,” one of the most touching and incredible episodes of the show so far.

The crux of Peggy’s relationship with Don comes during their screaming match – the mere fact of which is telling in itself. When Don got mad at Betty, his anger was tight and savage: grabbing her by the wrist, pitching his voice so as not to wake the children. When Don gets mad with Peggy, he’s drunk and impatient.

Peggy: You never say ‘thank you’!
Don: That’s what the money’s for!

Two sentences that summarize four seasons of storytelling.

Peggy’s story is a search for acceptance in a foreign land. Peggy wants to plunge herself into work with the same intensity that Don does. She finds certain parts of Don’s life deplorable – his alcoholism, for instance – but most of it attracts her. Being brusque to subordinates? Being called a creative genius? Casual sex? Sign Ms. Olsen up!

But only in Season 4 – and even here it’s a struggle – is she finding the door open when she tries it. Before, her attempts to speak up in meetings were ignored, downplayed or laughed off. She had to do more work than her colleagues, like stepping up to cover for Eddie Rumsen when he passed out drunk, in order to be recognized. To paraphrase Chris Rock, she has to soar to get what everyone else has to walk for.

The world is eager to give Peggy recognition – as a girlfriend, or a wife, or a mother, or a counter-cultural radical, or a humorless bitch. But that’s not the recognition Peggy wants.

Don, on the other hand, is a cipher without a soul. He has nothing but the mask that he puts on for the world. That’s what makes him so good at advertising. That’s what lets him outfox the Japanese at their game of etiquette. That’s what lets him schmooze with Roger Sterling, who’s far enough out of a midwestern farm boy’s world as to be effectively alien. That’s what lets him turn the Glo-Coat campaign into an award-winning conversation piece.

(Tangent: what made Don and Peggy’s argument so compelling, to me, was that both of them had a point. Peggy may have provided the genesis, but Don made it into a fully fleshed commercial. Peggy does deserve thanks, but the agency deserves the credit)

All his life, Don has been told what to want. He’s the ideal ad man because he’s the ideal audience for advertising: someone plagued by anxieties that he hopes achievements can solve. He gets a job – then what? He gets a family – then what? He becomes a partner – then what? Don’s used to accepting material substitutes in place of self-awareness (e.g., “that’s what the money’s for!”).

What does your choice of pants signify about your childhood?

Now, having confronted the void of his self by saying goodbye to Anna, Don has to decide what sort of man he is. He’s started keeping a journal, a process of introspection which he loathes but sticks with. He’s trying to make himself healthier, albeit in small stages: swimming a few times a week, drinking in smaller doses. But more than anything else, Don’s future’s being presented as a choice between the three blondes in his life: Bethany, Dr. Faye and Betty.

Bethany’s younger and freer, but she’s not a ditz. She knows that Don is keeping her at arm’s length. And even if she’s willing to “make [Don] comfortable” in the back of a cab, she won’t let him any further in unless he opens up. Don has less problem opening up to Faye. He respects her work, plus she’s closer to him in age. But, on top of all that, she’s a professional at learning what people want. Bethany wants to be the next Betty Draper, high society wife – note how her eyes go wide when she spots her mirror image in the restaurant. Faye wants to be the next Betty Draper, recipient of pillow talk – lying next to Don at three in the morning, sharing theories on the zeitgeist.

(Tangent: the narrative seems to be preferring Faye, but I think the two of them are even. Both Bethany and Faye put up a good front of resistance, then melt as soon as Don gives them that off-kilter look in the backseat of a cab. They’re both eager to have intercourse with him. But Bethany ends the evening in her case; Don ends it with Faye. I could see Don ending up with either of them without much difficulty)

So what’s left? Season 4 began on Thanksgiving 1964. As of Episode 8, it’s June 1965 (presuming that “(Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” if not diegetic, was at least contemporary). Five more episodes in the season could take us back to Thanksgiving again. We still have the Voting Rights Act, Highway 61 Revisited, John Lindsay’s mayoral campaign and the Vietnam War kicking off in earnest. And I’ll lay two dollars that Episode 13 features someone watching the world broadcast premiere of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.

Aug

it’s such a feeling that, my love, I can’t hide

Posted by Perich at 10:08 am

Can we talk about how great Mad Men has been this season so far?

I have this secret daydream that Matthew Weiner sat down a year ago, looked at the various issues of Vanity Fair and Esquire and Maxim that proclaimed Don Draper the idol of a generation of unanchored males, and said, “Obviously you weren’t paying attention.” The first third of this season has been devoted to dismantling the myth of Don Draper, super-stud with his finger on the pulse of the now. Consider:

He strikes out with every woman he makes a move on. The sole exception is his secretary, who knows that rebuffing his advances might cost her a job (and suspects that catering to them might earn her a promotion) and consents to sleep with him while he’s blackout drunk. But everyone else – the actress, the perky nurse from across the hall, the consumer psychologist, the twenty-year-old Berkley student – all shoot him down.
Not only that, but it’s clear that Don isn’t looking to claw his way out of his hole. The actress with whom he goes on a date is gorgeous, smart, funny and clearly into him. She explicitly tells Don that (1) she won’t sleep with him that evening and (2) he should call her later so they can go on another date. But the idea of seeing a woman twice in one decade makes Don nervous, so he calls a prostitute to slap him around.
Don’s progressed from “casual drinker” to “habitual drunk.” Notice how he pours Lane’s expensive Scotch into a flask, letting the excess dribble onto the rug. Notice how many times he shows up to a meeting with bags under his eyes (the end of Ep.3, right before Allison quits in Ep.4). Notice how he snaps at his secretary when his bottle’s empty.
And for a man who’s supposed to be shaping the popular consciousness, he doesn’t care as much about moving the Zeitgeist any more. He rattles off a list of Christmas gifts for his secretary to buy for his daughter Sally, and adds “a couple of Beatles LPs” as an afterthought. Which do you think will have a bigger impact on Sally’s childhood – a generic pink dress or A Hard Day’s Night?
Not only is the mystique fading, but everyone seems to notice. Peggy no longer worships Don as a creative genius. Roger and Bert grow tired of Don’s petulant privacy, particularly after he botches an interview in Ep.1. Joan regards Don with impatience, foisting a battleaxe of a secretary on him after Allison leaves in tears. And the new consumer psychologist, Faye, regards Don as “a type.”

Get this straight, American males – Don Draper is not your model for life. And I say this as someone who dressed as him for Halloween.

Other developments?

Peggy and Pete have started to take more of the spotlight, particularly in the last episode. This season should mark Don becoming less relevant and Peggy and Pete moreso. They’re the face of the “youth culture” that’s going to become more important as the Sixties roll on. And, as Ep.04 made explicit, they’re going in opposite directions. Pete aligns himself with old money (the Vick’s cough syrup cartel) and power, while Peggy follows after impulsive hipster culture. Don, Peggy and Pete are going to be the dramatic tripod around which the later seasons develop.

And then there’s poor Joan. The timing’s ironic: the world just discovered how gorgeous Christina Hendricks is at the moment when her fictional character’s good looks became less relevant. The camera still forces us to regard her as a good body in a tight dress. There’s a shot in Ep.02 where she talks to Roger in his office. Roger sits down on the corner of his desk; the camera follows to keep him framed. The result is to cut off Joan’s head, leaving her bust and hips perfectly framed while Roger keeps talking about this red dress she wore once. There’s the male gaze, and then there’s the gaze at the male gaze.

Joan has begun to realize (by Ep.03) that she climbed the wrong ladder. Her husband (in addition to being a rapist) is not a suave, talented surgeon destined for wealth. He’s petulant, manipulative and selfish. But she married him. So what’s her next step? Joan may have made a series of mistakes, but she’s not a weak character. She’s not one to sit idly by and let fate push her into a corner. So the only question is when she’ll push back.

And what’s next for 1965? Martin Luther King’s march on Montgomery, increased troop presence in Vietnam, the Beatles at Shea Stadium and Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, the Second Vatican Council and the New York World’s Fair. So things might stay busy.

Apr

I'll miss the way you smile as though it's just for me

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:00 am

I love Mad Men. And I love companies that use blogging as a tool to promote their content, interact with their fans and get good SEO cred. (Why? Because I work in marketing) But AMCTV’s Mad Men blog pitched me a wingding this week:

Can’t get Peggy’s rendition of “Bye Bye Birdie” out of your head? Why should you? But while you’re humming that tune, check out the following online extras:

Those of you who saw “Love Among the Ruins” in Season 3, Episode 2 should already have your jaws on the desk. If not, I may have to spoil a bit.

Peggy Olsen (Elizabeth Moss) is the only female copywriter in the 1960s Madison Avenue advertising firm Sterling Cooper. In this episode, she’s assigned to draft a commercial for Pepsi’s new diet drink, Patio, inspired by Ann-Margret singing the title of “Bye, Bye Birdie”:

In the brainstorm Peggy argues that, while Ann-Margret’s veiled sensuality certainly appeals to the males in the audience (and let’s be frank, there is something kind of sexy about the open pleading, the bit lips, the shaken head, etc, I don’t need to spell it out further, do I?), Patio is targeted at women. Women don’t need to be seduced by Ann-Margret. The other men in the room dismiss her criticism and her boss, Don Draper, shuts her down with restrained impatience.

Rebuffed, Peggy wonders if she’s missing out on something. Peggy’s character arc through the first two seasons veers between Career Professional and Sexual Creature, two identities she can’t wear simultaneously in the 1960s. So, in “Love Among the Ruins,” Peggy reconsiders her path for a moment. Is that really all men want, she wonders? Not someone intelligent with whom to share a life, but someone kittenish and accessible?

And there’s a heartbreaking scene, halfway through the episode, where Peggy stands in front of her bedroom mirror in her nightgown and does her best Ann-Margret impression. And it’s just not good.

peggy-olson-bye-bye-birdie

It’s an example of how great Mad Men is at capturing vulnerability: the unguarded moments when our professional mask slips. It’s raw and poignant and embarrassing and rewarding.

Can’t get Peggy’s rendition of “Bye Bye Birdie” out of your head? Why should you?

Can’t get Mr. Blonde’s rendition of “Stuck In the Middle with You” out of your head? Can’t get Buffalo Bill’s rendition of “Goodbye Horses” out of your head? Can’t get the Radiator Lady from Eraserhead‘s rendition of “In Heaven” out of your head? Why should you? They’re only meant to haunt you about the civilized veneers we plaster over our primal insecurities. Snap your fingers, tap your toes.

(N.B. Things don’t end bad for Peggy. She gets dolled up, goes to a bar, picks up a college student, goes back to his place for a one-night stand, then sneaks out at about five in the morning. Critical reaction to this was mixed, but I saw it as a tremendous step forward for Peggy. She tried her hand at the Don Draper seduce-and-destroy lifestyle, enjoyed it, decided it didn’t work for her, and went back to work none the worse for wear. She didn’t get a hysterical pregnancy or sit weeping on the floor of her shower. Sex is great; glad I had some; la dee da)

Anyhow, moral of the story: make sure the intern writing your blog has actually seen the episodes they blog about.

Nov

shut the door; have a seat

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 8:49 am

Monster post on Overthinking It today, overthinking Mad Men Season 3, which just wrapped this past Sunday. Preview:

Mad Men is a story about men and women searching for meaning. Mad Men can tell this story because it’s set in an ad agency. Consumer capitalism, which really came into its own following World War II, sells products that add meaning to people’s lives. If Americans don’t believe that their choice of cigarette will make them happy, or that a slide projector can restore the innocence of youth, then Don Draper and his crew are out of a job.

The language of advertising transforms products from the utilitarian to the spiritual. You don’t stay in a Hilton Hotel because of price or convenience. You stay in a Hilton Hotel because it brings the comforts of home to a foreign setting. Pepsi can reinvigorate our tired routine; AquaNet can capture the man who’ll provide for us; London Fog can take us on stimulating romantic adventures.

Most of the characters in Mad Men started 1963 with a brand in lieu of a soul. Roger Sterling was the silver fox with a trophy wife; Hilton was the golden treasure that every ad agency sought to claim; Don Draper, the genius with his finger on the pulse of culture. But we discovered that the brand and the product behind it don’t always relate. Roger is more of a lost boy than a dignified man; consider his Kentucky Derby party, or his growing feuds with his new wife. Conrad Hilton turns out to be a cranky, implacable eccentric. And Don? Behind the mask, what is Don Draper?

Share and enjoy.

Nov

it is not dying; it is not dying

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:00 am

I Still Like Him Better Than Steinbrenner
For my Don Draper costume, I had to shave my sideburns off for the first time in at least six years. This took considerable effort, as attacking six years’ growth with a disposable razor will, and left the skin underneath a little raw. But it looks fine now. Shaving since then has been disconcerting, however, since I typically start at my ear line by muscle memory alone and have now had to start cutting even higher.

I put little effort into the costume itself (nicest suit I had, dress shirt, conservative tie); the accessories made it work. I showed up at the office Halloween party with a highball glass full of “scotch” (ginger ale) and a cigarette dangling between my fingers (unlit; borrowed). Most people identified me on their first or second try.

Full Dance Card
Counting work, I hit up five Halloween parties this weekend, including:

90s Night at Common Ground, which gave away $100 for the best 90s costume. Logistics proved an issue, as management couldn’t convince Allston’s drunkest hipsters to circulate before the judge’s table, parading their wares. A horde of kids surged at the DJ booth, waving their hands and squealing like teenage zombies. I thought the kids in the Nickelodeon GUTS outfits had it locked, but Carmen Sandiego stole it.
Joanna and Brian’s Halloween party. I knew which subway station they lived nearest, but didn’t know if it was on the Cambridge or Somerville side of the border. I guessed Cambridge at first. My GPS promptly led me to a Jewish dorm outside Harvard.
Katie and Sylvia’s Halloween party. I wore a different suit for the Don Draper costume – double-breasted, even less period than the first. But people still got it, especially after I borrowed another cigarette. Half the party circulated in the kitchen, eating delicious sweets; the other half planted in the living room, watching The Craft. Remember those quaint days when Wiccans and goths were exotic?
The Gorefest cast party. I congratulated the players on another successful and blood-drenched show. Our host baked a plate of monkey bread – essentially, a massive pile of butter, cinnamon, sugar and dough. We picked at it like savages until Paul challenged everyone at the table to eat one last piece and then stop. An hour later, three people were sitting on the floor with chunks of butter-soaked dough clenched in their front teeth (but not swallowed) and there was a pot of sixty dollars. Let no one say improv people don’t know how to party

monkey-bread

The Patriot Marked for Death is Hard to Kill Under Siege
After a brief hiatus, I returned to the Overthinking It podcast last night. We planned to talk about Halloween costumes, haunted houses and the cultural rituals surrounding scaring each other. Then someone brought up Steven Seagal. Guess what we spent most of our time discussing.

Oct

you told me again you preferred handsome men

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:00 am

And Who Are You Supposed To Be?
How good was this past Sunday’s episode of Mad Men (“The Hobo and the Gypsy”)? So good that I don’t know if I want to go as Don Draper for Halloween anymore. That’s how good it was.

I probably will, anyway, as I’ve reached that point in my life where I pick Halloween costumes by cheapness and the breathability of the fabric. I already own an appropriate suit: I just need to shave my sideburns, slick my hair into the part I wore for the first quarter century of my life, get a pocket square and walk around with half a glass of scotch. And I already do half of that the other three-hundred and sixty-four days of the year. You know I’m all about the pocket squares.

“The Gypsy and The Hobo” put me in such a mood that I not only questioned whether I want to adopt this fictional protagonist as a costume, but what I’m doing with my life. But that’s what happens whenever I watch a good TV show, or a well-framed movie or a really moving song. Good art has the power to throw me in profound and unexpected moods. I’m a blank slate on which media gets to draw.

Which is ironic, because not only is that what Don Draper’s about (advertising and shaping the popular consciousness), but that’s what “what Don Draper’s about” is about. Jon Hamm’s character is popular because he looks like an alpha male who gets to drink all the time, screw around, dismiss his underlings with casual contempt, and luck his way into the halls of power. Every guy wants to be That Guy. Don Draper is selling an image. Matthew Weiner, producer of Mad Men, is selling Don Draper. So I applaud this fictional character’s ability to sell because I myself have been so thoroughly sold.

All that aside, dressing as a tormented ad executive for the company Halloween party would be too meta to pass up.

don-draper

I’m Not Here to Tell You About Jesus
I got my opportunity to play Don Draper at an on-site meeting for TVClient in New York yesterday. Our travel arrangements required that I be up by 5:00 to catch the Acela Express from South Station by 6:00. I’ve taken Amtrak several times in the last few years, but never the Acela Express, with its unfolding business class tables and spacious cafe car. The four of us did some rehearsing for the work presentation, then shared war stories for the rest of the ride.

My role doesn’t put me in regular contact with the clients; I’m more akin to Ken or Peggy than Don. But I still speak in meetings, and yesterday I spoke to a conference room full of website developers on how we could work better with them. I fielded some technical questions, improvised my way through some new slides, and avoided stammering. Things to work on: eye contact, not clearing my throat.

Our cabbie from TVClient to Penn Station murmured something under his breath the entire time he drove us. Every ten seconds, he would click a handheld counter that he cupped in his palm. Prayers? Pedestrians he refrained from killing? We’ll never know.

The Acela Express seats aren’t quite tall enough to support my head and don’t recline far enough to let me slump. I slept with a stiff neck on the train ride back. When I got back to Davis, the sky was as dark as when I’d left.

Oct

when your broken heart has learned its lesson

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:59 am

Mad Men: I’m one of the few people I know who defends Betty Draper.

(NO SPOILERS, though I may reference events in the episode “Wee Small Hours” in an oblique way)

Not to suggest she’s not a terrible mother. She lets television do her parenting for her, is completely oblivious to her children’s needs – especially her daughter – and throws tantrums when she doesn’t get what she wants. She’s not la mere terrible that we’d recognize from horror movies or Gothic romances, beating her weeping child for using wire hangers. But in some ways, this makes her more terrible. The audience recognizes her neglect as more plausible; that’s what makes it hit home.

So, she’s a bad mother. But am I the only Mad Men fan who views her through any lens other than that?

“I can’t believe someone could act so childishly,” my dad said of Betty at the end of Season 2. “Really?”, I replied. “You mean, ‘as childishly as Don’?”

Betty is a child, emotionally. She lives a child’s life: she plays house every day, pretending at raising a family while Carla does all the work (and in the most recent episode, “Wee Small Hours,” Carla’s silent looks say volumes). She even gets to play dress-up once in a while, hosting parties for other grown ups. But when she doesn’t get what she wants – the governor’s office sends a lacquered old maid to address her fundraiser – she pouts. Note how she introduces the governor’s aid: stomping across the living room with her arms straight at her sides, the way Sally might march off to bed if scolded.

But Betty is a child because she’s never had to be an adult. We’ve never had the X-ray look into her childhood that we’ve had of Don’s, but we get the idea that she was emotionally repressed. Emphasis on the proper time and place to show emotions built her into the perfect model and housewife. But, as her therapy sessions in S1 indicated, there’s more to her life than that. Or at least she thinks there is. “What do you want?”, someone asks Betty, point-blank, in “Wee Small Hours.” When’s the last time someone asked her that?

Betty catches the eye of an older man with power and class. What does she do? She starts writing letters to him. She craves, more than anything, not a sexual outlet or a source of male attention but someone with whom to share her uncertainty. The letters don’t have much substance to them, but in them she speaks more honestly than she has in years. Sadly, the correspondence doesn’t seem to last very long.

Betty Draper’s not a great parent, and probably not even a very whole human being. But she’s a tragic figure, not a villainous one.

And of course, there’s plenty more to say about “Wee Small Hours.” The civil rights movement makes its presence felt in upstate New York, albeit only through the radio. Even the most liberal characters on the show treat equality before the law as a gift to be handed to children when they’re mature enough to accept it. And for every public battle for rights, there are several quiet battles whose casualties we never count (“…you people”). It’s a beautiful weaving of historical events into narrative parallels, the kind of thing Mad Men excels at.

Mad Men remains my favorite show on television today. For aspiring writers or actors interested in well-delivered melodrama, it’s a feast.