MANHATTAN, New York October 1, 2008 >> mad men virtuality ©ML Duby
“Stop dining on the drama of other people’s lives like teenage girls.”
– Don Draper
On the other hand, now that we’re here, we might as well enjoy the Mad Men crew indulging their usual barrel of drink. We’ll sample a few hor'dourves and chat before the main course. Unfortunately, one of our regulars – Freddy – over-imbibes to the point of literally pissing himself. Let’s be clear about the Mad Men equation of consequences...after the disclaimer, of course.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 9: "Six Month Leave." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
Freddy Rumsen (Joel Murray) is sent on a one-way out, “six-month leave of absence from which he won’t return” (Roger Sterling – John Slattery) because the “man is a train wreck” (Duck Philips – Mark Moses) and “disgusting” embarrassment according to Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser). The scenario is that Freddy is so totally tanked and still drinking right before the Samsonite luggage client meeting. The unprofessionalism and potentially erratic, unpredictable presentation seems less important that the social stain of wet trousers.
The Six-Month Leave episode is really about who and what we hold onto. Against the real-time world backdrop of Marilyn Monroe’s death, we view our characters reacting to the news, revealing (or not) their feelings about the event, and resolving to move forward toward a “fresh start” as it was put by Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Draper in the elevator on the way up: “Can’t say I’m surprised.” Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) astutely comments, “We’re lucky Playtex didn't go for that Jackie/Marilyn campaign." The secretarial pool is universally weepy with mourning. Roger Sterling sneers that Miss Monroe was a movie star that threw it all away as Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) pines, “This world destroyed her.”
As for Freddy’s plight, he’s dead in the world of Sterling Cooper. Despite his skill set, shared war stories and the loyalty of creative team, Freddy is finished, kaput, sayonara, adios, bye-bye and finito. Roger insists the firm “has to let him go.”
One of Roger Sterling’s violated cardinal sins is lust of the variety that all so frequently allies with disloyalty. Roger ensures the jettison of Freddy is “all being done the right way.” Apparently, 25 years of marriage with Mona does not weigh up as equal to his attraction to the 19-year old secretary Jane Siegel (Payton List). Roger commits a double cop-out, first with a fake name – secretary "Margaret" – to Mona and then, with a twisted-version replay of Don’s suggestion that “it’s your life, you have to move forward.” Roger's business is clear justification without acceptance of responsibilities for his actions and the underlying intentions.
Conflict between Don and Roger is foreshadowed with Roger’s reminder to Don that “you don’t have a contract” with Sterling Cooper. Roger adds, “Your loyalty is starting to become a liability.” At the close, Don ignores Roger’s effort to “explain” his misuse of Don’s bar comment, requests Jane to be off his desk and closes his office door in Roger’s face.
Marilyn Monroe sang “I’m Through With Love” in “Some Like It Hot.”
(1931) Matt Malneck; Songwriters: Gus Kahn, Fud Livingston, Matt Malneck
I'm through with love I'll never fall again
Said adieu to love Don't ever call again
For I must love you or no one
And so I'm through with love
I've locked my heart I'll keep my feelings there
I've stocked my heart in an icy Frigidaire
And I mean to care for no one
Because I'm through with love
Why did you lead me to think you could care?
You didn't need me for you had your share
of slaves around you to hound you and swear
their deep devotion and emotion to you
Goodbye to spring and all it meant to me
It can never bring the things that used to be
For I must have you or no one
And so I'm through with love
I'm through with love
That's why I'm through with love
Showing posts with label Don Draper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Don Draper. Show all posts
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
A Mad Men Night to Remember
MANHATTAN, New York September 15, 2008 >> mad men virtuality ©ML Duby
Revelations abound of what is known but concealed in fears. Certain truths are openly expressed on the Mad Men episode ‘A Night to Remember.’ Don, Betty, Peggy and Joan must answer their impulse to openly put the truth on the table and examine what they recognize. Self scrutiny is almost always forced on us in real life (as opposed to TV dramatic series) as well. Confessions and truth await our characters but, even at the episode’s conclusion, we do not know whether or how each will answer going forward.
The recap below contains plot spoilers about Episode 8: "A Night to Remember." If you haven't seen episode 8, check out the Mad Men Schedule to see when we're airing encore presentations or download it on iTunes.
There are numerous instances of someone convincing another to perform as they need or want. The “other” is recruited by the manipulator. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) uses a dinner party prepared by Betty Draper (January Jones) to create an impression for a client. Betty expressed outrage at being embarrassed at the dinner party about Don knowing the beer she would buy but the underlying boil of anger is from knowing that Don has been cheating on her with Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw). Betty really needs space and sincerely does not want to see him. His façade has been cracked and Betty does not like what she sees about Don’s interior and also despises herself for what it shows her to be – perfect hostess, perfect wife, perfect fool to Don’s infidelity. The other affairs weigh as well on the scale of her outrage and need to separate.
Don remains in denial and cannot speak the truth to his wife. That’s the bottom line. He has reinvented himself so many times and in the present ‘Mad Men’ circumstance, he “does not want to lose all this,” i.e., Betty and the kids. There were many mirrors in the most recent episodes; now the slice of events concludes with him alone in the Sterling Cooper office kitchen nursing a Heineken.
Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss ["shout out to Atlantic Theater Company"]) learns from Father Gill (Colin Hanks) that he knows about her child born out of wedlock. The hoo-hoo about the CYO dance committee is a brilliant dramatic device to carry the essential message of Peggy needing to accept some overdue spiritual truths about her process. Peggy openly admonishes Father Gill that his job is to tell the committee to trust her with her promotional ideas and execution.
When he picks up the final materials at her office, Father Gill reverses that into a message communicated as a leading question to Peggy: “Do you have something you need to talk about? I notice you don’t take communion.” Peggy naturally doesn’t want to talk about it as there are painful truths in her psych even deeper than the out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Father Gill asks, “Why are you pushing everyone away? Do you feel you don’t deserve His love?” Peggy ignores him directly and formally puts his promo materials in a box. Peggy commiserating and pondering in the bathtub at the close is a classic visual of character reflecting their impending fate.
By the way, I totally caught hell when I refused communion as a protest against the hypocrisy of the Vietnam War. Parents and authority functionaries lamented and went ballistic but… Nobody asked me anything! (When is it reality reflecting art and when is it the reverse?)
As for the highly sympathetic Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), she contains and hides her disappointment at losing the broadcast operations script reader position. We all see how clueless the Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) character is as he smims around his fishbowl life. This woman represents so many millions who were about to burn their bras, drop acid and get downright feminista on some deserving asshole “good-ole-boys”! Excuse me, but 46 years on, we still have significant portions of this society resistant to women deserving Equal Pay for Equal Work. There is an extremely well constructed pathos in the scene of Joan promptly and subserviently sashaying to get her doctor his glass of water.
On Madison Avenue of 1962, you can’t just “whack” somebody like they do on The Sopranos. Yet death and pain come in a thousand cuts. The cracks in the glass ceiling and walls are hammered a thousand times. The reality of sexism’s deeper psychological costs on woman’s physical and mental health is being dramatically revealed as well as ever done on television. We end the episode with a looming and foreboding sense of the knowing and the unknown mixed in a mist of dread and doubt. They just don’t write Medieval Morality Plays like that anymore –except for the brain trust at Mad Men, of course. //
Revelations abound of what is known but concealed in fears. Certain truths are openly expressed on the Mad Men episode ‘A Night to Remember.’ Don, Betty, Peggy and Joan must answer their impulse to openly put the truth on the table and examine what they recognize. Self scrutiny is almost always forced on us in real life (as opposed to TV dramatic series) as well. Confessions and truth await our characters but, even at the episode’s conclusion, we do not know whether or how each will answer going forward.
The recap below contains plot spoilers about Episode 8: "A Night to Remember." If you haven't seen episode 8, check out the Mad Men Schedule to see when we're airing encore presentations or download it on iTunes.
There are numerous instances of someone convincing another to perform as they need or want. The “other” is recruited by the manipulator. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) uses a dinner party prepared by Betty Draper (January Jones) to create an impression for a client. Betty expressed outrage at being embarrassed at the dinner party about Don knowing the beer she would buy but the underlying boil of anger is from knowing that Don has been cheating on her with Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw). Betty really needs space and sincerely does not want to see him. His façade has been cracked and Betty does not like what she sees about Don’s interior and also despises herself for what it shows her to be – perfect hostess, perfect wife, perfect fool to Don’s infidelity. The other affairs weigh as well on the scale of her outrage and need to separate.
Don remains in denial and cannot speak the truth to his wife. That’s the bottom line. He has reinvented himself so many times and in the present ‘Mad Men’ circumstance, he “does not want to lose all this,” i.e., Betty and the kids. There were many mirrors in the most recent episodes; now the slice of events concludes with him alone in the Sterling Cooper office kitchen nursing a Heineken.
Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss ["shout out to Atlantic Theater Company"]) learns from Father Gill (Colin Hanks) that he knows about her child born out of wedlock. The hoo-hoo about the CYO dance committee is a brilliant dramatic device to carry the essential message of Peggy needing to accept some overdue spiritual truths about her process. Peggy openly admonishes Father Gill that his job is to tell the committee to trust her with her promotional ideas and execution.
When he picks up the final materials at her office, Father Gill reverses that into a message communicated as a leading question to Peggy: “Do you have something you need to talk about? I notice you don’t take communion.” Peggy naturally doesn’t want to talk about it as there are painful truths in her psych even deeper than the out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Father Gill asks, “Why are you pushing everyone away? Do you feel you don’t deserve His love?” Peggy ignores him directly and formally puts his promo materials in a box. Peggy commiserating and pondering in the bathtub at the close is a classic visual of character reflecting their impending fate.
By the way, I totally caught hell when I refused communion as a protest against the hypocrisy of the Vietnam War. Parents and authority functionaries lamented and went ballistic but… Nobody asked me anything! (When is it reality reflecting art and when is it the reverse?)
As for the highly sympathetic Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), she contains and hides her disappointment at losing the broadcast operations script reader position. We all see how clueless the Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) character is as he smims around his fishbowl life. This woman represents so many millions who were about to burn their bras, drop acid and get downright feminista on some deserving asshole “good-ole-boys”! Excuse me, but 46 years on, we still have significant portions of this society resistant to women deserving Equal Pay for Equal Work. There is an extremely well constructed pathos in the scene of Joan promptly and subserviently sashaying to get her doctor his glass of water.
On Madison Avenue of 1962, you can’t just “whack” somebody like they do on The Sopranos. Yet death and pain come in a thousand cuts. The cracks in the glass ceiling and walls are hammered a thousand times. The reality of sexism’s deeper psychological costs on woman’s physical and mental health is being dramatically revealed as well as ever done on television. We end the episode with a looming and foreboding sense of the knowing and the unknown mixed in a mist of dread and doubt. They just don’t write Medieval Morality Plays like that anymore –except for the brain trust at Mad Men, of course. //
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
'Maidenform' Reveals Mad Men Double Standards
MANHATTAN, New York (September 1, 2008) >> mad men virtuality >>
"Nothing fits both sides of a woman better than Playtex." Mad Men's 'Maidenform' episode is a view into the substrata of the prevailing social rules of the early-60's sexual double standard. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) maneuvers between the compartments of the complicated world he has chosen to create for himself. The pressures of reality on his walls of separation are mounting.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 6: "Maidenform." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
Women dressed like code for men in 1962: Shoes, stockings, skirts, dress straps, bras, accessories, etc. Clothes reveal how "men want to see them" according to Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss). Women's fashion of the era featured appropriate outfits for every occasion. Yves Saint Laurent had yet to score the knock-out blows against the established order with pant suits, safari wear and revamped color motifs.
Before the shakeup of the Sixties, privileged white males (like our Mad Men boys club) flaunted and exploited their positions of presumed authority over all women due to their gender. That perspective demanded uniforms of domestic, office and provocative attire from women. Men objectified and divided women into functional roles and sexual types (e.g., good girl versus bad girl). The Sterling Cooper self-ordained review committee typed the photo shoot bra models into two roles. As Don put it to the Playtex clients: "Two sides of one woman - Jackie (Kennedy) by day or Marilyn (Monroe) by night."
Peggy Olson did not fit at all and was laughed at as a Gertrude Stein or Irene Dunn (who won numerous Oscar awards for her acting). As Peggy put it, "Women expect to be as "men want to see them." When she is not included in activities related to her own account, she joins the after-hours mens' party dresses as the Devil in a Blue Dress to go to the strip club.
In the mind set of the time, it's acceptable to ogle swimsuit models at the golf club fashion show with families and kids but not OK for wife Betty Draper (January Jones) to wear a sexy bikini beach outfit in the privacy of her own kitchen. Don is merely reflecting the social onto his personal in ways that he increasingly cannot control. Don lives between his functions as a successful advertising executive and the difficulties of dealing with the psychological issues and processes of his marriage partner and children.
On a side note, an approaching series plot arc is foreshadowed as Duck Philips undergoes a series of self doubts. First, Duck cannot connect with his divorced family. Then, Duck must admit, "You have an 'I told you so; I hurt the company'," to Don about the American Airlines account fiasco. Finally, Duck confronts the urge to drink and releases the last link to his family - his dog Chauncy - onto the streets to fend for himself.
Mirrors Mirror
The thematic focus on the double standard is reinforced in the Maidenform episode by both the cinematic tools of mirrors and the reflection of the downside effect on our characters -- how they respond to one another and who they become. (That evidence will be explored in more detail as the season and accompanying commentary continues.)
The mirrored images are as obvious as Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) gazing at himself with smugness after his couch romp with the brassiere model. The day/night photo for the Jackie-by-day/Marilyn-by-night Sterling Cooper campaign pitch is visually representing a deeper level for our gazing or gawking at the social sexual double standard.
Don Draper and Bobbi Barrett (Melinda McGraw) watch themselves in the mirror in a stimulating and intoxicating turn-on. Then, Don suddenly senses and understands that Bobbie derives pleasure from him being her behavioral counter-party in a twisted pool of murky yin-yang S&M. Don Draper asks Bobbi as he is tying her wrists: "Does it make you feel better to think that I'm like you?"
Don also has two very different and awkward images of himself in his daughter Sally's eyes. First, she beams at him when he stands as one of the veterans at the country club. Then she comes into the bathroom to sit and watch her daddy shave in front of the mirror. The admiring look repeats the sequence and Sally's comment that "I'm not going to talk; I don't want you to hurt yourself," echoes and ricochets Bobbi's remarks in her bedroom. Don becomes very uncomfortable and sends Sally out. Don sits on the toilet seat reflected in yet another mirror at the close -- Narcissus incarnate darkly gazing into the lake of experiential realization. ///
c2008 by M.L.Duby // 'Maidenform' - Season 2, Episode 6 //
"Nothing fits both sides of a woman better than Playtex." Mad Men's 'Maidenform' episode is a view into the substrata of the prevailing social rules of the early-60's sexual double standard. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) maneuvers between the compartments of the complicated world he has chosen to create for himself. The pressures of reality on his walls of separation are mounting.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 6: "Maidenform." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
Women dressed like code for men in 1962: Shoes, stockings, skirts, dress straps, bras, accessories, etc. Clothes reveal how "men want to see them" according to Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss). Women's fashion of the era featured appropriate outfits for every occasion. Yves Saint Laurent had yet to score the knock-out blows against the established order with pant suits, safari wear and revamped color motifs.
Before the shakeup of the Sixties, privileged white males (like our Mad Men boys club) flaunted and exploited their positions of presumed authority over all women due to their gender. That perspective demanded uniforms of domestic, office and provocative attire from women. Men objectified and divided women into functional roles and sexual types (e.g., good girl versus bad girl). The Sterling Cooper self-ordained review committee typed the photo shoot bra models into two roles. As Don put it to the Playtex clients: "Two sides of one woman - Jackie (Kennedy) by day or Marilyn (Monroe) by night."
Peggy Olson did not fit at all and was laughed at as a Gertrude Stein or Irene Dunn (who won numerous Oscar awards for her acting). As Peggy put it, "Women expect to be as "men want to see them." When she is not included in activities related to her own account, she joins the after-hours mens' party dresses as the Devil in a Blue Dress to go to the strip club.
In the mind set of the time, it's acceptable to ogle swimsuit models at the golf club fashion show with families and kids but not OK for wife Betty Draper (January Jones) to wear a sexy bikini beach outfit in the privacy of her own kitchen. Don is merely reflecting the social onto his personal in ways that he increasingly cannot control. Don lives between his functions as a successful advertising executive and the difficulties of dealing with the psychological issues and processes of his marriage partner and children.
On a side note, an approaching series plot arc is foreshadowed as Duck Philips undergoes a series of self doubts. First, Duck cannot connect with his divorced family. Then, Duck must admit, "You have an 'I told you so; I hurt the company'," to Don about the American Airlines account fiasco. Finally, Duck confronts the urge to drink and releases the last link to his family - his dog Chauncy - onto the streets to fend for himself.
Mirrors Mirror
The thematic focus on the double standard is reinforced in the Maidenform episode by both the cinematic tools of mirrors and the reflection of the downside effect on our characters -- how they respond to one another and who they become. (That evidence will be explored in more detail as the season and accompanying commentary continues.)
The mirrored images are as obvious as Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) gazing at himself with smugness after his couch romp with the brassiere model. The day/night photo for the Jackie-by-day/Marilyn-by-night Sterling Cooper campaign pitch is visually representing a deeper level for our gazing or gawking at the social sexual double standard.
Don Draper and Bobbi Barrett (Melinda McGraw) watch themselves in the mirror in a stimulating and intoxicating turn-on. Then, Don suddenly senses and understands that Bobbie derives pleasure from him being her behavioral counter-party in a twisted pool of murky yin-yang S&M. Don Draper asks Bobbi as he is tying her wrists: "Does it make you feel better to think that I'm like you?"
Don also has two very different and awkward images of himself in his daughter Sally's eyes. First, she beams at him when he stands as one of the veterans at the country club. Then she comes into the bathroom to sit and watch her daddy shave in front of the mirror. The admiring look repeats the sequence and Sally's comment that "I'm not going to talk; I don't want you to hurt yourself," echoes and ricochets Bobbi's remarks in her bedroom. Don becomes very uncomfortable and sends Sally out. Don sits on the toilet seat reflected in yet another mirror at the close -- Narcissus incarnate darkly gazing into the lake of experiential realization. ///
c2008 by M.L.Duby // 'Maidenform' - Season 2, Episode 6 //
Monday, August 25, 2008
'Mad Men' Detachment on 'The New Girl'
'The New Girl’ - Season 2, Episode 5
MANHATTAN, New York (August 25, 2008) >> virtuality
'Mad Men' demonstrates how characters are effected by their decisions based on the willingness to let go of or forget about relational and/or psychological attachments. A foundation point of the entire series is that Don Draper (Jon Hamm) has become the Creative Director of Sterling Cooper due to his previous detachment from his real identity, his original wife and son, and his brother. The first season's crystal moment of truth about the man who will remake himself as Lieutenant Donald Draper is the poignancy of the son who sees his father leaving on the train.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 5: "The New Girl." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes. MARATHON ALERT: This Sunday, August 31, at 5 P.M. (EST), the first five episodes will be shown in order before the regular cablecast; check your local listings.
In ‘The New Girl’ episode, Don barely hesitates to leave work to meet Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw) at Sardi’s. They liquor up and drive out to Stoneybrook, Long Island for sex on the beach. Don drives under the influence of both alcohol and the sensation of having his ear sucked with serious sensuality resulting in an automobile accident. Peggy Olson is forced to intervene and to bail out Don – literally. (PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you still insist on holding to the belief that drinking and driving is ultra cool or even sane, please review the James Dean safe highway driving trailer as well as the soon-thereafter crash photos of his mangled Porsche!)
Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) has been dragged in as the rescuer and also has to provide Bobbie a safe haven at her apartment to sober up and to give her injured blackened eye a little time to cool down. Bobbie, we see repeatedly, asks a lot of questions to size up people; she queries Peggy about her possible romantic attachment to Don. Bobbie repays Peggy in her own way with tactical tips on how to achieve a corner office at Sterling Cooper. Bobbie insists Peggy has to “be a woman” and has to get don to treat her as an equal.
After her baby was born, Peggy disappeared from work and was in St. Mary’s hospital with "psycho-neurotic disorder" (possibly post-partum depression). In the flashback, Don came to her urging that she “get out of here and move forward.” In other words, detach as if “it never happened.” Don reveals himself in telling Peggy, “It will shock you how much it never happened.”
Meanwhile, Paul Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) and his wife Trudy (Alison Brie) have gone to the doctor for fertility evaluation. Turns out that Pete is ripe with “viability” while Trudy is informed the problem is hers. Pete seems ready to let go of the notion of fatherhood in exchange for less encumbered travel time and movie nights. Trudy, on the other hand, expresses suffering from her attachment to her perceived expectation of motherhood, “What is this all for? I really do want a baby.” Pete is unsympathetic and insensitive, “Work this through or keep it to yourself.”
At the office Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) has a new diamond ring visibly announcing to the staff her new status (and upcoming attachment) as fiancee to a doctor. Roger Sterling offers congratulations to her but also expresses regrets as Joan was “the only reason I came in to work.” Joan wields new authority and enforces dress code mores on the new girl secretary, i.e., Jane Siegel (Payton List), for showing a distracting amount of cleavage.
Jimmy Barrett (Patrick Fischler) compliments Don as a 'real cool cat' for his detachment from Jimmy’s bad behavior with the Schillings and then helping him escape a contract clause to do the 'Grin and Barrett' television pilot.
After the accident, Don arrived home very late from waiting to be bailed out for his driving while intoxicated to find Betty (January Jones) angry as well as deeply concerned. Mrs. Draper is attached to the notion that Don would call her since she is his wife unaware that he has been with Bobbie Barrett. Don makes the excuse that the high blood pressure pills and alcohol together possibly contributed to the impaired driving. In the end, Betty Draper states her real fear and attachment: “What would we do without you (Don)?” Betty informs Don that he will have to get used to meatloaf without salt (a contributor to high blood pressure) "because we love him." ///
MANHATTAN, New York (August 25, 2008) >> virtuality
'Mad Men' demonstrates how characters are effected by their decisions based on the willingness to let go of or forget about relational and/or psychological attachments. A foundation point of the entire series is that Don Draper (Jon Hamm) has become the Creative Director of Sterling Cooper due to his previous detachment from his real identity, his original wife and son, and his brother. The first season's crystal moment of truth about the man who will remake himself as Lieutenant Donald Draper is the poignancy of the son who sees his father leaving on the train.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 5: "The New Girl." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes. MARATHON ALERT: This Sunday, August 31, at 5 P.M. (EST), the first five episodes will be shown in order before the regular cablecast; check your local listings.
In ‘The New Girl’ episode, Don barely hesitates to leave work to meet Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw) at Sardi’s. They liquor up and drive out to Stoneybrook, Long Island for sex on the beach. Don drives under the influence of both alcohol and the sensation of having his ear sucked with serious sensuality resulting in an automobile accident. Peggy Olson is forced to intervene and to bail out Don – literally. (PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you still insist on holding to the belief that drinking and driving is ultra cool or even sane, please review the James Dean safe highway driving trailer as well as the soon-thereafter crash photos of his mangled Porsche!)
Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) has been dragged in as the rescuer and also has to provide Bobbie a safe haven at her apartment to sober up and to give her injured blackened eye a little time to cool down. Bobbie, we see repeatedly, asks a lot of questions to size up people; she queries Peggy about her possible romantic attachment to Don. Bobbie repays Peggy in her own way with tactical tips on how to achieve a corner office at Sterling Cooper. Bobbie insists Peggy has to “be a woman” and has to get don to treat her as an equal.
After her baby was born, Peggy disappeared from work and was in St. Mary’s hospital with "psycho-neurotic disorder" (possibly post-partum depression). In the flashback, Don came to her urging that she “get out of here and move forward.” In other words, detach as if “it never happened.” Don reveals himself in telling Peggy, “It will shock you how much it never happened.”
Meanwhile, Paul Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) and his wife Trudy (Alison Brie) have gone to the doctor for fertility evaluation. Turns out that Pete is ripe with “viability” while Trudy is informed the problem is hers. Pete seems ready to let go of the notion of fatherhood in exchange for less encumbered travel time and movie nights. Trudy, on the other hand, expresses suffering from her attachment to her perceived expectation of motherhood, “What is this all for? I really do want a baby.” Pete is unsympathetic and insensitive, “Work this through or keep it to yourself.”
At the office Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) has a new diamond ring visibly announcing to the staff her new status (and upcoming attachment) as fiancee to a doctor. Roger Sterling offers congratulations to her but also expresses regrets as Joan was “the only reason I came in to work.” Joan wields new authority and enforces dress code mores on the new girl secretary, i.e., Jane Siegel (Payton List), for showing a distracting amount of cleavage.
Jimmy Barrett (Patrick Fischler) compliments Don as a 'real cool cat' for his detachment from Jimmy’s bad behavior with the Schillings and then helping him escape a contract clause to do the 'Grin and Barrett' television pilot.
After the accident, Don arrived home very late from waiting to be bailed out for his driving while intoxicated to find Betty (January Jones) angry as well as deeply concerned. Mrs. Draper is attached to the notion that Don would call her since she is his wife unaware that he has been with Bobbie Barrett. Don makes the excuse that the high blood pressure pills and alcohol together possibly contributed to the impaired driving. In the end, Betty Draper states her real fear and attachment: “What would we do without you (Don)?” Betty informs Don that he will have to get used to meatloaf without salt (a contributor to high blood pressure) "because we love him." ///
Monday, August 18, 2008
'Three Sundays' Teach Mad Men Right & Wrong
MANHATTAN, New York (August 18, 2008)
"When the flesh meets the cross…Seduced by evil desires…" Admonitions and warnings of a sermon open the episode of ‘Three Sundays.’ How do we learn right and wrong? We can hear the encouragement to behave properly and the threat of punishment for immoral actions but we learn by empathetical observation of those in positions of standing. Witnessing actions of our parents and societal role models teach us what will be rewarded and what will be negatively reinforced or punished. At the extreme, the Catholic church of Peggy offers heaven and warns of hell.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 4: "Three Sundays." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
The Drapers engage in a domestic drama regarding how to control and discipline their son Bobby. He is full of “shenanigans, ...being wild in the house, ...lying in (Betty's) face” and ignoring warnings to be careful. Betty wants Don to deliver Bobby a spanking to teach him. Betty snarls the point, "First the washing machine and now the hi-fi... How else is he going to learn the difference between right and wrong?"
It is interesting to note that Betty has started to neglect the understood motherly function of feeding her kids (at 7:30 PM) and her husband when he returns from work. Betty at the end learns from Don: "My father beat the hell out of me. All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him." Their couple violence escalates to shoves and threats to bodily harm (as in "put you through that window").
Daughter Sally is about eight years old and precociously knows enough to ask Paul about sex when she visits the office. “Do you kiss her? Do you ride on top of her?” Discussions with Joan about breast size and expectations of her own image of what she will be when she grows up are Sally's way of being sophisticated and “hip” (not yet a verbal meme for eight-year-olds in 1962). As we know, the tweeners and younger girls of today are bombarded with provocative and suggestive images and sounds. Some will not be so fortunate as to be carried home in the arms of their fathers after their first experiment with drinking whiskey until they pass out. It is worth noting for concerned parents that about 20% of children (even as young as six) are interested in sex, know the basics and fantasize about its adult implications (from the perspective and dream worlds of children, of course).
On the other hand, Roger Sterling has learned that he can get anything he wants if he is willing to pay the price of the ticket or “invoice” as he puts it. Vicky the prostitute has agreed to Roger’s price point in exchange for Roger getting whatever he wants in sexual acts. They depart from the hotel room to Lutece with Roger volunteering to school her in the finer points of red wine (and perhaps how to be his perfect mistress).
Father Gill learns from sister Anita Olson during confession that Peggy has “seduced a married man.” Anita judges her and hates her for her sin of the out-of-wedlock child. What's more, Anita feels that Peggy “acts like nothing has happened.”
Peggy's story resonates for us all. My own personal footnote is that I was conceived out of wedlock in murky circumstances during an evening of a summer baseball tournament. The act of conception was in a car with alcohol involved. This was an era when abortion was out of the question. Our nuclear family had a “wild-man” electron from before day one. “Growing up with the teenagers” was literal, figurative and painful. My familial (not the biological) father suffered and withdrew from me at a very early age.
Father Gill commits an act of tender kindness when he gives Peggy the blue Easter egg “for the little one.” May we all learn compassionate wisdom. ///
"When the flesh meets the cross…Seduced by evil desires…" Admonitions and warnings of a sermon open the episode of ‘Three Sundays.’ How do we learn right and wrong? We can hear the encouragement to behave properly and the threat of punishment for immoral actions but we learn by empathetical observation of those in positions of standing. Witnessing actions of our parents and societal role models teach us what will be rewarded and what will be negatively reinforced or punished. At the extreme, the Catholic church of Peggy offers heaven and warns of hell.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 4: "Three Sundays." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
The Drapers engage in a domestic drama regarding how to control and discipline their son Bobby. He is full of “shenanigans, ...being wild in the house, ...lying in (Betty's) face” and ignoring warnings to be careful. Betty wants Don to deliver Bobby a spanking to teach him. Betty snarls the point, "First the washing machine and now the hi-fi... How else is he going to learn the difference between right and wrong?"
It is interesting to note that Betty has started to neglect the understood motherly function of feeding her kids (at 7:30 PM) and her husband when he returns from work. Betty at the end learns from Don: "My father beat the hell out of me. All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him." Their couple violence escalates to shoves and threats to bodily harm (as in "put you through that window").
Daughter Sally is about eight years old and precociously knows enough to ask Paul about sex when she visits the office. “Do you kiss her? Do you ride on top of her?” Discussions with Joan about breast size and expectations of her own image of what she will be when she grows up are Sally's way of being sophisticated and “hip” (not yet a verbal meme for eight-year-olds in 1962). As we know, the tweeners and younger girls of today are bombarded with provocative and suggestive images and sounds. Some will not be so fortunate as to be carried home in the arms of their fathers after their first experiment with drinking whiskey until they pass out. It is worth noting for concerned parents that about 20% of children (even as young as six) are interested in sex, know the basics and fantasize about its adult implications (from the perspective and dream worlds of children, of course).
On the other hand, Roger Sterling has learned that he can get anything he wants if he is willing to pay the price of the ticket or “invoice” as he puts it. Vicky the prostitute has agreed to Roger’s price point in exchange for Roger getting whatever he wants in sexual acts. They depart from the hotel room to Lutece with Roger volunteering to school her in the finer points of red wine (and perhaps how to be his perfect mistress).
Father Gill learns from sister Anita Olson during confession that Peggy has “seduced a married man.” Anita judges her and hates her for her sin of the out-of-wedlock child. What's more, Anita feels that Peggy “acts like nothing has happened.”
Peggy's story resonates for us all. My own personal footnote is that I was conceived out of wedlock in murky circumstances during an evening of a summer baseball tournament. The act of conception was in a car with alcohol involved. This was an era when abortion was out of the question. Our nuclear family had a “wild-man” electron from before day one. “Growing up with the teenagers” was literal, figurative and painful. My familial (not the biological) father suffered and withdrew from me at a very early age.
Father Gill commits an act of tender kindness when he gives Peggy the blue Easter egg “for the little one.” May we all learn compassionate wisdom. ///
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Manage Expectations on Mad Men's "The Benefactor"
What do we expect? What would Don Draper do? How do the characters “manage people’s expectations”? How are others able to use and manipulate us because we "expect" them to behave a certain way? The level of social contracts contains a framework within which we expect people to act and respond. The characters who trump that level with their willful expedience to take the game beyond the boundary triumph as the winners. They act on their needs and how to attain them beyond societal norms.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 3: "The Benefactor." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
"The Benefactor" (episode #16) of Mad Men involves five couples: Drapers, Barretts, Schillings, Harry and his pregnant wife Jennifer, Arthur and his girlfriend Tara. Each of those couples demonstrates surface of expectations (e.g., contractual fidelity) and how those expectations really play out under the table and/or below the belt.
For example, the couple of comic Jimmy Barrett and his manager/maybe-wife/(sister-in-the-old-days) Bobbie have very low expectations around "fidelity." It's all business and survival. In the open, Jimmy goes beyond politeness and totally insults the obese Mrs. Schilling as a semblance of the Hindenburg. He ceases to stop and dumps on with “buffalo” and “whale” comparisons. Getting drunk on a contracted promotional shoot doesn’t faze him as wrong or inappropriate. People expect it. Later in the episode, Bobbie tells Don on the phone that Jimmy is auditioning at the Copa nightclub – controlled by the Mob in those days. That’s hard ball rules.
Bobbie thinks (expects) she can intimidate Don Draper as if he plays by the understood rules of propriety in business dealings. She will discover that Don plays hard ball better than she does. Bobbie expects a payoff for her behavior but doesn't get one. The turning moment is the command-performance sex in the front seat of Don’s car during the hailstorm. He protests, “I don't want to do this.” She retorts, “(IT) doesn't feel that way.” In the powder room at Lutece, Don manipulates Bobbie's expectations of his need/affection/lust for her. Don threatens to ruin Jimmy if she does not prompt him for the apology to Mrs. Schilling.
The insulted Schillings deserve but barely expect an apology from the likes of Jimmy Barrett. Mrs. Schilling “knows that’s what (Jimmy does) but she doesn’t have the stomach for it.”
Harry's wife Jennifer expects him to ask for a raise. She also has expectations that they somehow “deserve” the money because they need it for the coming baby. Oh my, how times have changed.
Arthur, the handsome rider, expects to be treated as “the rooster” at the stable but discovers that Betty turns down his advances. Immediately revealed are imbalances of money (she's got it) and dimorphism (he is much larger than she is). Arthur's relationship with Tara seems to be social climbing, expedient and unequally balanced.
Betty Draper defends her fidelity and performs as Don's “better half.” She understands the game and asks Don if the business dinner at Lutece will be an occasion for her to “talk” (i.e., participate in the conversation) or one in which she is expected to be silent. When the evening ends with Betty cuddling cozy next to Don in the car, she expects him to recognize that they “make a great team.” ///
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 3: "The Benefactor." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
"The Benefactor" (episode #16) of Mad Men involves five couples: Drapers, Barretts, Schillings, Harry and his pregnant wife Jennifer, Arthur and his girlfriend Tara. Each of those couples demonstrates surface of expectations (e.g., contractual fidelity) and how those expectations really play out under the table and/or below the belt.
For example, the couple of comic Jimmy Barrett and his manager/maybe-wife/(sister-in-the-old-days) Bobbie have very low expectations around "fidelity." It's all business and survival. In the open, Jimmy goes beyond politeness and totally insults the obese Mrs. Schilling as a semblance of the Hindenburg. He ceases to stop and dumps on with “buffalo” and “whale” comparisons. Getting drunk on a contracted promotional shoot doesn’t faze him as wrong or inappropriate. People expect it. Later in the episode, Bobbie tells Don on the phone that Jimmy is auditioning at the Copa nightclub – controlled by the Mob in those days. That’s hard ball rules.
Bobbie thinks (expects) she can intimidate Don Draper as if he plays by the understood rules of propriety in business dealings. She will discover that Don plays hard ball better than she does. Bobbie expects a payoff for her behavior but doesn't get one. The turning moment is the command-performance sex in the front seat of Don’s car during the hailstorm. He protests, “I don't want to do this.” She retorts, “(IT) doesn't feel that way.” In the powder room at Lutece, Don manipulates Bobbie's expectations of his need/affection/lust for her. Don threatens to ruin Jimmy if she does not prompt him for the apology to Mrs. Schilling.
The insulted Schillings deserve but barely expect an apology from the likes of Jimmy Barrett. Mrs. Schilling “knows that’s what (Jimmy does) but she doesn’t have the stomach for it.”
Harry's wife Jennifer expects him to ask for a raise. She also has expectations that they somehow “deserve” the money because they need it for the coming baby. Oh my, how times have changed.
Arthur, the handsome rider, expects to be treated as “the rooster” at the stable but discovers that Betty turns down his advances. Immediately revealed are imbalances of money (she's got it) and dimorphism (he is much larger than she is). Arthur's relationship with Tara seems to be social climbing, expedient and unequally balanced.
Betty Draper defends her fidelity and performs as Don's “better half.” She understands the game and asks Don if the business dinner at Lutece will be an occasion for her to “talk” (i.e., participate in the conversation) or one in which she is expected to be silent. When the evening ends with Betty cuddling cozy next to Don in the car, she expects him to recognize that they “make a great team.” ///
Thursday, August 7, 2008
'Mad Men' Takes Flight One
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK (August 7, 2008)
The essential nature of drama is conflict. How the future unfolds and circumstances resolve is dependent on the characters and how they adapt or do not due to their inherent hubris (fatal ego flaw). Characters develop (transcending upward or devolving down). These very same principles apply on 21st Century TV as in the ancient theaters of Greece beginning in the Sixth Century B.C.E. We, the audience, are drawn in by identification with those characters and through our anticipation of what will transpire.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 2: "Flight One." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
The operational center of the Mad Men universe is the office complex of Sterling Cooper that doubles as its emotional arena. The character conflicts of staffers introduced in the Flight One episode will resolve in that primary setting. As Joan Holloway foreshadows, People should not bring their problems into the office. They just drag you into the garbage.” The antagonistic dualities are being established.
At the open, Paul Kinsey has thrown a party in his suburban Montclair, New Jersey “poor little rich boy apartment.” Paul introduces his girlfriend Sheila White (who is black) to fellow staffers. Joan immediately and directly insults Paul with her feigned surprise that he would be “open-minded.” Staffers observe that Paul has lifted an office typewriter (and made him vulnerable). His justification is that he is a WRITER who NEEDS it. Later in the office, she shows her sharp teeth: “At least I'm not a phony.” Viewers see a male hand steal Joan's red purse from her locker; then her ID is copied and posted on the bulletin board with her birthday circled. (Presumably) Paul's act of payback reveals Joan’s age to be 31.
The episode reveals Peggy's internal spiritual conflict. She visits her new baby that is living at her mother's. Sleeping in the same room with the baby are two additional boys who are potentially hers. Peggy declines communion. This all adds up to possible issues such as aversion to contraceptives and abortion, which was still generally illegal at that time.
Betty Draper demonstrates talent as a card shark when the Drapers entertain at home. She also expresses a greater willingness to confront Don but he dodges the confrontation, “I’ll say whatever you want but I don't want to fight about it.” Rules of marriage are about to be tested.
Don Draper's contradiction at the office is that cutting loose a client is called “conflict of interest” for a good reason. We have additional complications as Duck Philips has recruited Pete Campbell in opposition to Draper’s call for “loyalty.” Pete Campbell’s father was in the airplane that crashed. He is suddenly without even a semblance of an emotional or moral rudder. Inheritance has turned to obligation and security into uncertainty.
Early 21st Century needs the straight-forward self-made (on many levels) Don Draper. Golden Globe Best Actor Jon Hamm deserves his accolades. His persona is resonating with those who are aware they are somewhere new now but unsure where, when and what that is. Our own end-of-era feelings and anxieties are being projected onto characters that we know are soon to find themselves immersed in social upheaval and revolutions across the realms of human existence.
Ageism and racial prejudice have been added to the previous blatant gender prejudice of WASP-ish 1962. The religious underpinnings of “proper” socially contractual sexual mores are creaking and cracking from the weight of cultural pressure. The duelists in these emerging conflicts are maneuvering and circling without head-on collisions – so far. Plenty of combatants are itching for a fight this season. ///
The essential nature of drama is conflict. How the future unfolds and circumstances resolve is dependent on the characters and how they adapt or do not due to their inherent hubris (fatal ego flaw). Characters develop (transcending upward or devolving down). These very same principles apply on 21st Century TV as in the ancient theaters of Greece beginning in the Sixth Century B.C.E. We, the audience, are drawn in by identification with those characters and through our anticipation of what will transpire.
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 2: "Flight One." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
The operational center of the Mad Men universe is the office complex of Sterling Cooper that doubles as its emotional arena. The character conflicts of staffers introduced in the Flight One episode will resolve in that primary setting. As Joan Holloway foreshadows, People should not bring their problems into the office. They just drag you into the garbage.” The antagonistic dualities are being established.
At the open, Paul Kinsey has thrown a party in his suburban Montclair, New Jersey “poor little rich boy apartment.” Paul introduces his girlfriend Sheila White (who is black) to fellow staffers. Joan immediately and directly insults Paul with her feigned surprise that he would be “open-minded.” Staffers observe that Paul has lifted an office typewriter (and made him vulnerable). His justification is that he is a WRITER who NEEDS it. Later in the office, she shows her sharp teeth: “At least I'm not a phony.” Viewers see a male hand steal Joan's red purse from her locker; then her ID is copied and posted on the bulletin board with her birthday circled. (Presumably) Paul's act of payback reveals Joan’s age to be 31.
The episode reveals Peggy's internal spiritual conflict. She visits her new baby that is living at her mother's. Sleeping in the same room with the baby are two additional boys who are potentially hers. Peggy declines communion. This all adds up to possible issues such as aversion to contraceptives and abortion, which was still generally illegal at that time.
Betty Draper demonstrates talent as a card shark when the Drapers entertain at home. She also expresses a greater willingness to confront Don but he dodges the confrontation, “I’ll say whatever you want but I don't want to fight about it.” Rules of marriage are about to be tested.
Don Draper's contradiction at the office is that cutting loose a client is called “conflict of interest” for a good reason. We have additional complications as Duck Philips has recruited Pete Campbell in opposition to Draper’s call for “loyalty.” Pete Campbell’s father was in the airplane that crashed. He is suddenly without even a semblance of an emotional or moral rudder. Inheritance has turned to obligation and security into uncertainty.
Early 21st Century needs the straight-forward self-made (on many levels) Don Draper. Golden Globe Best Actor Jon Hamm deserves his accolades. His persona is resonating with those who are aware they are somewhere new now but unsure where, when and what that is. Our own end-of-era feelings and anxieties are being projected onto characters that we know are soon to find themselves immersed in social upheaval and revolutions across the realms of human existence.
Ageism and racial prejudice have been added to the previous blatant gender prejudice of WASP-ish 1962. The religious underpinnings of “proper” socially contractual sexual mores are creaking and cracking from the weight of cultural pressure. The duelists in these emerging conflicts are maneuvering and circling without head-on collisions – so far. Plenty of combatants are itching for a fight this season. ///
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Mad Men Reflections in an Antique Mirror
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK (July 28, 2008)
In February of 1962, network programming on black and white television was the penultimate unifier of American self-perception. Season two of AMC's dramatic series “MAD MEN” opened with a background motif of Jacqueline Kennedy conducting her famous TV tour of the redecorated White House. All of the Mad Men women viewing together from their respective vantage points captured a perfect moment. I vividly remember my mother (she was “Mom” then) dressing up and applying makeup and jewelry to watch the tour as a nationally televised cultural event. Jackie was coming into our home, albeit via one-way broadcast beams, so one had to look one's very best. Ahh, "for those who think young."
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 1: "For those Who Think Young." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
It has been 46 years and change since then. These truisms are not trite. America saw itself as a society and a people in very different light at that time. We were the victors of World War Two and the champions of manufacturing. We still believed in our moral certitude. We saw ourselves as the good people that triumph in movies and life. At that juncture, Americans wished to be modern without any reasonable notion what that might mean and would portend. (Is 46, the mystical number of chromosomes, a subliminal message from creator Mathew Weiner alluding to our national DNA?)
White middle-class Americans were clueless to the impending revolutions that had already begun around them. David Halberstam in his history of “The Fifties” wrote what I mysteriously felt when I was finally allowed to see it: When Marlon Brando stepped off his motorcycle in “The Wild One,” that was the instant of electrical discharge and seismic pre-shock. “Brown vs. Board of Education” had been decided almost eight years before; combat boots had already been committed in Vietnam; experimentation with L.S.D. had been entrusted to C.I.A. field operatives.
Social life in 1962 Manhattan was “discos” and the Twist – everywhere. Meanwhile, off-screen and out in the boondocks where those things happen, the musical world was in a phase of rock innovation and dance tunes. At the top of the February 1962 music charts were Little Eva's “Locomotion” and Gene Chandler's “Duke of Earl.” Bruce Channel's “Hey Baby” (best known from the movie “Dirty Dancing”) was climbing the charts as The Drifters' “Up On The Roof” was peaking. “The movie “Twist Around the Clock” was being released in various cities and featured Dion's “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer.” Chuck Berry entered federal penitentiary that month on a racially loaded conviction for violation of the Mann Act – transporting a woman across state lines for the purposes of committing immoral acts.
Without over reliance on catchy tunes and soundtrack, Mad Men projects its message with visuals and “messages lines” in similarity to the advertising world of its day. The social underpinnings are under strain but the characters have no sense of what is about to transpire. Let’s watch from a safe distance and see what they learn. ///
In February of 1962, network programming on black and white television was the penultimate unifier of American self-perception. Season two of AMC's dramatic series “MAD MEN” opened with a background motif of Jacqueline Kennedy conducting her famous TV tour of the redecorated White House. All of the Mad Men women viewing together from their respective vantage points captured a perfect moment. I vividly remember my mother (she was “Mom” then) dressing up and applying makeup and jewelry to watch the tour as a nationally televised cultural event. Jackie was coming into our home, albeit via one-way broadcast beams, so one had to look one's very best. Ahh, "for those who think young."
DISCLAIMER: The essay below contains plot spoilers about Season 2, Episode 1: "For those Who Think Young." If you haven't seen that episode, check out the Mad Men schedule on amctv.com to see when encore presentations are airing or download it from iTunes.
It has been 46 years and change since then. These truisms are not trite. America saw itself as a society and a people in very different light at that time. We were the victors of World War Two and the champions of manufacturing. We still believed in our moral certitude. We saw ourselves as the good people that triumph in movies and life. At that juncture, Americans wished to be modern without any reasonable notion what that might mean and would portend. (Is 46, the mystical number of chromosomes, a subliminal message from creator Mathew Weiner alluding to our national DNA?)
White middle-class Americans were clueless to the impending revolutions that had already begun around them. David Halberstam in his history of “The Fifties” wrote what I mysteriously felt when I was finally allowed to see it: When Marlon Brando stepped off his motorcycle in “The Wild One,” that was the instant of electrical discharge and seismic pre-shock. “Brown vs. Board of Education” had been decided almost eight years before; combat boots had already been committed in Vietnam; experimentation with L.S.D. had been entrusted to C.I.A. field operatives.
Social life in 1962 Manhattan was “discos” and the Twist – everywhere. Meanwhile, off-screen and out in the boondocks where those things happen, the musical world was in a phase of rock innovation and dance tunes. At the top of the February 1962 music charts were Little Eva's “Locomotion” and Gene Chandler's “Duke of Earl.” Bruce Channel's “Hey Baby” (best known from the movie “Dirty Dancing”) was climbing the charts as The Drifters' “Up On The Roof” was peaking. “The movie “Twist Around the Clock” was being released in various cities and featured Dion's “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer.” Chuck Berry entered federal penitentiary that month on a racially loaded conviction for violation of the Mann Act – transporting a woman across state lines for the purposes of committing immoral acts.
Without over reliance on catchy tunes and soundtrack, Mad Men projects its message with visuals and “messages lines” in similarity to the advertising world of its day. The social underpinnings are under strain but the characters have no sense of what is about to transpire. Let’s watch from a safe distance and see what they learn. ///
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