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The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
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Sunshineyness
11/02/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
I don't quite get the critique on where Betty went to college and her life very well. At the end of the day she was very, very pretty and I could definitely hear someone tell her "oh, you're so pretty you could be a model! Why get a PHD when you can model?! Modeling's fun! Lots of travel! Let the brainy plain girls have the books." Very pretty girls are told that often even today. Let's not forget Martha Stewart was a model when she was young.

I also don't like the snide remark the writer made on how January Jones used to be a model (which means she completely never could be a *real* actress. If he didn't mean to be snide why bring it up?) I think she does quite well in her part and has great poise and sophistication.

I will concur that the "random guy says something really deep and in retrospect haunting" thing they do a lot annoys me and is the one fault I find in the show but I let it go because everything else is so good.

I also think people forget this isn't supposed to be the world at large or representive of the whole US in the 60's. It's depicting people who worked in advertising in the 60's and who are- for the most part- upper middle class. #madmen
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TeenageGangDeb
10/30/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
I think this review kind of misses the point. I think Mad Men exists in an amoral universe that demands parallels to the mores of our current society. I don't think the show struggles to make the audience feel smug and superior as much as it tries to make us downright uncomfortable in our attachments to the past. #madmen
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yearofthewoman
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
This post and the Atlantic article reminded me of this post on Stuff White People Like:

[stuffwhitepeoplelike.com]

It's just as ridiculous an argument as the one which worries that everyone will take Mad Men at face value and not have the critical tools to deconstruct the racism and sexism.
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RodetheTrolleywithStanwyck promoted this comment Edited by yearofthewoman at 10/29/09 11:45 PM yearofthewoman was starred yearofthewoman was unstarred

RodetheTrolleywithStanwyck
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
Oh dear. I love this show because it takes me out of the dreary world that I inhabit on a day to day basis. For about an hour (if it weren't for all those Canada Dry commercials), I'm completely absorbed and not thinking of my terrible boss, the deadlines that await me, the mysterious smell coming out of the garbage can and my cat's new habit of trying to eat plastic bags.

So when I see any articles trying to deconstruct the one of the pleasurable distractions in my week, I get miffed and want to scream "IT IS JUST A SHOW PEOPLE."

What pleasure is there, swooning about proper danish sizes? What pleasure is there, writing thousand-word articles in the Atlantic Monthly, in the vein that "Mad Men" is a Stuff White People Like-type thing?

And then I think "Gee, I know how the Twilight kiddies feel." Or, Andy Rooney. #madmen
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la vie en hypnose
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
As much as I love Mad Men and I really do that first quote from the Atlantic articulated one of my biggest issues with the show. Not only is there a dearth of characters of color, the only time they do depict minorities is in their relation to white people and their neorses and racial bagage. Black people aren't merely hooks to hang white guilt on. Or to be magical negroes. Asian people shouldn't only be used a punch line for the bigotry (the episode where Asians were hired to occupy Pete's office) We have our own issues, stories, and can be flawed characters too. And those things aren't always related white people. #madmen
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yearofthewoman
10/29/09

@la vie en hypnose:

Exactly. That is a much better criticism than worrying about anachronisms and Mad Men trying to shove messages down our throats, because frankly Mad Men is not that great when it comes to race. #madmen
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la vie en hypnose
10/29/09

@yearofthewoman: True, a few anachronisms are to be expected. I mean 40 years is a quite a long time. But it kills me that a show so good as Mad Men with such talented writers can't seem to write a meaningful narrative for minorities. I would love to know what Carla's married life is like beyond the Draper household or if Sheila going to college or something. #madmen
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applejuice
10/30/09

@la vie en hypnose: All the writers are white. Don't get me wrong, I think white people are capable of writing good stories for minorities, but in this case I don't think they are.

I'm glad they are heavy on women writers (which are also sparse in hollywood writers land). I think this has really helped make it the great show it is, with lots of intresting female characters. Maybe if they hired a couple minorities they could step up that side of it too! #madmen
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Susan B.
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
Oh, and: why do you hate Don's backstory? #madmen
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femputer
10/29/09

@Susan B. (I'm curious, too). #madmen
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mepo - Robert Cornhole invented it
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
There was aspects of The Wire that were similar, e.g. that terrible chess scene in season one where, void of any subtlety, they discussed the nature of pawns. #madmen
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Lymed
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
I've never seen the show as meant to be a perfect mirror on the 1960's. It is clearly influenced by Brecht and making a comment on power in society. The fourth wall is repeatedly broken when the camera focuses on a black character, most often Carla, who is an outsider and sees the characters for what they are just as the audience does. #madmen
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hfree
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
By far the brainiest of the Seven Sisters-cussed, straight-backed, high-minded, and feminist

Can I put that on my resume? #madmen
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KW03
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
I don't think of the elevator operator as a "noble other" - I think he has to put up with a lot of crap over the course of the average workday and smile while doing it. That could be said of a lot of the characters in one way or another. But then, see this scene between him and Pete, when he's obviously just not having it that day.
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Apollonia
10/29/09

@KW03: To relate this to modern day, this scene reminds me of when I used to go to Marketing Surveys as a college kid. I went to ones that were targeted at young Hispanics, because that's what I was. It irked me to no end when it was obvious they were trying to figure how to sell crap to Hispanics and wanted to figure out what secret formula we lived by.

The marketers didn't like answers like "This Gatorade is good because it tastes nice." Were they expecting something like "this evokes the smell of the Cuban countryside my mother grew up in"?

Hollis probably wanted to tell Pete his race had nothing to do with why he bought his television and he wanted no part of this bullshit profession called advertising Pete took so seriously. Maybe he's trying to say there isn't hidden meaning in everything, which is maybe sometimes the point of Mad Men? That's another tangent.

And maybe Hollis was having a bad day too. That's the kind of thing that transcends race and is the kind of thing marketers don't always notice. #madmen
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jigglyball
10/29/09

@KW03: I agree with this, and Hollis is less the magical negroe stereotype than, say, Carla. But I still feel like Weiner's got his toe in the noble minority lake, and it surprises me, actually. #madmen
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dcetstyle
10/29/09

@jigglyball: Actually when you rate Carla on the Magical Negro scale she is not that high. She was pretty aggressive with Betty's dad when she knew that she was vulnerable to his theft allegations. She was actually somewhat sassy. #madmen
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jigglyball
10/30/09

@dcetstyle: She was sassy there, but she's still mostly portrayed as the one who's wiser than the situation. Which may very well be, but we don't know enough about her character to discern whether or not those long, knowing stares are simply a character quirk, or a characterization as a cliche. #madmen
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KW03
10/30/09

@Apollonia: LOL at "this evokes the smell of the Cuban countryside my mother grew up in" - minority marketing campaigns can be pretty cringe-worthy sometimes. #madmen
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I believe in peace, bitch
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
I am with the characters all the time. I am with Betty in her boredom and her selfishness. Maybe she's a 'cliche' but I live that cliche. I am with Don in his rejection of his inner self, his need to construct an outerself, his vulnerability in wondering if anyone will accept his true self, if he can figure out who it is. I am with Peggy as she feels not pretty enough to be admired, but female and therefore mostly un-respected. I am with Joan as she deals with the split between what she dreamed her life would be and what it is, and what she's willing to sacrifice--and not sacrifice--to get what she wants. Or what she thinks, right now she wants. I am even with Pete Campbell in his aggravation over happy-go-lucky, winning Cosgrove. Who gets what Pete strains for without any visible effort. I am with Sal's wife, as she struggles with her desire not to face the truth about her husband--the truth that he is, ultimately, unknowable to her.

I don't know. I am with a
lot of these people, a lot of the time. So I don't really care if 'omg, Betty Draper like, NEVER would have gone to Bryn Mawr'. The emotional authenticity, to me, is dead on. #madmen
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pmarble
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
My dad, who is Jewish, was 22 in 1963, and says in many ways the show is spot-on in its depiction of a stultifying conservative world of casual racism and sexism. He and my feminist mother (whose wealthy Republican parents seem a lot like Betty and Don from my memory) both represent groups whose lives were transformed by the end of the 60's. I think the show gets the big points right, and to the extent that the color characters, like the beatniks from season one or the black characters sprinkled throughout, are somewhat cliched, I think they also may be a bit one-dimensional because in the world at that time, such people were indeed marginal and their lives unexamined, and that may be part of the point that the writers are trying to make. That these people existed in the popular consciousness of that time only to the extent that they intersected with wealthy white people. #madmen
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Flackette Goes Retro
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
I actually think the Betty character is incredibly nuanced, but it's hard to see because Betty Draper lives her entire life repressed by something or other (family, society, husband, her own psyche, etc). Even in her private moments on-screen, she doesn't let herself go. It's a hard role to act, but I like what January Jones does with it. I don't think Betty is a simpleton - in fact I saw the mention of Bryn Mawr as a nod to the fact that she is intelligent and, had she been born into a different time or culture, could have had a go at a career beyond modeling or housewifery (see also: her travels in Europe, her foreign-language skills). She does act childish, because she has been infantilized by every person and institution in her life. She also probably shouldn't have had children, but is stuck with them, and really isn't great at parenting. I think she knows it, and alternates between trying to do a good job and saying "Oh fuck it." She knows she is angry, but isn't sure why. She is suffering from, dare I say it, "the problem that has no name."

She's also not a saint or a martyr to the cause - she's imminently flawed, a poor parent, vain and a touch duplicitous. But then, she has to cope with life with Don Draper, which might drive many people to desperation. We may want to see her as the victim of a sexist society, but then we see that she isn't perfect herself, and we're uncomfortable with that situation. Thus, we are uncomfortable with Betty Draper. #madmen
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Cerridwen
10/29/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: The moment where Betty says she doesn't think this is the "right time" for civil rights really crystallized how I feel about Betty as a character. (The fact that it came about in an episode that was all about disappointment was very meaningful, I thought. A meta-commentary acknowledging that, with real people, we are sometimes very disappointed in those we are emotionally invested in, when they do not live up to our idealized versions of them). I am fascinated by Betty and invested in her journey (I practically cheered when she confronted Don last episode) but I also can't romanticize her. She's not an innocent princess locked in a tower; she's a real, complicated, at times awful, person. She resists idealization. She could be a total cliche and yet she is one of the most real characters on the show, at least in my opinion. #madmen
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KATE!
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
ive always viewed mad men as a mirror that reflects american culture, past and present. the thing that strikes me most when moments like the comment by the elevator operator or betty being told she'd be better off staying with a husband who provides for her regardless of whether he is good to her happen in the show isn't "oh thank god we've gotten beyond that," but "oh my god, not much has really changed, has it?" #madmen
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eatsshootsleaves
10/29/09

In reply to The Mad Men Dilemma: Admitting Nothing's Perfect
You know, this might be an unpopular opinion but:

While I hate Betty as a person, I think January Jones is the best actress on the whole show. #madmen
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Nancy Sin
10/29/09

@eatsshootsleaves: Yeah, it drives me crazy when people assume that January Jones is a bad actress because she seems so vapid or bland or detached or whatever. I think she's that much more of an actress for that, because people obviously seem to confuse her persona with Birdie's. #madmen
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willwriteforfood
10/29/09

@eatsshootsleaves: I kind of agree. I don't necessarily think she's the best but definitely she holds her own. Betty could have been so one-dimensional and at first, you think there really is nothing else to her, but she has a lot of layers and there's so much spinning in her head that doesn't come out of her mouth. She was great in the most recent episode. I was cheering for Betty the whole time she grilled Don and wouldn't let up. #madmen
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eatsshootsleaves
10/29/09

@Nancy Sin: One of my favorite Betty moment (though there are many) is when she thinks Don is cheating on her and emotionlessly destroys a chair. Good acting isn't just crying and yelling all the time -- you look at Betty's eyes and you can see both delicacy and near-insanity in them. Even when her back is turned, you can see her from the way she moves that she's always one moment away from cracking. #madmen
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