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Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
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lolababy
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
I, for one, am downright shocked that none of these comments include an investigation into the historical weather patterns in early to mid 1960's new york.
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friend_of_a_friend
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
I don't see anything wrong with the story. I had a friend whose boyfriend proposed in a run-of-the-mill way with a huge diamond and the next thing she knew a Saturday night wedding with 200 guests was underway. A few months after she got married she told me she wanted a divorce but she couldn't do it because her parents spent so much money on the wedding.
Plus, in the grand scheme of thing, I bet men get pressured into a lot more marriages than women.
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clevernamehere
08/05/09

@friend_of_a_friend: There is a big difference between "You need to propose or we need to break up" and finagling and actual wedding without consent.
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lilliputzian
08/05/09

@friend_of_a_friend: both genders get pressured into marriage. or rather, let themselves be dragged along into one. i read an article some time ago about the divorce rate in the USA. in one instance they talked to a man who had married his college sweetheart and then they got divorced 6 months later. he had never wanted to marry her in the first place. he only did so because it was easier than breaking up with her.
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Sasquatch
08/06/09

@lilliputzian: I would love to hear that guy's explanation of how going through the hassle of a divorce was easier than saying "I think we should break up." It's almost like trying to fix your car, finding it too difficult, and then deciding to build a space shuttle instead.
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Ink-Stained Wretch
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
Am I the only one who wonders if there's a little fudging of history on Myra's part?
I've known some women who I highly suspect exaggerated the extent to which the man did ALL the pursuing and they protested and resisted with every fiber of their being but gosh darn he was so dotty potty about her that she finally said "oh what the heck, I'll marry you if you will simmer down."
But some were (I highly suspect) just covering up that they did their own share of the pursuing.
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Flackette Goes Retro promoted this comment Ink-Stained Wretch was starred

Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@Ink-Stained Wretch: And that was expected at the time to a large extent. Example: my own grandfather transferred to my grandmother's college without telling her, and just showed up in the dining hall and said hello one morning. A little offbeat? Potentially pushy? Sure. But 60 years later, it's still working out. Today we might find it creepy, but in retrospect it seems cute. And it was the way women were supposed to present their courtship - that they had been pursued and won over.
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applejuice
08/06/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: I think you are right. I have heard a lot of this kind of story from that generation. For example, a dearly loved old history teacher of mine told us he met his wife while they were both working with impoverished kids down south one summer (they were both teachers). He lived in Chicago, she lived in a small town in Ohio. He said he liked her a lot and kept thinking about her so he just moved from Chicago to Ohio. We were all like "Without TELLING her first?" He said nope, didn't tell her, he just turned up.
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alibabathieves
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
i would suggest people read the whole article before having too strong of an opinion on it... research before strong opinion is usually the way to go in ANY affair...and after reading the article i think it comes off a lot less scary than when you read the excerpts in this post. as soon as she had a date with draper she basically broke it off with her fiance, who lived in a different city. so, it seems to me that they began dating (dinners, hanging out) for a while before he took her to the courthouse... and she was a willing participant in all of it. its a funny courtship, sure, but it was an honest courtship nonetheless and really is being made into something its not when taken out of context like this.
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Hooplehead
08/06/09

@alibabathieves: Yes, while he was a bit pushy, it was obvious throughout that he liked and respected her a lot. And vice versa. Pushing hard for marriage to someone you aren't even dating is a whole other animal from pushing marriage to someone you're dating who has suspended an engagement because of you, IMO. And the story at the end was just adorable.
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Beckysharpstick
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
I disagree with you entirely, Sadie. Calling this situation creepy is just so dismissive and reductive.
Myra didn't lose her agency (not the ad agency, or her personal ability to make her own choices), and it sounds as though she had an incredibly successful professional life, and circle of friends. Think about it, she so casually referenced her friend the doctor, her friend the headhunter, her total control over the company and its future.
This isn't even a forest-for-the-trees situation where we might say, gee he was an ass in that situation, but overall he was good for women. Women are capable and full of strength, even when they consent to someone else's ideas.
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Sadie
08/06/09

@Beckysharpstick: I get what you're saying; my response was predicated wholly on the ambivalence of her tone in the account - although I'm willing to believe it was somewhat disingenuous. But it's the crying I can't get past - even if it's just her means of expression that's getting me riled.
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hovy
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
Wow. That sounds like the plot to a Billy Wilder film, with Cary Grant and Doris Day.

And it really puts the relationship between Don and Peggy in a different light for the first two seasons. I don't think Weiner will go down that road with the two, but it's interesting nonetheless.
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Edited by hovy at 08/05/09 5:27 PM hovy was starred hovy was unstarred

Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@hovy: I would be happy just to see Peggy give Pete the brush-off. Creepy, creepy Pete.
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inabook
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
So does this mean Don and Betty are going to end up divorced, with Don dragging Peggy off to the alter?
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linnyt is a walking cliché
08/05/09

@inabook: i hope not. Peggy's too smart for that, I hope. I mean, she WAS his secretary. She knows what he's up to.
Also, he knows she knows too much. He wouldn't go for that. He runs away from his past, not back to someone that knows his secrets.
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Yahtzii
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
Sadie, that sounds like a reject book from your Career Romance for Young Moderns series. All that's missing is the peach-colored velveteen pantsuit.
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lalaland13
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
OK, that story is pretty darn horrifying, but I keep picturing Jon Hamm doing that to me, and...can't get upset! Ahh, I'm like that bit on SNL. "Let's get me out of this skirt."
But no, I would hope that if she really had no regrets about marrying him, she would have come to marry him of her own free will. But maybe that's not how it was done back in the day. Ugh. Creepy. But Jon Hamm can do that to me anytime-I mean no, no he can't.
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HilliardTortoise
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
It's so sad...but I must concur with poster who said she was so offended and so turned on at the same time.
On a side note, I've been re-reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and was shocked, shocked, to discover that I was actually turned on by the lead up to a scene of wife beating.
I used to be properly sickened by highhanded men who think they know best, but now all I want is for them to crush me in their large arms spank my round arse. But not before I beat the crap out of them for awhile and finally submit to their manly power.
Pathetic.
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Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@HilliardTortoise: Well, fantasies are just that - fantasy. You can be turned on by the idea of violence, without actually wanting someone to be violent to you.
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Pandorasvoicebox
08/05/09

@HilliardTortoise: What turns you on doesn't make you pathetic. I don't find it a turn on at all (more like a turn off) but that doesn't make me a better person or a better feminist. It's just a story :)
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clevernamehere
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
Wait- what about the other guy she was engaged to? How did he take the news?
Draper was obviously very bullying and controlling, but the truth is, there are women who like that kind of guy. I personally think they are crazy, but some women like to be bossed around a little and look down on a guy they can boss around a little.
I'm sure there were more women like this in the 50s, but all women weren't like this so we can't just blame the times. My grandma waited until her 30s to get married and picked a guy who not only adored her, but was also 5 years younger.
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LaComtesse
08/05/09

@clevernamehere: I don't know that I would even say bullying based on this article. More like a combination of wheedling and arrogant.
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Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@LaComtesse: This is what I got. And honestly, I've seen this trope so often in movies of the time, it sounds like something a dude would have tried to pull.
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LaComtesse
08/05/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: Like in Miracle on 34th St. where they meet in the church after midnight mass and the priest has been informed there's a wedding that's going to take place...
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clevernamehere
08/05/09

@LaComtesse: Up until the actually marriage, I would have said arrogant and wheedling but the fact that they actually got married pushes it into bullying and manipulative for me.
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Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@LaComtesse: Vintage creepiness is romantic, you see.
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LaComtesse
08/05/09

@clevernamehere: This was clearly a woman of ambition and intelligence. I highly doubt she'd have married him if she didn't want to. He tricked her into getting her to town hall. After that she did it on her own.
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Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@LaComtesse: I concur. And she says she never regretted it - so if it worked out for those crazy kids, whatever.
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itsonreserve
08/05/09

@LaComtesse: She seemed (from the whole article) to be doing fine as a powerful woman living the single life. If he took some poor copy girl living with her mother to courthouse and said it was her only way out, that's creepy. But they were dating, and she seems like the kind of woman who would leave if she didn't want to get married.
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LaComtesse
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
Don Draper, unlike Draper Daniels, would never actually marry a woman he considered his equal. This is why the Don Draper swoonfest never ceases to amaze me. He's hot, I'd fuck him, but I don't find his personality at all attractive.
(Frankly, I'm not so horrifically appalled by this story. Not how I would go about things, but it's not like he bound and gagged her or threatened her job unless she married him or anything.)
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msAnthrope
08/05/09

@LaComtesse:
i know! and anyway, if you were her wouldn't you guess that he was gonna pull another marriage license when he takes her to the courthouse? and "tricks" her into a blood test? sorry but this woman seems pretty clueless and passive. all she had to do was laugh and walk out of the courthouse.
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Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@LaComtesse: I watch Mad Men for the women - not for Don. Yes, he's a hottie physically, but I'm much more interested in the Peggy/Betty/Joan plotlines, as their characters seem to experience the most growth and change.
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LaComtesse
08/05/09

@msAnthrope: Precisely. You can march me to town hall all you want, it doesn't mean I'll marry you if I weren't already a little keen on the idea.
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LaComtesse
08/05/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: I really don't think there's a poorly drawn character on that show and I can never choose a favorite much less decide along gender lines. I think the women do GROW more but in terms of the emotional battles they must fight (for lack of a better term) there's no boys vs. girls.
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Sev
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
Wait, what? Why didn't she simply walk out of the courthouse instead of first getting a marriage licence and then getting married? And getting tricked into a blood test?
None of this makes any sense.
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Flackette Goes Retro promoted this comment Sev was starred Sev was unstarred

Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@Sev: I am talking out of my ass here, but I wonder if it wasn't a bit of "Well, I kind of want to ,but I kind of feel like I shouldn't, so maybe I'll just say he was so persuasive I couldn't resist and kind of go along with this." It doesn't sound like she was forced in a kidnapped kind of way, just cajoled and tricked in a Hollywood-farce kind of way, which some women of that time probably thought was actually charming.
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LaComtesse
08/05/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: Women of that time? Half my friends would think this story was amazing... of course half my friends date assholes.
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Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@LaComtesse: Yeah, I was trying to give us credit for having advanced in our cultural thinking, but perhaps I spoke too soon.
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LaComtesse
08/05/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: Malheureusement, as the French say...
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Yahtzii
08/05/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: It's like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, except replace Colorado territory with Manhattan. Draper can be creep enough to stand in for seven singing lumberjacks.
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LaComtesse
08/05/09

@Yahtzii: Singing DANCING lumberjacks... named after Biblical figures.
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Awry
08/05/09

@Yahtzii: Oh god. I used to love that movie when I was a kid (my mother was seriously into Howard Keel) and watched it regularly ... then I watched it with my kids not so long ago and spent the entire time going "If You Boys Ever!!" and "Girl, Don't Put Up With!!"
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FireflyinJuly
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
Geez, that reads like a Harlequin romance - she protests, he forces her into marriage, she fights him at first, then acquiesces, realizing that she loved him all along.
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LAmonkeygirl
08/05/09

@FireflyinJuly: Harlequin Presents: Seduced By the Advertising Tycoon
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sybann
08/05/09

In reply to Mad Men, Indeed: The "Real" Don Draper Is Somewhat Disturbing
A man like this would make me crazy - but one of my best work friends is "the man of the house" and will take charge in situations that require someone to lay down the law, as it were. Recently he told the story about his very pregnant wife's (she's having a C-section tomorrow) bullying older sister insist that her kids were coming to stay Saturday (YES! 2 days after she has major surgery and a new baby at home) and he said "No. This is not happening. I will put them on the first bus home."
His wife loved it. And I've gotta admit that in that circumstance I would have given him a standing ovation.
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Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@sybann: I don't know that that's sexist so much as just standing up for your partner while they are out of commission - which I hope both genders can do.
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sybann
08/05/09

@Flackette Goes Retro: In THIS instance - but he's the final word on decisions in the house - which really would make me nuts - even if he's a really good guy with everyone's best interests at heart. It's tough for me - he is a conservative guy with old fashioned views towards marriage that I don't buy into - but he's a good friend. Dilemma - you haz horns.
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Flackette Goes Retro
08/05/09

@sybann: Ah, see I couldn't live with that then.
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