Season Finale

In consideration of the people who haven’t yet seen this very awesome episode of Mad Men, I’ll warn you that the post below has a bunch of spoilers. Don’t click further if you haven’t seen the episode yet and don’t want to know what happens…

Joan’s M.O.

This interview with Christina Hendricks in New York magazine is really worth reading. I thought this bit at the end was important:

It’s slightly troubling to me that people seem to regard Joan as a straight-up superhero.
Yeah, I get a lot of this sort of “you go, girl!” attitude. If you pulled her out of the sixties, people wouldn’t feel the exact same way. But I think there’s so much mistreatment of women, and the fact that she’s knocked back is powerful for people: She holds her head up high and works through it, and I think it makes people feel good that she’s not whimpering in a corner.

I think part of the reason people like Joan is because her resistance to being the chaste, submissive housewife seems somewhat equivalent to what she’s up against. In other words, it’s not intuitive to imagine she’d be as resistent to what’s considered okay for a woman to do today even though we don’t really know that. I’ve always thought of Joan as someone who needs a bit more freedom than was okay at the time. Now I’m starting to wonder whether she’s naturally rebellious. There is a difference.

—Daniel

The Racial Disconnect In Mad Men

From Ta-Nehisi Coates Mad Men thread today Matt comments:

Although Don has his character flaws, I like that he occasionally shows a more noble side. He didn’t hold the knowledge of Sal’s gay affair against him. He seemed to scoff at Roger’s blackface performance. He didn’t discriminate against Peggy, but let her on the creative team. This might be due his self-centered libertarianism (“so long as it doesn’t affect me”) or he may actually be forward thinking and more ethical than we give him credit for. I tended to think the latter was true so I thought he would stand up for Sal.

The show conforms to certain patterns – Don continually getting any woman he wants, but it also surprises me. That was one instance. I remember another recent surprise – I thought that the grandfather would accuse Carla of stealing his money because she is black.

That would have been cliche so I’m glad it didn’t happen, but I have been hoping for more commentary on race relations, and I liked what I saw in this episode. It was heartbreaking to see Carla in the kitchen listening to (was it the news or MLK? or what?) and having to hear Betty say that the time isn’t now.

As for the confrontation with Sal and the “you people” line – I think he did mean gay people, but it also felt like he meant: you moral people who aren’t willing to compromise yourself for your career or for success or for ME, how dare you!

(additional emphasis mine). While I expect everyone will be talking about the superpowerful “You People” moment in yesterday’s episode (which our very own Jeremy adeptly analyzes) I’ve got to say that that bit between Betty and Carla was pretty damn powerful too. Remember that Nelson Rockefeller was, if you’ll excuse me here, the “Maverick” of the Republican primaries that year. He was very much against the homophobic and segregationist stances of the Republican Party that are still prevalent today under a thin veil were still prevalent in the 60s. We hear some of these Rockefeller supporters at Betty’s fundraiser talking about how segregation is such a bad thing. They mean it I think but they do it in a passive way.  I really don’t want to over emphasize how historically significant moments in this show are but I think that moment, and when Betty says ‘well, maybe it’s not time to end segregation’ deserves attention. One thing we’ve seen a lot of this season is a dramatic disconnect between whites and blacks. Our wealthy white main characters just don’t get blacks or race relations. They think they all think together and act together and that racism will just fade away. They’re against racism but just not enough to do much about it, but threaten the beauty of the community and Betty and the rest are storming city hall and flirting with politicians.

—Daniel

Mad Women

And what if it was Mad Women instead of Mad Men?

—Daniel

(h/t: Beachwood Reporter)

Mad Men In 60 Seconds

Mad Men is one of those shows that isn’t made up of standalone episodes. Someone who sees a random episode may like the show but have no idea what’s going or where to start. But worry not, there’s a cure! Here’s Mad Men in 60 seconds.

—Daniel

Nitpicking Amy Benfer’s Salon.com Piece

I respect the overall thesis of this Amy Benfer Salon.com piece, that despite its efforts, Mad Men doesn’t adequately emphasize that the 60s weren’t so great. But I have to disagree with an early point in the piece in which she argues that Sterling Cooper is and continues to be an incredibly racist place, one that is as far back as can possibly be. That’s just not true though. I mean, S.C. isn’t at the forefront of racial progressiveness but as we saw in the episode “The Fog”, staffers are starting to see the monetary value of the African American market and that’s more than can be said for some people during that decade.

—Daniel

Joan Doesn’t Like Black People You Know

The other day Ned was telling me about how he can’t stand Greg nomatter what happens to him, even grave humiliation and disappointment like in the last episode. But what about Joan’s rather racist comments to Kinsey’s then-girlfriend? Why is it that it’s so easy for the viewer to disregard that? Now, of course this is not nearly as horrific as raping someone, but I rarely find myself considering Joan a “complex” (as opposed to naturally good) character. I suppose it’s because we see much less of her in a bad light than we do of her as the victim or as someone caught up in something larger than her.

—Daniel

“One Minute You’re On Top Of The World, The Next Minute Some Secretary Is Running Over You With A Lawnmower” —Joan

That may very well have been my favorite episode of the season. I saw Greg not getting the promotion and saw that somehow, I saw in some way Joan would keep her job, I saw that Lois wouldn’t be able to drive a lawnmower (just not as badly as she did), and saw that things wouldn’t go well with the overlords visiting. What I didn’t see was that Conrad Hilton would actually show up (and kudos to Judy for pointing out that could very well be the Hotel king himself) nor that Lois would mow over Guy’s foot. I also didn’t see that whole exchange between Joan and Peggy coming (Peggy thought that Joan had helped her? And that Joan thought she was somewhat responsible for Peggy’s ascension?) These were all big surprises.

Ok seriously though. An overarching theme of this episode had to do with greed, I think. Things have been disastrous for PPL and Sterling Cooper since they decided to get bigger. We know with SC, at least, that business was much better when the partners were the absolute head honchos. But look what happens when they do get greedy, someone’s foot gets chopped off. Don also knows better than to get greedy and take all of the Hilton Hotel advertising business (or perhaps a job) and instead go piece by piece. Joan and Greg didn’t know better than to assume their professional life was on the rise before it happened and instead became gravely disappointed. Better to remember what you’re good at and stick with it, that was the moral of the episode.

I was also surprised with who was disappointed by what. Joan seemed less than enthused with the prospect of having to continue to work for a living (although maybe she was processing the whole thing) and Don seemed excited (and later on disappointed) by the prospect of being promoted and moving to London. Didn’t see that coming.

The one thing in an otherwise excellent episode that didn’t do it for me is the Sally-Grandpa McCain storyline. I just never really cared, never had an interest, never sympathized.

Back to the Joan and Peggy goodbye. I think they were probably right, they were both responsible somewhat for the course of each others’ lives since they met by showing a possible path in life that either of them didn’t want to take. That’s my take on that. Maybe there were others. I think it’s fascinating whatever the correct interpretation is.

P.S. Ned totally called the outcome on the Pete vs. Kenny competition.

—Daniel

What If All The Mad Men Were Red Sox Fans?

It would go something like this. God I’m glad this is just a joke. As a proud Chicago White Sox fan (which yes, insultingly, doesn’t show up on the Red Sox fans’ radar at all) I have nothing but blind contempt and rage for the foul mouthed Red Sox. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then watch this clip and know that the truth in this joke is that Red Sox fans are just like this:

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I do like the pour some over for Ted bit.

—Daniel

(h/t: Alyssa Rosenberg)

Changes, Racism, and Pete Campbell

Okay, these episodes are getting way too deep for me. What was with Betty’s halucinations and that black guy? And that scene where we see Sally wipe the blood on [off?] her face?

If any of the episode is clear it’s that change is in the air. I think one thing we saw in this episode is that the blatant bigotry and sexism of the past is getting a long coming beating. Not just with Peggy and her raise, but also with race relations.

I’m actually not surprised by Pete’s actions. It’s why I don’t think he’s  a completely horrible guy. He stomped off from the table with Duck and Peggy because she was a woman. He doesn’t know better than to condescend to women. But he’s also not a bigot. I guess I assumed Pete was racist since he was brought up from in a very privileged background with a father who thinks there are certain jobs for “a white man.” When his father said this Pete was clearly uneasy so I guess that was a rather rash assumption.

What’s important to remember though is that Pete isn’t Martin Luther King jr. as Roger joked (with frustration) also. This speaks to racism in general I think. One isn’t completely racist or nonracist, there are degrees to it and in this last episode we saw that Pete is less racist than many. He’s willing to put the social divides aside when there’s profit to be made. The people who represent Admiral are far more racist than Pete and will suffer businesswise because of it. But again, remember, Pete doesn’t totally know that blacks and whites are equal people, he, like others, think that all black people basically know each other and any one can speak for the opinions of the group.

Over time I suspect that Pete will learn that’s wrong. Luckily, he’s at a company that’s on the same correct path. That’s pretty amazing isn’t it? And speaks to the silliness of racism in general. The market doesn’t care who’s black and who’s white. It’s strange though that the businessworld remains an incredibly sexist and racist place today. Having watched this episode I wonder how much more efficient it could be without those same inequalities. The stronger companies obviously do better by focusing on profit and profit alone —instead of keeping the blacks and women out of the conference room. Take stodgy old Sterling Cooper, it looks like it’ll survive a shift to a less racist world. Who saw that coming?

—Daniel