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shipperxArticle from TVGuide:
We can't say he didn't warn us. Before his new AMC drama Mad Men premiered last month, former Sopranos executive producer Matthew Weiner said, "There will hopefully be a ‘Holy s--t!' moment in each episode." Three weeks in, he's holding up his end of the deal, as the show reveals the amoral underbelly of perfect-on-the-surface protagonist Don Draper (Jon Hamm).
The brilliant creative head of the Sterling Cooper agency, Don "is somewhere between The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and the Marlboro Man," Weiner says. But he's leading a double life. Not only is the married father of two having an affair with an illustrator (Standoff's Rosemarie DeWitt) and romancing a department-store owner (Maggie Siff), he secretly discusses his wife's psychiatry sessions with her doctor. And it turns out the philandering and skulduggery are just the tip of Don's dysfunctional iceberg.
"If your job is to tell people what's going to make them happy and yet you're not the happiest person, there's a layer of hypocrisy that's exciting and difficult to watch," Hamm says. That existential crisis is complicated, says Weiner, because "like a lot of men of that period, he has a very deep emotional life that he's trying to avoid." As a result, he adds, "There's not a woman who does not want to marry that man — and also shoot him."
The woman who did marry him, Betty, "obviously loves him, but he's got a very dark past and she doesn't really know that much about him," says the actress who plays her, January Jones. "That's intriguing and romantic to her, but obviously it causes problems." Like Don, Betty's got bigger issues, too. "She [grew up learning] how to be a good wife and mother, but for a lot of women during that time, it wasn't enough," Jones says. "So what do you do?"
Though Mad Men is a period piece, its themes remain relevant. "If you look at our society today and what we value, so much of it came out of what Madison Avenue was selling us back in that period," says Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Pete Campbell, a young Turk with designs on Don's job. "The only way to move up in business," he says of his character, "is by taking the reins and doing it dirty." Some things never change.
"If your job is to tell people what's going to make them happy and yet you're not the happiest person, there's a layer of hypocrisy that's exciting and difficult to watch," Hamm says. That existential crisis is complicated, says Weiner, because "like a lot of men of that period, he has a very deep emotional life that he's trying to avoid." As a result, he adds, "There's not a woman who does not want to marry that man — and also shoot him."
The woman who did marry him, Betty, "obviously loves him, but he's got a very dark past and she doesn't really know that much about him," says the actress who plays her, January Jones. "That's intriguing and romantic to her, but obviously it causes problems." Like Don, Betty's got bigger issues, too. "She [grew up learning] how to be a good wife and mother, but for a lot of women during that time, it wasn't enough," Jones says. "So what do you do?"
Though Mad Men is a period piece, its themes remain relevant. "If you look at our society today and what we value, so much of it came out of what Madison Avenue was selling us back in that period," says Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Pete Campbell, a young Turk with designs on Don's job. "The only way to move up in business," he says of his character, "is by taking the reins and doing it dirty." Some things never change.
My own commentary:
After last week's episode, I sort of jumped on the fence with this show.
On the one hand, it really is good. Very slick and well written.
On the other hand, somewhere in the last episode, I started to wonder whether the reason the show is so OTT in sexism is because there are some relatively sexist people writing this... and they're writing what even they consider to be sexist, which makes the sexism is so extreme that it's shockingly appalling.
And, while they claim that the apalling sexism is a point they're making, I think they're making it in ways they don't necessarily intend (hence my suspicion that the writers aren't sexism-free themselves. That's probably why they claim that people 'think' the same things now but are more polite about it. Yeah, because manners have improved in the last 30 years.)
Anyway, what made me uncomfortably suspicious that the sexism may be going beyond the point they're trying to make wasn't the ubiquitous sexual harassment going on in the offices of Mad Men. That part I buy. I'm talking about the fact that every woman is falling all over these guys.
Vincent Kartheiser hit on the secretary in the first episode in a very, very unappealing way and yet -- wham! -- she's basically in love with him. (And her running out to buy birth control the very first day at work, seemed very OTT. First it's difficult to stretch that she'd run out to buy birth control the very first day she works there, but that she could 1) Schedula an appointment, 2) Attend said appointment 3) During her first day at work! Who gets time off their very first day at work? Not just in 1960 but like... ever?)
And, while I can buy Draper's (clearly depressed beyond belief but having no idea that's what it is) wife putting up with shit from him and not speaking up about it, I'm having a very hard time buying the female store owner's insta-infatuation with him. He was so insanely rude to her over her (3 mil!) account, that I can't make myself believe that she pulled the 180 on him that she did last week, practically falling for him on the spot. If they pursue that, they really are going to have to explain what is so messed up about her that she'd accept being treated this way. I buy it from his wife, because that's who she's cast to be, but I have a far more difficult time buying it with the successful -- even powerful -- female character who is supposed to be both upstanding and liberated. If they were going at it from a hate sex POV, I could see it, but this is being painted as pretty vanilla infatuation on her part. It just wasn't wholly convincing to me (especially in the wake of his already possessing a sweet, biddable wife who kowtows to him, and a mistress who throws tvs out windows when he mentions he's somewhat jealous.) It's just too much blind female adoration. Some, I can buy, but I don't think all women is pushing it.
I think the writers want to be supportive of women, but at the same time they have little clue as to how women actually tick. (Would it have been so difficult for the store owner to have held a grudge for just a little while?) In fact, at this point, the only woman on the show who seems likable is the divorce down the street that all the other women hate.
Hmm... you know, that sounds kind of like Whedon.
