Basket of Kisses

Although, like everyone who participates in BOK, I watch MM for its sweeping thematic issues and love reading and commenting on them, I find that by Thursday, it’s time to concentrate less on the forest and get lost in the trees. Hence, this week’s “mini” MM: Betty’s fur coat ad, circa 1953.

Deb’s already mentioned this in her most recent post, and I can see why she had trouble connecting the dots. You only see the ad for a few seconds, and at first glance you could actually think that it is someone else. Although it’s in the early 50′s, the Betty portrayed in the full length white coat, looks older and harder, even though she’s only in her early twenties then. It’s a stunning snapshot of the cold, almost matronly look that’s going to crystallize and harden in 1964-65 when she changes husbands. (And alas, between coming back from vacation, figuring out our new comment program and trying and not succeeding in installing a video capture program for Betty’s fur coat ad, which I wanted to accompany my post–unless someone else on the Basket can do that–I regret there are no visuals for you to judge for yourself).

There are several reasons why this detail is key. For one thing, that fur ad is a tangible artifact of the story of Don and Betty’s courtship, which we learned about in the psychiatrist’s office in Season 1. This is what I love about MM–no detail is to small or forgotten; it rewards the patient and careful viewer, even if the pay-off comes, as in this instance, 3 years later. That’s why, even though the show’s great cinematically, it always seems more like reading a novel to me.

Heller Furs is where it all began–the rich girl turned model, coveting the fur coat she was wearing for a photo shoot but couldn’t afford, and the poor boy, besotted by her beauty, desperate to step into her world and all he thought it could bring him–somehow finagaling to get it for her. Once again, there’s shades of the class differences that permeate this episode–the have’s who were born knowing which forks to use and the have-not’s who can copy them, but who somehow are always separated from them by a clear, plastic membrane. We’ll never know exactly what Don did to get that coat for Betty, but he was determined to cross the class line no matter what it took.

And how ironic, that despite the ad’s then-revolutionary sentiment–that you don’t need a man to buy you a fur if you really want it– the poster girl for those sentiments actually waited in real life for a man to buy it for her. Or, for that matter, that Joan did the same. If a fur represents the ultimate luxury for a woman in a materialistic society, what better estimation of her worth as a woman than having a man buy it for her? Or to put it another way, as Betty said, if she continues to maintain her beauty, “she’s earning her keep.” What better payment, then, of “services rendered” than a fur coat?

When you watch MM, it’s so easy to impose our 21st century sensibilities on those of nearly 50 years ago. When it comes to men-women relationships, though, I often wonder how much has really changed, or what got lost along the way, and if things are really any better in 2010. As January Jones said, the men of the MM era were chauvanistic and condescending, but “at least they opened the door for you.” I hope that these days more women are in fact not waiting for a man to buy them a fur–and now it’s considered ecologically unsound–but sometimes, when I see MM, I wonder.

As I’ve said before, I never read what anyone has written about an episode until I’ve written about it myself. And usually, I thunk myself on the head and say, “How did I miss that?”

This week’s examples:

• Tom and Lorenzo talked about hierarchy and about stealing credit from another. Double thunk!
• Sepinwall also talked about the idea of getting credit and about grown men acting like children.
• A Basketcase (step forward if it was you) mentioned how much Peggy hates being told who she is.
• I am apparently the only one in America who didn’t notice that was Betty in the fur ad—I blame my old TV.

There are lots of reasons Peggy got naked: To call a bluff, to prove she wasn’t what Rizzo thought she was, to assert dominance. But part of it was because she had to find her own way of overpowering a bully; not being a man, she cannot go toe-to-toe with him. Instead, she has to find a woman’s way to do it, and as Bobbie Barrett taught her, being a woman “is a very powerful thing.”

One of my favorite stories is a particular myth of the Irish hero Cú Chulainn (Cuchulainn ):
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Two kisses, two moments. Two questions:

The sweet kiss goodbye was nice,

But the ‘Hey-I-won-a-Clio’ kiss!was a stunner!

What does this tell us about Don and Joan’s relationship?

and

Where will it go (if anywhere) from here?

I admit, and I’m sure many MM fans would agree, there’s a little part of me that would like to see Don and Joan have at least one little (to put it gently)  romantic rendezvous!  I mean, look at the way they looked at each other in the hospital after the John Deere incident, they may have looked like this:

But maybe they were thinking this:

(I made this photo-shop last year)

You can’t deny that chemistry!  I don’t know if it would ever happen, and if it did, would it be wise?  Or would MM be jumping the shark? I admit, a lovelier pairing I couldn’t imagine, but I’d need several conditions for it to be personally satisfying, and here they are:

1) Don would have to be sober.   (This probably won’t happen for a lo-o-o-ng time!)

2) Greg would have to be out of Joan’s life (either through death or divorce) because I don’t think Joan would cheat on him (she does really love him, despite his faults)

3) Being two consenting adults, Joan and Don would have to be unattached to others, the bestest of best friends,  and madly, passionately, deeply in LOVE with each other!

and

4) It couldn’t happen until the FINAL episode of Mad Men, because we  just want to imagine them happily ever after!

Now, as unlikely as this is, it’s fun to dream! But what do you think will really happen, and how could the writers make it realistic without making it cliche or predictable?

Let’s hear from all you ‘Doans’ out there!

At the end of Season 3, we were led to believe that The Divorce would finally put Dick Whitman to rest, and allow Don – newly separated, name-on-the-door Don Draper – to move toward his fully-realized self, or at least a Mad Men-version of his fully-realized fake-name self.

Ah, what fools!

The tragic news about Anna in The Good News has changed the calculus.  Don is more Dick than Don.

In Waldorf Stories Don is basically Dick from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon.  I don’t know if it’s Danny reminding him of his own inauspicious beginnings at Sterling Cooper, or the cumulative effect of all the booze (sparked by the onset of this particular bender), or … what?  But I think we all know it was Dick Whitman sitting before those Quaker Oats folks.

Don Draper – even three-sheets-to-the-wind-Don-Draper – would stand up for his original campaign.  “Eat Life by the Bowlful” is twice as good as “So well built, we can’t show you the second floor”.

Don Draper defends.  Dick Whitman dissolves.

Let’s put it this way:  you’re a senior partner, lead creative to which the firm’s star is explicitly hitched, and your pitch meeting with a significant potential client comes down to you spitting out off-the-cuff tag-lines (“No wait! … I’ve got this!”).  Don Draper would vomit.

Problem is, they – like Jantzen – were awed by the man in the room.  As usual, you’re on your way down before you even know you’ve peaked.

Moving on, Don/Dick goes back to the well (lit and fig), and makes another clumsy move on Faye, who does the best expressionist Mad Men move since that auto mechanic stuck the flashlight in his mouth, and straightens Don’s tie as if she knew she was talking to Dick Whitman.

Finally, the lost weekend is capped by a trifecta of despair with the following:

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After the Fuhrer’s birthday party in Christmas Comes But Once a Year, Just before New Year’s in The Good News we see Peggy Joan (while talking with Peggy) pulling pencils out of the drop ceiling (another instance of Peggy climbing things). We have no idea why she’s doing that.

Three Four episodes later we find out. Stan Rizzo has been asserting dominance over her the whole damn office by making her clean up his childish little mess for quite some time. That’s a nice, patient, Mad Men set up for a delayed payoff.

Update: As you can see, my memory was pretty unreliable. My excuse is that in a discussion of why there were pencils in the office, the possibility of it being Christmas party related came up. So I confused the two episodes: Christmas, New Year’s, whatever. And Peggy is standing next to Joan in the scene, so again, I knew Peggy was there.

Also, I’ve been through a whole bunch of stuff lately. I am both surprised and not surprised that I screwed this up.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me…

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, take care, TCB….

….sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me…

We all know the song, Aretha Franklin, \”Respect\” (written and originally released by Otis Redding) and in “Waldorf Stories,” we saw several of the characters craving that very thing. Respect. To summarize:

• Peggy craves respect (and recognition) from Don, but she’s not getting it. She also wants respect from sexist Art Director Stan Rizzo.
• Roger wants to be respected and acknowledged for (what he feels was) his part in bringing Don to the agency.
• “24-year old” (heh) aspiring writer Danny wants the respect that comes with a new job, even though he’s a little (more than a little?) green. But hey, he’s willing to work hard!  And did he mention that he knows Roger?
• Pete wants respect from Lane, from Ken — and oh what the hell, from everyone.
• Ken wants respect at his new/old agency (SCDP), since he wasn’t getting it at Geyer, but now he will have to contend with Pete. Ken comments, “I’d say nothing’s changed.” He sees that Pete’s old feelings of  jealousy and paranoia are still there.
• Don wants the respect/prestige that comes with winning a Clio.
• Betty wants Don to respect his obligations (and her time), and is angry and frustrated when he doesn’t.

Anyone I left out? What would you like to add?

There is a difference between wanting something and knowing how it feels to have it.

“I’m a 24-year-old kid.  I want to be in the ad game.  I know I’ve got a lot to learn but I’m a hard worker.  I’d sweep up the floors around here …”

- Danny, Waldorf Stories

Hunger does offer to sweep floors … and make coffee, read scripts, fetch ice.  It goes to the office building and waits for the guy it met in the fur salon to walk in.  Hunger gives pessimism a kick in the ass:  “This place is fantastic,” says still-hungry Ken Cosgrove, entering the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce conference room.

Compare Ken’s attitude to this:  “You finish something, find out everyone loves it, right around the time it feels like someone else did it.”

That is the vanishing point:  beyond satisfaction, satiation.  Saturation.  It’s the place where a person accepts an award for work he can’t remember doing, and later, loses the award in a bar.

The fed are full, often more than full.  They have people who do things for them.  They don’t remember some of the best meals they’ve had, directions they’ve given; decisions they’ve made.  They often see the hungry, when they ask for help, as being “out of line”.

To the fed, the hungry are reminders of those decisions, as predictable and welcome as hangovers:  Don’t you remember me?  The guy from the _____?

Oh, God.  Go away.

“Didn’t you try to get a break once?”  A youthful Don asks a regretful Roger, in a flashback.  This is fur-salesman Don, a man who hasn’t been anywhere near the “top of the heap” yet.

What a question for a man who grew up poor to ask of a man who grew up rich.  But the comfortable can be hungry, too:  cure-for-the-common-copywriter Danny has money, he reminds Don.

“I need a job,” Danny repeats.  He doesn’t want a snack; he wants a meal, and he is willing to hold out for one.  This strategy works.  Danny is living in a time and place where others’ mistakes result in opportunities, and he is in the right place at the right time to take advantage of them.

In the cautionary tale disguised as Mad Men episode, the fed (and lubricated) ignore the hungry at their peril.  But what’s worse, the cautionary tale implies, is crossing over:  leaving the ranks of the hungry behind, and permanently joining the club of the well-fed.  Getting to the point where you are so sure of your next meal that you lose track of what you have said and done, when, and how — and perhaps, become your own version of the unreliable narrator.

Well, Connie. There are snakes that go months without eating and then they catch something, but they’re so hungry that they suffocate while they’re eating. One opportunity at a time.

- Don Draper, Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency

If I were Don, the one thing I would work on now?  Getting my appetite back.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
~Robert Frost

I hate the phrase “has-been.” I find it ignorant and self-delusional. A mean-spirited form of whistling past a graveyard. Unless your intention is to live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse, we all become — in the least charitable terms — has beens.

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