The cutest surprise of the Season 2 pictures
Okay, I’m going to just post all of them, I really am, but this one just tickled me pink. I had to do the coy thing and hide it under a Read More link. Just had to.
Look how totally cute.
And then when dansj said something about a “beard,” I thought “But we didn’t post Paul yet, did we?” And then I realized he meant, as in a gay man’s “beard,” not the fuzzy kind.
It’s adorable, right? I bet he hangs out in the Village and is, like, weeks away from trying “Mary Jane.”
May 29th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Cute… and there’s Peggy’s ponytail, all right, but it looks less depressed.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:20 am
Peggy’s hair also looks a little more red. Is she trying to emulate Joan?
May 30th, 2008 at 5:00 am
Redder I hadn’t noticed. But emulate Joan? I think that’s a stretch…
(cannot wait to see shots of Joan!)
May 30th, 2008 at 7:45 am
He’s weeks away from writing “War of the Worlds”.
May 30th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
LOL, dansj. Nobody who writes “Death Is My Client” will ever write anything as compelling as “War of the Worlds.”
May 30th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I wish Peggy’d burn that damn gingham dress!
May 30th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
… in his Orson Welles persona, that is!
May 30th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Actually, Kay, it’s not bad. It’s a deeper color than she’s worn in the past, and it’s very form-fitting. I kind of like it.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I gotta see Paul’s beard “in action” before I make a call on it! Facial hair is not for every man….
May 30th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I heart Paul.
May 31st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
ARGH! I thought they’d give Peggy a makeover. She ranks higher than Joan, goes from secretary to the firm’s first female copywriter in 15 years and she STILL has that STUPID PONYTAIL!!!!! And this is 1.5 years later!!!
May 31st, 2008 at 5:35 pm
SB - you can take the Brooklyn out of the girl …
May 31st, 2008 at 5:35 pm
oooooops - strike that; reverse it.
You can take the GIRL out of BROOKLYN …
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:33 pm
The beard is so he can look more like Orson Welles.
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:46 am
So the print copy of EW says that Gladis grew the beard for his play and Weiner asked him to keep it.
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:02 am
What’s with you and the linklessness?
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:10 am
I so totally linked that!
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:59 am
That’s so funny about Peggy’s ponytail bc in the commentary to The Best of Everything, Rona Jaffe makes a specific observation about women’s hairdos and she basically said that the secretaries wore more girlish dos and when they were promoted, they’d put their hair up. She also talked about the pearl strand necklace. Apparently, it was a traditional gift when a girl graduated college. Then the working women who were successful would often wear a double or even a triple strand, not the long flapper kind but a little looser than choker length. I thought that was a very interesting commentary on dress and social class. So, Peggy, you’re a junior copywriter now. Time for a chignon, dear.
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:01 am
Eme, that’s exactly the kind of comment that I hope Mad Men people (Matt Weiner, the hairstylist, etc.) read!
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:10 am
Heh. But just as I posted it, I thought of something. I thought of the ponytail as such a clear indication of girlishness that I wondered if this particular hairstyle is related to her denial of her pregnancy. See, I think that Peggy is in a bind around her sexuality. I think she has a conflict when it comes to looking attractive to men. She WANTS to be sexy but then again she doesn’t. For instance, she is clearly uncomfortable with the amount of male attention she garners as a newcomer to SC. Yet she sleeps with Pete right away bc he noticed her and trucked all the way out to Brooklyn. Like, I said, she’s conflicted about it, which explains a lot. And in, a way, it might also clue us in to her own unwillingness to grow up. She is, in her own words, a very responsible person. But then she also didn’t want to take the responsibility of actually noticing that she was pregnant, so she put it out of her mind. Anyway, so maybe this is the reason she still wears her hair in a ponytail. She doesn’t want to own up to actually growing up, although she IS very aware of social class and status (as evidenced by her date with the truck-driver.)
So, I don’t know.
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:51 am
I think it has a lot to do with her place as a smart professional in a pre-feminist world. Being a woman means being not-a-man, which undermines her drive to succeed.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:20 am
I have always thought that the way she handled Pete at her apartment door was a very sexually confident move. A young girl with presumably no sexual experience (in the doctor’s office she was reading a pamphlet called something to the effect of What To Expect On Your Wedding Night) would, I don’t know, wait to be kissed. Taking his hand and leading him inside was stunning, and does not speak of repression to me.
And so Peggy remains confusing to me. Complicated. So she can wear her hair any way she wants to : )
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I don’t mean repression or inexperience about her sexuality, I mean conflicted. I think there’s a difference but, unfortunately, I don’t know how to articulate it very well. I am not talking about sexuality in terms of pleasure; more along the lines of feminine power. If Peggy were really sexually confident, SHE would choose the man she sleeps with, not the other way around.
For instance, someone like Joan has no problem in showing off her figure and using her feminine power and choosing who she sleeps with and when but, on the other hand, Joan doesn’t seem as passionate in bed as Peggy.
I don’t know if that’s any clearer. It would be a lot easier if there were two different words for these two terms; one would describe the way a woman owns her attractiveness and female power, the other would describe her capacity for cutting loose and being sexually passionate. (I do think these are actually different aspects of sexuality.) On another related entry, I think we were having some very good insights about the intricacies of female sexuality as portrayed on MM.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I would say the word your looking for is agency. Joan has agency; she is the agent of choice in her sex life. Peggy has libido, she experiences lust and arousal.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Ooh, good, yes! Peggy has a conflict around sexual agency. That’s great, Deb. Thanks!
When she was gaining weight, my first thought was that she was doing it subconsciously to sabotage her own looks bc that aspect of her feminine power disturbs her (and not bc it leads to sex.) She’s constantly playing down her looks as people are always reminding her (”show off your darling little ankles,” “are you Amish?”, etc.)
June 9th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
I know it’s kind of pathetic, but I want Peggy’s ponytail. I want to have that perfect Peggy-Sue perfection of a ponytail l when I wear my hair like that.
I do think it’s interesting that she’s still dressing very much like a young girl. I wonder if it’s because she couldn’t afford an entirly new wardrobe yet. I know the production designers and other departments in that area of the show pay very close attention to things like that (making sure the characters could afford the clothes they are wearing). I was born after the show was set, so I have no idea how much clothing cost, and what Peggy would have been earning.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Here is the play that Michael was in ["The Main(e) Play" by the outstanding young Playwirght, Chad Beckhim]. During its run, he flew back to LA for the SAG Awards ceremony with the beard from the play snd Matthew liked it: http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003701179
- Peter G
June 27th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Wish this blog had a spellchecker - sorry for the typos…
- Peter G
July 1st, 2008 at 9:51 am
[...] she had to buy a wardrobe of “fat suits. “But I love how much she looks like Basketeer Eme’s description of a “career girl” of the era: Pearls, hair [...]