I wanted to share (with permission) this interesting email from Basketcase Sheryl* Kravitz (“Pepperpot”):
My friend just sent me your link on the Ad Age piece. One of my thoughts regarding last week’s episode made me think that the show is all about the “Death of Decorum” (taking a hat off, opening a door, etc.) And how the show illustrates the acute double standard women lived under during this period. That and the fact that Don Draper is the only male on the show that actually listens/heeds to what women say, despite his philandering. Peggy/Don as invisible mentor, Midge/his creative/sexual muse, Rachel/his corporate peer/social outsider like himself, Betty/the mother he never had.
It’s a very short email, but very dense. Decorum is used to gild the cage women live in. I love decorum, don’t get me wrong, but if we unpack its meaning, we see an ongoing narrative about delicate, helpless women. Betty is treated with decorum and is dying of it. Decorum is like being appreciated because she’s “full of love, like an angel,” while being thwarted in her efforts to go back to work.
So double standard are decorum and inextricably linked. We can appreciate Don for stopping a crass man from whispering about wet panties in front of an obviously uncomfortable woman, but at the same time, he’s maintaining that double standard. Except he doesn’t, which is what makes his mentoring of Peggy so interesting.
*corrected
17 Responses to “Death of Decorum”
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In this respect Don reminds me of (and I only make this comparison because I'm secure in the knowledge that this place is full of Whedonheads who won't ridicule it) Spike. Spike fell in love with women who were stronger than he was (Buffy and Drucilla), and admired and respected the ones with guts, like Joyce (who he met when she brained him with an axe) and Dawn. I'm not sure about where the love of strong women came from (his mother, we discovered, was fragile and sickly), but I always thought the old-style respect was because, underneath the vampire, there was still William, the 19th century Man Of Honor (best glimpsed at the climax of Season 5. When Doc asks him why he, without even a soul, is doing this, he responds "I made a promise to a lady." I know more than a few women who swooned at that one.
)
In Don's case, I return to my favorite trope, the idea of Don Draper being a complete created persona. Like a convert who takes the religion far more seriously than one born into it, perhaps the idea of being a decent respectable man, far away from the white trash he was born into, includes the belief that such a man always treats women with respect.
I love watching Mad Men. But RITF was my least favorite episode…thus far! It had nothin' to do with Betty, of course, but Roger's liquid lunch at the end was beyond gross!
Kay, agreed about RITF.
In terms of Don respecting women; he was angry at Abigail but the hobo pointed out that she was kind, and the hobo is maybe the most important person young Dick ever met. I suspect she protected him from Archie.
And I think his mother was a whore, a woman who got no respect from anyone, and he suffered for that; he may see himself as a knight in shining armor.
I was struck by Don's behavior in the elevator. I was interested in the fact that he told the man to take his hat off, but did not reprimand him for such vulgar talk when there was a lady present in the elevator.
I agree that Don roots for the underdog. Having been there himself, he wants to help people who need help getting ahead. It's part of why he has such contempt for Pete; Campbell had all of the advantages. Don has no sympathy for him.
Don is fascinated by Peggy. He knows she is brilliant, and keeps pushing her to be her best, like when she's pitching copy to him for Mohawk Airlines. Rachel was treating him like an equal, which Don is not ready for yet. Peggy is still below him on the chain of command, so while he may be encouraging her, he still has power.
Don is not the kind of man who will do well, when that day comes decades from now, when he has to deal with female boss, or when the first woman becomes partner of Sterling Cooper. Unless of course, he picks Peggy to take his place when he retires from Sterling Cooper.
RetroGirl,
I think he was being a gentleman in not explicitly saying, "Hey, you're being crude in front of this woman." The hat comment was supposed to be a reminder of all of that, but the other men were idiots. He asked that they observe hat etiquette as shorthand for: show respect, as well as indirectly saying to the woman that there was a gentleman there, too (You have protection.) To say more would only embarrass the woman, really.
Melville,
I would love to know what made Spike different. As a Spike fan, I would point out that Spike was a good man, a better man than Liam/Angel and therefore he had the best natural chance for redemption. The problem is that we meet Angel as a good guy and we meet Spike as a bad guy and so it's easy to forget that Spike has the better raw material.
What? This isn't Whedonesque? I must have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
It is strange that Don did grow up with such a high regard (or at least seems to) for women. He hated the mother that raised him.
But notice that Don doesn’t treat women disrespectfully. Most of the men in show show seem to thrive on treating the women badly.
Don’s affairs were with women he knew and respected. The night Roger and him parties with the twins, he is nothing but respectful of the other twin. Roger was riing his like a horse (talk about symbolism).
He does what he can to hide his affairs with his wife. He tries to keep her in that guilded cage. He mentors Peggy. You know he had to have some knowledge of what happen to her to when she gave birth (commitment? health issue?) because she would have needed time from the office (right after she landed the clearisil account)
He is always very respectful to women. Even turning down the beautiful Asian woman was handled with grace.
The only time I ever saw him disrespectful was the time he stood and barked at Rachel during their first meeting “I don’t have to take this from a woman!” Even that seemed out of character.
Don was even trying to stop skeevy Carlton from talking about his young babysitter.
Speaking of Carlton….His “fat suit” looked horrific! Just had to put that out there!
Don’s always a gentleman around women. He seems to enjoy female company much more than hanging with the fellas. I looked at as it was women who saved him, in a way. Even though his stepmom was a jerk, she did take him in despite his being the product of her husband’s affair. That woman on the bus, the one who told him to forget about “the boy in the box” also saved him from being stuck as “Dick Whitman.” Betty, with the uppity pedigree and education and looks helped him rise up the corporate ranks with her image. Midge helped him get creative and get his freak on. Rachel…oh, Rachel…she served him the truth, straight–no chaser!
The thing with Peggy is that she’s an underdog and Don fights for those he views as put-upon.
Just my take…..
seems that in Season 2 Don is being positioned, to use an advertising term, as the show’s conscience — the one to stick up for Mohawk Air, to demand that the TV be shut off when the group was joking about the crash, sticking up for the women, even offering a lukewarm shoulder to Pete in his time of need (and when he later rejects him, Pete goes off to meet the American Air guy with the duplicitous “Duck” – would Pete have gone if Don hadn’t dismissed him so abruptly?)
question is, does his newfound conscience make him and the show less fun to watch?
jd,
I think it’s temporary. They’re smart enough to see how he’s no longer the dynamic character of season 1. He’s currently still quietly waiting for the catastrophe of his personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.
Something has to give.
Glass, agreed.
And I love Don. A lot. But he was a bastard to Betty in Red In The Face.
Better not get me started on my theories on Spike, Angel, etc. etc. etc. This site doesn't have enough bandwidth to hold them all.
We should discuss it sometime.
I'm that way about The Office.
"He’s currently still quietly waiting for the catastrophe of his personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern."
Beautifully put, Glass Darkly (and Frank O'Hara).
"Don Draper is the only male on the show that actually listens/heeds to what women say, despite his philandering. Peggy/Don as invisible mentor, Midge/his creative/sexual muse, Rachel/his corporate peer/social outsider like himself, Betty/the mother he never had."
LOVE IT!
[...] got an interesting email a couple of weeks ago and posted it. And then this week we found out we got the sender’s name wrong. So we fixed it. We’re [...]