Comments on: 3 Reflections of Black Women

By: Rosie

Rosie — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:02:22 +0000

Rosie: Hate him for what?

Julia: I hated Paul a little bit for dallying with her as a status symbol.

Maybe I donâ€™t understand the question.

He did this for nearly a year? And if you re-watch Season 2, you would see that none of the episodes ever really established that Paul had used Sheila as a status symbol. Only Joan accused him of this . . . and I found her words questionable, considering her racist jealousy of the relationship.

By: aulelia

aulelia — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:47:20 +0000

Thanks for the ep number Karl.

Peggy is beautiful. EM is a serene looking woman.

By: Karl

Karl — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:16:38 +0000

Also, on Peggy as a beauty — I think it's fair to say that (until the second half of S2, anyway) the show has intentionally played down the beauty of Elisabeth Moss. I also think it's fair to say that EM's beauty is not an Angelina Jolie/ Halle Berry club-to-the-head sort of beauty, either. She's got her own thing going on; I think that's one more reason she was a great choice to play Peggy (who has her own thing going on, in more than one sense).

By: Karl

Karl — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:10:32 +0000

Also, only slightly OT: auelia's #20 reminds me of how disruptive or subversive Sally was at the office, just because (as a kid) she hasn't learned to put up the facade that most of the adults have up in force.

By: Karl

Karl — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:06:17 +0000

S2, Ep. 4 — The aptly-named "Three Sundays."

By: aulelia

aulelia — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:11:47 +0000

I'm excited and intrigued to see what position race will play in series 3, too.

I was just watching the beginning of series 2 again today on my laptop and that one bit where Don's daughter goes with him to the office on Palm Sunday [ep no..?] and when she asks Kinsey if Sheila was his maid…it was really hit me, that one tiny scene.

Which is why this programme is very effective. It deals with how people saw things in a subtler way.

By: Roberta Lipp

Roberta Lipp — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 04:18:18 +0000

Rosie: Hate him for what?

Julia: I hated Paul a little bit for dallying with her as a status symbol.

Maybe I don't understand the question.

By: Rosie

Rosie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:39:05 +0000

"I was a little bummed to see Sheila leave the show, but as a child of parents who had a serious bi-racial relationship not that long after when Mad Men was set, I hated Paul a little bit for dallying with her as a status symbol and was happy to hear she dumped his butt like he deserved."

Hate him for what? The only thing we were shown was that Paul didn't want to go to Mississippi for the voter registration drive . . . and that he pretended that he finally wanted to go when Don cut him off from the California trip.

Weiner never bothered to show how Paul and Sheila's relationship ended. He just told us. And this is poor storytelling on his part. What? He lacked the guts to do this?

By: Roberta Lipp

Roberta Lipp — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:25:43 +0000

P/S – I think Peggy is a beauty, personally.

I was gonna say.

By: aulelia

aulelia — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:27:03 +0000

@CPT_Doom, I see what you are saying in regards to how Peggy and Joan are other forms of 'beauty' that do not conform to the stereotype but I would not say that they are 'like' Sheila in the same sense because the fact they are white, [and not mixed-race or Asian or black,] already would have made them appear 'beautiful' to some people living during the time of Mad Men who thought that white people were the ultimate paradigm of beauty.

I mean to be completely frank with you, when I was watching the first series of MM, I did think that if they had a black actress feature as a potential love interest, in my heart of hearts, I thought she would be a light-skinned black woman a la Halle Berry, Beyonce Knowles etc simply because colourism in the past was a huge problem [and still is to a large degree].

But the fact that Artese is a dark-skinned black woman almost sort of made a larger point that here was a woman being introduced who 100% was on the other side of the spectrum of what 'female' beauty was supposed to be, ie not white.

Thank goodness we now live in times where beauty is not confined to a narrow-mindset as it was during those hard times.

I am loving the Mad Men discussions.

P/S – I think Peggy is a beauty, personally.