The Fourth Veil
One of the very first things that struck me about Mad Men, from the pilot, was our view of Salvatore. I’ve written about it many times; on other boards (pre-BoK) and in here as well. The idea that here is this man that is so obviously gay to us, but no one around him recognizes it. There is not one person in that office that can identify his homosexuality (at least at that stage). Trust me, if that guy worked in my office, we’d be all over it.
Our knowledge that Sal is gay is an active component of the story that is being told. The fact that we know what they don’t know, and that we know that we know and that they don’t know. It’s part of it. Not in a cute, “oh, if only there were some kind of directive, a prime directive, if you will”, way. This goes way beyond just a wink to the viewers. How informed we, the 21st century participant in this collaborative art form (because TV is still, at its roots, theatre), fills in the missing pieces.
And it is the same thing with Joan’s rape.
She doesn’t know. It was talked about in here, oh, if only Roger were there, he would have saved her. Nuh-uh. Joan does not know she was being raped. If someone had walked in on them, she would not have asked for help. She doesn’t know, her bastard rapist fiancée doesn’t know, Roger doesn’t know.
Just us.
We know.
And it devastated us, knowing that we know and the she doesn’t know.
To me, the transparency of the fourth wall is a vital part of Mad Men and its impact.
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
It is interesting to link these two characters, in particular, as they are both more worldly than their coworkers (having thrived as Manhattan singles into their thirties) while simultaneously closed off to their emotional selves. They also have good rapport, which is uncommon at Sterling Cooper.
Peggy knows what she wants and is working toward it methodically; Don’s made it (or seized it) and risks losing it. But Joan and Sal have had only glimpses of what they truly want (behind the fronts they put on) and seem to doubt they can have it. They are tragic figures.
Luckily, they will get another season.
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Dramatic irony? You’re soaking in it!
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Was the word rape really not in the general vocab in the 60’s? I think Joan is probably resigned to it because she was probably raped before that. She has to be aware its not right, she’s so aware of everything else.
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
JS, the word rape was certainly in the vocabulary. But date rape was not. We discussed this before.
Roberta, I love how you say “fourth veil” to discuss not-quite-breaking the fourth wall.
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
JS, the word rape was certainly around. That’s what strange men did; criminals.
People who you were already sleeping with, or indicated you might sleep with, often exercised free reign. There was no such thing as “date rape”.
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
What I find so interesting is the meta assumptions that underlie a character’s behavior are so tied to a culture’s specific interpretation of anything.
Sal assumes no one can intuit his gayness.
Joan assumes her fiance respects her wishes.
It makes me wonder what meta assumptions am I making that are actually things which are untrue?
Which leads to the question of how do you step out of cultural ideological constraints to live a more truthful life.
What are the real truths and how do I live that with everyone I interact with?
Have you ever noticed that in some old photographs almost everyone looks somehow the same, but once in a while there is a person who seems to be their own person and transcend that particular point in time? I want to be that person.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Deborah–jinks, practically.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:23 pm
John, I have no question you would have jumped out of a photograph from any photographable era.
As would I.
But on that note, I have separately noticed the impact of accurate observational storytelling through the voice of current (at its time) cultural naivete. It’s kind of the opposite of what I’ve written about here.
For example, what we know now about familial sexual abuse is quite different than what we knew 20 and 30 years ago. In the Beguiled, a 1971 Clint Eastwood film, there is a storyline about an adult brother and sister who have a sexual relationship. It is portrayed as kind of her dirty secret, and she is considered like a dirty girl. But if you apply what we understand now, that this woman grew up not depraved but abused, (which is not at all understood by her), the newer take on her backstory remains consistent with her [wacky] behavior. That shows me that the observation was dead on, even for lack of real understanding of what might be behind it.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
John: great questions.
Sal has been compelling to me from the beginning. Not because he’s gay: because of his dignity. Sal manages — even within the constraints of his time — to control the way everyone in his world sees him.
He chooses dinner with Elliott; he chooses how (and where) that dinner ends. He chooses how he socializes with the guys from the office, and to what extent he participates. He chooses a life companion: if not exactly a wife, in all senses of that word. He chooses how he responds to Kurt’s self-disclosure in the lunchroom. He chooses precisely how he responds to Freddy’s unraveling.
In every situation, Sal has absolute self-control. He is the Art Department.
Sal lives his life on his own terms. And there is joy in it. Even if he metes his delights out to himself in very small doses, they are there, and he savors them.
In our time, yes: we would know Sal as “that closeted gay guy in the office”. But ever since my kid came out to us three or so years ago, I have been sensitive to what a deeply personal act the announcement of sexual identity is.
Our kid was clearly in love with her girlfriend for almost a year before she told us she was gay. We loved her girlfriend too; it was obvious they were much more than friends. My husband and I used to ask each other when our daughter was finally going to “trust us enough” to come out to us; many times, we asked each other if we shouldn’t just ask her.
But it felt wrong to do that. It felt like challenging something that should never be challenged: her right to define herself to us.
If I knew a Sal — and the thing is, I might — I would certainly seek to be his friend. But push him, pull him “out”? To face the harsh light of a kind of identification he is not yet (if ever) willing to accept?
And wreck that work of art? Never.
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Fantastic observations Roberta! Having the audience know something, even a lot of things, that the characters don’t know is a staple of all drama – we wouldn’t be as scared at a slasher movie if we didn’t know some poor young thing was walking into danger. But you’re absolutely right that MM is not just giving us facts that the characters could determine for themselves, like Don’s affairs, but also assumes we know information the characters wouldn’t even conceive to be true. After all, this is the show that had a woman in total denial of her pregnancy, even though it became crystal clear as the first season went on.
For Sal, it’s inconceivable that anyone else could ever tell he was gay, or that he could choose to live a life where his sexuality isn’t totally hidden. He’s completely freaked out that his client could, even in secret, conduct a gay life; he thinks it will destroy him if he ever “gives in,” so he secretly pines for Ken and marries a good friend because it’s long past time for him to get married. I bet he doesn’t even realize his inviting Ken over or keeping the lighter are signs of his attraction – he’s just being a friend to the bachelor in the office.
And Joan cannot conceive of making her way in the world without relying on her looks, even though we can tell she is far smarter and more talented than anyone in the office gives her credit for. She also cannot conceive that once she gave up her virginity she retained much right to control the use of her body by men. Certainly she’d fight off an unwarranted attack from a stranger, but in the virgin/whore dichotomy of the times, Joan is a whore, and once she’s done “it,” she has not reason to refuse to do “it” where/when he wants. The sad thing for us is that she buys into that idea, even if only a little.
It’s almost like being a parent, and having to watch your kids make mistakes, knowing they will never understand if they don’t. Anne B. is right, you can’t force someone to see the truth (back to that concept), they have to find it for themselves. But it’s difficult for those of us who know/love them to watch them go through the process.
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:36 pm
God I love this site!
And I wonder what new secrets we will gain knowledge of next season.
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:58 pm
I wondered when Kurt came on the scene if that would be the way that Sal was outed. Kurt has to recognize that Sal is also gay, and there also could be the device that they encounter each other at a Turkish Bath or a gay bar. (For anybody who doesn’t believe these existed in the early 1960s, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bathhouse)
Perhaps Kurt will play a role similar to the Barretts in Season 3. Or has he already served his purpose with Peggy?
As for Joan, I read her look during the rape scene as having some realization of what was happening to her, but also that she would cause more damage to her reputation in the office by causing a scene than submitting. If she were confronted with the words, “He raped you,” her response would be, “He’s a doctor! He wouldn’t do something like that. I played along.”
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:20 pm
There was that one ep where Sal kissed Joan for that play in the office and the look on her face said it all. She knew he was gay.
Interesting about rape in the 60’s, yeah I guess a respectable doctor would not be charged or thought to do something so heinous. The woman would probably be thrown into a nuthouse Girl, Interrupted-style for even suggesting it.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:40 pm
While we see Sal as gay I don’t think he would. He has urges and desires he denies. Just like Joan’s rape he might negotiating he is not viewing himself as an active agent in his sexuality. As long as he does no act on it – it does not define him.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I love visiting this site. You guys are so spot onto everything!
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:34 pm
While we’re on the subject of Joan’s rape: I had gotten the first season DVD shortly after Christmas and have been going through the episodes. I noticed in (I think) episode 2 when Peggy goes to see Joan’s gynecologist that, while she’s being prodded/flirted with/scolded all at the same time, she has almost the exact same look (if not THE exact look, I’d have to watch season 2 again, coughAMCpleasereleasetheDVDorputtheepisodesbackondemandcough) of disconnection that Joan does while her fiance is assaulting her. Thought that was a nice little bit of parallel between the two seasons/characters.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:28 am
Andrew, good catch on the Peggy dissociation at Joan’s gynecologist. And of course Peggy turns her head at the hospital at the end of “The Wheel,” too. Denial.
CPT_Doom, I think Sal is totally conscious of what he is denying, as evidenced by his reaction to the reactions of everyone to Kurt being out. And in “Hobo Code,” it was clear that he feared losing what he had should he be revealed as gay. Joan’s denial, in contrast, stems from more from society’s denial at the time of the concept of date rape. So she arguably does not know what she’s denying in the way that Sal knows.
And JS, Joan certainly knew something was “off” about that kiss from Sal. One must wonder if the issue wasn’t on her mind after her roomie’s confession in “The Long Weekend.”
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:41 am
John R @ #6
“Sal assumes no one can intuit his gayness.
Joan assumes her fiance respects her wishes.”
I agree with the first, but disagree with the last.
Sal is likely correct that no one can intuit his gayness, because come ON, he’s a manly Italian man working in the ad game. He’s handsome and women love him. How can a guy like that be a homo?
I had a conversation with my grandmothers about homosexuality, and boy, what an eye-opener that was. Both women were born before 1920, and were in total agreement that there really weren’t any gay people in the U.S. when they were growing up. To quote one of them, “They all came over from Europe after WW II.” Trying to get them to realize that gays were so deeply closeted when they were growing up, in isolated, rural communities, that of course they wouldn’t be aware of them, didn’t wash with them.
As far as Joan assuming that her fiance respects her wishes, I don’t think that’s how she sees it. I think she believes she must comply with his wishes. She made it very clear she didn’t want to have sex in the office, but when he forced the issue, she stopped fighting because in the end, what he wants supercedes what she wants, at least in the sex department. The idea that a she could possibly be raped by her own fiance doesn’t occur to her, because rapists are depraved strangers who prey on women in the park or by breaking into their apartment. They aren’t respectable doctors to whom one is engaged.
But whether she is consciously aware that she is being raped, subconsciously she knows there is something very wrong that is happening to her. The way she turned her head and had that lifeless look in her eyes made me so sad and angry all at the same time. It really made me sick. It was *so* hard to watch. My husband was out of town at the time, and called me just after that scene yelling “The son of a bitch RAPED her!” It was so disturbing, and when re-watching the episode, I FF through that scene. I couldn’t watch it again.
I’m hoping that in S3, we learn that Joan hasn’t married him. The rape won’t be the reason, at least not directly, but I’m hoping something happens and they break it off. I won’t be placing any bets on it though. Plus, if she does marry a doctor, would she continue to work at SC? It would be awful to have her off the show.
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:49 am
If you can believe it, I left something out of that very long post!
I don’t think that Kurt would out Sal, because I don’t think that happened much back then. I know that now, there are some in the gay community who feel the need to out others, especially if they are famous, but while Sal would definitely set off Kurt’s gaydar, Kurt would likely respect his privacy.
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
What you find women reporting, over and over, whether they were raped by strangers, acquaintances, or intimate partners, is that at some point you just stop fighting because it ends quicker that way. That’s what I saw in Joan. It was time to get it over with.
And I think she frames it as having a sex life that is not often satisfying and you get it over with. You just do it. Your partner doesn’t meet your needs. 1962 is pre-Hite Report. Freudians said clitoral orgasm was “immature.” Foreplay was not considered normal. So there was a lot of getting it over with and a lot of uncomfortable and unhappy sex. I think she sticks this experience into that category — not fun sex with my fiance — not the “rape” category.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I’m hoping that in S3, we learn that Joan hasn’t married him. The rape won’t be the reason, at least not directly, but I’m hoping something happens and they break it off. I won’t be placing any bets on it though. Plus, if she does marry a doctor, would she continue to work at SC? It would be awful to have her off the show.
IMHO, the only reason I think Joan will marry him is a little number – 31. In her way of thinking, the only respectable life is as a married woman, and she is past her due date. I too, hope she does not marry him – it’s not just the rape, there are too many ways in which they don’t click; he clearly does not understand her at all. She is entering a life where she has to play a role she doesn’t play very well.
I agree with portiaslegacy – Sal has not even reached the point where he can say to himself “I’m gay.” That accounts for his total shock at Kurt’s statement. Both he and Joan know on some level (as does Kitty for that matter), that there is something wrong with the paths they’re choosing, but they cannot wrap their arms around what that is, never mind voice it.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
When you are dazzled by someone, it takes longer to fully drink in what’s wrong.
My best friend and I have a rating system for when someone is so excruciatingly hot that it would take you awhile to notice that maybe they’re a psycho. In my case, for example, an English accent will automatically tack on like six months; six months before I notice you’re an asshole.
This guy is a doctor. A handsome doctor who gives of himself to the needy. Add that to the looming “31″, and a terror of dying alone like Marilyn, and you’ve got yourself a marriage.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Sal assumes no one can intuit his gayness.
What about the guy from Belle Jolie? He intuited Sal’s gayness. I wonder if Sal is worried that Kurt intuits it as well.
Joan assumes her fiance respects her wishes.
I don’t think so either. I think she realized it the night they did take out and she was reading scripts and he was telling her to focus on getting a house in the suburbs rather than working or being all that interested in work. The rape is really the culmination of her realizing the price of getting what she thought she wanted. She may not call it rape but she certainly realizes the impact of all that she’s giving up to take on this ideal and exactly how much of herself she’s sacrificing.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:24 pm
#23 @latenac
I think Sal probably has a blind spot in his logic about himself which is that if he doesn’t do anything OVERTLY sexual with a man, then his homosexuality is invisible.
Sal may think that the Belle Jolie guy was a fluke, that the guy coming on to him was more based on that guy’s wants than any signal that Sal might have been broadcasting. And Joan’s probable realization of Sal’s gayness from that kiss…not even on Sal’s radar.
I don’t Joan has any idea of the scope of disrespect/no respect for her opinions and wishes which Dr. Future-Husband has. She seems to be assuming that somehow they will make a life TOGETHER which a BLEND
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
[hit 'submit' by mistake]
…She seems to assuming that somehow they will make a life TOGETHER which will be a BLEND of their respective choices. I don’t think she is aware of much her life is ONLY going to be Dr. Future-Husband’s version (if they marry).
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Nice rating system. Very tall and red hair both throw me back considerably. Add a dazzling vocabulary and that’s a year right there.
I once went on a Blind Date From Hell that I was starting to intuit via the emails was going to be bad because the guy was a doctor, and somewhere in the back of my head was “Say yes to dates with doctors.”
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I think Sal is genuinely excited by the flirtation, and maybe even consciously acknowledges the flirtation, he just doesn’t allow for the possibility of going further.
He was invited on, and went on, a date with Eliot from Belle Jolie. He dropped show tune code. All of that was willing and a choice. It’s going up to the guy’s room that he can’t do.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:17 pm
#27 @Deborah
‘…I think Sal is genuinely excited by the flirtation, and maybe even consciously acknowledges the flirtation, he just doesn’t allow for the possibility of going further….’
And then he got married, to a woman! And moved his mother in with him!
Oh yeah, that should make for a few roadblocks on the highway to gayness…
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Which leads to the question of how do you step out of cultural ideological constraints to live a more truthful life.
This is a great observation. And ultimately, isn’t that what this show is about?
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:37 pm
#29 @Hullaballoo
…Which leads to the question of how do you step out of cultural ideological constraints to live a more truthful life….
The flip side to that question is how do you recognize those logical constraints. Travel to other cultures helps, but sometimes almost every culture just isn’t ‘getting it’…
I think that societal change usually starts with artists and those who do not have a large investment in a given system. And by artists I mean those who are interested in ways to support the expression of the individual. Under that definition I include even those that come up with things like the Blogs, iPhone, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:51 pm
We’re not sure Mom lives there. She was in the living room Monday night, but she wasn’t there for Sunday dinner. I expect she lives in the same building or on the same block, but not in the same apartment. I don’t think the decor would be so wild if mom lived there.
January 24th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
This show is not about them (those people lost in vintage time) it’s about us.
January 25th, 2009 at 4:34 am
Just adding a note: How much of a freak I’d be going out to eat and to the movies and anywhere else, by myself, after the Christmas Cake age.
Still, we get reminders (it’s more likely a broad gets killed by a terrorist then get married after yadda yadda yadda) that the old, evil people still want the world the way it was, instead of making life safer for single women, with a bit of less pressure about our choices.
January 25th, 2009 at 4:47 am
aw, gee, I meant to use the above comment on the “Dateless Duck” post. Apologies.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:02 am
Well, for one thing, we only assume the otehrs don’t no about Sal. They’d have to be extremely dim to have no inkling, and I would hope that Weiner has more respect for his characters than to make them that stupid. I would hope it’s more of a, “You don’t tell, and we won’t ask,” thing with the people at Sterling-Cooper.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:03 am
*others, know
January 26th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Tom, I totally disagree. “Pretty dim” today, sure, and even today, I see people for whom gaydar is just not one of their senses. I worked with a very out gay guy, and an older straight co-worker, husband of a minister, had no idea the guy was gay. And he was very out and very campy in his mannerisms. This was in the ’90s.
In 1962? A big, tall, square-jawed, square-shouldered guy like Salvatore? No one would know. The sharpest knife in the drawer would not know. This is not Liberace, this is Rock Hudson.
January 26th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
My aunt, who’s in her 70s now, still doesn’t believe Johnny Mathis is gay.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Johnny Mathis is gay???
just kidding.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Salvatore doesn’t come across at all like Rock Hudson. Sorry, he doesn’t.
Rock Hudson would never say (and filmically, which is how they and us judge him in this regard) something like, “We can make the moon yellow, and then these colors’ll pop!” Which is why people thought he was straight and Tony Randall was gay.
What doesn’t help, is that in them pilot for example, all of Salvatore’s scenes are played for comedic value (“You mean that people are living double lives–saying one thing but doing another? I’m not buying it,” which comes not long after showing Don a shirtless picture of his neighbor, “There are so many men here,” “Oh, I know,” at the strip club, etc.). So it gets pushed way too much. But Sal does act a little too flamboyant, and a little too “Protest too much,” for anyone to not know, especially when movies at the time were even making the joke.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
This is a common criticism, but people tend to forget that this was the pilot and, as such, was not fully formed and perhaps pushing things to let potential buyers know where the show might go plotwise if it was picked up.
As for the Right Guard pitch, an art director would talk that way, regardless of sexual orientation. He’s pitching Don on what they would do to the B&W mock-up to make the astronaut pop. In the DVD commentary to “Shoot,” you can hear Janie Bryant talk the same way about dressing Betty to make her pop at the Broadway theater. It’s common parlance.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Tom, I completely agree that Salvatore is hardly Rock Hudson. I’m not great at old movies, but on TV we always had Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly, and I think Sal is comparable to these guys, but a bit smoother, darker.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Karl, have you ever written a pilot? I have. And in a pilot, everything is fully formed. It’s your opening salvo at establishing the characters, their relationships, and the world in which all this happens. And this is true especially in what is a shorter season, such as Mad Men or any cable network show has.
And defending Slavatore’s obvious flamboyancy by comparing it with something a woman says doesn’t work.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I agree that Sal is no Rock Hudson, but I did read or hear that this was the type MW sorta had in mind for Sal, and that BB’s physicality may have rung that bell with MW and the casting directors. And I don’t think (w/ the possible exception of the pilot) that BB has played Sal as flamboyant as Paul Lynde or CNR, though I get where RKL is coming from. Coming up with a comparison that really works is tough precisely because the whole point of being closeted is to try to not appear to be gay. Thus, there won’t be many prominent examples of “subtly gay” men from the period.
(On a comedic point, my fave had to be Don telling Betty that Sal couldn’t stop talking about Joan Crawford.)
January 26th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Yes, Roberta!
The argument I always see is, “Well, people at the time didn’t know these things!”
Yes, they did. In Lover Come Back in either ‘61 or ‘62 (the second Hudson/Day flick, essentially the 60s equivalent–though better written–of our for-everybody McConaughey/Parker romantic comedies) they’re both in advertising, and they have Day of all people make the gay jokes.
“Well art-department guy, this is good, but nobody has a lavender floor in their kitchen!”
“Well I do!”
“Well, art-department-guy, most people aren’t as ‘artistic’ as you…”
These jokes were being made about the job Sal has, for these people, in their time, in movies that were for everyone (i.e. not elite things the average person didn’t get). So for not one single person at Sterling-Cooper to get it, they have to either being in purposeful denial (the “You don’t talk about it, and we won’t judge you for it,” thing) or they are stupid beyond belief.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Tom,
I haven’t written a pilot. I have watched many of them over the course of the past couple of decades. And the notion that they are fully-formed in comparison to what gets fleshed out in a series is kinda absurd, imho. Indeed, I would say that MM didn’t really hit its stride until ep. 5 or 6, which, in a lifetime of watching shows, I find be pretty typical.
But if you want to talk about the MM pilot in particular, MW is on record as saying he added things to his original script at the request of AMC to raise some of the subplots that get explored in S1. The showing of the purple heart was one such scene. The Nixon subplot was another.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Karl, I thought the thing where Betty modelled was also hilarious. Their art department guy is an even gayer Sal. The idea of all art department guys getting gayer as the firm gets larger was just too funny.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Oh, and MM characters are in denial about something? Coulda knocked me over with a feather.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Plus, that guy was Jim Hobart’s brother-in-law. So he had some job security.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
The Joan Crawford line was priceless.
You had Rock Hudson (and how many others?) who were so deeply closeted, in the behavioral way that you’re describing. But the amazing thing about that time was how flamboyant you could be, and most people still wouldn’t suspect. To hull’s point, Johnny Mathis. And the others that we’ve mentioned; Liberace, Charles Nelson and Paul Lynde–so . many people. didn’t. KNOW! That must have been such a behind-the-scenes joke; seeing how gay they could gay up and the bulk of the general public never quite catching on.
Salvatore could be so much more flamboyant, and flirt a lot more, and still not give himself away. He could be having a lot more fun.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
BTW, if #46 comes off as snarky, I think Tom may have misread what I meant by fully-formed. Of course someone writing a pilot takes their best shot at it. But most series — esp. the good ones — end up massaging the basic stuff in the pilot. MG goes from playing Dick to playing Paul, for example. Sal still gets the occasional comedic scene, but for the most part was toned down from the pilot.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
That’s for regular network TV, Karl. 22 episode seasons. You don’t get the 5-6 eps fleshing out things in a show only thirteen episodes long. You really have to throw the world out there, and then get people into it. Mad Men did it in two, establishing Don’s work world in one and his home world in the second.
And I’m not asking about the pilot thing to be insulting. I am just saying I’m coming at this as someone who is currently developing a show for a cable network, and who had a previous script (turned down unfortunately, after getting the notes “It’s the funniest script we’ve read in years,” and “It’s too Greek”–go figure), so all I’m saying is I’m coming at it from a doer’s and not a viewer’s position.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Roberta, people knew. Even a lot of those who said they didn’t. Remember, this was a time of denial or ignoring what you didn’t like and accepting what you did. I remember seeing Delovely with my grandmother, and her saying at the end, “I’m glad they didn’t go too much into the gay thing.” “Grandma, you knew Cole Porter was gay?” “Oh, we all did honey. He just didn’t make a big deal out of it, so neither did we.”
Yay for my anecdotal evience!
January 26th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
On a related note, MW is also on record as saying that he wasn’t knocked out by the pilot for The Sopranos — it was the ep. where Tony is driving Meadow to see colleges that did it for him. I felt the same way. It’s a point I picked up from a book on SNL — Lorne Michaels told the network that he thought he would have the show fully formed by the fifth show, to which the decisionmaker said, “Then I’ll watch the fifth show.” So when I watch a show, I commit to trying to stick through at least the first five episodes. It strikes me that expecting a writer or team to get it all right in the pilot is an awfully high expectation.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Not saying that, Karl. Just that when your season is half the length of a regular one, you don’t get the luxury of wallowing, or stumbling, or what-have-you. You have to draw people in quick.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Tom,
I get what you’re saying about a 13 ep. arc. I’m also saying that I think that writers may need as many as five eps to really find their groove for a series. That may make me more forgiving as a viewer than some of the TV people you’ve dealt with. And I hope #51 addresses what I mean by fully-formed, as I see what you mean by it was slightly different. I think it goes beyond the writing as well — the actors (and to a lesser degree in TV, directors) get a better grip on their characters, which also affects the tone of the characterizations.
As an aside, I think some of the more obvious nudges regarding sal also stem from MW’s background in sitcom; I think he occasionally just can’t help himself. Man loves a joke. Must pick up my dry cleaning before it closes.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Another aspect of what I’m suggesting is that a pilot, even a really well-written pilot, does not — and generally cannot — account for its cast. For example, we know MW was originally thinking that Joan would be a comic foil in the mold of Eve Arden or Audrey Hepburn… until CH read for the part. And that CH took it to yet another level when they started shooting. And that MW now writes Joan for CH. I would not be shocked if the same was true — though perhaps to a lesser degree — with Sal and BB.
Yet another aspect of what I’m suggesting is that — and Tom may disagree — pilot writers, in the effort to have an impact with pilot readers, may on occasion write things more broadly than they might a few eps into a series.
I think that might be a factor w/Sal in the pilot. I also thought it was a factor with Don in the pilot. The scene w/Rachel in the lounge where Don lays out his philosophy struck me as a bit broad, and I think Don has been written more subtly in the series.
At least, these are two notions that lead me, as a viewer, to not treat the pilot as gospel when assessing how things play out in a series.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Karl–that be Katherine Hepburn.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
You may well be right about that.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Or, as Pete Campbell would put it, “What did I say?”
January 26th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
I’m not saying the pilot is gospel, but if you look at the rest of the season it’s still mainly played for broader comedy with Sal.
Everything from his comment on colors in the second ep to Joan’s “WTF was that?” face after he he kisses her in Kinsey’s play to the comments he makes during the episode where the operator overhears his “Ciao, ciao,” on the phone. It’s too jokey and over the top to have the characters be that stupid and not just doing it for propriety, especially when movies these people would have seen were saying the same thing.
January 26th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Tom, I just don’t see it quite the same way. I don’t think Sal is played for broad comedy, but for irony. Some of it is funny, but I don’t think it’s at the sacrifice of real character. I think it was carefully written and brilliantly played. And I’m pretty sure Bryan was exactly who Matt was looking for, because he was encouraged to audition (or come back, or something) when he almost didn’t.
Everything about the pilot was slightly broader. Or something. The use of music–it doesn’t 100% match the rest of the season. But Tom, as you know, a pilot can never be (nor should it be) a perfect match. It has its own job to do, and certainly Smoke achieves that.
Also what Matt has said about the pilot, (maybe to us in our first interview? or at our party?) was that ‘it’s all there’. And he said that as far as the Sopranos went along, almost all of it could be traced back to that pilot. It may be true that he wasn’t in love with the Sopranos from the pilot, but he now holds it in the highest regard.
January 26th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
I didn’t say broad comedy. I used broader, specifically because it’s not sitcom wild, but it is played more jokingly than almost any other character’s traits.
January 26th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
How do we italicize here?
January 26th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Also, the fact that there were jokes about it in movies of the period does not mean that everyone got those jokes in their fullest sense, any more than everyone gets it when Roger asks Joan if she liked the pearl necklace he gave her in “Babylon.”
January 26th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
OK, 3d time:
Make the brackets the “less than” and “greater than.”
January 27th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Everyone knew what being “lavender” meant. Paul Lynde in Send Me No Flowers saying, “I’ll slip out the back door,”? Some people wouldn’t get it. But pointing out a flamboyant man’s use of lavender? No question.
January 27th, 2009 at 12:48 am
I think it’s always dangerous to talk about what “everyone” knew. But certainly most of the characters of MM might be expected to get the more obvious stuff. But Sal does put in an effort to look hetero at times. And absent some of the more heavy-handed comedic references, I don’t think the CH kiss in “NvK” (among other signals) would have come across as heavy-handed to viewers, let alone anyone else in the room.
January 27th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Also, your left bracket should be the “less than,” your right bracket should be the “greater than” and you still need the slash when you’re closing. (Examples.)
January 27th, 2009 at 4:23 am
Well, are we talking citizens of Manhattan in a business all about being up on the latest trends? They would not be at a loss to know what Lavender means regarding a man, especially since the association comes from way before the ’60s–like, Victorian-era before.
January 27th, 2009 at 4:47 am
The bottom line is the Salvatore gay references are too over the top for at least some of the Sterling-Cooper people not to get them, especially since their own entertainment world is joking about the same issues, even the same people they deal with everyday.
What no one really looks at though, is the implications. Everyone is so busy defending these characters (“No, no, they’re not stupid. People back then didn’t know these things like we do!” “What about the fact that their average-Joe comedies dealt with these issues?” “Hey, don’t start using evidence to prove me wrong now!”) that they ignore what this means for a man like Salvatore.
What kind of a world is it when people will leave him alone if he’s gay just as long as they don’t have to know about it? What does it say when someone not only is thinking they are hiding from their friends and family, but the kind of deep-seated emotions he has when he can’t even let himself in on the fact that he is different? He denies himself to the point of turning down the secret trist with the Belle Jolie salesman–something no one else would know of and something that no one else but he, himself, takes away.
So the bigger question, instead of do his co-workers know (which some do if they aren’t a bunch of dunderheads) is why is he a good guy when he conforms, even to himself (down to getting himself buried in a marriage), and becomes a pariah if he doesn’t? That’s the big point. To us, who see Sal’s struggle, it becomes even sadder, because we know many openly gay people in our time. Some of us know people who even came out of the closet–and those people didn’t suddenly change. They were the same people we always knew, now with just a little more information. But the people in Mad Men don’t look at their friends the same way. They exist with an idea of, “I liked you till I found out that you…”
We see the treatment of Kurt, with Ken, one of the more artistic (and presumably, therefore, enlightened) of the group, the one who, in fact, had Sal read his manuscript, doing much of the insulting, and then we see Sal, realizing what the other one of his co-worker’s two faces actually looks like. And where does this lead? We see him lock himself away even tighter.
January 27th, 2009 at 4:54 am
Roberta @ #42 says
“…Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly, and I think Sal is comparable to these guys, but a bit smoother, darker.”
I think Sal’s more like Clifton Webb, but younger and more dashing. Actually, I’ve been watching the old Perry Mason episodes online, and Raymond Burr’s portrayal of the attorney reminds me a little of Bryan Batt’s characterization of Salvatore, although Bryan’s mannerisms are more pronounced. I imagine that’s more for the benefit of the audience — a wink, if you will — rather than an indication of who his character is. The time period’s correct, too. All Sal needs is a “business partner/friend” similar to Robert Benevides, Burr’s longtime lover.
January 27th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Most people were like Ken, they knew there was such a thing, but did not believe they’d ever met a homosexual. Even 20 years ago, surveys were showing that. People were sure they didn’t know any “perverts.” And, while many people were aware it existed, and may have snickered about Liberace, they didn’t visualize it entering their day-to-day lives.
Not everyone, surely. Some people were more aware. But to call those who weren’t “pretty dim,” as you did, is seriously misunderstanding the times.
January 27th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Karl, a pilot is written in the writer’s head. Everything changes once there is a cast, crew, and sets. Matt talks about this a lot, as you’ve pointed out. The pilot was fully formed for 8 years—the filmed version doesn’t differ from the original by more than 50 words. But Matt isn’t Joss Whedon; he doesn’t have the whole thing planned out for two years. He’s more fluid. He responds to actors, situations, how things unfold.
You’re right that a pilot has to be a little broader; it does the work of establishing the characters. It’s also true that, as I’ve heard Joss say, “your first six episodes are all pilots.” You constantly introduce characters so that new audience can jump in. I recall the original series Star Trek episode, “The Naked Time” (which was episode 4 and yes, I had to look that up, I’m seriously not that much of a geek). In the episode, a disease spreads through the ship that makes people crazy drunk, uninhibited, and dangerous. The idea was to do an episode early on in which everyone’s secrets were revealed. Talk about “broad”! This worked so well that in the show Star Trek: The Next Generation, they did the same thing (encountered the same virus) in episode 2. Now you know everyone’s shtick, their back story, their secret desires, and you’re fully on-board with the characters.
That’s good writing. You go in too subtle, the audience has no motivation for sticking around. We’re talking about “broad” in a MM context here; lots of people out there find the show too slow even with this version of broad. And I agree that some of the bigger punchlines fall flat for me–the magic machine that makes copies, the do one thing and feel another, these were too much and didn’t fit. But there haven’t been five more of those in the subsequent 25 episodes.
January 27th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Tom, message boards tend to use UBB code, which uses square brackets. Blogs (like this one) use HTML, which uses angle brackets. I fixed it for you.
January 27th, 2009 at 11:07 am
It’s a good point. And the truth is, when we suppress something, we imagine it is much bigger than it is. We fear the floodgates. This is why the far-right anti-gay crowd is so terrified of the gays having constant gay sex in the street and blocking traffic; that’s their own suppression talking. And that’s what Sal’s afraid of when he turns down Elliot; once he starts, he’s afraid he won’t be able to stop. He’ll be OUT OUT OUT and everyone will know.
And you’re right, it’s a tragedy.
January 27th, 2009 at 11:08 am
I had no idea Raymond Burr was gay.
January 27th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Whereas Raymond Burr’s gayness was a running gag on some Chcago radio shows going back decades. So perceptions differ. And as I joked in #48, MM is a show that is about denial. It’s not theat Sal’s S-C colleagues are dumb, anymore than Betty was dumb when it came to Don’s affairs. Or that Joan never figured out her roommate was in love with her. Or that Peggy was dumb about being pregnant. There are things these characters block out to avoid having to deal with them, until forced. Thus, but for Joan’s roomie coming out to her, I think CH would have played Joan’s reaction to Sal’s kiss differently, more confused.
And in #74, DL gets atwhat I’m saying about pilots. Obvsly, a good writer does his or her best in the pilot (and the next couple of eps) to establish the world of the show and the major characters, lay out some plot points that show the direction and tone of the show, should it get picked up. But TV is inherently a group effort, even one as driven by an auteur as MM is. And while they still give Sal some over-the-top stuff, I think the general trend has been to rein it in from what it was in the pilot and “Ladies’ Room.” And I would guess that part of the reason why is that MW figured out pretty quickly that BB gives him more options than he might have thought he would have when he wrote the pilot. So when I am measuring the magnitude of the denial going on at S-C, I do mentally discount a bit from those first two eps. They’re still in denial, but on a lesser scale than what you would take away from just the first two eps.
January 28th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
“And as I joked in #48, MM is a show that is about denial. It’s not theat Sal’s S-C colleagues are dumb, anymore than Betty was dumb when it came to Don’s affairs. Or that Joan never figured out her roommate was in love with her. Or that Peggy was dumb about being pregnant. There are things these characters block out to avoid having to deal with them, until forced.”
So you’re saying these people are treating Sal as if he’s straight, while believing something else? I don’t buy it.