A Self-Made Man

Retrospective on History, Part Two

To follow up on my last post about Don--or Dick--re-creating himself but finding that his history keeps getting in the way:

Mary Schmich wrote a column in the Chicago Tribune this past Sunday about the Chicago mayoral race, in which Gery Chico--raised in a south side working class neighborhood--has been criticizing Rahm Emmanuel, who grew up in the wealthy North Shore suburb of Wilmette. Schmich writes, "If you grow up without monied privilege, you'll always see life through the lens of that upbringing, even if your circumstances change. You'll always sense that people who grew up with money have a different lens." I thought of Don when I read that. He literally re-made his identity after the war, turning himself from Dick Whitman--farm boy without a lot of prospects--into Don Draper--urban, suit-wearing, dapper professional. Yet despite his will to forget, despite his philosophy of "this never happened" (when visiting Peggy in the psych ward after she's had her baby, he schools her to put the experience behind her: "It never happened."), despite this philosophy, Dick's experience of being raised outside of privilege, his identity as self-made man drives Don. It particularly colors his interactions with Pete Campbell.

This first is made explicit in "New Amsterdam" (1.4) when Pete goes over Don's head to pitch his idea to a client while entertaining him in a club. Don fires Pete for his breach of protocol, only to be summoned to Bert Coopers's office and treated to a lecture on the politics of social connections in the world of advertising. Pete's mother is a Dykeman, a family that at one time owned most of the island of Manhattan. Having him on staff provides entre to a number of choice places where valuable contacts can be mined. The look on Don's face speaks volumes about his thoughts on this class-based privilege. Bert tells Don he'll need to develop a stomach for this sort of thing if he's going to keep rising in advertising. It cracked me up when Cooper tried to drive home his point that this is common practice in their industry, saying that there's a Pete Campbell in every advertising firm in New York. Don asks, "Can't we get one of the other ones?"

Don again rails at Pete about being rich and having everything handed to him in "Nixon v. Kennedy" (1.12), an episode in which he also expresses resentment that the nouveau riche John Kennedy might have beat the self-made Richard Nixon for the presidency because the elder Kennedy bought votes in Illinois, where Cook County's likely voter fraud could have tipped the election. Though I haven't yet re-watched these episodes, recall that Don's relationship with Conrad Hilton is grounded in the fact that both men were self-made and met when Don went into the country club bar to escape Roger's black face performance on Kentucky Derby day. It's Don's lack of privilege that leads to his discomfort. Interestingly, though, the only other person who seems uncomfortable at the party as Roger is singing is Pete. This silver spoon-fed young man and the self-made Don are united in a number of interesting ways as the series progresses.

History Gets in the Way

Retrospectives, Part One:

I'm rewatching old episodes of our favorite drama in its hiatus, having gotten through the first season and half of the second so far. It's quite thought-provoking to look back, knowing what I know now, so it seems some retrospective reflections on different themes are in order. At this point, the show seems to me to be about the tension that emerges from a constant living on one boundary or another--or on multiple boundaries at the same time: that between the conformist 1950s and the rebellious '60s and the accompanying relentless pressure to do and be what is expected versus the expanding possibilities for self-creation; the boundary between a diverse Manhattan, where experimentation and innovation--as peurile as some of it is--can occur and the stifling, ever-watchful suburbs; the boundary that is the brink of the gender revolution. This boundary has on one side the office--sexist, crude, and male-dominated, but a place that at least has men and women working side-by-side and in which a talented, ambitious, and determined woman like Peggy can push herself ahead if there's a man like Don who's willing to sponsor her. On the other side of the gender revolution is the home in the burbs--a segregated women's world of children and child-like women who have their "girls" to take care of them, a world in which men never seem comfortable. America on the brink of gender revolution has its rules that allow the men to live in two worlds, while their wives live only in one.

One of the themes that stands out to me is that of the ability to create one's own identity in tension with the lurking presence of one's past in the corners. This dynamic is illustrated most with Don's story. He has literally constructed a new identity for himself out of the ruins of the explosion in Korea that took his commanding officer's life. Dick Whitman--abused child, unhappy and conflicted man--is able to escape the identity that shackles him to a group of people who are unloving, unloved, and not really family (except Adam) and create a new persona out of the ashes of Don Draper's demise. The past--he hopes--can be erased. Don expresses the desire for pastlessness (to coin a word) at multiple places in the series. In "Three Sundays" (2.4) he projects this onto American Airlines and America itself. In an attempt to create a campaign that can resucitate the airline's image after a plane crash, Don argues "American Airlines is not about the past any more than America is about the past." Yet later at home, Bobby challenges this in his own way. Bobby has been acting up and then lying about his actions. Betty has been harping on Don to discipline him, more specifically to spank him, which Don won't do. After Boby keeps playing with a toy at the dinner table, despite his mother continually telling him not to, he spills a glass of milk when the toy bangs into it. Betty loses it, demanding Don do something. Don grabs Bobby's toy and hurls it at the wall, then storms away from the kitchen. While Don is sitting on his bed, his small son comes to the doorway to apologize. Don tells him that sometimes dads get angry, which prompts Bobby to start asking Don about his father. Sweetly, he says, "What did your daddy look like?" Don replies that his father looked like him, but taller. "What did he like to eat?" Bobby wonders. This prompts Don to think and he gets a faraway look on his face as he remembers a kind of candy his father enjoyed that Don clearly hadn't thought of in a long time. When Don confirms for Bobby that his father is, indeed, dead, Bobby asserts, "We need to get you a new daddy." Bobby, in his naivete, realizes what Don wants to forget: that we need a history (as represented by our parents, as sad and regretful as those parents and the history they represent might be); more, we can't get away from that history. It is part of what molds us, even if we try to construct new identities and ways of being for ourselves. Later, as they're lying in bed, Don tries to explain to Betty why he won't spank their son: "My father beat the hell out of me and all it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him." It doesn't matter that Don has cast away the identity of Dick. It's still Dick's father who has shaped how Don is as a father.

Later, in Season Four, the new self-reflective, keeping-a-journal Don recognizes all this explicitly when he writes, "When a man walks into a room, he brings his whole life with him." He seems for awhile last season as if he's going to integrate Don and Dick, but then he dumps Faye--the lover who knows about his past--to become engaged to Megan, who doesn't. Does Megan represent a renewed desire to escape history? Is his engagement to her a return of his pendulum to forgetfulness? It will be interesting to see where the writers take Don and Megan next season and whether this theme continues to play itself out.

"I Got You, Babe"

Mad Men, Season Four, Episode Thirteen, "Tomorrowland"

WELLLLL, wasn't that a surprise? (Except the part about Joan still being pregnant; I figured that was the case. And while I'm sidetracked here, I know that there's no old-fashioned Victorian novel-type justice in war--or in postmodern drama and television--but Dr. Greg is going to get blown up in Vietnam, right? The only thing "important" to him is whether her boobs are getting bigger--what an idiot. Well, guess what? It's not even your baby, jackass!) Okay, back to Don. What was that man thinking? I don't know, but rather than sign off after just one paragraph, I'll give it my best shot:

I thought that the conversation with the American Cancer Society people was quite interesting. Don's observation that there's no point in trying to persuade smokers to quit, but a campaign targeting a new teen audience is where they should put their efforts was insightful. Of these younger people, he said they're "mourning for their childhood more than looking to their future." Is he doing something similar in asking Megan to marry him? He's clearly missing Anna; he wants someone with whom he can be himself again ("I feel like myself when I'm with you")--but not TOO much of himself. Faye's reminder at the beginning of the episode that his stomach pains might have as much to do with repression of his past life as with his work troubles, just served to highlight that she knows more about him than perhaps he's comfortable with. He wants the feeling of comfort that being himself with someone brings, but doesn't want the full disclosure to the world that Faye urges upon him. I was impressed that he answered Sally's question--"Who's Dick?--honestly, even if he did add "That's my nickname sometimes." As we've seen a lot this season, he wants to be Dick "sometimes." He might have felt that Faye would push to be Dick all of the time. So, he tells Megan that she doesn't really know him and that "I've done things..." She naively asserts that she does know him now. This veiled insinuation of a past is all she's going to get from him. And, unlike the probing psychologist, Megan will accept his assessment of himself without question--and get what she wants (maybe?) So, missing Anna, he gives Megan Anna's engagement ring that she got "from Don."

Does he really believe his assertions that he's fallen in love with her? She says it happened so fast. Well, yeah! Too fast for me to buy it. But he has been Mr. Impetuous lately--most recently with the letter to the Times. And, he's recently come out of a pretty bad depression and bout of excessive drinking. That's really not the time to make such a major decision, but maybe he just feels too good and that's novel right now. And, he's in California--the land of sunshine, hope, and fresh starts. Stephanie tells him, "I've got the rest of my life ahead of me. So do you." And, she is good with his kids. The look of surprise that Don, Sally, and Bobby all displayed when Megan took the spilled milkshake in stride was so telling. She's not Betty in this regard. But, she is glamorous--save the teeth--and she speaks French. But, she's also told Don that she'd like to have a job like his or Peggy's someday. Will he promote her career and make her a copywriter as Joan thinks? Or will she be the next pretty Mrs. Draper? I still don't like her much, but I hope it's the former. Or, as my sister pointed out, it's just an engagement; maybe they won't actually get married. But, Faye--hurt Faye--did tell him early in their acquaintanceship that she knew his type and he'd be married again in a year. Perhaps she does know him too well.

And then, in contrast to Don's rapid life changes, there's Betty, lamenting that things are different, that there's too much change. Those were a couple of poignant moments when she and Don stood in the empty kitchen, sharing a drink out of an old plastic cup. She confides in him, in a way, that her new marriage isn't all she'd hoped for with her childish perspective on things: "Things aren't perfect." He tries to comfort her, "It's okay, Betty." She's just glad to know that the debutante Bethany isn't the one who snagged her ex and tries to be gracious, offering him congratulations. But, it's Henry who asserts to Betty that "there is no fresh start." Will this end up being a commentary on Don's life as well as on Betty's?

I lack time to explore Betty's firing of Carla in depth, but what all was going on there? Does Betty somehow see, through Carla's response to Glen coming by, that she's over-reacting to all of this and not being the best mother? Carla has always done more parenting of those kids than Betty. Is Betty feeling that when she asks, "Since when did you decide you're her mother?" I was glad to see Carla assert herself with Betty: "It was a mistake. There's no need for that kind of talk" and "You best stop talking now." Good for you! But for Betty to then refuse the woman a letter of recommendation! Again, Henry has to point out her unreasonableness to her. The honeymoon there seems to be over pretty quickly.

I love that Peggy and Joan finally found a way to be allies over Don's announcement of his engagement. The scene in Joan's office was great as was Joan's carry-over of the time with Peggy into her conversation with Greg: "And he's smiling like a fool, like he's the first man who ever married his secretary." Ouch! As she's carrying Roger's baby after he dumped his first wife to marry his super-young secretary. These working women are finally starting to see what "bullshit" it all is, as Peggy asserts to Joan.

And season four ends with a sappy, rather goofy pop song that might capture the sentiment of Don's situation with Megan ("I've got you, babe"), but only made me think about the singers: an older man who married a younger woman whose career he started promoting. Are Don and Megan Sonny and Cher? What a depressing thought. And, we've got to wait nine months to find out what happens next! Thirteen episode seasons are way too short.

"A Certain Kind of Girl"

Mad Men, Season Four, Episode Twelve, "Blowing Smoke"

A much better episode than last week's. After his almost season-long descent into depression, alcohol abuse, and worse than usual behavior, Don is bouncing back into the take-charge, creative risk-taker who reinvented himself, slid his way into the ad business, and started Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce. Tonight's title alludes to the very first episode of the show, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," which was about the old firm's relationship to the tobacco industry. But, in that episode, Don and his cohorts were blowing smoke at the public to obscure cigarettes' harmful properties. They wanted to show tobacco to be a stronger product than it is. This time, Don uses the unhealthy properties of cigarettes to blow smoke in the public's eyes again--but this time to create the impression that his firm is stronger than it is. When their consultant suggests they go after the account for the new cigarette for women, he tells the partners, "You're a certain kind of girl and tobacco is your...boyfriend." With Don's letter published in the New York Times, he asserts himself in a typically masculine way to grab back the advantage and break up with his girlfriend, the newly feminized tobacco. Before writing the letter, he rips out all the earlier pages of his journal--those pages that he'd said made him feel like a little girl writing in her diary--symbolically ridding himself of the negative events about which he had written. He aims to be back on a stronger path again. Tonight's show also hearkens back to the first of this season in which he kicks out the bathing suit clients, telling them that they need to decide what kind of company they want to be: "comfortable and dead or risky and possibly rich." Like in that segment, Don shows himself with the New York Times ad to opt for 'risky and possibly rich.' We'll see if it pays off for him or if his partners are right.

The show also offers Betty as a smoke blower--literally blowing cigarette smoke in Dr. Edna's office, while she tries to persuade the psychiatrist that Sally still needs her, but she--Betty--is not in need of a shrink. "Why can't I talk to you?" Betty asks, when Dr. Edna tries to refer her to a colleague. The response that "I'm a child psychiatrist" is sadly--and humorously--ironic.

But, Betty's not the only one of Don's exes blowing smoke. I felt so bad seeing Midge as a heroin addict. She was so strong in Season One as Don's bohemian lover. I always liked her a lot. How could she allow herself to get to this place--the dark pit of an apartment, the fellow addict, pimp of a 'husband?' Yet even in her weakened state, she inspires Don. Her painting of the 'after-image,' that asks, according to Mr. Playwright, "What do we see after closing our eyes? What's more real?" is what Don spends time reflecting on before deciding to write the Times letter. He's seemed to ask himself, 'what does the corporate world see of us after they've closed their eyes to SCDP?' The Times ad is an attempt to shift that perception--what a good ad man/woman always does. Though it also feels like there needs to be more to bringing Midge back than just what we got this evening.

Finally, Sally is showing herself to follow well in her parents' footsteps. She's learned to craft a deceptive image of herself to present to her mother, telling Dr. Edna, "She [Betty] doesn't care what the truth is as long as I do what she says. . . . She just doesn't know that I'm mad." At least the psychiatrist reminds Sally of the importance of her anger: "Just as long as you know it." Sally's shown herself to be cynical about popular ideas like heaven, telling a rather surprised Glenn that she doesn't believe in it. She equates it with 'forever,' a concept that she--like her father--finds upsetting. It's interesting that she's chosen the advertising image for Land of Lakes butter as her emblem for what 'forever' means--something never-endingly self-referential. What a bright kid! She's sadly so upset at the end at the prospect of losing her friend, but Betty's instincts about Glenn are not wrong. She just doesn't let Sally know her complicity in a bit of Glenn's 'badness.'

A few closing observations:

--I'm back to disliking Faye again. Her dismissal of Peggy's frank admiration and offer to be friends was rude. She's right, of course, that Peggy doesn't understand ways that Faye, too, has had to play games. But, tonight she seemed to be back closer to the nasty manipulator of the Ponds focus group session earlier in the season. And, "have your girl make reservations?" I don't like Megan, either, after last week, but please. Successful women so condescending to other working women are too much.

--I wonder what happened in London that Lane now has his family with him again. Did he and his wife have a genuine reconciliation? Did his father somehow coerce the situation? What about the young woman whom he had claimed to fall in love with?

--Bert Cooper is finally making his non-participation in the work of the firm official. After the staff have been speculating about who will get fired and Bert comes in to make his farewell, Stan saying "I didn't think they'd start with him" was quite funny.

--The secretaries crying so loudly after getting fired was done in such a caricatured way. It gets Don's notice as the ending song urges, "Trust in me," perhaps highlighting how he feels the weight of everyone who's losing a job, but still comes off as a sexist depiction of them, especially after Danny has just maturely shaken Don's hand, thanking him for the opportunity to have worked there.

--Don paying Pete's share of the fee to the bank was decent, considering what Pete had done when they gave up the defense contract. I liked the subtle bows of the head they gave to each other after Pete found out.

Just one more week--will the final episode of the season take us into a further descent in the lives of characters or will Don's gamble lead them in a different direction?

Insider Information

Mad Men, Season Four, Episode Eleven, "Chinese Wall"

I had never heard the phrase "Chinese Wall" until I went to AMC's website for the title of this week's episode right before it started. I didn't have time to hunt for a definition then, so was just puzzled trying to figure out what it meant in the context of the show. So, I learned something new tonight: accordng to Internet sources, a "Chinese Wall" is a symbolic barrier erected between different parts of a business to avoid conflicts of interest and to protect insider information. After reading that, the episode--which struck me as a bit dull and uninspired, if it did perform the necessary work of dealing with the fallout of Lucky Strike's defection--did seem to be more coherent. In the first instance, there's a Chinese Wall where there shouldn't be one (Roger keeping the "inside info" of Garner's bombshell from his partners); beyond that, there are too many cases of "insider info" bleeding across borders that should have a wall around them.

Roger, sad to say, is not only appearing momentarily pathetic here and there, but we--and he and his colleagues--are starting to realize just how ineffectual and superfluous he's been for years. In last week's lunch scene between Roger and Lee, Jr., we learn that Roger inherited the Lucky Strikes account from his father. He did nothing creative to win it. Tonight Don berates Roger for neglecting the account for ages. "He wouldn't have done that!" Don asserts, pointing at Pete. Everything Roger does in this episode is basically an act--from the charade of a conversation with Lee while his finger is pressed down on the phone so the line is dead to his retreat to a hotel outside Midtown while he's supposed to be in North Carolina to the Hollywood/Broadway exaggerated placement of his hat on his head while leaving Joan's apartment. When we last see him, he's sitting on the couch with the young trophy wife he cares little for, holding his memoirs--a very thin volume--looking miserable as he, I presume, is reflecting on how thin his life truly is. This Lucky Strikes episode is the one time the firm didn't need a Chinese Wall. They shoud have had the time to make a plan so when the news did leak, there might not have been as many phone calls from clients jumping ship. Don thinks he can shore it all up with his words to all the employees: "Nothing should change. Nothing will change." But, can they pull that off?

Don might be jeopardizing the possibilities with his participation in leaks of "insider info" and his growing inability to keep his personal and professional lives separate. He tells Megan, "I can't make any mistakes," and then proceeds to do so. He's already crossed that boundary of having sex with one secretary on his couch at home. Why not here? This after Faye has refused to grant him a leak of insider info from other clients of hers who might be dissatisfied with their ad agencies. She's insisting on boundaries between their work lives and their love life, asserting that the "standard of ethics in this business is low enough." (Ain't that the truth?) When Don says he'd do it for her, she hotly responds, "I'd never ask!" Good for you, I thought. She's going to maintain her focus on being a professional woman first. But, she relents and gives him Heinz as a potential client, putting Don first. Don thanks her, but this is after he's already had the liason with Megan. While Megan assured Don she wouldn't go crying about this the next day--"I just want you now"--there will be complications arising from this. She told Don she wanted to work with him so she could one day have a job like his or Peggy's. She calls herself an "artist" and makes a snarky comment about knowing so much more about him than he knows about her. She wants him to have this "insider info" about herself even though she says she understands that he judges people on their work. "Everything else is sentimental." But, he's certainly laid the groundwork for some big emotional explosion somewhere down the line.

The scene of David Montgomery's funeral was intriguing and seemed important, but I'm not sure in what way. The SCDP men go to the funeral hoping to pounce on some of Montgomery's clients who are morose about having lost their ad man. What they hear are a couple of speakers addressing the dead man's wife and daughter about things he did while working that showed his love for them--more boundaries crossed. Don has a thoughtful look on his face while listening. I wonder why. What's he thinking?

A couple of other observations:

--Is there a stronger symbol of how the mid-1960s gender roles were still being strictly enforced than a man at work getting the news that his wife had just given birth to their daughter, accepting quick congratulations from his colleagues, and then looking at his watch to observe that they'd better get going to their next appointment? Dealing with babies is only for women. Working is for men. Pete tries to put a toe over that line by putting in an appearance at the hospital during Trudy's labor, but his father-in-law tells him to go back to work: "I was at a ballgame when Trudy was born."

--What about Peggy and Abe? That whole scene at the beginning as they're returning from the beach and end up in her bed seemed to come completely out of the blue. Why her sudden infatuation with him?

"Do You Want to Know a Secret?"

Mad Men, Season Four, Episode Ten, "Hands and Knees"

Quite the episode, wasn't it? I love how the Beatles framed the show. Mad Men has frequently contextualized itself in the politics of the era and sometimes in the emerging drug culture, but it hasn't really done much with the music of the sixties until a couple of weeks ago when Don's journal soundtrack was a Stones song--and now this. How cool a dad is Don that he's taking Sally to a Beatles concert? She's just young enough not to be embarrassed at the idea of being seen in public, at a rock concert, with her father. Okay, he'll have ear plugs in, but I've seen and heard footage of that Shea Stadium concert. I'd want ear plugs too. Thousands of girls and young women shrieking non-stop, in unison, the way Sally did over the phone. That was so cute. And Betty looked genuinely pleased at the idea. Good for her for not throwing cold water on Sally's excitement. It was a neat and rare shared moment between the three of them. The choice of ending song--in instrumental form only--was perfect. It got at the theme of secrets being revealed, sometimes even being thrust upon an unwilling hearer ("Listen," George sings in the version with words, giving an imperative before the question, like Lane pushes his father to listen to the news that he's had a secret.) The song also highlighted the differences between the Beatles of 1963--when "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" came out--and the 1965 Beatles whom Sally and Don will be visiting. In the two intervening years, the band was maturing, shifting from the creation of what John Lennon would later term "silly love songs" to the more musically and thematically sophisticated and varied songs of "Help!" (which was released right before the N.Y. concert) and "Rubber Soul," that appeared late that year. Likewise, there are some signs our main characters are maturing in the midst of the complete mess that plays out. On the one hand, we see some growth. On the other, there's the classic denial, deception, and desire just to "get rid of it" (as Don explicitly tells Pete about the North American Aviation account.

Note to Don and everyone else: Read what you sign, dude! It was interesting, if painful, to watch Don deal with the stress of the DoD investigating him. As others have recently noted as well, he's seemed to want--and to allow--Dick to emerge from behind his wall more and more this season. But, he's not yet ready for full disclosure. And we, as viewers, were forced for perhaps the first time to consider the legal ramifications for Don's Army desertion and identity theft. In the past, it's come up more as an issue in his personal life. Now the criminal aspect of it is at the fore. It was tense watching the scene with Betty and the government officials. I really wondered what she would do. In the midst of it all, though, they managed to insert some humor: "Would you describe him as loyal?" Poor Betty. The government's single-minded focus, though, on "radicals," "subversives" and Communist sympathizers means they miss a lot about Don and the integrity issue. But, beyond the personal, the consequences for Don's actions in Korea are now laid at the doorstep of his business partners. They lose out on this $4 million account--at a time when they're also losing Lucky Strike (good riddance, Lee! Maybe Sal can come back now? That is, if there's still a company to employ people after the desertions and rejections of big accounts.)

Don has to confront the issue of his past head-on with Pete. Confronting things head-on is not what Don likes to do. He also doesn't like owing someone and he's going to owe Pete big-time for this. I can't imagine Pete will let him forget it. But, Pete...Yes, this is unfair to him, but the self-deception on his part was also staggering. He tells Trudy--to whom he can't really tell anything--"No one knows--except the honest people who have to pick up the pieces." Honest, Pete? You're referring to yourself as one of the honest people? Sitting there on the couch with your hugely pregnant wife, who believes she'll soon be delivering your first-born child? You, the rapist of the down-the-hall nanny while Trudy's in the Hamptons? Give me a break. (And--I can't help but be catty here. Was there anything more ridiculous looking than an about-to-pop Trudy in those super short, pink baby-doll pajamas? Eeek! The costume people had to be contributing to a comment on how absurd that scene--and Pete's ideas--were.)

But, in the midst of the tension, disquieting confrontations, and the fear of strange men in hallways, Don is moving forward. He tells Faye his secret. "I'm tired of running. . . I'm damn tired of all of it." And she's understanding, offering her comfort for the night in what appeared to be a non-sexual way. This is growth for Don. I worry, though. At the end, she tells him "We'll figure out what to do." Don has never been a part of such a 'we' before. Does this frighten him? Why else the look at Megan, applying her lipstick, as the song begins and the episode ends?

Turns out Lane has a secret too. It came upon us so suddenly (last we knew, he'd had a night with a prostitute at Don's place and that was it as far as him acting on the dissolution of his marriage; now he's in love? really?) I'm not sure if I can believe it's genuine--or if he just wants it to be genuine--or if he's just trying to shock his prick of a father. He's clearly throwing her and their intimacy in the old man's face. He and his father clearly have a nasty history. Lane has always seemed so old and stodgy compared to most of the men at the firm. To see him treated like a little boy by an abusive father was shocking. But, is Lane also maturing some? Moving enough into the American 1960s to have a real inter-racial relationship? Or is he trying too hard to "get rid of" his old family and his dictatorial, aristocrat of a father's hold on him? Or might it be both? I don't know at this point. I do know, though, that him referring to her as his "chocolate bunny" was the grossest line of the evening.

And, finally, Joan. Oh, my goodness, how I felt for her. We've seen how she wants so badly to have a baby that she goes off the pill as her husband's getting ready to deploy to war. We've heard her ask her doctor if the fact that she's already had two abortions would hurt her chances to conceive. Now this. To find out that she has conceived--in a dark alley with a married man who's not her husband. The fact that he likely is her true love just makes it worse, I expect. Roger "gallantly" assures her that he'll 'take care of it' (i.e. "get rid of it"). He does express regret and listen to her, even suggest that she could keep it and pretend it's Greg's. He might come home and not "do the math." But, the baby would never be his. She seems, of course, to be handling this maturely. She's all business-like, stating unequivocally that of course, they will avoid this "scandal." But, does she go through with it? I have my doubts. The young mother and daughter in the abortionist's office had to be there for a reason. The woman tells Joan that she had her daughter when she was fifteen and didn't regret it. She now cries over the daughter's abortion. When Joan, always comoposed, responds to the woman's question about her daughter's age, Joan says, "Fifteen." Has she realized that if this woman could have a child at fifteen and not regret it, that she could do it in her thirties? There was just a quick shot of Joan on the bus coming home. She had a bit of a smile on her face. The music playing was serene. I think she'd come to a decision she was content with. I'd be surprised if she actually ended this pregnancy. But, we'll see. She's the consummate manager, calling to order the meeting of the partners in which everyone of them--except Bert, who's superfluous--was lying about something. Does she have a secret too?

"More Beautiful Than Answers"

Mad Men, Season Four, Episode Nine, "The Beautiful Girls"

During a commercial break, the AMC tagline jumped out at me: "Stories Matter Here." I've seen this hundreds of times before, but for some reason, it set my mind wandering tonight and I landed on a line from Mary Oliver's poem "Snake"--"so many stories/more beautiful than answers." "The Beautiful Girls" didn't make for a beautiful story, but it certainly did leave me with more questions than answers, the strangest one having to be, 'So a mugging is now an aphrodisiac for Joan? WTF?'

The episode seemed largely to be about how to sell--how to frame something people don't really want in such a way that they will be compelled to buy it. The literal business example involves Filmore Auto Parts wanting to persuade middle-class, white-collar men that they want to be like their mechanics and shop for auto parts too. Or, at least the Filmore brothers want the middle-class men's business; they're ambivalent--or divided--about actually wanting non-macho mechanics attracted to their store. Don, Ken, and Faye have to sell them on the idea. Since neither Don nor Ken work with their hands, the Filmores seem to put them in the same category as Faye--they might as well be women. It's Faye who comes up with the good line: "Filmore Auto Parts--for the mechanic in every man." Sale a success.

Not so much for the other attempted sales of the evening--the more complicated political and personal attempts to persuade: 1) Abe tries to sell Peggy on the idea that corporations, the advertising industry, and SCDP in particular, are unethical entities involved in the repression of people's freedoms--case in point, she's working on a campaign for Filmore Auto Parts, which refuses to hire "Negroes" in the South; 2) Peggy tries to sell Abe on the idea that "In advertising, we don't really judge people." Instead, ad agencies try to "help" their clients out of these situations; after all, this restrictive hiring is bad for their business; 3) Peggy further tries to sell Abe on the idea that white women like her are actually as discriminated against as "Negroes"; 4) Roger tries, in the most pathetic attempt on view tonight, to sell Joan on the idea of getting back together with him--or at least having dinner with him: "I'm going to go to my favorite restaurant and order a glass of cyanide...or you could come with me." Roger can be so urbane and witty, yet this snivelling come-on is the idea sales pitch that wins, revealing how low Joan is about Dr. Greg getting called up to Vietnam; 5) In the saddest of all the attempted sales exchanges, Sally repeatedly tries to persuade Don to let her come live with him and Don works to sell her on the idea of going "home"; 6) Finally, the closing shot, framing Joan, Peggy, and Faye in the elevator door is so intentionally and artistically done--the storytellers are trying to sell us on something about these "beautiful girls." What is it?

The exchanges between Peggy and Abe were great at concisely representing so much about the racial and gendered politics of the period. She feels the pain of her struggles to make it in a man's world--and with last week's episode fresh in mind, it's impossible to blame her for her resentments--but they lead her to a lack of understanding/empathy for the struggles of Black people fighting for their rights. Abe is right that "they're not shooting women to keep them from voting," but his condescension is too much. "Alright, Peggy, we'll have a civil rights march for women." Yep, sweetie, in a year that's what you'll be seeing. She puts defensive walls around herself and the job she's worked so hard to get and keep when he tries to sell her on the unethical nature of what her company is doing in working for the Filmores. When Peggy attempts to defend what they do, Abe is right that "civil rights is not a situation to be fixed by some PR campaign." While the paper he's written for her is hyperbolic in its title--"Nuremburg on Madison Avenue"--the implication that ad people are only following orders probably hits too close to home. Peggy does spend much of her time doing just that. While she's proud to have made it as far as she has, she's there following Don's orders, creating ad campaigns that get Don's stamp of approval--or are tossed out. When she finally does raise the question of why they're doing business with a company like Filmore Auto Parts that won't hire Negroes, Don retorts, "Our job is to make men like Filmore Auto Parts, not make Filmore Auto Parts like Negroes." And so that's what she participates in.

While the political focus in the business part of the episode highlighted the complications in everyone's positions, the personal focus in the Sally and Don scenes was just sad. I know that this is 1965; Don's place is in the world of business, at his office; Betty's place is in her home, caring for her children. So, it's not surprising that Don should be so upset at Sally transgressing that boundary and showing up at his workplace. Since it's 1965, it was also unheard of for a divorced father to take custody of his child/ren. And, in 1965, most people still held to the creed of not talking about unpleasantries and not airing dirty laundry. Even so....isn't anyone ever going to ask this child why she so hates it at her house? Is it only that Betty's cold, harsh, and doesn't understand her? (Not that those are small problems). Or is something more going on in that house to hurt her? It was nice to see her and Don on the couch together waiting for the pizza. I love that he took a morning off to take her to the zoo. They looked so cute, walking down the hall of his office, almost smirking, as he came in to work late that day. It was heart-wrenching, though, to hear her attempts to persuade him to let her live with him: "I'll be good!" I'll take care of my brothers. Her comic attempt to be the responsible breakfast maker with the rum bottle that looks like Mrs. Butterworth's. "Is it bad?" "Not really." All Don can do in response is to insist on the sales pitch that she has to go home. He has no good reasons to back up his argument. So, resentment radiating out of every pore, she's deposited with Betty, who's also not too happy, though she pretends to be concerned.

All through the episode, I kept wondering who "the beautiful girls" were supposed to be. The closing shot answered that--or so it seemed: Peggy's make-up-less, unglamorous lesbian friend, Joyce, gets on an elevator on the right; Joan, Faye, and Peggy get on one on the other side. They're all pretty, made up, dressed-up in their own ways. Each represents a woman who's struggled to make it in a man's world, though are in different places: Joan has always used her sex-appeal to push herself ahead of the flock, though she's at least as smart as the other two; Faye has made, with no regrets, the choice to be a career woman and not have children. "I don't view it as a failure," she tells Don. She couldn't be more different than Betty in this regard. Between Joan and Faye stands Peggy. Peggy, who has worked to use her brains and talent to get herself where she is, foregoing Joan's sexual option, but, unlike Faye, she isn't so certain about giving up on the husband and children route. They're three similar, yet different, women. Framing them in the final picture of an episode entitled "Beautiful Girls" seems to define them--the struggling-with-their roles-white-women of the 1960s--as the beautiful ones. But, I have to wonder about what the frame leaves out. There are all those Black women who are marginalized in Peggy's story of getting ahead. Carla is mentioned several times tonight, but never seen. She was supposed to pick Sally up; she taught Sally to make French toast. She's invisible, however. Joyce is consigned to an elevator on the other side--not a beautiful girl. Finally, and I know the arguments over calling grown women "girls" hadn't really started yet, but...What about the only person on the show who really is a girl--Sally? What's going to happen to that beautiful girl?

So, what is Weiner trying to say with the title and the closing frame of the three women in the elevator? Who gets to decide who's deemed beautiful? What does it mean that Joan, Peggy, and Faye are beautiful when they're trying to struggle to make it as professionals? What about those left out of the picture? This episode doesn't hand out easy answers, just "girls"/more "beautiful" than answers.