SUSANNAH BRESLIN at The Reverse Cowgirl blog has a different take on the Mad Men article in the NYTimes magazine, and it's a doozy. In fact she thinks the author missed the whole point of the show:
In theory, the piece offers up a look behind the scenes at the TV story of ad men in the early '60s from one of the guys behind "The Sopranos." But writer Alex Witchel, whose husband Frank Rich wrote an equally vapid, keep-the-story-at-arm's-length-at-all-times piece on the adult film industry years ago, just doesn't get it. "Mad Men" is man porn--the pornography of manhood--and not in the pejorative sense. At its heart, "Mad Men" works not because it's about the culture of ad execs in the sixties; it works because it's a fantasy about the time before feminism, when men were men, period. "Mad Men" works for the same set of reasons that "The Sopranos" worked--by painting gender roles in black and white--and the result of transgressing into this bawdy, martini-ed, lying, cheating, dirty, loving life is pleasure.
The shortcomings of "Mad Men" are few and far between, but what it lacks it lacks because it isn't hard enough, likely because it's on AMC, not HBO. Either way, men will take their pleasures where they find them. Anything's better than listening to the endless stream of static coming from the mouths of 21st century women who can't decide if they're feminists or freaks.
I'm not sure I totally buy that. But it sure is an interesting theory. Anybody else wanna bite?
(And yeah, I misspelled that word in the title on purpose because I simply can't BEAR the thought of the Google searches and comment spam that would show up if I spelled it the right way.)
20 comments:
Absolutely. Mad Men is 100% Man Pron. A complete and total man-tasy.
When Don is at work, his wife is literally in the dark. She can call his secretary, and leave a message, but that's about it. What time he leaves work, if goes to the bar, or somewhere else, who he speaks to, or any other act up and until he walks through his front door is only known to him. In econo-speak, there is an information asymmetry that allows Don a certain freedom, a way to truly separate part of himself from his domestic life.
For men who still live, at least somewhat, in the mode of the "traditional" nuclear family, life in the early 21st is a far different affair. Where Don has time to sit, think, brood, engage, and feel, today's average henpecked jellyfish gets 8 - 10 calls on the cell during the day, followed by text message reminders of errands to run. Then there is the monitoring of shared email accounts, browser history, and IM message logs. Forget about taking a little money out of the bank for a nice lunch, or whipping out a credit card for a spur of the moment purchase, because yon spouse gets real time updates of any and all transactions. Twenty bucks out an ATM just isn't worth it when hubby knows there'll be an inquisition awaiting him when he pulls into the driveway. But that's not all.
If work is over at 4pm, the phone is ringing not a second later to make sure that the car is in motion, and if Mr. Dad ain't home within a five minute window of his expected ETA, there ain't no "traffic is really sumthin, hon" that's gonna save his ass. Why? Cuz online, Google enhanced GPS tracking, or the friendly OnStar rep can get the car's location in no time, and the easy to access traffic cameras in most cities will instantly dispel any bogus traffic story.
You see, today's husband, bedecked with leashes both technological and psychological, cannot help but look at a man like Don Draper, and wonder what his life would be like. It has nothing to do with a wish for some seedy affair, or an ancient urge to be in charge, or to reclaim masculine power and prestige as the head of the family. No. It has to do freedom. It has to do with being able to go for a walk in the woods, just because. It has to do with being able to sit in silence, with little or nothing on the mind for a good chunk of time. It has to do with the idea that a dude could just go about and do something, just because, without single a f*****g reason in the world explainable to anyone but himself, and without the need to have to justify said behaviour to another person.
It has to do with living without the need for a by your leave, for doing things just because they seemed like the thing to do.
Freedom.
Wow! I must not be married long enough to feel that suffocated by the institution and my wife. =D
Now, my multiple chores and careers, that's a whole other type of suffocation! Maybe that's why the wife doesn't worry. . ..
Yikes.
James O'Hearn,it is time to file those divorce papers, dude.
Your poor wife.
I don't think it is Man "Pron". I think it is set up for us to believe that it is the picture manly men, but every single cast member suffers for their actions, including Don.
I think the show is about Identity and an ad agency is the perfect setting because it tells us who we are supposed to be. But none of these people conform to those ads. They all appear to conform, but suffer psychological or physical breakdowns because of the stress of appearing to be what they are not.
Don Draper is the lead because he has created his entire identity, not just a portion of it. The other ad execs might have affairs, cheat and steal at work, but none of them have actually created who and what they are from scratch, like an ad campaign.
The most telling piece is from the season one finale, the Kodak Carousel. What a brilliant speech, performed perfectly. The perfect pictures that hide the flaws of living.
But, that's what I get out of "Mad Men" and can't wait for Season 2.
I think that's a load. It could be 'man porn' if the guys were shown to be happy and fulfilled living this 'ideal' life. But they are not.Most of the men on this show are unhappy, angry, pathetic, and not very bright in some cases. Also, I think the audience for this show is pretty 50/50 from what I've read on fan sites/blogs etc. While it's an interesting post she has written, I'm afraid she's the one that's mistaken.
I too can't wait for season 2!
I think Mad Men is in a grand entertainment tradition of giving us a character with a lifestyle that we envy, while simultaneously telling us that that there's something wrong with wanting to live like that character. It's like those Biblical epics where we get to enjoy the cool orgies thrown by the Pagans, even as we're told that paganism is bad.
Or it's like Seinfeld, where we really did like the characters for their wacky adventures and quirky friendship and responsibility-free lives, even as Larry David made sure they were always punished at the end of the episode.
I don't think it's a problem. Yes, Mad Men has a big nostalgia element. It can't help but have a big nostalgia element, because there's so much that seems cool about that world. And at the same time it's anti-nostalgia and telling us to look below the surface and see what's wrong with all this. That's very traditional, and it would make a lot less sense if the show tried to beat us over the head and make us hate visiting this world. If we did hate it, we'd never watch the show.
A lot of people have said that it romanticizes the era, but you know the more I watch that show the more I realize not much has changed - only the lies we tell ourselves.
Back then it was just easier to get away with it.
I definitely do not think that "porn" (or even pron ) is the right word, but there is no question that Mad Men is definitely about the beginning of the End of Patriarchy - and beyond that even - the end of the Old School WASP hegemony - and that is central to its genius and its note perfect commitment to an exquisite irony that I have only seen before in The Sopranos, from where I learned from the Witchel article Matthew Weiner worked before, which makes total sense, man And as such the choice of the setting and the time period for this show are just ideal; a grand intelligence and attention to detail that is in turn reflected in the design and art direction, not to mention the casting, but most of all the writing. I had assumed that this was self-evident for everyone. I think it is.
One of the things that "Feminism" had demanded (and does demand), in my view, was for more responsibility and authenticity not just the lives of women but men as well. And one can see the ALL the characters In Mad Men beginning to struggle with this. Its a struggle and an irony that is reflected in their work. Not only do we see them smoking and drinking all the time, but actually working on the advertising campaigns for Lucky Strike (I think) cigarettes and even Richard Nixon's first run at the Presidency. Alex Witchel quotes in her article the character of Roger Sterling hilariously after his heart attack: " All these years I thought it would be an ulcer. Did everything they told me. Drank the cream. Ate the butter. And I get hit by a coronary.".
One of the reasons that I object to the use of the word "porn" is that is suggests that the emotions that the Mad Men are experiencing aren't complex. Susannah Breslin may not think they are, but I do. Dump on James O'Hearn all you want, but I think he is at least partially right. Though I would hope he understands that most women (at least the ones I know) fantasize about a kind of "total freedom" as well, like all the characters in Mad Men. I think its a pretty universal emotion. Why is basic horniness and status anxiety not seen as complex? Seems pretty fucking complex to me.
Like Tony Soprano, all the men in Mad Men crave intimacy at the same time they run from it. They're totally divided and lost to themselves. Completely posturing an arrogance and masking an insecurity at the same time. I think they believe they mean it at the moment when they tell these women that's what they want, - like Draper in his pursuit of Rachel Menken - but then their feelings change, and more often than not - usually after they come (). And women understand this, I think. They often hate it, definitely find it frustrating (to say the least) and may refuse to accept it but they understand its existence. Its a world-weariness reflected in the character of Joan Holloway.
But one thing I wish the Witchel article had touched on but didn't was Don Draper's nihilism. Remember his lunch with Rachel Menken where he says that "he's living like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't", and that love is just an invention, a fairy tale, invented by guys like him in order to "sell nylons". And yet she falls for him anyway - so how complex is that? (So many women I know hate this instinct in themselves - that they are going to be the one to save the guy, when they discover themselves repeating this pattern over and over.) And that same nihilism is reflected in their work, and maybe even in the larger industry of television itself - which is in end about delivering an audience to advertisers - though as all you industry types know this very economic model in our time is under complete digital assault. (not to mention the economic model of HBO itself, which I totally prefer. I'll pay for total quality with no commercials any time. Totally ) But by nihilistic, I mean that if everyone in the world were to finally achieve the great indulgent middle class dream fantasy that the Mad Men are manufacturing the very ecology of the planet won't be able to sustain it. I have read that if China ever achieves the same kind of car ownership levels that we have in North America there won't be enough oil in the world, and yet that's what they're going for. As its what we're going for. But I totally understand. We all crave security and intimacy, and yet like Don Draper completely fear loneliness and ultimately death. And yet this craving and insecurity may be our ultimate collective undoing.
How great television can be when someone takes the chance to let it be as intelligent as possible. And how people respond. Mad Men is completely brilliant. It may yet top The Sopranos and The Wire.
Suffocation? Divorce?
Puh-leez
My measure as a man was taken long ago, given to the tailor, and returned to me as a pastel pink long sleeve shirt, to be worn at the office, but only on Wednesdays.
Like many other Canadians with limited credentials, not much talent to speak of, and a poor sense of economics that lead to a mountain of school related debt, I found myself teaching English in Japan. The funny thing is, the world depicted in Mad Men is no fantasy down in the Nihon. There it’s the stuff of everyday life.
Workaholic men who drink and party with call girls after work? Why, every day, Kohei. It's what salariman culture is all about. The vast majority of women stay at home as "defenders of the home," and raise the kids almost as if they were single parents. Then, when the kids have moved on, and the men retire from work, a surprisingly large number of housewives find they miss the freedom they had when their husbands were away. Divorce, and English conversation classes quickly follow. It’s a twisted sort system, but it does have an equilibrium of sorts, which is why this system has withstood the onslaught of first, second, and third wave feminism.
For WASP North America, that equilibrium was never found. Instead the pendulum has shifted from one extreme, that of the Mad Men era, to the other extreme, that of the modern era. The WASP North America of the Mad Men era is almost a mirror image of Japanese society of today. The key, and crucial, exception being that divorce was verboten in 1960’s North America. We see that in the show itself, in the way the other women look on Helen like she is some sort of leper. Sure they envy her seeming fearlessness and competence, but they fear it as well. The women’s movement that later followed did away with this timid mindset. Women like Helen went from being a socially awkward minority, to being representative of a loud spoken and proud majority.
Of course women yearn for the same things that benighted throwbacks like myself yearn for. The difference is that for the modern, urban, North American man, the actions of a man like Don Draper, the good and the bad, are beyond the realm of possibility. That’s why we love watching him go about his manly affairs. Sure he makes a right cock up out of half the stuff thrown his way, but we wannabes know without a doubt that if we were Don, we’d live it up and avoid the nonsense. If we was Don, we’d do it right, jefe, no doubt. But the truth is that that sort of life is long past for the modern, urban, North American man. But not for women.
Sure men still leave their wives today, marry someone younger, or decide they’ve found true love in the eyes of their daughter-in-law. But it’s just not socially acceptable anymore. The wink-wink, nudge-nudge is gone. It’s been replaced with cheery terms like alimony, deadbeat Dad, and “I think we’ve grown apart, honey.” Men acting in the irresponsible manner they have in the past been accustomed to acting with impunity are today treated quite punitively, for the same behaviour. For women, the opposite is true. In Jane Green’s article “Marrying Mr. Wrong,” about her upcoming boom “The Beach House,” marrying a man, having four kids with him, and having him accommodate your wants and desires for decades is as nothing next to the quest for a soulmate, for fulfillment, for the breath taking passion that is her undeniable right, because she deserves it. As the commentary on her Times article shows, response to Green’s point of view break down into women who totally understand, and sexist pigs who want to subjugate women and stand in the way of a woman’s destiny.
Mad Men is Sex in the City for dudes. The difference being that the former represents a world long gone, and the latter is the world that is. Sex in the City tapped into the zeitgeist, while Mad Men taps into the bitter nostalgia of a lost age, an era unknown to the modern, urban, North American man.
It’s man pron, not because it is a soulless, superficial fantasy, but because us dudes can take it with us into our rooms, and for a short time, indulge in a consequence free fantasy that we love all the more because we know it’s not real and never will be.
But deep in our dark hearts, we wish it was.
Well. Nothing I like better than sitting in Council meetings all day hoping to scrabble out an industry for Canadian creatives, and then coming home to a big juicy argument.
I read over this thread and I'm reminded of a few separate, disparate, but ultimately connected thoughts.
When I was in high school, I had a politics teacher who had a pretty novel way of teaching a particular political system. He taught fascism like it was the greatest form of government in the world. And then when he had you at the point where you were thinking, "Fascism! Damn!" Only then did he hit you with, "okay, now here's all the things that need to happen to make that society work."
And by the time you got through the long list of downsides, you realized, "oh. yeah."
I also remember the best thing anyone ever told me about drama. Might have been in a Mamet essay book, or it might have been my University writing prof. I don't remember. But the basic point was this:
Melodrama isn't drama. In Melodrama, you are told what to feel. It is safe. It does not promote thought. It is reassuring, or it is heartbreaking, but it does not challenge you. It's meant to be smug.
Drama, on the other hand, asks uneasy questions. If it posits answers, they're not easy answers and you're not at all sure that they're the right way to go. Drama challenges preconceptions; it makes you think about what you believe. It makes you defend it. Drama causes synthesis. You bring something to the table. It is not anasthetic; it is catalyzing.
When I watched the Pilot of Mad Men I had a very specific reaction. A reaction that had me shaking my head from the beginning. I remember watching the first half thinking, "wow, times have so changed." And by the end I was thinking, "time hasn't changed very much at all."
And that there is its brilliance. But part of that brilliance is leaving the interpretation open. You have to allow for the men who'll watch Mad Men for nostalgia porn, because you're only going to get the people engaging with the issues underneath in unexpected ways if you don't make it it easy. IN other words -- if you don't turn it into a melodrama.
I think Jaime Weinman's very wise in his summation of where Mad Men fits in the storytelling canon.
I also wish that in Canada, creatives were given the leeway to make more drama. And less melodrama. There's entirely too much of the latter being made here.
So while others here may argue semantics over the use of the word, "porn," I appreciate Breslin's POV on this not because I necessarily 100 percent agree -- but because the text is so rich that you can credibly make the argument.
Watching "Mad Men" and not noticing the inherent loneliness and pain of the characters is like watching "Sopranos" and thinking Tony has a really great life.
It's certainly possible, and maybe even defensible, but it requires a studious ability to ignore a pile of evidence that things are not as great as they seem.
No. It requires looking at the show differently than you do.
I know PLENTY of people -- not all of them men, who thought that Tony Soprano DID have a great life - and that the tragedy was that he didn't SEE that.
In phrasing, in tone, you seem to be saying that your interpretation is the only valid one -- the one that doesn't ignore the evidence.
Respectfully, that makes for a good argument -- that's all.
/sarcasm
I thought that Tony Soprano was gay. I guess I'm right too since I ignored most of the show's narrative.
:P
Sopranos made it very clear through each episode that Tony has a miserable life, and that there is tons of irony in the fact that he doesn't want to realize it.
The Sopranos is NOT about a pimped out mobster who has a great life, no matter how many people you know thought that's what it was about.
No, see, Carlo, the problem is that most people who decide what TV gets made in Canada think like you do -- they want it spelled out and they want to be right.
Good storytelling makes the argument and lets you decide.
The sad thing about the internet is not that it fullfilled its promise to make many more opinions shine.
It's that it enabled more people to say, "my answer is the only answer."
You want sophistication in approach, Weinman had it about ten posts ago. Everyone saying "no, jerk, it's like this..."
You ALL miss the point.
You jab left, and then you give them the rope-a-dope, man...anything else, don't get in the ring! A ding. Ding.
I never said I want everything spelled out, but to say Sopranos is about a pimped out mobster with an awesome playboy lifestyle and no problems is silly. If people come to that conclusion of the show, then I'm not sure WHAT they were watching.
But hey, if they're right 'in their own way' because 'Sopranos was open ended', then I guess they're right about The Matrix being a Zoroastrian tale about Angels vs Demons, and Brokeback Mountain was about two guys merely pretending to be gay.
I know what you're trying to say, that people can come to their own conclusions when it comes to deep shows and movies, but there is hardly anything abstract about Sopranos, as well as Mad Men. What makes them interesting is that they take a world we think we know and then they show us the reality of it all.
To ignore the message in Sopranos and Mad Men is to say you're not watching the show in its entirety. Sure, you can say you saw the show as a story about "a mobster with a great playboy-esque lifestyle", but one can come up with such conclusions by watching ANY show or movie while not paying attention.
My cousin may watch an episode of LOST and think the show is about black Nigerian men fighting smoke pillars in a jungle located in the depths of hell, but that is not what the show is about. I'm not sure how many episodes one must watch while having guests over to come to the conclusion that Sopranos is about a pimped out mobster with an enjoyably awesome gangsta life.
But I guess we can agree to disagree on calling these viewers "right" or "wrong" in their final assessment of a show. I consider them as watching the show for half of what it is worth while missing out on the underlying theme, while you consider them a type of viewer who sees things differently due to how complex a show/movie may be. Understandable.
(and sorry for writing so much) :P
Also, you say that "Good storytelling makes the argument and lets you decide."
I agree, but Sopranos never makes an argument about whether Tony's life is good or not. It shows the life of a mobster and mixes it in with the dramatic life of powerful people, and shows us the truth of what the life a mobster would actually be like behind the curtains of "cool".
You cannot say he had a great life, because he didn't, unless you personally think his life was actually pretty good. You know, with the marital problems, family problems, psychological problems, failed romances, depression, getting shot, and so forth.
If you think THAT is a good life, then I totally agree - the Sopranos made you decide whether you think Tony's life was good or shit.
But I don't think it's right to say the writers simply "suggested" the darkness of Tony's life. It was definately a dark life, and whether your friend thought such a dark life would be cool to live is up to them.
I'm willing to read pretty much any argument, but when it ends like this ...
"Anything's better than listening to the endless stream of static coming from the mouths of 21st century women who can't decide if they're feminists or freaks."
... it loses any semblance of reason, fairness or, hell, thought.
The things people get away with on blogs, eh?
Actually, Susannah Breslin also gets away with writing stuff like that in Newsweek, Details, Variety, Radar, Salon, Harpers, Nerve, The New York Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner Sunday Magazine, L.A. Weekly, Playboy, The Vancouver Sun, Wired News, CNN and Fox News.
She frequently espouses a critical feminist point of view. And if you follow the Gawker crowd over the last little while - she's got a case, at least in that subculture.
And she's entertaining as hell.
I was just criticizing James's characterization of the man living in the modern nuclear household.
But then again, I've only been married for almost exactly a year and have no children, so what do I know? =b
I saw all this in good jest (and also to highlight that we all have different perspectives that contribute to our own varied interpretations).
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