So I was originally planning on starting with Seinfeld, but then I got hosed in a deal wherein I watch Mad Men in exchange for one of my good friends (you know who you are, sunshine!) watching Star Wars before The Force Awakens comes out in December.
For the record: I'm not soft enough that one peer can entice me into that sort of commitment. (Just check out my relationship history.) But there was another mutual friend who encouraged me as well, and I broke at his behest.
Oh well.
I'd heard Mad Men was a great series—a couple of years ago it, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones seemed to be all the rage—but I didn't know anything else aside from it being generally about an advertising guy named Don Draper, set in mid-20th century New York.
Episode refreshers:
1-01: Don is trying to figure out how to sell cigarettes. He comes up with a solution in the nick(otine) of time. We learn that the advertising business is cutthroat. We're introduced to his new secretary Peggy. Don gets mad at a department store owner who's a woman and is less-than-impressed by him. Pete Campbell is getting married.
1-02: Don is secretive. We discover his wife, Betty, is having nervous issues, perhaps triggered by the thought of being a divorced mother with kids. Don tries to figure out a way to sell a deodorant aerosol.
First off, that opening I feel could have come out of a Bond TV series, if such a thing existed. Or a mystery series, something involving Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. So mysterious.
The actor for Betty (Don's wife) is named January Jones. One of the Bond girls in The World is Not Enough: Christmas Jones. Coincidence? As a detective, you can't believe in coincidences. But I'm not a detective, so of course.
The other general early impression I got is that this series isn't exactly addicting. It's interesting and things develop quickly, but so far, at least, the overarching stories don't seem that compelling. This isn't Veronica chasing down her best friend's murderer.
Moving on:
Don Draper is an interesting character but he also sucks
I always root for cute kids and Draper has cute kids and he still spends nights in the city doing the sex with his boo while his wife seems to think he needs to work late. Never trust a guy who is handsome and successful and charming and cutthroat with regard to his work and liberal with his social values. (Aside: I am the exact opposite in every way.)
I mean, he suggests to his lady friend that they get married. Fortunately, she doesn't even entertain the possibility, because in E2 we learn that Betty is petrified of becoming a divorced mother (or, at least, that sort of thought triggers her nervous problems).
(Potential future employers: The work comment was a joke.)
He is very smart, it seems—or, at least, superb at riffing. (It didn't even occur to me that the deodorant should be marketed to women since they're the ones doing the shopping.) But he also sucks.
I did love the line about marketing people inventing this idea of love as someone who takes over your thoughts and feelings 24/7. I don't think it's right (consider peeps like Lord Byron or those Renaissance or Romantic romantics who came earlier) but I want to believe there's some truth to that and that's the reason I'm wedded to emotional apathy.
I also feel like Don is gonna become a better dude as the series progresses. He did defend Betty from Pete the first time, after all, and does seem reasonable—open, for example, to his wife seeing a psychiatrist, and giving a legit reason (when irritated) for why he trashed the "death wish" stuff that woman was recommending he use to sell the cigarettes.
Betty Rubble
So Betty lets her kids climb around in the car while she's driving in her neighborhood, huh? Does she realize that if she stops suddenly, her kids will be flung forward at ~20-25 mph? It's a wonder they weren't badly hurt when she drove off the road.
Also, hands shaking is a weaksauce reason. She lost focus on driving. Guess driver's ed back in the day didn't hammer into you that cars are 2k lb weapons. She should stay focused on her kids.
Look at how easily America is enthralled by the lone kid of a minority, (apparently) stereotype-breaking couple in a non-marquee market.
Pull it together, woman. Seeing a shrink is a good first step. I'm rooting for you since you're not a terrible person as far as I know.
Peggy
First off: Why is she a thing. She hasn't done anything.
She seems impressionable, but also nice and conservative. Then she gets a prescription for contraceptive pills, gets seduced really easily by Pete Campbell (who is a bad human being as well), then rejects the dude in E2. Peggy Carter she ain't.
I'm not as frustrated by her values as by her lack of conviction—it took me three years to become this liberal in college, and it only took her like two weeks to go from conservative to liberal to utterly confused and possibly in love with a newlywed man.
Is she just the mahayana secretary for the social values to come through?
At any rate, I suspect her terrible role model had a big part to play...
Joan
The more I think about it, the more I admire Joan. I mean, I think she has terrible moral values (like pretty much all of you), but the way in which she uses her sex appeal and confidence to manipulate men (and women!) into doing things for her while remaining independent is pretty baller.
In 9th grade English I remember one day we analyzed the first few minutes of The Empire Strikes Back. One moment I remember—Leia comes rushing after Han as Echo Base is under attack to shout at him. The teacher asked who was being aggressive—most people thought it was Leia, but based on body language, it was Han, who used his height to tower over her as much as possible. (The exact sequence I'm thinking of didn't make it into this video, but you can see similar.)
In the same way, Joan doesn't have to really speak to be aggressive—she plays things cleverly to get the results she wants, even in an aggressively misogynistic environment.
She also sucks, though, and is not what Peggy needs in her life. (I only care about Peggy insofar as she doesn't seem like an awful person.)
New York
There's one scene showing Draper walking into the office. Sidewalk I think is supposed to seem busy, but does it ever seem positively tame. That's what half a century will do.
For the record: I'm not soft enough that one peer can entice me into that sort of commitment. (Just check out my relationship history.) But there was another mutual friend who encouraged me as well, and I broke at his behest.
Oh well.
I'd heard Mad Men was a great series—a couple of years ago it, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones seemed to be all the rage—but I didn't know anything else aside from it being generally about an advertising guy named Don Draper, set in mid-20th century New York.
Episode refreshers:
1-01: Don is trying to figure out how to sell cigarettes. He comes up with a solution in the nick(otine) of time. We learn that the advertising business is cutthroat. We're introduced to his new secretary Peggy. Don gets mad at a department store owner who's a woman and is less-than-impressed by him. Pete Campbell is getting married.
1-02: Don is secretive. We discover his wife, Betty, is having nervous issues, perhaps triggered by the thought of being a divorced mother with kids. Don tries to figure out a way to sell a deodorant aerosol.
First off, that opening I feel could have come out of a Bond TV series, if such a thing existed. Or a mystery series, something involving Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. So mysterious.
The actor for Betty (Don's wife) is named January Jones. One of the Bond girls in The World is Not Enough: Christmas Jones. Coincidence? As a detective, you can't believe in coincidences. But I'm not a detective, so of course.
The other general early impression I got is that this series isn't exactly addicting. It's interesting and things develop quickly, but so far, at least, the overarching stories don't seem that compelling. This isn't Veronica chasing down her best friend's murderer.
Moving on:
Don Draper is an interesting character but he also sucks
I always root for cute kids and Draper has cute kids and he still spends nights in the city doing the sex with his boo while his wife seems to think he needs to work late. Never trust a guy who is handsome and successful and charming and cutthroat with regard to his work and liberal with his social values. (Aside: I am the exact opposite in every way.)
I mean, he suggests to his lady friend that they get married. Fortunately, she doesn't even entertain the possibility, because in E2 we learn that Betty is petrified of becoming a divorced mother (or, at least, that sort of thought triggers her nervous problems).
(Potential future employers: The work comment was a joke.)
He is very smart, it seems—or, at least, superb at riffing. (It didn't even occur to me that the deodorant should be marketed to women since they're the ones doing the shopping.) But he also sucks.
I did love the line about marketing people inventing this idea of love as someone who takes over your thoughts and feelings 24/7. I don't think it's right (consider peeps like Lord Byron or those Renaissance or Romantic romantics who came earlier) but I want to believe there's some truth to that and that's the reason I'm wedded to emotional apathy.
I also feel like Don is gonna become a better dude as the series progresses. He did defend Betty from Pete the first time, after all, and does seem reasonable—open, for example, to his wife seeing a psychiatrist, and giving a legit reason (when irritated) for why he trashed the "death wish" stuff that woman was recommending he use to sell the cigarettes.
Betty Rubble
So Betty lets her kids climb around in the car while she's driving in her neighborhood, huh? Does she realize that if she stops suddenly, her kids will be flung forward at ~20-25 mph? It's a wonder they weren't badly hurt when she drove off the road.
Also, hands shaking is a weaksauce reason. She lost focus on driving. Guess driver's ed back in the day didn't hammer into you that cars are 2k lb weapons. She should stay focused on her kids.
Look at how easily America is enthralled by the lone kid of a minority, (apparently) stereotype-breaking couple in a non-marquee market.
Pull it together, woman. Seeing a shrink is a good first step. I'm rooting for you since you're not a terrible person as far as I know.
Peggy
First off: Why is she a thing. She hasn't done anything.
She seems impressionable, but also nice and conservative. Then she gets a prescription for contraceptive pills, gets seduced really easily by Pete Campbell (who is a bad human being as well), then rejects the dude in E2. Peggy Carter she ain't.
I'm not as frustrated by her values as by her lack of conviction—it took me three years to become this liberal in college, and it only took her like two weeks to go from conservative to liberal to utterly confused and possibly in love with a newlywed man.
Is she just the mahayana secretary for the social values to come through?
At any rate, I suspect her terrible role model had a big part to play...
Joan
The more I think about it, the more I admire Joan. I mean, I think she has terrible moral values (like pretty much all of you), but the way in which she uses her sex appeal and confidence to manipulate men (and women!) into doing things for her while remaining independent is pretty baller.
In 9th grade English I remember one day we analyzed the first few minutes of The Empire Strikes Back. One moment I remember—Leia comes rushing after Han as Echo Base is under attack to shout at him. The teacher asked who was being aggressive—most people thought it was Leia, but based on body language, it was Han, who used his height to tower over her as much as possible. (The exact sequence I'm thinking of didn't make it into this video, but you can see similar.)
In the same way, Joan doesn't have to really speak to be aggressive—she plays things cleverly to get the results she wants, even in an aggressively misogynistic environment.
She also sucks, though, and is not what Peggy needs in her life. (I only care about Peggy insofar as she doesn't seem like an awful person.)
New York
There's one scene showing Draper walking into the office. Sidewalk I think is supposed to seem busy, but does it ever seem positively tame. That's what half a century will do.
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