If all you had to do to get a male New Yorker to commit was ask him to be your boyfriend, NPR wouldn’t have just run a story about the ever increasing number of never-married females populating the five boroughs. Which is to say, I don’t buy Girls’ transformation of Adam from a never-returns-a-text canoe builder to the fantasy boyfriend who professes his loves and wants to cohabitate after three weeks. I dated the canoe builders when I was younger (in my case, it was a potato farmer), and they didn’t magically become commitment enthusiasts after spending a few weeks having sex and listening to my gender studies theories. They transformed into ex-boyfriends.
Adam Driver demonstrates great comedic timing and a unique ability to use his body to delineate character, and I’m glad Dunham is giving him material beyond amateur porn monologues. But where did the douchey, shirtless Adam go? When did he grow a vagina? Why so much plaid? Even though I appreciate the climactic Bushwick scene in which Adam slams Hannah for her self-absorption (after she slams her own nose into the pavement), I don’t believe the show earns their final brawl. Hannah obviously needs to end the season pushing away a man so Dunham can highlight Hannah’s inability to view individuals as more than creative fodder, but she elides the arc of the Hannah/Adam relationship to arrive at this conclusion. So I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it any more than I buy the surprise wedding between Jessa and that guy from Bridesmaids. Continue reading “The Taming of the Douche”
The Internet’s collective consciousness expressed grave concern when Peggy Olson stepped onto the elevator of Sterling Cooper Draper Price for the last time. Would this descent also represent her exit from Mad Men? To which I replied, “no, Internet, no.” This concern was not unfounded because the show has been known to discard or greatly diminish the screen time of seemingly essential characters (e.g., Sal, Paul, even Betty). Nevertheless, I doubted that Peggy would vanish or pop up as a Hari Krishna because she is central to the show’s understanding of mid-century American culture. While Don embodies the American desire for reinvention and illusion, Peggy represents the hyper-ambitious spirit and transitional energy of the late sixties far more than any other character—particularly more than the woman who replaced her for much of this season, Megan.
The Internet also seems fairly certain that the “lady’s cigarette” Peggy is testing will become Virginia Slims with the infamous tagline “You’ve come a long way, baby.” Due to Matthew Weiner’s scrupulous attention to period detail, I doubt the show will actually have Peggy create this campaign because, in real life, it was written by a man. This shouldn’t be surprising, for what workingwoman would have considered 1968 a watershed moment in women’s liberation? You were still fired if you got pregnant and couldn’t charge a husband with rape in most states. You could wear Go-go boots though. Continue reading “Lights Out”
When most sitcoms depict women fighting, it goes a little something like this: cue the laugh track as the girls grab each other’s hair and spin around in circles before realizing they are girls and, thus, must always get along and will subsequently be shaving each other’s legs by the end of the episode. There will have been no hints of anger before this episode, and there will be no repercussions. Girls do not fight this way. Men fight this way, absent the hair pulling. In an, albeit clichéd, gender analysis of fighting, I would argue that when girls get angry, they tend to procrastinate. We seethe, turn passive aggressive, talk behind our friend’s back, and then return to seething for approximately six months until some minor issue breaks open the dam of crazy. There are obviously exceptions to this rule (e.g., drunk fights or fights with strangers in grocery stores), but most women are socialized to be nice, compromising, and agreeable. Even though we are encouraged to cry, we are not encouraged to become angry or confrontational even when the offending party deserves it. I don’t believe women are biologically programmed to act this way. We are sentient beings who become angry just like our male counterparts; however, we are forced to express it with a smile, so when the crazy dam does burst, it does so with a frantic, gesticulating, screaming flood. It’s at this point when we begin throwing toothbrushes and screaming about pubescent masturbation practices because of a poorly written book about a twenty-three-year-old’s dead boyfriend. Thank you, Lena Dunham. Thank you for writing a girl fight without a single strand of pulled hair and an abundance of seething. Continue reading “Girl Fight!”
In a season obsessed with the emergence of youth and the resignation of the old guard, it is fitting that the two most climactic scenes in this pivotal episode involve the physical embodiments of life and death. “Commissions and Fees” suggests that the price of entering the brave new world of the late sixties must be paid in blood. Lane’s suicide may be bloodless, but his puffy, ashen face evokes blood by its conspicuous absence. Blood comes up again after Don’s speech about the insatiable nature of desire with Roger remarking that Don should wipe the blood off his chin. However, actual blood only enters the frame with a brief red flash on a young girl’s underpants. Sally has been playing at female adulthood throughout this season: talking back to her mother, quasi-flirting with Glen, wearing makeup and Go-go boots, and acting as though she and Megan are the same age. Nevertheless, like many tween girls who long for the trappings of adulthood but are horribly frightened and confused by the often crude realities of womanhood, she runs back into her mother’s arms the moment her pubescent female body makes itself known.
Sally is standing in front of the Museum of Natural History’s diorama of a Pleistocene couple, talking with Glen about the couple’s offspring when she experiences the unique pain of menstrual cramping. After a very expensive cab ride, she returns to her mother’s bed and is spooned like a child as her mother tells her that this pain, blood, and sadness simply indicate that everything is working properly. Sally, like the Pleistocene woman, can now have a baby. Betty is, of course, correct, and it’s a much better response than the standard bromides about becoming a new woman, but what does it say about femininity when properly functioning adulthood equals pain? Continue reading “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon”
This has been Megan Draper‘s season. While Jessica Paré isa compelling actress who manages to perfectly embody the youthful sexiness of the late sixties, the focus on the newest Mrs. Draper has resulted in the marginalization of Joan and Peggy. These two female characters have always held a unique position in Mad Men’s universe because they are two of the only women under fifty Don has never attempted to bed. Nevertheless, he still weighs control over these women, fashioning himself a benevolent dictator who aids them but for the price of their undying, unquestioning devotion.
Anyone who has watched more than two episodes of Mad Men will recognize that the central account under discussion always serves as a metonym for the episode’s larger concerns. This week it was Jaguar—“the mistress of cars”—which serves as a stand-in not only for Joan, Peggy, and Megan but also for all mid-century women whose worth was still tied to the shape of their fenders. This commodification is emphasized in the primary position money holds in Joan and Peggy’s narratives. The Joan storyline serves as the most obvious example of female commodification: her body is literally priced and sold so the firm can land the auto account they need to establish themselves as an authentic agency. It is easy to read Joan’s prostitution as the ultimate example of her inability to escape the social connotations of her voluptuous body. However, she ends the episode not as someone’s wife, girlfriend, or mistress but as a partner in the firm she has helped make a success.
In last week’s episode, Joan and Don finally shared a scene. What was most notable (beyond the fact that 99% of the world’s sexiness could be harnessed in one shot of two people talking) was the elegiac tone of their conversation. Listening to sad music, lamenting their past mistakes, and making references to dated icons, Don and Joan personified the gendered nature of the sixties promise of renewal. Don is capable of starting over with Megan and inhabiting a late sixties lifestyle, but as Joan stated, what is she supposed to move toward? Another man who will either leave or abuse her, another married man looking for a busty diversion? Don has a choice that Joan doesn’t because even though they are opposite-sexed versions of one another, Joan drew the shorter straw when she came out of the womb with a vagina. Her sexuality doesn’t offer her true power in the sixties—that is until she chooses to commodify it in a way that actually does give her power: a 5% voting partnership in SCDP to be exact.
When we see the repeated scene of Don coming to Joan’s rescue, it is tempting to believe that she wouldn’t have gone through with this “dirty business” if he had arrived earlier. But where would that have left Joan? She would have been an underpaid office manager with a young child and no chance of a promotion. Don’s true noble gesture was not this moment but the earlier scene when he left Pete’s office and refused to discuss the price of Joan’s ass with his co-workers. When he visits Joan, he is, like the rest of the smarmy lot, telling her what do with her body. He may have the best of intentions, or he may simply want to win the Jaguar account on his own merits. The larger point is that Don’s opinions no longer matter. Joan makes her own choice, and the nasty truth is that it’s probably the best choice she could have made under the circumstances. Even as you see her shiver as she disrobes for the swinish Jaguar executive, she still manages to express her mental power over him, reminding him that sultans and Helen of Troy do not belong in the same story. She’ll let him use her body, but he’s getting one hour; she’s getting a lifetime of security.
This is not to argue that Joan is now some fully empowered feminist icon. She is obviously fulfilling the cliché of the woman who sleeps her way to the top, but she still manages to make the men at the office look like the true whores who will sell their souls for a lucrative account. What clearly upset her more than the creepy touch of the Jaguar John was the thought that men she had worked with for over a decade were sitting in an office fifteen feet from her discussing her body’s market value. This is the ultimate betrayal because it underscores the illusory nature of the power she had seemingly amassed and the depth of the gender divide she could never truly traverse. The previous episode’s elegy may have been a lament for the earlier years when certain lines would never be crossed or an earlier time when Joan still believed her beauty would secure her a future with a nice, attractive doctor. But we are now in the late sixties, and that time has past. Consequently, Joanie has decided to screw them all.
Peggy’s narrative also centers on Don’s naive belief that women (or at least his women) are beyond the lure of material interests. In the few scenes featuring Peggy this season, she has either been expressing concern that she is becoming a man or allocating more creative ground to Ginsberg. One of the only exceptions is when she fleeces Roger for all the money in his wallet when he asks her to work after hours on a project for which she will receive no credit. Her seeming indifference to Ginsberg’s rise or Megan’s brief success confused me because it seemed so at odds with Peggy’s ambitious character, but this episode made it clear that she had been planning her exit from SCDP long before Freddy showed her a number. She finally realized she would never be fully appreciated if she were always thought of as “Don’s girl.” When Don throws money in her face after she saves an account, this is simply the final insult.
Long-time Mad Men devotees will find the final tender moment between Don and Peggy so heartbreaking because of the simple gesture with their hands. In the pilot, Peggy placed her hand over Don’s to signify that she was sexually available, believing this was her only avenue toward advancement. Don rejected her because he obviously saw something of himself in this intelligent, ambitious young woman. This gesture was repeated in one of the series’ finest episodes—“The Suitcase”—when Don placed his hand on Peggy’s after she stayed up all night with him because he was too frightened to hear the inevitable confirmation of Anna’s death. It was a sign of solidarity, friendship, and respect, so when we see the gesture repeated once more with Don desperately trying to hold onto her, it is both profoundly sad and profoundly fitting.
Although I certainly hope this is not the last we will see of Peggy, I do think that having her discard her identity as “Don’s girl” with this gesture signifies the shifting arc of their relationship. Don may claim that everything Peggy has accomplished stems from his magnanimity, but he knows this is untrue. He gave her a break, and her talent and tenacity catapulted her out of her gendered box. When Peggy metaphorically throws the money back in Don’s face, saying, “there isn’t a number,” she is finally revealing herself to be one of the few women beyond Don’s control.
Even though this is one of the few episodes this season that does not prominently feature Megan, she is still central to the theme of women and ownership. One would think that of all the women Don hopes to restrain, Megan would be the most difficult. She is the rebellious emblem of the sixties who watches Avant-garde theater and sings provocative French pop songs at his birthday. She is practically in a Godard film every moment she is on screen. Nevertheless, Megan ends this episode in the gendered box Joan and Peggy have both discarded. Megan’s decision to audition for a role that would keep her away from Don for months initially suggests she is beyond his control; however, she later tells Don that if she had to choose between her career and him, she would always choose him. One may debate whether this might be true of any woman married to someone who looks like Jon Hamm, but it nonetheless suggests that for all her sexual liberation, she is still a docile female whose idea of rebellion is vacuuming naked or throwing a plate at a wall that she will have to clean up herself. Her career goals are similarly revealed to be less than revolutionary in her “audition” scene in which a crew of casting directors makes her turn around like a prized sow. She believes she is going to be an artist—so beyond the crass commercial world of advertising—but what she forgets is that she is now becoming the product.
Joan and Peggy are smart enough to know that you will always be nothing but a disposable body if you place all of your self worth in that body. They shared a delightful scene toward the end of last year’s finale in which they laughed at Don’s ridiculous belief that he was doing something novel by marrying his twenty-something secretary. Megan thinks she is the face of the future, but she is little different than a kinder, less sociopathic Betty Draper. Joan and Peggy may not be the happiest characters by this episode’s end, but they are the strongest. There is no one—not even Don Draper—who can own these two bitches.
