Making Too Much of Mad Men (S6/E8)

We want control.

That’s obvious. But we still want it. And maybe we want it more intensely because of that.

We want her, the doctor’s wife. We want her to help us recover when we are sick, to ask us if we like it, to give oatmeal (or soup) when we are sick. We want a favorite toy, something that will drive too fast, that will take us hunting. We want something we can break, even if we break it only to demonstrate our own power.

Or we want the opposite of control.

We want to tap dance on a bum leg. We want to strut around the office, shouting inspirational madness and misspelling Chevy and we want to do it all without any sense of shame. We want to stand beneath a picture of an apple, bleeding from a puncture wound in our arm, and we want to laugh and joke about how we don’t even feel a thing.

Too much control leaves us passed out cold on the ground, exhausted from a manic exertion. Too little leaves the back door open for some imitation grandmother to swoop in and steal all of our watches.

We all seem so grown up, but we’re really just kids.

Last night Don Draper did what has become a habit for him over the last few seasons. He is no longer the invincible alpha male, this time turning away the chance to conquer a lonely female, instead of seeking one out. There was a time when all that strutting and shouting about patience and determination and winning would have been met with rousing cheers rather than blank stares and a sarcastic “Well, that was inspirational.” There was a time when Draper could have dominated the Chevy workload by himself, with nothing more than a nap, a trip to the movies and a few sips of a dry whiskey. But he’s slipped. Now, he can’t even manage to come up with a coherent idea, despite being jacked up on a “vitamin” shot.

I’m reminded of Beowulf, the Saxon hero who, in his prime, had the strength to tear horrible monsters limb from limb. Then, as an aged king, pride brought him to his death, face to face with a dragon, and his arrogance left his kingdom without a future. What dragon will bring Don Draper to his demise? What hero will prove to be his successor?

Congratulations to Betty, for proving to be the most skin-crawlingly annoying character on the screen, despite appearing for only about half of a minute in the episode.

Mad Men

I like AMC’s Mad Men. It’s one of the only real television shows that I make a point of watching. It’s one of the only “dramas,” dry and human, that I really enjoy.

But I’ve always had difficulty understanding what the show was about. Sure it’s about identity and marriage and kids and work and life in general. But I never could place a finger on the overarching theme that drove the plot of the show, that allowed audiences to connect with it.

I think the first few seasons were about being lost, being hidden. Don’s dodgy history was something that intrinsically kept people captivated and interested in the plot and the characters. But then Don/Dick revealed the truth about his past to Betty and Megan and moved on.  Sure, Don’s past still isn’t known to many of the characters in the show, but it’s been out in the open for long enough to prevent the questions it raises (Will Don be found out? Will his career be ruined? etc.) from being dramatic and suspenseful. But people still watch Mad Men even though the main question, the important conflict has seemingly (at least temporarily) been resolved. Why?

Pain.

There’s a shot that is used a lot throughout the five seasons of Mad Men, and it appeared a few times in the premiere of the sixth. It’s this haunting zoom-in, in which the character’s face is in focus and closed in on until it fills the screen. Nothing else happens. The character, whoever it is, is completely motionless. The setting around him or her is almost silent.

Betty (January Jones) pulls the shot off perfectly after her conversation with 15 year old violinist and non-prodigy Sandy. The conversation between the two ends with Betty huffily complaining about being insulted and the camera just sits on her face. And she looks so sad, so pained.

That’s what the show is about. That’s what drives it. Sure Mad Men is about the 60s (or the 70s). Sure, it’s about historical events and interesting clothing. And of course it’s about advertising. But that’s just stuff. That’s the stuff that happens. And then there’s the pain. That’s the rest of the show. But the pain is hidden.

There’s stuff and then there’s pain. Don is badgered by a photographer, then he’s caught by a moment of reflection involving PFC Dinkins. Ken keeps asking people about their parents, Don vomits and Roger’s mother dies. And that’s what people will talk about when they watch the show. But the show is about the five seconds Roger spends admitting to his (first) ex-wife that he feels nothing. That’s the pain. That’s the show. That’s why we are invested.

These people realize their pain. They know of its inevitability and its inescapability. Roger wails that this is his funeral, not his mother’s. For whatever reason, each of the characters has a huge, gaping, painful hole in their being. And they know it can’t be filled. But they try to fill it. They do stuff. They make ads and smoke cigarettes. They act. They all act.

That’s compelling.

Maybe that’s not what the show is about, but that’s why I like watching it.

"What'd you see when you died? Did you hear the ocean?"

That's all they want to know.

Eating from the Palm of their Hand

 

Today millions are recovering from hangovers, slouching against watercoolers and talking to their friends about something Super Bowl related: that throw, that catch, that touchdown or that hit. Other millions will spend their mornings burping up bean dip and recalling Beyoncé’s half time performance, Alicia Keys’ rendition of the national anthem or Phil Simms’ poor choice of tie.

But there are others still, members of a group which may be the largest of all the survivors of the Super Bowl aftermath. These people, perhaps the largest group of all people watching the game, will talk about commercials. Ads, the funny, the dramatic and the empowering, will probably be the largest topic of conversation in the week after the biggest game of America’s biggest sport. They will be marveled over; they will be praised and criticized like submissions to a film festival. Matt Lauer and whoever the woman on the Today show is will spend more time recapping what happened during breaks in play than they will talking about what happened on the field.

Even before the game more people talk about the ads than the sport itself. “Leaked Super Bowl commercials” – also known as regular commercials that companies put on YouTube the week before the Super Bowl – have hundreds of thousands of views online. Commentators predict winners and losers of the commercials instead of the big game.

Suddenly ad lingo pervades mainstream conversation. We talk about “spots” and worry about price per seconds of air time. Celebrities hawking their endorsements on radio row don’t only mention that they have a “great new” commercial airing, they give the slot number, the quarter and the half it will hit our television screens. Because we are all suddenly so interested in that.

Somewhere in the depths of a swanky Manhattan bar, Don Draper, sitting with the rest of his Madison Avenue crew, sips down an Old-Fashioned and smiles.

Commercials spend ninety nine percent of the year being reviled. People switch channels, leave for the bathroom or stare at drying paint in order to avoid watching commercials. We barely even say that word, instead we spit it and let it smack against the pavement. We don’t tolerate it, the patronizing lies, the attempts to sell us crap we don’t need. That’s what commercials are, we assure ourselves. And we hate them.

But, during the desolate weeks of January and April, we flock to the ads like sycophants to a false messiah. People go to parties, eat salty food and put up with people whose company they don’t particularly enjoy not to watch the game, but to watch the commercials. Then, in the days afterwards, we talk about them. We rehash them and compare them. Bloggers, hungry for page-views and attention, do “commercial round-ups” and embed clips of them on their website. Talk about free advertising.

The Mad Man sets his whiskey drink down, slicks back his hair and raises a fist in triumph.

For just about two weeks, we are his. And, during the game itself, we sit in the comfortable palm of his hand, not daring to run to the bathroom or grab another plate of ribs for fear of missing a new commercial.

Maybe it feels good, to be wanted, even if the thing that wants us is a massive, multi-national conglomerate who likes us only for our money. Maybe we just like the attention.

It’s baffling that an ad, a normally soulless, corporatized attempt to extort a capitalistic wage-slave of his salary, suddenly becomes an art when it airs during a February football game. A thirty second video clip, which has the naked intention of exploiting shallow emotions like nostalgia and lust or laughter in an attempt to sell a person a new version of TurboTax, can become the topic of conversation for years, enshrined permanently as a cultural artifact. Hour-long, Oscar-nominated motion pictures don’t and won’t ever get that kind of attention or respect from the masses.

We are a society so fundamentally defined by materialism that we glorify the glorification of materials – petty, pandering, inflated and artificial as it is – as much as we glorify the materials themselves. Commercialism has come to take on a new meaning, and Madison Avenue has become the center of the known universe.

A Dish-aster

A few months ago it was announced that the Dish Network planned to drop a few high-profile channels from its line-up. I don’t have or rely upon Dish Network for my television, but I was still a little surprised to hear that IFC (a channel with TV shows from wonderful comedians like Scott Aukerman and Marc Maron, not to mention the delightful Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein and their acclaimed Portlandia) and AMC (a channel that, without any shadow of a doubt, has some of the best programming currently on television) would no longer be piped into the living rooms of Dish subscribers.

Certainly, I don’t mean to heap any more servings of blame upon Dish Network. The eventual dropping of the channels was the result of a contract dispute between Dish and AMC Networks, and I’m sure both sides are perfectly entitled to have taken whatever actions they eventually took. Dish gave ample warning and time for customers to complain and/or switch to an alternative provider (unfortunately, that alternative provider is most likely one of the crew of cable providers who, comfortable in their regional monopoly, provide horrible service to customers with government complicity). AMC took the corporate high road and organized some kind of protest boycott and filed a lawsuit.

This entire event, along with Community being cancelled on NBC, has to be one of the greater tragedies of television politics. AMC provides excellent, quality programming to its viewers. They got to that place in the cable pantheon by taking fliers on shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad, shows that other networks were not willing to fund. They like were a local restaurant that served much better food, and more expensive food, than any of the chains. They cultivated a relationship with viewers and critics. We might not be able to maintain corporate profit margins, the network implied and viewers understood, but we are dedicated to getting out our quality product to a dedicated audience.

Until the summer of 2012, when, undoubtedly, Dish and AMC refused to come to terms on a suitable contract and the network lost. Perhaps they could have budged, AMC, and given up a little more money in order to ensure that they could still deliver their shows to an expectant viewership. But they wouldn’t. Or they couldn’t. All that matters is that they didn’t.

I don’t know if you know this, but we are supposedly currently living in this wonderful, new digital age of information. I can share in mere seconds a Youtube video of a man lighting his crotch on fire with a friend in India. A picture of a waterfall in Argentina can be sent to a computer screen in Germany before your eyes can blink. I can fart into a microphone and broadcast its sound to millions across the globe before its smell dissipates from the room.

But, for some reason, the actual entertainment industry is dominated by archaic corporatism. The decision to drop AMC from Dish was made by a bunch of number crunching suits in a conference room. Not once did they consider the audience who, for whatever sorry and pathetic reason, rely on these television shows for an ounce of happiness. Not once did they consider the actors, writers, producers and directors of these shows, who dedicated their careers, their lives, to these shows and just wanted to share their vision with someone else. They thought about their wallets, their bottom lines, forgetting that, like most things, these numbers will be wiped away like chalk from a sidewalk when the proper time comes. But they wanted to make a profit.

For a business decision, something that is actually valuable, something that attempts to spread joy, attempts to understand humanity, attempts to subliminally disseminate meth-recipes to millions of suburban families can be taken off the air in without a second glance. I’m sorry Michelangelo, but marble is rather expensive. Don’t worry! David still look great made out of mud! 

This entire event serves as a reminder to the public. We have to be responsible. We have to make demands. Yesterday, they came for the the niche television programming; today they come for PBS. What will be the next sacrifice made to the gods of Profit and Bottom-Line?

(pic from @STDYNews here: http://twitter.yfrog.com/nz3fnjfj)