The show is well written, directed and acted. It is interesting, although I completely disagree with the show's point of view. The theme -- if I may be so bold as to state a theme when the naturalist writers of the show would maintain there is none -- is the conflict between the New Leftist culture and the older, less egalitarian culture it replaced. It's squares vs. hippies, and the show assumes that the hippies were on history's side. In a way, they are right: the squares are dead and political correctness reigns unchallenged in the present age. Whether history will show this to be a good thing remains to be seen.
The decade of the '60s is great for drama because it is so different, and yet so familiar. You get both worlds -- the other, as in science fiction, fantasy and historical; and the realism of contemporary life. I believe much of the show's appeal is a guilty fascination with life before the New Leftist/egalitarian cultural revolution. The clothing fashions, the attitudes and the furniture are appealing and deliciously non-PC. But even as the show uses the smoking, drinking and male-dominated office culture to keep viewers interested, it looks down on these ways with irony and sneers. The implication is that the nanny state was justified in outlawing tobacco smoke from the workplace, and of course all the isms of the New Left -- multiculturalism, environmentalism, feminism, PC -- are assumed to be positive advances.
There is a broader theme about man's nature that is shown mostly in the lead character, Don Draper, played perfectly by Jon Hamm. Draper is a man who lives a lie. To avoid spoilers, I won't go into his backstory. In the tradition of noir crime fiction, the character made a stupid decision and he struggles to live with it. Moreover, he lies to his wife and screws just about anything in a skirt. By one count he has sex with 13 different women.
The show asks if Don has a choice and if he can change. He is a tormented soul who struggles with these questions. The answer so far is unknown. Maybe the show will decide one way or another as to whether Don has free will. Jon Hamm says the underlying message about right and wrong is,
"There ain't none of us on the planet that are perfect. And I think that people recognize human frailties and foibles and f***-ups and identify with it, honestly. Superman is a cartoon character. He's not a real person. And no one is without sin, without mistakes."
Don is neither black nor white, but very gray -- and exasperatingly stupid, in my opinion. So the show is naturalism, which Ayn Rand defined as literature based on the premise that man does not have volition. If the show's creator, Matthew Weiner, reforms Don in the next two seasons, it will be interesting to see if he can pull it off believably.
As with most serious dramatic writing today, all ideas are delivered in subtext, but sometimes they are buried so deep that I wonder if I'm missing the point. (Subtext itself is a naturalistic technique; it makes characters inarticulate and incapable of consciously stating and pursuing their goals. It makes all characters ironic in Northrop Frye's meaning of the word: we look down on them, rather than admire them. Subtext is held as the the highest kind of writing today.)
The show is too slow for my taste. To have a good plot, you need more purposeful action. Not only are there no heroes in this show, there are no villains -- although in season 5 Betty Draper, Don's ex-wife, gets a little twisted by envy. I fear I might get bored in season 6.
There is one character who is supposed to be a fan of Ayn Rand, and who pushes Atlas Shrugged on his employees. This is hardly worth mentioning, because the writers show no understanding of how an Objectivist thinks. Nothing in this character sounds right. He comes off as an eccentric who liked Rand but didn't think about her philosophy for two minutes. (A typical conservative! No wonder he makes no sense.)
Anyway, it's nice to live for a while in a world where people smoke at the office, men wear hats and women wear dresses. Sadly, this world has disappeared from America and can only be experienced now in costume dramas.
UPDATE: Watched the third episode of season 6. Something snapped in me and I became bored and disgusted with the show. Those characters for whom I feel no contempt I am indifferent to. I have especially lost patience with Don Draper. Who cares about that weak, lying bastard? Same with Peter Campbell. Weiner has said he does not want to repeat himself, but men cheating on their wives gets old fast. I think they made a mistake trying to push the series into a sixth season.
5 comments:
The Left is like Islam. Islam sees everything before the time of Mohammed as "the time of darkness". The Left sees the same but only the demarcation point is the 1960s. Pre-1960s, or pre-modern liberalism, was a time of oppression and inequality, a time of the evil white male patriarchy. 'Mad Men' is a condemnation of pre-liberal America.
I'm surprised it took you 5+ seasons to see the show's nihilism. It was apparent by the first five or six episodes.
You're right about the Left's naturalism. They have to be naturalists. They reject absolutes, standards, truth, goodness and beauty. The fuckers are evil. And the culture they have created is a cesspool. Rand would see that but far too many Objectivists only focus on economics.
With the death of post-Enlightenment Christianity the Left has created a nihilistic, soul-less culture. The challenge for Objectivism is to create a secular value oriented one. So far they have failed miserably. Most Objectivists are little more than hippie Leftists with a better understanding of economics. Witness that nitwit Diana Hsieh...
Perhaps it is a fault, but I don't think much as I'm watching fiction. As an actor I focus on the acting. I let the story take me. It's only upon later reflection that I put it all together. Plus I tolerate more naturalism than many Objectivists. I like Anton Chekhov and John O'Hara, and it's hard to get smuttier than O'Hara (although Updike did when he wrote the first blow job in serious literature in 1960).
I first got suspicious of Mad Men when Roger takes LSD and it makes him a better person.
I wonder if some Objectivists have taken Peikoff's "Understanding Objectivism" course, in which he fights rationalism among O'ists, as license to go too far to the empiricist end of things. But this is not a moral failing. I mean, if someone like Metallica, who cares?
Perhaps it is a fault, but I don't think much as I'm watching fiction. As an actor I focus on the acting. I let the story take me. It's only upon later reflection that I put it all together.
To a point. But if talent serves nihilistic ends, then that should be noted.
I mean, if someone like Metallica, who cares?
I hear you. Hell, I like some absolute garbage music that I'm embarrassed to admit. But music is such a complicated phenomenon that no one really knows why we like what we like. Literature, I think, is different. Music hits primal pathways that may not be open to conscious choice. I don't see that with literature or drama. I might like a naturalistic film or tv show for really compartmentalized reasons. But I always know nihilism when I see it. And the overwhelming majority of what the Left produced today, and the Left has total domination of Hollywood, is nihilistic.
You should blog more on art and popular culture. You get many things right about the Left. I find that refreshing as most Objectivists lean left culturally. So much so that I have become somewhat disgusted with the Objectivist movement. I think if Rand were alive today, she would disown the whole movement.
I agree with your analysis. The only thing that I liked was the style of the clothes and furniture, etc. One season was all I could endure, however.
And here is the writer's description of his protagonist:
"I feel like Don is like a lot of existential characters: brave in the face of death but more deeply, deeply afraid of it — and trying to find some purpose and some control over it — because he is aware of the sort of meaninglessness of life."
http://www.npr.org/2013/04/25/178832854/matthew-weiner-on-mad-men-and-meaning
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