Mad Men and Women
Apr. 11th, 2012 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
babydracoI can't agree with Tom and Lorenzo that "Mad Men is one of – if not the – most feminist television shows in the history of the medium" because this is a world where "Buffy" and "The Golden Girls" and "Murphy Brown" existed*, but it is most definitely far from the misogynistic show people who don't watch it are convinced that it is.
There's a big difference between a show that cheerfully ignores its own obvious sexism, even adding sexism and misogyny into stories where it doesn't have to be(perhaps the writers actually have issues, or maybe they're just stuck in a previous era)and a show which is set in a time or place or profession where misogyny is rampant and uses that to point out that the world doesn't need to be that way. Seventy to eighty percent of television belongs in the first category, even, I regret to say, some of my favorite shows of all time, like The A Team and Supernatural.
When you watch Mad Men thoughtfully, you have the opportunity to notice that it's actually that second type of show.
In order to show how women became more liberated, you have to show them initially not being liberated, just like if you want to show how far black people have come, you may need to initially show some upsetting scenes of racial violence. Mad Men was initially sold as a show that gleefully, unashamedly glorified the drunken, sexist, gluttonous excesses of 1960s Madison Avenue. But the reason people kept watching was because the show is actually thoughtful, nuanced (impeccably researched) television that stresses the importance of many different experiences and points of view related to the time and place. Stories about The Sixties often start out as shows about The Fifties and all that was wrong with them, because there *are* two "1960s", one was just The Fifties hanging on for dear life, while the ticking time bomb of reality counts down to its 1964 explosion. The awful 1950s are neccesary to visit, from a storytelling perspective, so we can understand what motivated the 1960s to become The NINETEEN SIXTIES, you know?
What motivated so much of it was a lot of incredibly angry people sick of guys like Roger Sterling. They are showing the cost of the destruction men like Don Draper and Roger Stirling left in their wake. What it really did to other people, not just how it affected the Don Drapers of the world. And as the plots unfold, we see that it wasn't just the Don Draper types who were responsible but their attitudes were the result of a whole social system that was hurting everyone...and Mad Men is the story of that system's breakdown. If you watch and say "Gosh I miss the excess of early sixties Madison Avenue" you might be missing a lot of the point.
Mad Men is not the most feminist show in the history of television, but it is doing better than most of them at portraying women as people with brains, plans, wants, needs, and moral agency of their own. None of the women have to put on swimsuits or leather to demonstrate that either. But "Mystery Date" is certainly one of their best episodes about women and what men do to them.
It's all about the women this time. No male characters except Don have a storyline or point of view in "Mystery Date" except how it affects a woman's storyline. Even in the brief scene when all the men are in the same room to pitch a product, it's a woman's product, it's women's shoes. The difference is subtle but it's the opposite of the average tv show not specifically designated as show for girls. Sally is stuck spending the night with her (step) Grandma Pauline. Peggy and Dawn get drunk together. Joan and her mother adjust to Joan's husband returning from Vietnam.
The episode gives us more subtle evidence that Sally is adopting an eating disorder of some sort. Her mother, Betty, has gained an embarrassing amount of weight and in response, Sally seems to be regularly refusing to eat.
And it's also all about violence against women. The Timely News Event that shadows this episode is theRichard Speck Student Nurse Massacre in Chicago in 1966.
TBC
There's a big difference between a show that cheerfully ignores its own obvious sexism, even adding sexism and misogyny into stories where it doesn't have to be(perhaps the writers actually have issues, or maybe they're just stuck in a previous era)and a show which is set in a time or place or profession where misogyny is rampant and uses that to point out that the world doesn't need to be that way. Seventy to eighty percent of television belongs in the first category, even, I regret to say, some of my favorite shows of all time, like The A Team and Supernatural.
When you watch Mad Men thoughtfully, you have the opportunity to notice that it's actually that second type of show.
In order to show how women became more liberated, you have to show them initially not being liberated, just like if you want to show how far black people have come, you may need to initially show some upsetting scenes of racial violence. Mad Men was initially sold as a show that gleefully, unashamedly glorified the drunken, sexist, gluttonous excesses of 1960s Madison Avenue. But the reason people kept watching was because the show is actually thoughtful, nuanced (impeccably researched) television that stresses the importance of many different experiences and points of view related to the time and place. Stories about The Sixties often start out as shows about The Fifties and all that was wrong with them, because there *are* two "1960s", one was just The Fifties hanging on for dear life, while the ticking time bomb of reality counts down to its 1964 explosion. The awful 1950s are neccesary to visit, from a storytelling perspective, so we can understand what motivated the 1960s to become The NINETEEN SIXTIES, you know?
What motivated so much of it was a lot of incredibly angry people sick of guys like Roger Sterling. They are showing the cost of the destruction men like Don Draper and Roger Stirling left in their wake. What it really did to other people, not just how it affected the Don Drapers of the world. And as the plots unfold, we see that it wasn't just the Don Draper types who were responsible but their attitudes were the result of a whole social system that was hurting everyone...and Mad Men is the story of that system's breakdown. If you watch and say "Gosh I miss the excess of early sixties Madison Avenue" you might be missing a lot of the point.
Mad Men is not the most feminist show in the history of television, but it is doing better than most of them at portraying women as people with brains, plans, wants, needs, and moral agency of their own. None of the women have to put on swimsuits or leather to demonstrate that either. But "Mystery Date" is certainly one of their best episodes about women and what men do to them.
It's all about the women this time. No male characters except Don have a storyline or point of view in "Mystery Date" except how it affects a woman's storyline. Even in the brief scene when all the men are in the same room to pitch a product, it's a woman's product, it's women's shoes. The difference is subtle but it's the opposite of the average tv show not specifically designated as show for girls. Sally is stuck spending the night with her (step) Grandma Pauline. Peggy and Dawn get drunk together. Joan and her mother adjust to Joan's husband returning from Vietnam.
The episode gives us more subtle evidence that Sally is adopting an eating disorder of some sort. Her mother, Betty, has gained an embarrassing amount of weight and in response, Sally seems to be regularly refusing to eat.
And it's also all about violence against women. The Timely News Event that shadows this episode is theRichard Speck Student Nurse Massacre in Chicago in 1966.
TBC
