Mad Men and Women pt2

[babydraco]

There are so many fantastic discussions happening.

I do find it strange, like I said before, that some fans believe that because the characters *act* misogynist, that means the writers approve of their behavior. The show's creator explicitly said in a video diary that the episode was meant to be about violence against women.

New hire Ginsberg proposes an ad campaign based around the concept of Cinderella. It's a "dark" and "romantic" ad about a woman being pursued through darkened alleys, losing a shoe and then "allowing" herself to be caught. Everyone in the room is an old white guy except for Peggy,so naturally, they love it. But then, they aren't Peggy, jumping at every little noise while working alone in the office, or Dawn, sleeping in the office so she doesn't have to risk going home alone. It's further pointed evidence of these men and their inability to read the environment around them (and also suspicious behavior on Ginsberg's part in taking advantage of that).

Pauline tells Sally a story about a time when her father was sleeping on the couch and she walked past. He kicked her so hard she flew into a piece of furniture. "That was for nothing," he said. "So watch out." Pauline grew up in a world where the most influential man in her life might randomly do violence to her for no reason. When Sally points out that it "wasn't very nice" of her father, Pauline responds "But it was valuable advice".

And I suppose it was, for a woman in our world. You don't have to be doing a single thing wrong, some man may randomly appear in your life,and randomly hurt you. The only benefit having been a "good girl" gets you is the most sympathy if he's some deranged stranger. I mean, student nurses all living in a dorm together for cripes sake. A large number of people, all together in their own home. I need to note, after all, that Joan was date raped, without any sort of warning, on the floor of an office, by the man who is now her husband.

A man who has now come home from Vietnam and walks in the house and takes over. When he says he wants to go back to the war because it makes him feel like a man, "like a good man," that's when Joan explodes.

She tells him he never was a good man, reminding him without going into detail that she remembers he raped her and she's never really forgiven him. He was basically coasting on her goodwill and desire to fit into society, and that ice was thinner than he knew. Joan, as many people have said, is becoming a feminist in spite of herself. She's now a divorced, single parent career woman, and after she throws Greg out and she and her mother are lying on the bed with the baby between them, we can see she's wearing pants for the first time on the show.

In an episode about Richard Speck, the commercial for the old boardgame"Mystery Date" that Sally watches on tv suddenly comes off as a bit sinister. Sally reads the newspaper under her blankets with a flashlight, and then turns up (creepily) in the living room to ask Pauline about the murders. You will note, if you read the article I linked to, that Speck's first serious crime was the rape of a 65 year old woman who'd just returned from a babysitting job.

Sally asks why they didn't run. "They probably thought he couldn't rape all nine of them," Pauline replies bluntly. They didn't know it was going to be worse than that. They didn't know what was in store for them.

Which is always how it happens. The women/woman in question doesn't do what she needs to do (get out/get away/hit back) because she doesn't believe he's willing or capable of what he's really capable of. A theme of this episode and maybe this season, is that we don't know people as well as we think we do.

Andrea appearing in Don's apartment while he's home sick, well, I was spoiled for the fact that it's a dream sequence and that means Don's outburst of violence and his strangling of her was a bit ruined for me. But for people who hadn't spoiled themselves three times on purpose, it must have been surprising, to say the least.

Andrea lies limp and lifeless on the carpet in her yellow shift dress (she does not appear to be wearing a bra) before a horrified Don quickly shoves her under the bed. His wife wakes him up, he's been having fever induced nightmares, Andrea was never in his apartment at all (or, if this was a real Hitchcockian mind screw of a show, there was a body, Megan found it and took care of the sitch. Because she totally would). But in his dream, Andrea is missing a shoe, which echoes back to Ginsburg's "Cinderella" ad proposal.

As it is pointed out in the comments section of Tom and Lorenzo's "Mad Style" post, Speck asked the girls he attacked which one had been "wearing yellow", which indicated that he'd been spying on them for hours before the home invasion. Only one woman survived, because she'd hid under a bed and Speck was too drunk and lost count of how many people were in the house.

Betty and Henry arrive home to find Pauline dozing on the couch. They wonder in worried voices, where Sally is, the camera pans down to show us Sally sleeping curled up under the couch.

The credits roll with "He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss" by The Crystals playing.

I'd suggest reading about the background of this song because it is one of the most misunderstood pieces of music in twentieth century pop...misunderstood in precisely the same way Mad Men often is by people who do not watch it.

Notes
**and Cagney&Lacey, Rizzoli& Isles, SVU, Criminal Minds, Bewitched*, Mary Tyler Moore, Roseanne, The Battlestar Galactica Reboot/Caprica, 30 Rock,and Once Upon a Time would all certainly make my list of shows in which women are real people, or in which the problem of women not being seen as real people is addressed on some level.
**Yes, Bewitched. What the difference between that show and "Jeannie" that alot of people don't understand is, Samantha was an intelligent, resourceful person in total control of her own powers. It's a show about a woman who is more powerful than her husband but she's forced to pretend otherwise, and the more they try to hide it, the more disastrous the results. And the show is about her, not Darren's plight of being married to her, in fact, they replaced the Darren actor and it barely made a difference. The show was also very subtly progressive on race, watch the reruns and pay attention to the shift.

"That Girl" doesn't seem, today, like a very progressive show but realize, Marlo Thomas had to go to a lot of trouble to convince the network that a show about a young, single, working woman living alone in the city would fly with viewers.