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1. Pete Campbell « Mad Men Shrugged on 13 Aug 2009 at 1:46 pm

   [...] are any good guys and bad guys on Mad Men, just people. But back to Campbell. I’m with G.D. here, Campell is indeed “interesting.” He’s ambitious but not totally because of [...]

2. Mad Men, Season 3, Episode 1: Out of Town. « PostBourgie on 17 Aug 2009 at 1:44 pm

   [...] hates Pete Campbell, and nothing that happened in the first episode is likely to change that. Also, peep [...]

Comments

1. ms world wrote:

   I’m a fan of Mad Men and I think race is all over the place — its just silenced — which makes it even more powerful. The Black people are there but they are quiet, hence invisible which is part of the idea of Black people then by upper middle class whites.

   Pete Campbell is a dick and his character is all about priviledge which is why he’s so mad that he isn’t as respected by his peers as Draper. Campbells from a prominent family even though they no longer have big-time money.

   Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 8:33 am ¶

2. mahsino wrote:

   I’ve always taken Pete’s entitlement for what it was, but Paul Kinsey is the one who pisses me off the most.

   The whole “look at me I’m a special snowflake because I have a colored girlfriend” was way more dickish than anything Pete ever did IMO. That being said, I still love the show.

   Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 8:47 am ¶

3. RMJ wrote:

   I don’t want to mitigate or detract from his white privilege, because that is certainly foremost, but his male privilege is also pretty disgusting. This is a man who tried his damnedest to manipulate his new wife into sleeping with an old lover so he could be published and one-up a collegue. He also sexually harrasses coworkers at will without regard to their qualifications.

   Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:01 am ¶

4. Chairo wrote:

   I initially started writing this about to disagree but i’ve steadily realised you’re probably on to something.
   At points I’ve felt pity for the guy because whenever I see someone acting so sycophantic I have that kind of reaction. But then it dawned on me he’s just a self-seeking rat. With the occasional callousness he displays the creators kinda reinforce this ratty aspect of him.
   Those that actually LIKE him, are troubled in some area lol.

   I’ve often wondered why mad men is so fascinating and i think it’s because whether the creators have intended it or not, they’ve created a simulacrum of our world’s ugly past; it tells us something about old america, whiteness and patriarchy; how these things are intrinsically linked; how these ad men who so finely represent white patriarchy fuel so much that racialicious and other anti-racist and feminist groups fight against.

   in short: these are the bad guys.

   Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:03 am ¶

5. atlasien wrote:

   Ha… I’ve seen the first season of Mad Men. I liked it, but I don’t know if I really want to watch any more.

   I agree that based on what I’ve seen, the Pete guy is irredeemable. I did get some enjoyment out of watching him in action, because his quality of sniveling dickishness is just so concentrated and unadulterated. He’s a great villain.

   But the only way he’d turn into something remotely resembling a sympathetic character is if he had some kind of horrible accident. Like getting his nose cut off, and both his arms, then having to earn a living begging for money with a cup held in his feet in the New York street outside the Sterling Cooper building.

   Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:05 am ¶

6. Nelle wrote:

   I agree with you.
   I’ve been watching Mad Men since the beginning, spaced out, so I have a more chilled opinion. But Pete makes my skin crawl, because he is so unapologetic smug and the ‘Mad Men world’ is like playground for it. I’m not hoping for death but I Pete has gotten a little existential after the 2nd season finale, a forced change for the better, we’ll see.

   Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:10 am ¶

7. Frowner wrote:

   I just end up thinking that I’m tired of shows about rich white people. I know we’ll never see one–and if we did, it would be all politically screwed up because it would be mainstream TV–but I wish we could have a show about the fifties or sixties that focused on working class experience, or was set in a black neighborhood, or even one that reflected the real counterculture, not just the prettified and commercialized version.

   To be honest, I think a lot of folks get the idea that rich white people in the sixties didn’t pay much attention to poor folks of color, that rich white men in the sixties had a huge degree of sexual entitlement, etc. I don’t care for what I’ve seen of Mad Men precisely because I think that our popular culture spends way too much time fascinated by these stories of whiteness and privilege, whether it’s to celebrate them, to criticize them or (as with Mad Men, I think) to celebrate them by pretending to criticize. Okay, so rich white dudes in the sixties are kind of pitiable because they’re encouraged by the culture to be racist, misogynist jerks who measure everything by material success. Cry me a river!

   Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:23 am ¶

8. Latoya Peterson wrote:

   @ms world –

   I totally disagree with your take on race. I think it’s erasure, masquerading as progressiveness. But, I lay out that argument in the Double X piece, which I’ll link to when it is published.

   @Chairo –

   I’ve often wondered why mad men is so fascinating and i think it’s because whether the creators have intended it or not, they’ve created a simulacrum of our world’s ugly past; it tells us something about old america, whiteness and patriarchy; how these things are intrinsically linked; how these ad men who so finely represent white patriarchy fuel so much that racialicious and other anti-racist and feminist groups fight against.

   in short: these are the bad guys.

   Yes. And one of the more interesting bits about Mad Men is how they seemingly upend so much of the glamorization of the period in a way that gives you both empathy and revulsion for the characters. I mean, you start to empathize with Don Draper – how could you not – but at the same time, he’s doing things like sleeping with a bunch of different women, sexually assaulting Bobbi Barrett and pushing Betty. There’s explanations for all of it, but the morality is frustratingly murky.

   Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:26 am ¶

9. beth wrote:

   I don’t think anyone (including weiner) really wants to *be* pete. People like watching him as a character onscreen, sure, but that’s a far cry from actually liking him in real life, where he’d just be irritating. On television, he makes for an engaging/entertaining character, largely because of how ridiculous and petty and kind of pathetic he is (hunting scene, anyone?). To the extent that he has a real fanbase, he owes the show’s writers for injecting more nuance into that character – uncannily right about the general state and direction of advertising, although his prickishness and air of unearned rich boy privilege/job security lead his coworkers to write him off; unexpectedly sincere in the end about his love for peggy; loyal when we know quite well what he’d gain via don’s exit. He does some really despicable things, but he’s not a cardboard character. He grudgingly earns a bit of respect in spite off, not because of, his general scumminess. To the extent that the show takes aim at hierarchies of privilege (admittedly with much more depth re: gender than race), I’d say that characters like pete are useful for demonstrating that those who enforce and benefit most from those types of prejudice are also very human.

   Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:33 am ¶

10. Jeremy wrote:

    What’s so interesting about this commentary–which I fully agree with–is that it underscores how accurately the show captures the sentiments of big business-white racial identity during the late 50s, early 60s. When Peggy and the rest of the copywriters are watching the News in the aftermath of James Meredith’s death (and one of the guys comments, “It’s going to be like Little Rock all over again), Pete chimes in with disparaging incredulousness: “Just seem like trouble makers to me.” His general disposition to the world illustrates his racial privilege, but his responses to specific events illustrates his profound isolation from racial unrest. He can’t even imagine why people could be upset!

    The muted/silenced racial component of the show is so painfully accurate because these were the guys that were completely removed from the underbelly of inequality. Don’s flashbacks to the Great Depression give him an alternative storyline that may influence his interactions with women and African-Americans (talking to the waiter in season 1, offering the nanny a ride home in season 2)–but Pete has no cognitive schema to grasp the plight of…anyone. Their (social, cultural, spatial) isolation deters any semblance of empathy.

    I think your reaction to him stems, at least in part, from how accurate his racial/class identity is portrayed.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:33 am ¶

11. cocolamala wrote:

    @Frowner,

    I totally agree with you. You have made my points here.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:34 am ¶

12. ztastz wrote:

    Exactly! This!

    I watched a few episodes because I follow Elisabeth Moss and Vincent Kartheiser (who plays Pete Campbell) damn near religiously. And Mad Men was good: Tense, interesting to look at, well-acted, and even funny at times, but in the end I couldn’t ignore the rot behind it.

    It’s the perfect television show for white people who “long for the old days” and give the creators of Mad Men the perfect excuse to exclude PoC. I mean, they can’t have Latinos or Asians or black people hanging around the Mad Men universe because it wouldn’t be “historically accurate.”

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:35 am ¶

13. ACW wrote:

    I’ve never been able to stomach a single episode of this show. A few people I know raved about it; critics raved about it… so I’ve given it a shot more than once and each time, in under five minutes I’m struck with nausea and have to turn it off. There are some shows I’m simply indifferent to; this one, I actively dislike. It’s more than overt sexism and racism… I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.
    Good post.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:00 am ¶

14. cocolamala wrote:

    “It’s the perfect television show for white people who “long for the old days” and give the creators of Mad Men the perfect excuse to exclude PoC”

    this is my general beef with 1950s nostalgia in general — girls on jezebel squeeing over who they’d be on the show — ppl like myself are largely excluded from the show’s universe, or relegated to service positions — so, excuse me if I don’t find the hair and clothes and culture quite as endearing

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:00 am ¶

15. cocolamala wrote:

    “It’s the perfect television show for white people who “long for the old days” and give the creators of Mad Men the perfect excuse to exclude PoC”

    this is my beef with 1950s nostalgia in general — girls on jezebel squeeing over who they’d be on the show — ppl like myself are largely excluded from the show’s universe, or relegated to service positions — so, excuse me if I don’t find the hair and clothes and culture quite as endearing

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:01 am ¶

16. cocolamala wrote:

    I don’t care that the black folk on the show are in service positions so much as that their stories are not told on the show. The mad men (in their 1950s obliviousness) don’t remember the elevator guy once they exit on their floor — but its extra galling that the shows writers (in 21st century Hollywood) don’t think his story matters either.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:19 am ¶

17. Tami wrote:

    Sooo on point, Latoya. Pete rankles because he has this air of…I dunno…disbelief that everyone else doesn’t understand that he should be in charge…he should be respected…he should be successful…he should be desired…he should get what he wants…not because of anything he has done or earned, but because he is Pete–a white man from a “good” (read: wealthy) family and thus his spoils are deserved.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:20 am ¶

18. Blitzgal wrote:

    “It’s the perfect television show for white people who “long for the old days” and give the creators of Mad Men the perfect excuse to exclude PoC.”

    I have to respectfully disagree. In the very first scene of the series, Don Draper is desperately trying to figure out how to continue selling cigarettes in light of new research claiming that they are bad for your health. He starts talking to the busboy, an older black man, about why he smokes. The white waiter sees this exchange and officiously struts over to ask if the busboy is “bothering” Draper. Draper brushes the waiter aside and continues talking.

    To me, that was just the first example of how layered this show is, and how the creators are actually very aware of how race and gender were viewed during this time period. And I don’t think they are celebrating or glorifying it by any stretch of the term. By showing the reality of the time in that the only time we see PoC is as elevator operators, busboys, maids, or servants at the country club, they are not being nostalgic for that time period. They are saying that our rose colored glasses for the “good old days” is a lie.

    The same goes for gender relations of the time. The women who seem to espouse the most appropriate tenets of the time (housewife at home with the kids) are in actuality seriously screwed up people. Betty Draper is just one too many cocktails shy of a total breakdown. Don Draper is so wound up he’s going to drop dead of a heart attack (the doc told him his BP at the beginning of season two and it was scary high for his age).

    The reason I appreciate this show is because others wouldn’t even consider these issues at all. It would just be Friends, where only after seven or eight seasons of criticism would they think to add a character of color and even then just have her there for a few episodes before she’s shuttled off in favor of the Ross/Rachel storyline yet again.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:21 am ¶

19. Blitzgal wrote:

    And yes, I despise Pete Campbell, for the very reasons you list. He is so steeped in privilege and turns into such a whiny little pissant every time he feels emasculated in any way. Then he lashes out at anyone he deems to be weaker than himself, whether it’s Peggy, his wife, etc.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:34 am ¶

20. N wrote:

    @blitzgal
    “By showing the reality of the time in that the only time we see PoC is as elevator operators, busboys, maids, or servants at the country club, they are not being nostalgic for that time period. They are saying that our rose colored glasses for the “good old days” is a lie.”

    Ah, so very white, this POV. POC as people to seen and only in those positions. A character could be the negro nanny or janitor, for example, who has a story as well as the others. So its more than the lack of any meaningful job for POC, its that they are superfluous as cocolamala said.

    I haven’t seen the show, so I’m going TOTALLY by what I have read here and elsewhere and by other shows I have seen and books I have read where POC merely hover around the periphery.
    Having said that-
    What if one of the main characters was the negro mammy’s daughter who was in college and wanted a career in advertising and we saw HER story, not just how she was seen by the rest of the cast?

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:36 am ¶

21. trooper6 wrote:

    If you want a show about POC in the 50s/60s then I recommend finding the late 80s show “I’ll Fly Away.” Alfre Woodard, Sam Waterson. It was good show.

    I also think Mad Men is a good show. This show is about deconstructing white patriarchal America. Because of that, it is about race. It doesn’t feature POC, but it is still about race. There is more than one way to attack the prevailing power structures, and I don’t think all shows have to follow all the different ways of doing it. We need another show that tells the story of POC in the late 50s/early 60s. But I think we also need a show like Mad Men that takes on the hegemonic position directly. I think of Mad Men like a White Studies class. We need Black Studies classes (or Chicano Studies, Asian-American Studies, etc), but we also need White Studies classes. The hegemony keeps its power by staying unmarked. Mad Men marks them.

    Anyway, I’ve seen all the episodes–and I hate Pete Campbell. Actually, I don’t even like Don Draper. I don’t like most of the men on the show. Because they are mostly gross. And I think that’s part of the point.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:55 am ¶

22. trooper6 wrote:

    Oh, actually, I wanted to add another thing. There is quite a lot of racial anti-semitism in the show and that is also a part of way the show is interrogating whiteness and race.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:57 am ¶

23. Esteleth wrote:

    I my mind, there are two incredibly revealing sequences (as regards to race) in the show. One is in the sequence where Don has brought Sally to the office for the day, and she is in Paul’s office. She sees a picture of Sheila (Paul’s POC girlfriend) ands says, “Is she your maid?” Sally, I believe, is six, and every single encounter she has had with POC has been with service people. She is astonished when Paul identifies her as his girlfriend.
    The second is the morning after a raucous office party, Peggy discovers that her locker in the break room has been broken into and her money stolen. She accuses the copy writers (probably correctly). Later, it is mentioned that a janitor and elevator operator (both POC) were fired for this. The casual racism – these two people were innocent and yet they had to fall, because obviously if there was a theft it had to be the POC.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:01 am ¶

24. Persia wrote:

    N, I don’t think that storyline would work particularly well for Mad Men, because they’ve chosen to show Sterling Cooper as a dinosaur on its way out. The perspective of the show is this firm lumbering along as the world’s beginning to pass them by. Having said that, I think there could be meaningful roles for POC, and I hope they’ll do some changes in the upcoming season (time passes, and things change).

    I thought people might like to see this excellent interview with Vincent Kartheiser. I’m going to re-read it now with Latoya’s thoughts in mind.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:05 am ¶

25. Ren wrote:

    I agree with you that Pete is an absolutely reprehensible human being who is the embodiment of white male privilege. However, (and I don’t want to play devil’s advocate here, but it’s what I think) I disagree with the notion that he’s rewarded for this behavior/conditioning. Pete is just as miserable as the rest of the effed-up people on the show, and I actually think the show makes a good point of how Pete’s self-perceived superiority is actually hurting him in the long run. Basically, I see Pete as a selfish little white boy who never grew up, because frankly, society and his family never encouraged him to. Sure, he may have the white collar job and the “perfect wife” and everything , but deep down he is still sheltered, spoiled, and very, very lost in a time when the whole world is changing around him. Pete is at his most horrible when his authority (and therefore his privilege) is being questioned – it’s like a defense mechanism for him, and yet it is also alienating him from people and things he cares about (Trudy, Peggy, his job, etc). So I think the show makes it clear that Pete will either have to grow and accept the times that are a-changin’ or be left behind, clinging madly to an old, racist, and sexist school of thought that will ultimately leave him all alone.

    Erm, but yesyesyes to all the stuff about people of color. In the first season I was like, okay, they are establishing the time period, and the conversation in ep 1 with Don and the waiter gave me higher hopes…but then Paul Kinsey started dating a black woman to “prove something” and it killed me, and not in a good way. I would lovelovelove if the show expanded a little to include the stories of the black characters they already have (Carla, the elevator man, etc) because they are no less important that shenanigans of the upper class advertisers. I would, of course, like it even more to see a successful character of color introduced at Sterling Cooper. What I do know is that the show can’t go much longer, as they are progressing through the sixties, in treating the civil rights movement as a background element.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:25 am ¶

26. cocolamala wrote:

    “I’ll Fly Away” I saw that, it was good.

    But I don’t think Mad Men is “taking on” the hegemony at all. It does not challenge the hegemony — it represents the hegemony. I am not nostalgic for the hegemony. I don’t crave narratives where no one sees me as more than a maid.

    I am the child of folks from that time, and they don’t recall how fascinating the Don Drapers of the world were.

    They recall seeing “whites only” sections of the employment ads…And “women only” sections as well.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:26 am ¶

27. cocolamala wrote:

    I have the same problems with “gone with the wind” narratives…i don’t want to pretend i used to live on a plantation, ever…not even if i could be the mistress in charge of Tara.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:29 am ¶

28. Jeremy wrote:

    I’d like to add a point about the “historical accuracy” debate that seems to be happening thus far in the comments here. On one side, there’s a disgust that the show has whitewashed potential storylines of black characters on the show, reflective of a problematic “good ol days” motif. On the other hand, there’s a group that seems to relish its accurate portrayal of the times.

    I think a comparison to The Wire is fruitful for this debate. In The Wire, David Simon uses the plethora of characters *as a vehicle* to expose the contours of urban inequality. To hear Simon talk about it, his intent was to tell the story of deindustrialization, economic distress, social isolation, and the effect on people living in urban America. Sure, there’s some side-themes (political corruption, ethics and newspapers, etc), but the idea was that the show wasn’t about the characters’ worldviews, per se; we didn’t see Baltimore through McNulty or Omar’s eyes–we had a birds eye view. The result was a commentary not on individual characters but on societal ills and social context.

    Mad Men takes the opposite approach; the social context of early 1960s Manhattan is merely the vehicle to offer a commentary on these characters. With the characters, rather than the social context, as our focal point (or, “unit of analysis” so use a social science-y term), the show doesn’t intend to offer a sweeping commentary about 1960s America. In this sense, it very much so intends to show us the world *through the eyes of the characters*. We are provided with their worldviews. And, in their world, POC aren’t too visible.

    I should also not that there’s a fascinating scene in the elevator following MM’s death. Peggy, Don, and the black elevator operator are talking about it, and the operator said something like “Some people are invisible even in the public eye.” I interpreted this as a nod from the writers that acknowledged the worldview vs. social context approach. It’s a brief moment, but it’s telling.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:29 am ¶

29. brarian wrote:

    1. I’m a POC who loves this show and reads its Television Without Pity Forums pretty often.
    2. I’m pretty sure people who like Pete are a minority. For me, every time I almost like him, he does something totally ridiculous to remind me why I can’t. I wouldn’t want to know him, but rather wish he’d take the time to see how counterproductive his own actions are. If you want someone to love you, blackmailing them is perhaps not the best method. If you’re frustrated with your wife, throwing a turkey out of a window is unlikely to change her behavior.
    3. It is an interesting choice that the stories of the POC on the periphery aren’t really told, but it structurally reinforces the lack of racial awareness on the part of the lead characters, and I think that’s on purpose. To me, it gives resonance to the moment when the elevator operator is silently witnessing office intrigue in the elevator. I can almost hear what he’s thinking. That may just be a function of who I am.
    4. Did anyone watching the first season get the feeling that race had something to do with Don’s Big Secret? The affair with Rachel, his missing biological mother in his fun agricultural childhood…it never really went that way, but was an interesting idea for a while.
    5. I would really be surprised if race doesn’t play a large role this season, given the era the show is heading into and the breadcrumbs dropped last season. Last season, we saw Paul flaunting his newfound social consciousness with his “baby” Sheila (who is black and who dumps his poseur behind after he goes on a Freedom Ride with her.) They also mention another firm hiring a black adman in passing. Ain’t much to go on in terms of speculation, but a little can be a lot on this show.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:31 am ¶

30. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    Double X says my piece will be up this afternoon, but I can share the premise, and mine is this –

    If you contrast the ability of women to tell their own stories within the Mad Men narrative, and for Jews (represented by Menken, but very limited), and then contrast that with the voiceless African-American and Asian American characters, you start to see looming difference in the way certain stories are told and treated.

    As Highjive said in one of his articles, Mad Men could win a NAACP image award for their portrayals of blacks during the period.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:33 am ¶

31. cocolamala wrote:

    “We are provided with their worldviews.”

    I understand that.

    “And, in their world, POC aren’t too visible”

    …Yah, I am not interested in this viewpoint.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:37 am ¶

32. Eva wrote:

    My mom and I have been watching Mad Men since the beginning. Both of love the show and I giggle because Don’s kids are well…my generation, the boomers. These folks are the boomers parents, yikes.

    However, I don’t see any of these guys as really rich. My mom had a friend who lived in Scarsdale NY in the 60’s and we went to her house often, now THEY were rich, I also had friends from school who lived in penthouses on Central Park West, these folks are mostly upper middle class for that time.

    I told my mom, “I remember when you used to dress like that.”

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:44 am ¶

33. Eva wrote:

    One more thing.

    I wonder how Pete is going to react since Peggy told him the truth. I have a feeling Pete will make the greatest change of all the characters, because his facade is falling apart.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:46 am ¶

34. G.D. wrote:

    Latoya: There was an interesting article on what the writing staff for Mad Men looks like. Seven of its 9 writers are women. I wonder what the portrayal of POC would look like if there were POC writers on the show.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:48 am ¶

35. atlasien wrote:

    “So I think the show makes it clear that Pete will either have to grow and accept the times that are a-changin’ or be left behind, clinging madly to an old, racist, and sexist school of thought that will ultimately leave him all alone.”

    Yes. But it still doesn’t stir up any sympathy in me. Being “left behind” is not the horrible accident I was hoping would happen to Pete. Types like like him didn’t get left behind in the dirt of history… instead, they got left behind in a comfy armchair. They’re not “cool” anymore, but they’re still rich and powerful.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:49 am ¶

36. Matt wrote:

    Well, yeah, if you contrast the inclusion of one story with the relative exclusion of another, then it’s a show that doesn’t tell every story out there. But that’s really unfair to expect that of one show.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:50 am ¶

37. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    @Matt –

    No, it’s not unfair. It’s accurate. And I don’t understand why a show that prides itself on intimate details (the littering, the children playing with plastic bags over their heads, the lack of seatbelts, the drinking and driving culture) would make such a huge, glaring, omission.

    It doesn’t make logical sense. The writers know that the men of Sterling Cooper are completely disinterested in the stories of their wives, which is why they allow the women characters other spaces in which to air their grievances. Why aren’t black characters given the same space to do so? If even minor characters like Betty Draper’s housewife neighbors, who appear in one or two episodes tops, can use their time on screen to reinforce the brutality of patriarchy, why can’t reoccurring characters like Hollis or Carla ever provide a glimpse into the brutality of racism?

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 11:57 am ¶

38. Arturo wrote:

    I don’t imagine these types of questions come into play for the people planning *ahem* Mad Men parties.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 12:08 pm ¶

39. pointofagreement wrote:

    How shocking would it be for those posting comments to know that the advertising industry is still–today–just as white as it’s portrayed in Mad Men?

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 12:10 pm ¶

40. trooper6 wrote:

    @cocolamama:
    “I’ll Fly Away” I saw that, it was good.
    But I don’t think Mad Men is “taking on” the hegemony at all. It does not challenge the hegemony — it represents the hegemony. I am not nostalgic for the hegemony. I don’t crave narratives where no one sees me as more than a maid.

    I think we’ll have to disagree on the point of representation/challenge–because I do think it is challenging. Also, I have to say, I love the show…and that love has nothing to do with nostalgia. I am not nostalgic for the early 60s. That time sucked. I like Mad Men because it is one of the few TV shows set in that time period that shows us that that time sucked. I think it is very good to have a show that shows that that time period was not a good time period. The sexism, racism, anti-semitism, homophobia…the whole time period was not good…and the show is aware of that. That is why I see it as challenging the hegemony and why I don’t see it as nostalgic–and why I like the show. If I felt the show were valorizing Pete and Don and that world view, or whitewashing the ugliness of the time, I wouldn’t enjoy it. But that is not what I see that show doing.

    I am the child of folks from that time, and they don’t recall how fascinating the Don Drapers of the world were.
    They recall seeing “whites only” sections of the employment ads…And “women only” sections as well.

    I’m the child of folks from that time too. And my mom dealt with whites only watering fountains and all that. So? Mad Men is not Happy Days. Mad Men is a direct contradiction to all those older white conservatives like Pat Buchanan who claim the 50s were go great. Mad Men puts the lie to that. So does West Side Story actually. And Corrinna, Corrina…and I’ll Fly Away, and any number of other works of art. One show can’t do everything. Hegemony has to be tackled by multiple people coming at it from multiple angles. Mad Men is not the show about Watts in the 60s. That would also be a great show. Mad Men is the show about Madison Avenue hegemony. That is also a story to be told.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 12:16 pm ¶

41. cocolamala wrote:

    racism in today’s ad industry??… well, judging from the relative lack of opportunity for models of color, and the continuing use of stereotypical imagery in sales… i am not surprised at all

    … and given the problematic treatment [erasure] of black stories on mad men…i am not surprised that the team of writers on this show is all white either

    and an invite to a mad men party would put me in a quandry. i imagine half the ppl there would be thinking… i watch the show, would she really be a guest at this party…?

    which, i guess, is what would happen, if i showed up at a real mad men party in the 1950s anyway, so…um, yeah

    these are the problems i have, as a POC, in participating in some forms of contemporary culture.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 12:47 pm ¶

42. Sylvia/M wrote:

    If even minor characters like Betty Draper’s housewife neighbors, who appear in one or two episodes tops, can use their time on screen to reinforce the brutality of patriarchy, why can’t reoccurring characters like Hollis or Carla ever provide a glimpse into the brutality of racism?

    The brutality of racism is the silence. Black people can’t speak up. Do you think there’d be an ally for them? In this way (and this is kinda funny when I think of it), look at Salvatore. He cannot speak up about being gay. He can’t live that lifestyle. He can’t even imagine it. Yet when another coworker acknowledges that he’s gay, and he hears the barrage of ignorance around that announcement, does he try to lead a Stonewall-style social insurrection in Sterling Cooper? No. He remains silent.

    The show reveals nexuses of privilege and oppression. The women can vent frustrations with each other. Sal has no one to reach out to, really; so he speaks to no one. The black characters are very rarely shown in groups, and when they see each other, it’s not like they can shout out, “Wow, these white folks have done some crazy shit today!” They exchange looks. The non-verbal communication of POC in the series cracks me up. And sometimes the verbal, even. Remember the scene with the two bathroom attendants? “If those purses get any smaller, we’re gonna starve.”

    I have more to write about this but I’ll hold my tongue for now.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 1:03 pm ¶

43. Matt wrote:

    “No, it’s not unfair. It’s accurate.”

    @Latoya: Accurate and fair are different standards, neither compatible nor incompatible. It’s first and foremost a show about the discrepancies between self-image and persona and how those discrepancies can grind. The setting is an ad agency, after all.

    Because segregation by race was more complete, it operated with a different dynamic. The scene where Sal watches Kurt openly state that he’s gay — that’s not a major dynamic in Black/White relations the way it is for gays, Jews, and women.

    The dynamic the show focuses on, which might be called more subtle, so often gets buried in a focus on more salient racisms, and I kind of resent the notion that it’s not right to focus on it.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 1:25 pm ¶

44. cocolamala wrote:

    “it’s not like they can shout out, “Wow, these white folks have done some crazy shit today!””

    yeah, but what do you think those black folk are talking about on their commutes back home?

    The show focuses on the segregated world of Ad Agency Executives so we can’t hear any conversations independent of the white male characters?? Well, their wives, and their wives’ next door neighbors have convos… so we can’t have convos independent of the show’s white characters??

    the show centers whiteness — not just Ad Agency Office politics…

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 1:25 pm ¶

45. ztastz wrote:

    @Arturo

    Those parties exactly personify what white people are getting out of Mad Men. They aren’t thinking about how bigoted and racist what’s being presented to them is, they just want to think about how glamorous, sexy, sophisticated, and gosh-gee-willikers nostalgic all the white characters and their stories are. Most watchers of Mad Men don’t want to dig any deeper than that, because to them there isn’t any more to Mad Men than that.

    If their are people who can catch the nuance, god bless, but at this point in my life I can’t look at a show like Mad Men and fawn over little snippets about PoC while an all white main cast gets to do the deep, interesting stuff in the narrative. I can watch any show on TV and get the same experience. My quota on that shit is full–not interested.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 1:37 pm ¶

46. trooper6 wrote:

    “the show centers whiteness — not just Ad Agency Office politics…”

    Right, and that is part of the point. Whiteness operates by never being named. By remaining the invisible norm. By staying uncommented upon. I think Mad Men does a great job of casting a light on whiteness. The show doesn’t give you invisible whiteness which only serves to reinforce hegemony. It makes the lack of people of color noticeable. It makes whiteness suspect. It problematizes whiteness. I rarely see a show that problematizes whiteness. I watch the rare show that explores POCness (The Wire being one example), but rarely do I see, for all the shows that feature all white people, do I see shows that problematize and name whiteness.

    I think about all-white shows like Dawson’s Creek or Friends. Those shows to nothing to shed a light or problematize whiteness. They normalize and erase whiteness. I don’t think that Mad Men works the same way that Dawson’s Creek or Friends does at all.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 1:38 pm ¶

47. cocolamala wrote:

    WWII stories are another example of historical narratives that tend to center whiteness… there were segregated ranks yes, but that is not the same as a total absence — african american historical stories are there, but since they may have been located in a largely Black social space, the movie versions are justified in ignoring these experiences and re-focusing on segregated groups of white soldiers.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 1:41 pm ¶

48. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    @Matt –

    What I am saying is that there’s nothing wrong with subtle. But black characters are not humanized in the way other characters are. And there’s a big difference between handling something quietly and sidestepping the issue.

    I watched both seasons when they aired, and then went back to review more closely when I got the assignment. I’ve been through every single ep of Mad Men in the last three weeks, taking notes, and paying strict attention to the treatment of each character, watching the special features on the DVDs and trying to get a sense of the why. Why is race being handled in this way? There are a great many dropped opportunities, which I explore in the Double X piece, and while I can respect the wishes of the writers to focus on the intimate lives of the characters and not the events of the period, there are still too many dropped times when minority characters could speak, but don’t; could convey despair but do not; could provide those telling non verbal cues that are such a hallmark of the show, but they do not.

    The silence, that some have seized on as a point of commentary in itself, changes context from the first season to the second. And with everything I watched (including some interesting omissions in the DVD commentary) I’ve concluded that the writers keep shying away from directly engaging with race because they aren’t sure what to say, and how to say it without overshadowing the show. This is why I keep looking at the many missed opportunities – race does not have to be the focus of a show to be handled well.

    And I just don’t see it being handled well.

    And to be quite frank, the dynamics mirror a lot of the dynamics of feminist blog wars, where people feel free to say “I deal with WOC issues” but don’t necessarily understand them on anything but a surface level.

    Now I’ve really got to chill as Double X still has not published the piece, but it will make more sense of you could engage with the examples I pulled. If you come to a different conclusion, fine – but it’s hard to debate this without pulling out the scenes I’m referring to.

    I’ll open a new thread when it’s up. Until then, I don’t want to derail anymore, particularly when this is a thread dedicated to Pete.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 2:04 pm ¶

49. cocolamala wrote:

    to me, problematizing whiteness would be showing the limits of being white during this time…but the viewers/writers do not transgress the boundaries of racial segregation any more than the characters do… we do not go into any black character’s homes…just like Don and co. We do not hear any critiques of whiteness beyond what Don would overhear in passing POC in the hallways…how exactly does the show take its viewers beyond???

    how does that make whiteness any more problematic than the vague twinges Don feels when he questions a black porter about his taste in cigarettes? for 5 min.

    It does not make whiteness suspect — when Don merrily rolls along with the rest of his meal season after dismissing the porter.

    It does not make whiteness suspect — when you walk out of a ladies room with a snarky POC attendant right back to a salaried position in a segregated agency, and then you drive back to segregated suburban housing that evening.

    These characters lives are perfectly comfortable regardless of any segregation afflicts their POC employees. You could watch this show to learn how to be comfortable living with segregation.

    Whiteness is not problematic on Mad Men, I don’t see much time devoted to characters who have a problem with it. Especially not POC characters (who, most likely would have the most to say about it).

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 2:12 pm ¶

50. Jaleesa wrote:

    I don’t think the writers are actively ignoring the POC stance in Mad Men. That isn’t really the vibe I got from watching the show. POC aren’t really relevant to the show at large, which sucks, but that’s how it was. Some questions are raised concerning race on the show, especially the bit about Sheila, and I don’t feel that’s getting enough credit. TV shows aren’t really created to make everyone comfortable and to be PC, especially when they’re done right. If you’re paying attention, this show is amazing at creating discussions and raising questions where they really need to be raised.

    I do think the audience of Mad Men tends to miss those nuances completely for the glamor and glitz of the show, and that worries me far more than the show itself. Privilege is rank in this regards, just like with anything where people watch a show and wish to return to “the good old days”, forgetting about the racism and sexism and even homophobia that would’ve made living then unbearable for significant portions of the population.

    Shows like these tend to expose how post-racial and post-feminist and progressive we actually are. I don’t like the idea of blaming the show for how apt it is at revealing that we really haven’t come that far at all. I don’t think it’s the show’s fault, if that makes any sense.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 2:18 pm ¶

51. Matt wrote:

    And to be quite frank, the dynamics mirror a lot of the dynamics of feminist blog wars, where people feel free to say “I deal with WOC issues” but don’t necessarily understand them on anything but a surface level.

    That’s a good observation, I think. There is a parallel. Except that are lots of feminist blogs, while there’s only one Mad Men. Not only is it a single show, but there aren’t many shows dealing with these themes that are so important to a great many minority groups. It’s not like that discussion is going on all over the place — especially with respect to Jews, who, as Rachel Menken noted, have been dealing with it for 3,000 years.

    I also don’t think it’s a derail, because Pete needs to be seen in the context of the show’s themes. But I’ll wait for the examples you talk of.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 2:26 pm ¶

52. Matt wrote:

    I do think the audience of Mad Men tends to miss those nuances completely for the glamor and glitz of the show, and that worries me far more than the show itself.

    I don’t think there’s too much to worry about there. For all the press the show gets, it’s still got a pretty small audience, and I’d tend to think it’s mostly people interested in seeing the show as it’s meant to be seen.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 2:39 pm ¶

53. gail wrote:

    I’m fascinated and disgusted by the characters of Mad Men and certainly Pete Campbell is the least likeable. The show is selective about how much background is revealed about each character so that what is shown carries weight. Pete’s relationships with his parents suggests that he has been raised by people who only care about him to the degree that he can enhance their own socio-economic status. His father makes it clear to him that his choice of work is a disappointment, and that however “successful” Pete is, he will never measure up. You can sneer “cry me a river” over this dilemma, but I think the show makes it clear that Pete has been raised to believe that material wealth and success are all that count, that he is entitled to these things by virtue of his family of origin, and that he CANNOT value anything else—certainly not any need or feeling that is unrelated to wealth and status. He is a shell. And at different times his awareness of his own emptiness, his impoverished humanity, are glimpsed. He has to find the courage to “out” himself as a human being with feelings to himself and then to his family or stay closeted in the wealth and privilege he’s been socialized to believe are worth the price of his sacrificed humanity. I’m not saying this excuses his cruelty. I’m just saying that cruel people like Pete are made, not born, and they suffer in the making. Empathize or not.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 2:45 pm ¶

54. trooper6 wrote:

    @gail: “You can sneer “cry me a river” over this dilemma, but I think the show makes it clear that Pete has been raised to believe that material wealth and success are all that count, that he is entitled to these things by virtue of his family of origin, and that he CANNOT value anything else—certainly not any need or feeling that is unrelated to wealth and status. He is a shell. And at different times his awareness of his own emptiness, his impoverished humanity, are glimpsed. ”

    And this is partly how the show makes whiteness problematic.

    @cocolamama:
    “It does not make whiteness suspect — when Don merrily rolls along with the rest of his meal season after dismissing the porter.

    It does not make whiteness suspect — when you walk out of a ladies room with a snarky POC attendant right back to a salaried position in a segregated agency, and then you drive back to segregated suburban housing that evening.

    The characters don’t register discomfort most of the time, but the show highlights that to make us the audience feel discomfort. It is like when they all littered in the park. The characters have no problem that they littered. But showing them be so blithe about it generates discomfort in us the audience.

    These characters lives are perfectly comfortable regardless of any segregation afflicts their POC employees. You could watch this show to learn how to be comfortable living with segregation.

    But they don’t have perfectly comfortable lives. As gail points out these people are all shells of human beings. This segregated life they are living is destroying their souls. It is numbing them and making them terrible people. And you can see that they aren’t happy, but they don’t know why. But we, in the audience can see why.

    Whiteness is not problematic on Mad Men, I don’t see much time devoted to characters who have a problem with it. Especially not POC characters (who, most likely would have the most to say about it).”

    Whiteness is very problematic on Mad Men. You don’t have to have POC around in order to deconstruct whiteness. That idea perpetuates white supremacy. The idea that the only trouble with hegemony is that POCs don’t like it…and if they aren’t around nobody is hurt. That’s no good. Because every single one of the white people on the show are shown as people for whom whiteness is a problem. Pete is having problems with whiteness–part of his problems is that he isn’t interrogating his whiteness and that is part of what makes him a villain.

    I think it is important to see the difference between the attitudes of the characters in the show, and the ways in which the shows creative team present those attitudes, and the attitudes they have, and the sort of attitudes they want to engender in the audience.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 3:10 pm ¶

55. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    Okay, piece is up.

    http://www.doublex.com/section/arts/why-mad-men-afraid-race?page=0,0

    Keep in mind, this piece is about two pages; my original copy was 8.

    I’ll open up a big thread tomorrow, but this should provide more clarity on what exactly I am arguing.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 3:16 pm ¶

56. Matt wrote:

    In many ways, Latoya, that’s a pretty good piece. There’s a lot of useful detail, and I pretty much agree with your expectations of the upcoming season. (Though, no, Hollis won’t be promoted because that would be a denial of the racism of the time.) But, this:
    

    Although Draper has a gift for engaging and seeing through marginalized types—the unwed mother, the Jewish heiress, the closeted gay man—in the case of the black characters, the relationship never goes beyond shallow conversation.

    Though I’m not sure Draper ever shows any sympathy to gay men, he is someone with secrets that go to the core of his identity. In fact, it’s a secret that he isn’t even Draper. As Weiner has said, that’s the nature of his attraction to Menken. Blackness OTOH is only sometimes a secret like that. Draper has a gift for engaging with some marginalized types, but there’s no reason to expect him to engage as well with all types of marginalization.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 4:15 pm ¶

57. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    @Matt –

    Though I’m not sure Draper ever shows any sympathy to gay men, he is someone with secrets that go to the core of his identity. In fact, it’s a secret that he isn’t even Draper. As Weiner has said, that’s the nature of his attraction to Menken.

    I agree. I’ll get more into making sausage in the other article, but this line was inserted by my ed as a way to summarize a lot of what I was saying. It had originally said something to the extent of “Draper is the only character who transcends the racism and sexism of the age, engaging with the unwed mother…”

    I disagreed, and in my second edit, I said if Draper transcends the racism and sexism of the age, it is due to his self-absorption, required by his preoccupation with keeping his secret and identity in tact.

    She disagreed, and reworked it that way – I chose to fight over other omissions/insertions.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 4:27 pm ¶

58. cocolamala wrote:

    last reply on this thread (but at least this is about Pete)

    I don’t think Pete is a soulless shell becuase of segregation. I dont’ think he’s written that way to show the effects of systemic racism on white folks.

    like gail said, Pete has issues that stem from his family life and his materialism. ending segregation isn’t going to cause him to be a better man.

    and my point is not that you need POC around to deconstruct whiteness — it is that the stories of POC who are already on the show are being ignored. Why aren’t their stories deemed worthy of further exploration?

    I have already seen undeveloped black background characters in countless movies and shows. How is this better?

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 4:28 pm ¶

59. ashlynn wrote:

    I don’t think Mad Men is necessarily the forum to tackle the lives of PoC. I find that the show sort of specializes in the mentality of privileged white men, in that PoC are merely a blip on the radar of conscience. I would totally welcome a show that focused of PoC in the 50’s and 60’s- it would be highly engaging to watch the complete opposite occur: the mentality of non-privileged people of color, in that white people are constantly on their minds, more by force or necessity or fear and oppression than much else.

    And speaking of shows like these, the endless barrage of dramas and comedies and reality formats that focus on only white people, I was just talking to a friend about how you would be hard pressed to see a show like NYC Prep focus on PoC, on a mainstream network that’s generally known as the go-to network for those semi-exploitative, yet highly intriguing and entertaining shows based on “reality”.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 5:46 pm ¶

60. Adrianna wrote:

    I find Mad Men creepy . I think is because it erases POC . It reminds me of that movie the village . where differnet people are not even acknowledge. As I recall everyone was white. Funny that this show mostly written by white women . It is also very telling that ad agencies haven’t changed . Who knows Pete Campbell might be working in ad agency somewhere in the 21 st century.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 8:59 pm ¶

61. trooper6 wrote:

    Isn’t Baldwin Hills a sort of a quasi reality show about privileged black kids?

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:04 pm ¶

62. n wrote:

    I’ve still only read a bit about the series and checked out the website, so I want to be clear on that. Im discussing this show in part and the general attitude writers have toward POC and marginalized people in their fantasy universes.

    I’m sorry, but I find it bizarre to imagine that one would have to have invisible POC characters to show that POC were considered insignificant.

    IMO, to say that shows that the speaker believes that the POC were voiceless and insignificant. The relative unimportance of women is shown and women are actual characters.

    Well, it was an all white agency etc blah blah blah so we cant show any POC, because then it wouldnt be accurate. WHY can the story not be as glaringly brutally accurate AND include, lets say, the OTHER people in the story? See, to say that the story of the agency includes only the people working there is , IMO, a LIE.

    The story includes the people who are trying to get in, the people who are denied, the people who are being mistreated. The story of the janitor (is there one, Im not sure but there is always one somewhere) who wants to have a career and cant advance to a position that doesnt involve a broom IS A PART OF THIS STORY. To show the POV of a POC who is being excluded would still show quite clearly, the way things were.

    ANY black character could be given a story and the accuracy would remain the same. You can show, for example, a door being slammed from the outside or you can show the POV of the person a door is being slammed on. You can show a person being kicked from the POV of the kicker or an onlooker or you can show a boot coming down on someone’s head. And its still the same story.
    The belief that showing the boot coming down on the head is not as true to the story as showing it from the view of the kicker? Im not sure I agree.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 9:46 pm ¶

63. Dane wrote:

    Wow. I’ve never watched mad men but this thread was interesting.

    Posted 13 Aug 2009 at 10:06 pm ¶

64. Rebecca wrote:

    I think the thing with Pete Campbell is that while you initially hate him because of his privileged arrogance and sense of entitlement you start to pity/feel sorry for him because he’s just such a loser and that undermines your ability to hate him.

    All of his privilege has created a person with such unrealistic beliefs about what he deserves that he is constantly frustrated/emasculated by his perceived lack of achievement and recognition and that makes you kind of feel sorry for him. He’s also completely socially inept and unable to interact normally. You just keep hoping that he’ll have some kind of epiphany, acknowledge privilege doesn’t equal deserving and become a nice person, that’s what you can’t help rooting for, some kind of redemption.

    Posted 14 Aug 2009 at 7:02 am ¶

65. nails wrote:

    It is really hard to treat this show like it exists outside of executive meddling. I doubt they can put on whatever they want whenever they want. It seems to me like the ugliness of the men and the stories of the women got a lot more airtime during the 2nd season in comparison to the first, so hopefully the trend will continue with making the dudes of less focus. I almost feel like Don being the main character was a bargain made for ratings/greenlighting when the real story is clearly Peggy/Joan/Betty/Bobbi/other women. I almost feel like Don is tacked on, mostly to emasculate Pete.

    Posted 14 Aug 2009 at 8:47 am ¶

66. pm wrote:

    I’ve never felt any interest in watching this show. It just seems to me that a show about able-bodied, upper-middle class, white, American, men, in the 1960’s is just too many steps removed from anything I could get interested in. It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t more fortunate than me on every one of those axes (well, barring the ‘man’ bit).

    People falling into all those intersections of the Venn diagram are surely some of the most fortunate people that ever lived. The early 1960s in the US was a great time to be middle class white and male.

    Well, OK, possibly excluding the gay ones (I gather there’s a gay character?). And on top of that they work in advertising, a particularly dislikable form of middle-class career.

    It can’t be coincidence that the only people who seem to watch it (and rave about it in print) in the UK are upper-middle class white males in the media, for whom the only points of difference are nationality and era. For them there seems to be an interest in comparing the lives of folk-like-themselves from a different era. But if you aren’t in that group (which I think is as much defined by class as race) that appeal is missing. Its just alien on every axis.

    From this thread I get the impression I’m right, it is centered on entirely those people, and everyone else is peripheral.

    I feel a bit bad writing the programme off like that, because I can easily imagine something I liked getting the exact same response from someone more proletarian than me, or from a more disadvantaged racial group. But honestly, there’s just nothing there I can get interested in.

    Posted 14 Aug 2009 at 12:58 pm ¶

67. Kaonashi wrote:

    I don’t think Mad Men is necessarily the forum to tackle the lives of PoC. I find that the show sort of specializes in the mentality of privileged white men, in that PoC are merely a blip on the radar of conscience. I would totally welcome a show that focused of PoC in the 50’s and 60’s- it would be highly engaging to watch the complete opposite occur: the mentality of non-privileged people of color, in that white people are constantly on their minds, more by force or necessity or fear and oppression than much else.

    Exactly. That was one of the things I enjoyed the most about watching movies like Dead Presidents (which dealt with Vietnam vets) and this interesting 60s film I saw a while back that featured the trials and tribulations of a Puerto Rican family who moved to New York. Maybe Tyler Perry can take a break from making Medea movies and make it happen?

    A very underrated movie about advertising that’s good to watch is Boomerrang. The consultant on that movie must have been an industry insider, because once you take away the Murphy/Givens/Berry triangle, a lot of what went on in the day to day running of that agency was right on the money.

    Posted 14 Aug 2009 at 7:21 pm ¶

68. NancyP wrote:

    Frowner, there were shows about 1950s – 1960s working class people (other than police, EMTs, etc) – back in the ’50s and ’60s.

    Jackie Gleason Show was the most famous – you can’t get much more working class than city bus driver.

    However, almost all characters on early TV shows were white; most famous exception, “Ricky Ricardo” (Desi Arnez), Lucille Ball’s TV hubby and also real-life husband. Black characters were rare, and were service people, entertainers, etc, not show regulars.

    Posted 14 Aug 2009 at 8:37 pm ¶

69. slavicdiva wrote:

    I agree, Pete is loathsome – and I’m white. I could cheerfully run him over if I saw him alone on a dark night.

    I grew up in rural PA, and we had our share of Petes – the guys whose dads were doctors or lawyers (what passed for “good families” where I grew up), and who were raised to believe the world was their oyster and should revolve around them, because that’s the “natural order of things.” Special snowflakes, indeed, these Masters of the Universe; I never knew a meaner bunch of asshats than those Petes. They took their arrogance out on anyone who wasn’t a Pete – and that included PoCs and people like me, equally.

    How dare I, an “immigrant” (2nd generation, actually) girl be better than them in school? How dare a girl get better grades; how dare a girl whose dad worked in a coal mine be smarter? That bunch of Petes made my public school years a living hell. I never figured out whether it was my lack of a rich daddy, my ethnicity or my gender that was more of a threat to them. It still sucked anyway; all I wanted was to do well in school and make a few friends. Instead, I incurred the ire of the Petes.

    No wonder that nearly every time Pete is on screen, I raise my blood pressure by having to restrain myself from putting a fist through the screen. I hate that guy, I hate his sense of privilege and entitlement, and the idea that Every Good Thing should come his way, just because he exists on the planet. I keep hoping something truly awful will happen to him – like he’ll get run over by a bus or something – not just some little thing for him to go all whiny and pathetic about.

    And no, I don’t root for him. Quite the opposite. And the more he whines, the more I want to run him over. I don’t feel the slightest shred of pity for the pathetic little asshat – he is what he has made of himself.

    Posted 17 Aug 2009 at 3:49 pm ¶

70. waxghost wrote:

    I hate Pete too – and I’m white.

    But I don’t actually ‘like’ any character on Mad Men. Just like I never really ‘liked’ any character on the Sopranos; their flaws are just too big and too glaring. The instant I start to like someone on Mad Men, they do something awful.

    Which is, for me, how it explores whiteness and shows the inherent flaws in the system of the 1960s – a system that is really not that much different from today, honestly. I recognize my own white life in the show and simultaneously see how empty it is because of the lack of not just centred people of color but also the heteronormativity, able-bodiedness, cisgender centralizing, etc.

    But I don’t think that’s common. It would never cross my mind to have a Mad Men party because the entertainment aspect of it, while still there of course, always becomes subsurvient to my curiosity and disgust about the way people lived back then. I do think, in that sense, it’s like a mirror that reflects what we LOOK FOR rather than what IS. I already knew that the ’60s were not the idyllic time that so many (white) people like to make them out to be so it’s not that hard for me to see it. I wonder (hope), at the same time, if the kind of people who DO have Mad Men parties aren’t picking up on some of that subconsciously…

    But I am also waiting for people of color to be featured more prominently, too. I agree with the critiques on here that it wouldn’t be that hard to show the life of a person of color as more than an event peripheral to one of the white characters. Especially with Sheila, the girlfriend, I was really hopeful, but she seemed to be there only to make us dislike Joan. I didn’t even get the sense that whatever-Sheila’s-boyfriend’s-name-is was using her, as a couple of people have remarked, but even in that sense, the SHOW was using her to make him seem like a better guy rather than showing her for her sake. (I do wonder if the near absence of people of color so far has been a process meant to lull unsuspecting white people into liking the show before pouncing on them with the Civil Rights era.)

    Maybe this season will surprise us, though. I’m keeping my fingers crossed…

    Posted 17 Aug 2009 at 5:33 pm ¶

71. lisa wrote:

    @waxghost

    just a note: i don’t think having a mad men party is mutually exclusive with understanding the show/the era. you can appreciate the costumes, set design and so on without actually wanting to relive the early sixties — or, more ludicrously for people who watch the show enough to be that fannish, consider it an “idyllic time.” similarly, you can embrace cooking and sewing or pin-up/rockabilly culture without wanting to return to a time when women were pressured into learning and practicing only the domestic arts, and when posing as a pin-up was one of very few career opportunities for some women trying to make it on their own. you can dress up as a flapper without celebrating the heyday of the kkk. i mean, right?? as anyone who has ever attended a halloween party should be able to attest, costumes are really not generally direct projections of admiration, although they certainly can be. as matt said upthread, the mad men audience is still pretty small, and their community online seems to reflect a pretty strong general awareness of the messages the show tries to get across about the stifling nature of the era for people who didn’t fit its norms. if these same fans also enjoy the show’s sartorial flair, and riff on it themselves for kicks, i really don’t think that automatically means that they’re somehow oblivious to the issues of privilege and prejudice inherent in mad men’s setting.

    Posted 17 Aug 2009 at 7:50 pm ¶

72. Dawn wrote:

    As someone who grew up in a blue collar, white family who was 6 years old in 1962, I wasn’t raised around middle class people, but I do recall that most of my adult relatives smoked. Also, my grandma would make a pot of coffee & the neighbor lady would sometimes stop & they’d sit in the kitchen & talk. Let’s face it, some professional men still take out clients for lunch & drinks & womanizing, still happens today. Look at all the recents scandals in the media. Racism, sexism, homophobia continue to be issues as well. Fortunately, we’ve made progess since the early 60’s, but still have room for improvement.

    I see posts on fb from younger readers who wish they lived back then b/c it was a simpler time. My response was that it was simpler connecting with people before cell phone & the interenet b/c stores were closed on Sundays & many people did visit with there grandparents & relatives, but it wasn’t a great time for women, minorities & gays.

    Posted 17 Aug 2009 at 8:21 pm ¶

73. waxghost wrote:

    lisa, you are totally right and I didn’t mean to make it sound so either/or. I should have written that a little better.

    Posted 17 Aug 2009 at 9:04 pm ¶

74. bigNowhere wrote:

    I happen to love the show, but it is probably because (in part) I’m a white guy that was born during that era.

    In particular, Don reminds me (faintly) of my dad. My father was white, but was originally from a very poor southern sharecropper family. He told me many stories about being disrespected by the Pete Campbells of the world while growing up.

    Ultimately, he fought through much of it, and became a college professor. So, as an adult he was no longer poor, and superficially would have been considered middle, or upper-middle class. But, he never completely escaped his background. He seemed to me (from things he said) to feel like he was playing a part, like he didn’t really belong in the middle class, and that people would eventually figure it out if he wasn’t careful. Throughout my childhood he made small passing comments that hinted at this mentality.

    As I was born into that world, I never quite understood this attitude when I was a kid. But as an adult, I get it now. My dad’s background didn’t involve a complete change of identity as literal as Don Draper’s, but it feels similar in a lot of ways. Don hides who he is, but he can’t completely escape it. With his background he can’t help but hate Pete, for example.

    I also enjoy the small historical touches. I do remember when people brazenly littered, like the Drapers do at their picnic. I remember men making really sexist comments. I remember every single one of my parents friends smoking, and several of the men (a la Kinsey) smoking pipes. When was the last time I saw anyone with a pipe? It used to seem so normal.

    I’m not nostaligic for any of that. But, this show was jarring for me, in that I’d forgotten a lot of it. In season one, a male character refers to Peggy’s ad idea as being, “like a dog playing the piano”. First I was shocked by the comment, then I was shocked to remember, in the very faint corner of my brain, that I used to hear people talk like that all the time.

    Having said all of that, I agree that the show could do a lot more with POC characters, and I can understand why someone without my background wouldn’t have interest in it. The show is very well done, but I can’t imagine it ever having a large audience.

    Posted 19 Aug 2009 at 9:46 am ¶

75. Tara K. wrote:

    I don’t know any fans of Mad Men who don’t understand that the show is a critical work that examines the racism, classism, and sexism of the era. Seriously. I have never met a soul who didn’t understand those motives and that purpose of the show.

    Posted 29 Sep 2009 at 4:48 pm ¶