Mad Men’s Carla raises consciousness 140 characters at a time

by Guest Contributor Helen Klein Ross, originally published at Ad Broad

Why do Mad Men fans write feeds for the characters? I know that for many of us, it’s simply good fun. For others, it’s fun and an interesting experiment in social media. For others of us, it’s all that and…an opportunity to touch on controversial social issues the show bravely explores.

Latoya Peterson writing for Racialicious observes there’s a twitter feed for Carla, the Drapers’ African American housekeeper, which puts forth perspective that is “all but absent on the show”.

Some critics have taken Mad Men to task for not dealing with social injustice in a more frontal manner. But Weiner’s characters exist in a universe where concepts of feminism and racism are just beginning to take hold. Where sexual harassment not only doesn’t have consequences, it won’t have a name for a good twenty years.

HighJive, a popular blogger who writes on race and “cultural cluelessness” concedes that “finding fault with Mad Men’s rendering of ethnic minorities in the advertising industry is somewhat impossible because, well, they barely exist. They’re invisible.”

Indeed, when the twitter feed for Carla first appeared in December, there was no profile pic. There wasn’t a profile pic for Carla for weeks. The writer explained why in an email:

I have no picture because I’m invisible.

Carla remained without a profile pic until Jan 19, the day before Obama was sworn in:

Finally found one of my own pictures. Makes me feel like today is a holiday.

From time to time, the writer behind Carla touches on racial inequity taken for granted in the world of Ossining, circa 1963. Here’s her exchange with Betty during a twitter-based Tea Party:

Carla: This uniform makes me feel uncomfortable. But I can’t show it; must maintain my “quiet dignity” for the party.

Betty: And be sure and put out Cointreau for White Ladies.

Carla: Oh, won’t all of your guests be white ladies at the party?

Betty: You are such a character! Gin + Cointreau + Lemon + Powdered Sugar = White Lady. Don’t forget to iron your apron!

Carla: We could offer Black Ladies as well. Brandy + Grand Marnier + Kahlua. Paul Kinsey told me he likes Black Ladies.

Carla: And at least, I get to keep my own clothes clean if Betty and her friends spit up the White Ladies on the black lady.

Betty: And change the record on the hifi to Bing Crosby, would you?

Clara: Putting on Bing Crosby record, wishing I’d brought my Louie Armstrong “Christmas Night in Harlem” record to play.

Some tweeters have taken issue with @Carla_Madmen’s sangfroid, wishing her to be more politically conscious:

re: Fixation on the Drapers’ lives…don’t you need to be marching for your civil rights or something?

But Carla on twitter remains in character. She is no Rosa Parks. She is like thousands of women were then as now: ordinary women trying to make the best of the cards they’d been dealt:

March? I get plenty of exercise walking to and from the train.

I do not know who writes @Carla_Madmen. But we have developed an email relationship in which we exchange views on racism and other issues that Carla and Betty can’t discuss. I sent her the Racialicious piece and asked for her views on how blacks are depicted in Mad Men. She wrote:

African-Americans are the only grown-ups on Mad Men. To the limited extent you see them, they lack any discernible faults. Whether that’s due to their minor roles, I’m not sure. I think it will be interesting to watch Mad Men develop larger roles for minority characters as the 60’s progress — single dimensional with quiet dignity or a more full range of human emotions and foibles. It’s obviously a potential land mine for the writers.

And a gold mine of material for the writer of Carla’s twitter feed.

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Comments

Molly wrote:

I can’t really speak to the Twitter thing (I’m glad you guys are following it, because I can’t be arsed to follow fictional characters), but I was glad to see Carla get a little more play in the last episode. What was interesting was that she seems pretty confident that Grampa can’t get her fired, which seems like either an oversight by the writers or like they’re saying something positive about the Drapers (which would be supported by what’s-his-face Draper’s disgust over the minstrel show).

Here’s hoping Carla gets a little more than background while she’s stuck dealing with Dementia Dad!

Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 11:22 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@Molly –

What was interesting was that she seems pretty confident that Grampa can’t get her fired, which seems like either an oversight by the writers or like they’re saying something positive about the Drapers

Good observation, and I think that remains to be seen.

But I disagree with this:

(which would be supported by what’s-his-face Draper’s disgust over the minstrel show).

I don’t think Don was disgusted at the act of blackface. I think he was disgusted at Sterling, in general, mooning over his new wife. The blackface didn’t even register with the characters, as would have been fitting for that time period.

Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 11:27 am ¶
Vgirl wrote:

Okay, I have to comment on the black face minstrel show in this week’s episode of Mad Men. I appreciate the coverage of Carla’s conscience being tweeted. And I think it is fascinating. But, um, BLACK FACE?!?

What did it add to the episode? We get it– they’re all racist and sexist and clueless…but really, black face? A man in black face singing “My Old Kentucky Home” to his white mistress/wife? Did it really make wealthy privileged add men look any more out of touch than the Charleston dance scene?

While I’ve heard arguments ranging from, “that’s the only show that could go there” to “it deepened our view of their world”…how can a show with “invisible” characters of color (that is no depiction of the lives of POC beyond the gaze of wealthy whites) “go there”?

Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 12:14 pm ¶
Cindy wrote:

I have actually been unable to watch MadMen with any consistency simply because it gives a “realistic” portrayal of its time. …Realistic from the point of view of the white men of the time. It’s almost as if the script was actually written in the 1960’s but was too risque for its time. Having lived through the “when white men ruled the world”, I don’t find it entertaining to watch. Don’t get me wrong…I still believe that white men generally rule the world, but we have Obama as our President and in 1963 he would have had difficulty in just casting his vote. I’ll be surprised if the Carla character is given a full portrayal of what her real life was like in 1963.

Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 12:32 pm ¶
Miles Ellison wrote:

I didn’t get the feeling that the people at the party were disgusted by the blackface per se. They were uncomfortable with the spectacle Roger was making of himself, Don in particular. The racism is so hard wired that people are actually incapable of even conceiving of Roger’s act as offensive.

The contrasts in the show were rather interesting, though. Roger’s embarrassing old school blackface entertainment juxtaposed against the pot smoking of the copywriters at the office, Joan’s superior social and intellectual level compared to her doctor husband, and Carla standing as a beacon of rationality, dignity, and maturity against the childishness in the Draper household.

Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 12:59 pm ¶
maus wrote:

As much as I enjoy the topics discussed on this site, and alternative perspectives, the only thing worse than Twitter is Twitter fanfic. The show and dialogue left unsaid is intended to feel out of place in today’s world, and feel awkward to anyone outside of the GOP.

The feed seems like someone whacking a frying pan to the back of my skull while shouting “DO YOU SEE? DO YOU SEE?!!!” :p

Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 4:49 pm ¶
mahsino wrote:

@ Molly and Latoya:
I have to disagree with the notion that he seems pretty confident that Grampa can’t get her fired.

When she was helping look for the money in his room, before she commented that “we don’t all know each other” she made a remark about she’d be the one that would get blamed. It was Gene that reassured her she wouldn’t.

And maybe I was looking too much into it but the look she gave after Sally “found” the money looked like it was more of the i can’t believe i almost got fired over this chick variety

But yeah, I don’t think Don didn’t left because he thought Roger was racist, Don left because Roger was acting undignified.

Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 6:43 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:

Gaaah why did I read this?? Spoilers abound…:’( I haven’t started Season Three!

Though I will say, whenever Mad Men gets around to introducing some more solid characters of color, I want to be at that casting call!

Posted 01 Sep 2009 at 7:23 pm ¶
chicagorose wrote:

I haven’t had cable since the start of season 1 and don’t have a broadband connection to download individual episodes, so haven’t seen season 3, but did purchase the first two seasons on dvd and have only just started wading through the (uninspiring) commentaries, which had hoped would address more the issues the creators have explained aren’t dealt with in the traditional ways via the series. I fully get their reasoning, but that’s because I can fill in the blanks; most people born after a certain time period aren’t going to be so lucky- it will simply piss them off. And I’m not too far behind them. It would be nice if inbetween seasons or as a 5 minute finisher after each episode they recapped these moments by fleshing them out with some sort of worthy analysis or first hand accounts from domestic workers of that era.

Molly said, “What was interesting was that she seems pretty confident that Grampa can’t get her fired, which seems like either an oversight by the writers or like they’re saying something positive about the Drapers”

I dunno, not having seen the episode in question. But my grandmother was a domestic, who migrated from the south as a girl. And some of the incidents she relayed gave me the strong impression she had a great deal more agency than I ever would have thought.

I thought it more strange in season two when Carla called attention to the troubles in Betty’s marriage by referencing her own; Betty shut her down pretty quick. As a domestic, unless you have seniority (like Viola who raised Betty), you don’t acknowledge the unspoken. That’ll get you canned in a heartbeat. I thought it was interesting Viola put Betty in check in “The Inheritance” episode when Betty insinuated that Viola allowed Gloria and Judy to “ransack the house”. It demonstrated that even though Betty was fully grown and lily white, there were limits to how she could address Viola as her former charge.

Posted 02 Sep 2009 at 4:38 am ¶
chicagorose wrote:

Arg. What I meant to add about the concept of the show is that while I get it, am in complete agreement with others who’ve pointed out that this concept is mostly lost on the bulk of the viewing audience, and if they have no historical or personal frame of reference, all they will notice is the win and none of the fail and in essence glamorise old school racism.

Posted 02 Sep 2009 at 5:12 am ¶
Mimi wrote:

I don’t know, I think the joy of watching Mad Men comes from knowing what is right around the corner and watching their world slowly be torn apart.

Posted 06 Sep 2009 at 10:44 pm ¶