So, Daniel Mendelsohn doesn’t like Mad Men. Well, to each their own and all that. It’s a very stylized show, obviously, and I could understand why some people might find it mannered or stilted. I do agree with his assessment of how the show fails on race, and his point about fans being drawn to the shiny surfaces is a fair if obvious one, I suppose, but I don’t think it’s quite right. The Sterling Cooper world has to be attractive enough for Peggy to want to join it but corrupt and hollow enough that her success can’t be purely triumphant. It’s not just that she’s trying to succeed among people who can’t or don’t respect her, it’s that she’s succeeding at a job that is ultimately about nothing – think of the brilliant episode from last season around the award show. Peggy’s hurt that Don gets the credit for her idea, but the sycophantic silliness of the whole procedure make you relieved for her that she didn’t get brought along.
the endless succession of leering junior execs and crude jokes and abusive behavior all meant to signal “sexism” doesn’t work—it’s wearying rather than illuminating.
He criticizes the show for inviting us to feel superior to its characters, a criticism I’ve heard before but which really doesn’t make sense to me:
For a drama (or book, or whatever) to invite an audience to feel superior to a less enlightened era even as it teases the regressive urges behind the behaviors associated with that era strikes me as the worst possible offense that can be committed in a creative work set in the past: it’s simultaneously contemptuous and pandering.
But showing both the appeal of the world and being unflinching in its depiction of its injustices is precisely the point. I don’t trust this notion that depicting the sexism of the past has nothing to teach us but how superior we are. The idea that there’s nothing in the show’s sexism viewers can relate to doesn’t seem right. Mendelsohn thinks it’s hypocritical for the show to depict the men around Joan as louts but then show us how good she looks and invite us to leer. But what about a female viewer who is invited to share Joan’s dilemma about the role she plays, and think about the double edged sword of beauty and being leered at? And even when the show does serve to show us how far we’ve come, isn’t this a valid role? Take the scene in the first episode when Peggy goes to the doctor and tries to get the pill. (One of many, may scenes that belies Mendelsohn’s claim that the appeal of the show is how the characters are ‘unpunished’ for what they do – and no, the men don’t go free and clear either, even if the rations are skewed). If they’re anything like me, viewers would leave that scene rushing for their credit cards to make a donation to Planned Parenthood – and is this such a terrible outcome, to feel so sharply what other women went through and feel grateful that we don’t have to?
Great post. One of the fascinating aspects of the show is how it draws us into sympathizing with Don Draper – at least to some degree – despite all the objectively awful ways he treats women. I appreciate that the characters aren't just heroes and villains; most of them are pretty complex. I have some sympathy for Betty, despite her coldness. Really, the only character I find utterly dreadful is Pete.
And yes, sexism was ubiquitous in the 1960s, and all the shows that don't depict it have done us a disservice. It's hard to imagine now. I'm just old enough to remember the early 1970s, when plenty of '60s-style sexism was still part of the furniture. I've read that some women who were in the workforce during the '60s don't want to watch Mad Men because it just feels too familiar and fresh.
Sungold of Kittywampus
Hi Kittywampus – Thanks! I agree with everything you say: I think part of what Mendelsohn gets wrong is in thinking that the full-on sexism of these characters makes them less complex, when in fact this is much more the case when, as is more often the case, a single person is asked to stand in for the problem. They're all swimming in it, but the each express it in different ways in relation to their own stuff, just as the women suffer from it in different ways – and the men suffer in ways too, and the women participate – to find this 'wearying' suggests it's him who is unattentive to nuance, not the show.