A stillborn child

The virtues of mad men
Three Sundays
One of the very postmodern things Mad Men does is reflect creative process of writing the show in the performance. This is old in television, of course, the Dick Van Dyke Show did it all the time. This will reach something of a nadir in Season 3 when Suzanne Farrell's lines will be those of the screenwriters figuring out what to do with Draper's character and not those of her character at all.

In this episode the efforts of the creative team of Sterling Cooper try to concoct a winning pitch to help American Airlines recover their image after a crash are a backdrop for various characters attempts to seek some sort of atonement and rebirth in the weeks leading up to Easter. There is failure on all fronts.



[No Don Draper comments this time.]

Betty Again
The greatest failure is Betty Draper's. The most pointed dramatic irony in all three seasons so far is when she tells Don she wants him to help her raise the children rather than being one himself. Can she really not see it? The lack of self awareness is ... well, it's kind of normal isn't it?

I know I said I was finished with Betty but there is something so terribly up to date about her. At the risk of being terribly offensive to some, Betty is the sort of character who could only come after feminism. No, I don't mean that feminism has made all or even most women like her but there are a fair number of women around post-feminism who really do expect others to take them seriously even though they refuse to take themselves seriously. And Betty is a perfect example of the type. So what is she doing in the past?

That may not seem terribly important but I think it goes to the failure of Betty Draper as a character. There is nothing about her characteristic of the early 1960s.

Minor instance of what I mean, think about her comment about "Blue Room". She praises Perry Como for articulating clearly so that you could hear all the words and for having a voice as smooth as silk. The thing about singers of the swing era and it's continuation into the 1950s was that you could always hear the words. They all articulated wonderfully and Como was only average by the standards of the day. Only those of us who grew up on the mumbled lyrics of the rock and roll era could be impressed. And Como's voice is not smooth as silk compared to other singers of that era; the man sang through his nose.

This is not the statement of an intelligent young woman of that era—supposedly a woman with an elite university education! No, it is the comment of an ignorant modern who has heard a song or two from back then but actually knows as little about music of that era as he or she knows about brain surgery.I know this because I am like that and I can remember saying just that sort of thing only a few years ago. But Betty Draper would not have said this.

That may not seem terribly important but I think it goes to the failure of Betty Draper as a character. Not only is there is nothing about her characteristic of the early 1960s, she is Obama-era plus interest. I can't help but think that the writers have, probably unconsciously, put everything they dislike about women they know now into her character.

For example, her ineffectual efforts to scold her kids. That is of this era. Everyone has had the horrible experience of sitting in a restaurant and watching some kid ruin everyone else's dinner while the mother or father sat there absolutely helpless to do anything about it. And it is easy to see why they and Betty are helpless. She has no interest in these kids. I look at this and the difference with my mother is huge. When my mother told 18-year-old leather jacketed tough guys hanging around the park to stop swearing in front of her children, they stopped.

And then we get a scene where Betty forgot to make the family dinner! On Sunday! Look, I'm sure there were probably incidents like this but there is nothing typical about this. Mothers of that era were always there, they always made dinner and they were effective disciplinarians

Holy Mother Church
 I think we get a pretty positive portrayal of a Catholic priest in Father Gill so it seems churlish to complain but here I go anyway. We open with an older priest giving a boring sermon right out of a textbook of moral theology (I wouldn't be surprised to find that it is copied right out of some textbook as it is a little too perfectly horrid).

That part doesn't bother me. There were probably sermons that horrible back then. But that wasn't all there was and the supposed helplessness of Father Gill looking to find a way to be more friendly and effective doesn't gibe with the era when he could simply have turned his television on and seen this:



Oh, if only we had preachers like this today! The ineffective preaching and clumsy leadership from the church portrayed in the show are real enough but, as is all too common in the show, these reflect the church better today than what it was back then.

Speaking of historically incorrect portrayals, the interaction with Peggy's family is all wrong. No priest at a large city parish would visit the same family at home two weeks in a row unless that family was going through a crisis. I'm making an educated guess on the numbers but these guys probably had between 500 to 800 families they had to visit every year. Going to the same household for a  dinner invitation two weeks in a row is just asking too much.

When it comes time to say grace, we learn that Father Gill is a modernist. The correction he gets, "That was beautiful, are you going to say grace now," is funny but wrong. That comment would have been made, I can hear my Grandmother saying it, but not until after Father was gone.

I like his interaction with Peggy. The show was written by cynics who have no notion of how people who really do get consolation through religion manage it so it cannot give us a portrayal of effective reconciliation. But Father Gill is effective as the voice of Peggy's conscience here and he does this without being creepy or weird.

But one tiny little problem. That being the scene where he breaks the sanctity of the confessional by letting Peggy know he knows about her having had a child. Sorry, would not have happened!

In fact, the revelation in the confessional would probably not have happened. Even a young priest got lots of training before hearing confessions. In real life, Father Gill would have stopped Peggy's sister dead when she goes to the confessional ostensibly to confess her sins but actually to tell tales about her sister to make Father dislike Peggy. In the show, he figures out what is happening but he resorts to irony instead, which makes for very effective television but doesn't reach the woman he was speaking to.

And a devout Catholic like Peggy's sister would have been terrified of pulling a stunt like this during the sacrament. She might have tried it outside the box but never inside (and BTW, she would confess on her knees not sitting down).

I should mention the one thing they do get right: the picture of JFK picture on the wall at the Olson apartment. That part is absolutely right. I remember being a little boy going into those old homes and apartments of Catholics from that period. They smelled like generations of boiled cabbage and they always had a picture of Kennedy on the wall. My memories are more from after he was shot. During that period, the picture was usually one of him in a rocking chair.

Roger Sterling
The bit where Roger negotiates with the prostitute to get her to kiss him as well as everything else is perfect. It tells us so much about the man. I assume most men would simply decide that kissing wasn't worth that much. Roger says, but I want everything I want.

It's funny how they get over his double cardiac though. For all intents and purposes that should have been the end of his character and was probably intended to be. But then they saw how much the focus groups loved Roger and how they didn't much love Sal, Betty or Pete (and they while they probably like Peggy, they don't love.) And then, through the magic of Hollywood, they make all the problems go away. if you cut his appearances this episode altogether so they flow one after another, you get a montage and that's pretty much it.

He says, "But I want everything I want." And she says, "Isn't that the perfect thing to say." And it is.


Season 2 blogging begins here.

The next episode blog will be here.

(Season one begins here if you are interested.)