The first is that even by the dirty, dishonest standards that have reigned in boxing, the second Ali-Liston fight looks bad. Ali hits Liston twice, neither time particularly hard, and the guy just crumbles. Something went very wrong. Liston didn't necessarily throw the fight (although he might have) but no matter what happened this was no glorious victory. There was, however, a great photograph that made it look like a heroic occasion and that is what people remembered. Not the probably fixed fight but the heroic photo. (An interesting contrast to Iwo Jima where people used evidence that the photo was faked to dismiss an achievement that actually was incredibly heroic.)
The second thing you need to know us that there is a popular argument among sports fans that it is racist to criticize black male athletes for trash talking. It's a mind-bogglingly stupid argument but it's a popular and widely held view.
You can see it, for example, in this argument by Zennie62 at the SFGate site:
Don Draper commented that Cassius Clay was a big mouth who talked to much. "Why does he have to say it; just do it."Note the tremendous non sequitur here. If X says that trash talk is wrong he is really saying that black men are supposed to never say anything. That's like saying that criticizing someone for drinking too much is the equivalent of reinstating prohibition.
Draper spouted all of the fears that America, circa 1965 had about Muhammad Ali. If you were black, you were supposed to keep quiet. Not say anything.
Zennie62 is just thrilled that what he calls Draper's racist opinion is shown to be defeated. He might be a little less enthusiastic about the idea if he watched the show a little more carefully. For Mad Men has another fight only this one is between two white men and the moral implications of that one are quite different.
In the other fight, Duck Phillips is the trash talker bragging about his prowess "I killed seventeen men in Okinawa," he tells Don while holding his hand above his head ready to strike. And Don surrenders, although he gets a bit of a dig in by saying "Uncle", thereby reducing the thing to the level of a schoolyard fight.
Duck then gets up and, in a bit of dialogue right out of a cheap Western:
You still think your better than me? C'mon Peggy let's go.Somewhere in all the excitement, Duck seems to have forgotten that he just called Peggy a whore.
Take race out of it, and trash talking looks pretty damn ugly and the show hammers that point home.
I know why people seem to feel the need to defend trash talk from black athletes and rappers. Growing up with a French name and family in Canada, there was a natural desire to take the worst stereotypes Anglos could throw at us and give it back to them magnified. Is this what you don't like, well, let me blow it up ten feet tall and amplify the soundtrack and then shove it in your face. There is a feeling of something like pride that comes from this. But somewhere around Grade 11 or so it started to become obvious that the guys who did this were destroying themselves.
By the way, Ta-Nehisi Coates is an occasional defender of trash talking rappers. It is interesting in that regard to read his take on Duck Phillips' decline and fall. He might do well to look at the longer term career of rappers because their stories tend to be a lot like Duck's only a lot more depressing.
But he is right here. Duck wins the fight but Don wins everything that is worth winning. It's an old lesson, you can win in losing. And even if you die, it's better to die with virtue the way Hector does than to be Achilles.
By the way, having scanned the web, I can tell you that the most interesting analysis (present company excepted) of this episode can be found here. Even if you don't agree you'll find a whole lot of fascinating background there.
Season 4 blogging begins here.
For anyone crazy enough to go even further :
Season three blogging begins here.
Season two, if you are interested, begins here.
Season one begins here.
"I know why people seem to feel the need to defend trash talk from black athletes and rappers."
ReplyDeleteMaybe this explains why gay people do the same thing amongst themselves. I had occasion one time several years ago to be in a group of gay men, and they said things to each other that they would never tolerate from straight people. And didn't Dr. Laura--God help us--get in trouble recently about the same thing regarding use of the "N" word? From what little I followed of the story it does appear that she went over the top to make her point.
You're right, Duck won the battle but lost the war. Maybe we've seen the last of him.
I had read the analysis of The Suitcase that you cite, and its very good. I think what she's saying at the end--and maybe what Weiner has in mind--is that both Don and Peggy are married to their work, and might always be. When Don tells Peggy to go home after they wake up in his office, she goes back to her office to lay down. Her office is her home. She had said earlier that nothing is as important to her as what goes on at SCDP. This could also mean that she's subconsciously in love with Don, or that she has issues about genuine intimacy, but as the article says, its too soon to tell. But I take some issue with the author's reference to Peggy's "dweeby" boyfriend. He seems like a sweet kid who would do anything for her, and he naively believes he was her first. Peggy of course doesn't see that, yet she worships the ground Don walks on, which I think raises some red flags about her and the direction she's headed in.
this raises issues about