It's not about authenticity

The virtues of mad men
Why Faye loses
 I have an advantage over others here in that I own all the Mad Men episodes and can watch them again rather than relying on my memories. I recently rewatched all of Megan's scenes.

We see her first in the Christmas episode and the notable thing about her is that she is hungry right from the beginning. Nothing about what happens to Megan is entirely accidental. But keep this in mind: she is hungry not just for love but for a partner and consider how attractive a hungry man or woman can be. Not someone hungry for you, that will appeal but only until you've had them. Think of how appealing someone who is or what you represent for them. Someone who wants the things in life they see you as embodying.

Important qualification: I have no idea how this marriage is going to work out. It all feels a bit hasty to me. Please don't think I am predicting happiness. If these two were my friends, I'd tell them quite bluntly that I don't think they are ready for marriage yet. My point here is not to explain why Megan wins but why Faye loses.

The other thing that is pretty clear rewatching is the extent to which Peggy has a certain ambivalence about her relationship with Don. She is still eager to please him but she has become something of an equal as well and she cares for him and provides guidance. She has largely replaced Roger as his main friend in life, although Don's accountant remains to make roguishly male suggestions.

And that leaves her with an obvious question: "Why aren't we more to one another?" She sees Don and these women and she has mixed feelings. On the one hand, she is critical of the casualness of these relationships. On the other hand, she wonders, "Why has he never gone after me?" It's not that she'd necessarily want it (and that has to be part of the answer) but, still, why did it never happen. I'm not sure we should make too much of this. Doesn't every woman have a friendship like this?

The biggest question for us is why he didn't stick with Faye? Part of the answer is the conversation Peggy and Faye have as Faye is leaving the office with her box of stuff. Peggy thinks Faye has it all together, she looks up to her and wants to be like her. But Faye doesn't really believe in herself: "Is that what it looks like."

I think that is what Faye's fans all miss. It's not that she is playing a part and Megan isn't. It is that Faye has impostor syndrome. She talks this therapeutic talk about facing the past and so forth but it's all an illusion. She has no comfort to offer. She is a classic Job's comforter.

Now, I'm sure others are thinking, "Who are you calling an impostor here?"  Isn't Don the bigger impostor? Well yes. But the crucial difference is that Don really, really wants to be Don. He doesn't want to be Dick. For him the point is not that he is trying to be something he is not. Rather he is trying to be something and what matters is the degree to which he succeeds.

Think of it this way: Don Draper lives in fear that his secret will come to light but Don Draper does not doubt that he can be Don Draper. Faye Miller has real doubts about her ability to be the woman she wants to be. When she talks about a life outside work, what she is really offering Don is the chance to live a double life. One where he plays a part and one where he lets his inner Dick rule.

I used to coach kids. These were kids with a lot of potential but they were trying to compete with people who were already elite athletes. There was always a moment when they'd have doubts; there was always a moment when they wondered whether they really belonged here. They'd tell me they weren't sure they could make it but that they would "try". And I'd say, "Don't try, succeed." That is something my Godfather used to say to me and it's good advice. You have to pick reasonable goals, to be sure, but no one gets anywhere trying.

Trust me on that. "Don't try, succeed." Every young woman should write that in her diary, embroider it on her pillow, inscribe it on her vanity mirror in lipstick. Every worthwhile woman, like every worthwhile man, is trying to be something she is not. If she lets her inner "Fanny Whitman" undermine her, she will always fail.

That is where Megan wins the battle. She wants to be something and that is obvious from the start. When she first has sex with Don in his office it is clear that she knows all about the Allison incident and she is very careful to tell Don she won't be like that. Not because she thinks he is likely to fall in love with her because she is putting out. Quite the contrary, she is telling him the prize is his with no commitment. Megan will be true not to herself but to the person she wants to be.

Anyway, back to the action. A key moment is when Don is trying so hard to convince Megan to come to California to help him take care of the kids. After he has made his pitch, she says, "Stop the advertising." That's crucial and underlines the difference between Megan and Faye. Faye tells Don about life outside work, Megan gives him life outside work.

Not crying over spilled milkshakes
I noticed that many of the more cynical critics got really worked up about the milkshake scene. Megan's reaction to that obviously had a huge effect on Don and they cynically suggest that this is proof of how easily he is swayed from the (in their view) obviously superior Faye. But telling details in any narrative only work if they are backed up by everything else in the narrative. Megan didn't respond competently and calmly this time, she did so every time.

And, please, a little realism. Don has kids. That isn't going to change. He also knows that his ex-wife is a selfish, immature brat with all the parenting skills of Joan Crawford. Like it or not, the way a woman interacts with his children is going to be a consideration.

If we go back to the scene where Sally makes her unbidden visit to the office and Faye tries to interact with Sally and fails there are a couple of things to note. The first is that when she and Don are alone afterward, Faye is defensive and angry. She begins by accusing him of putting her in a position. Now she might have a point there but she doesn't stop there. She goes on to say that, "of course", she's thought about his children and how she might interact with them. But, she says, "it feels like there was a test and I just failed it."

Think about that for a moment. What about that episode—Sally arriving without being asked, Mrs. Blankenship suddenly dying—could possibly have been a premeditated test? Yes, there was a test but it wasn't a test devised by Don. It was a test like the tests we all face because life throws these tests up at us. And Faye acts as if that test was something unfairly imposed on her when she wasn't ready for it.

I don't have to spell this out do I? Faye is Betty all over again. Faye's big admirers need to step back from the fantasy they have been projecting onto her and see Faye for what she is.

Don't try, succeed?
Do I really mean that? It used to bother some kids I coached a lot.

This advice  is, of course, entirely a matter of attitude. You can't will success. The point is that you can will failure and you can do so even without realizing it. There are attitudes that engender failure. Everyone knows that we still could fail even if we really are doing our very best and everyone knows that sometimes we convince others and ourselves that we were doing our very best when we aren't really doing our best.

The one thing my approach will guarantee is that if you do fail you'll fail hard. There is a whole lot of stuff about intelligent decisions, worthwhile goals and so forth that I am not saying.

And that stuff is all lingering in the background of Mad Men. Marriage or career? Can a woman have both? The Atlantic put up some of their old pieces a while ago and there was a piece about the new problem facing women: the pressure to "have it all". This new problem gets presented as a new problem every decade but if you think about it it is an inevitable consequence of feminism.

What I am sure of is that I've known lots of Faye Millers in my life. I've known their male equivalents. They always end up as roadkill on the highway of love. And she knew all along that was where she was going. Think of the angry phone conversation Don overhears before they have a relationship. Think of the way she responds when he phones her. Faye doesn't like where she ends up but she knows because she was set up for failure from the outset.

Yes, I do mean it. Try it and you don't risk failure so much as you will risk getting shot down in flames or being stabbed in the Rotunda. Then again, you may succeed. What I do know is this: anything really worth living for is really worth dying for. If you don't believe that, you can always watch Oprah. Check the listings.
 

Next week, and for the entirety of Advent, I'm going to look at Don Draper. I think, and I know some disagree strongly with me on this, that Don Draper is the most morally admirable character in the series. I'll spend the next few weeks explaining why.

I will also be starting as of next Monday to blog my way through Brideshead Revisited. As far as possible, I will be making connections between my Mad Men posts and that novel.