In With The In Crowd
For whatever reason I watched the Mad Men 5 opener twice tonight. Clearly I found it absorbing, but everyone — everyone! — always seem so tense and calculating and pissed off. Don Draper celebrates his 40th birthday in the episode, which means it’s 1966. But the climate feels more like ’64. And I cringe at every nearly moment spent with Vincent Kartheiser‘s character — his big forehead and that snippy expression and those twelve-year-old shoulders and his unrelenting pettiness. My hands-down favorite scene with when Jessica Pare, Don’s French wife, began to clean the apartment in her black underwear.
Ditto the underwear scene, but geez, Jeff, you’re pissed off all the time. The comments here are either from people pissed off about what you’re pissed off about or they’re pissed off about you being pissed off about something they’re not pissed off about.
Pete Campbell’s the best, though. To paraphrase Dean Wormer, he’s such a sneaky little shit.
I dunno. I’ve found it boring and repetitive in the last season and last night’s premiere was no different. Thanks for taking a year off and coming back with a weak opening. There’s really just no story anymore. It’s just the same characters interacting in the same ways every episode. Where’s the tension and the drama? That Don’s French wife is being leered at by the male ad execs? It’s something to have on in the background, nothing more. I really think something needs to happen in these next couple episodes or I won’t bother.
I won’t scold you for not remembering that Megan is Don’s wife. However, a central point is that he seems to have married her because she looks the part and can stand the children.[After all, he didn't propose to just anyone who satisfied him sexually] A person like Don in that era would always have to be married. Also, everyone is so pissed off because they are going from the old world to the new. The men have to deal with women and African-Americans in ways they never imagined. I look forward to more with the woebegone Sally Draper. I was born in 1952, so I was just about Sally’s age.
I loved Mad Men’s opener, and the series in general, but it occurred to me last night that I’m so tired of massaging the boomers from every angle. Okay, OKAY, we get it, WE GET IT. Also, the show used to sort of be about how much worse things were then. Now it feels like the Mad Men fan base celebrates how things were then. Cheers on Don when he’s an asshole, prefers women to be sex kittens or subservient wives. Maybe I was missing Betty or more Peggy or one of the strong women Don used to be attracted to. I dunno. But when did Don stop becoming a complex character? That said, it’s still better than every other thing on TV or at the movies.
Sasha, I don’t get what you mean by “massaging the boomers”. Don’s kids are about the only boomers on this, aren’t they” Everyone else is actually from the pre boomer era.
“Clearly I found it absorbing, but everyone — everyone! — always seem so tense and calculating and pissed off.”
I think the obvious question is: where would the drama come from if everyone was happy in their relationships and with their jobs? Not many people can relate.
“Also, the show used to sort of be about how much worse things were then. Now it feels like the Mad Men fan base celebrates how things were then.”
Given that last night we got into serious Vietnam talk, and water balloons bring dropped on black protesters by white folks (and the SCDP crew freaking out about — GASP! — being forced to hire an actual “Negro”… after their joke backfires)… it’s hard to see how anyone could possibly think things weren’t worse back then.
“Maybe I was missing Betty or more Peggy or one of the strong women Don used to be attracted to. I dunno.”
I think they’ve laid the groundwork for revealing that Megan is, in fact, much more self-aware and intelligent than anyone’s giving her credit for… and certainly crafty. And very telling that Don already told her all about “Dick Whitman.”
And I wouldn’t call Betty “strong” — I’d call her “strong-willed”. There is a difference.