The very white poetry of 'Mad Men'
Introducing Betty Draper's new chin.
1:53 pm Jun. 8, 201243
A few weeks ago, I attended a “Mad Men” viewing party hosted by my good friend, the brilliant Time Out New York film critic Keith Uhlich.
Keith quoted a writer who summarized “Mad Men” as “'Roots' for white people,” which prompted me, a black man, to ask everyone in the room my own questions: What was Superfly for white people? What was the Caucasian The Color Purple? Shaft?
Keith was quick on his feet: “The remake of Shaft was Shaft for white people,” he said.
I’m not sure “Mad Men” is just “for white people,” but it hasn’t meant anything to me. The party, in fact, represented the first time I watched a complete “Mad Men” episode, despite all I’ve heard about the show from my critic friends. (I was able to discern major plot twists based on the shrieks, gasps, belly laughs and applause from Keith and the gang.)
For a black person like me, born and raised in what television would call “the ghetto,” it isn’t about good or bad. It’s about comfort zones. In early childhood, television taught me to see “white” as simply the default for “human.” Mister Rogers wasn’t a “white man,” but just a friendly neighbor with some weird friends. Ralph Kramden’s delusional dreams and schemes had no color.
It was like Kevin Lee, an Asian-American film critic and “Mad Men” expert who attended Keith’s party, put it: “The genius of ‘whiteness’ is that its ethnic blankness allows viewers of most any background to project themselves onto it, provided there's some attractive quality they find in it.”
But while that was true for me in the context of the TV programming I grew up with, I was acutely aware of “whiteness” elsewhere, and the cultural differences it implied.
White kids were bused into my special “Creative Education” elementary school in Mount Vernon, N.Y. until city officials decided to move its finest institution to the white north side of town, and suddenly we black kids were the ones being bused to another planet. A teacher’s redheaded daughter would sing “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie over the P.A. system. The other black kids and I would stare up at the loudspeaker like deer. Were we supposed to put our hands over our hearts?
Still, as I got older, I read books by white authors, enjoyed classic movies with all-white casts, contemplated overwhelmingly “white” art in museums, all with great appreciation and understanding, but those works which seemed cultivated expressly “for white people,” communicating on frequencies out of my “black” range (even when they featured black people), tended to fill me with uncomprehending dread. That’s right, I’m talking about “Silver Spoons.” And L’Avventura.
I don’t think I was ever as clueless as the black kid I happened to be standing alongside in an electronics store circa 1985, staring at a display TV showing the hit comedy “Cheers.” “This shit is for white people,” he groused. “What in the hell they laughing about?” He was wrong. “Cheers” is for everybody. As is “Seinfeld” and “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” and “The Simpsons.” They’re just smart, and incidentally populated with white folks. (Conversely “The Cosby Show” and “Frank’s Place” were rare examples of “black” network TV shows that really belonged to everyone.)
“Little House on the Prairie,” “The Waltons,” and “The Brady Bunch” were not white shows. They were epic stories about families trying to make it in America, and they invited in anybody who happened to be watching, no matter how exclusive the cast coloring. Until real-world racism from beat cops and teachers and merchants told me different, I had thought I was a Walton.
Another kind of “for white people” work is much easier to grasp. It conveys up front the notion that white people are a breed apart, morally, spiritually, intellectually. Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, and The Searchers, yeah, sure, but also the first scene of the first episode of HBO’s “The Wire,” a moment that seemed so condescending to me that I could go no further with the series that virtually every white writer I know loves to pieces.
The opening of the series is a murder-scene conversation between a young hood-rat witness and a sage, world-weary white detective about the death of a lowlife named Snotboogie:
MCNULTY watches as the body, now bagged, is hauled into the back of the MORGUE WAGON.
MCNULTY: I got to ask you. If every time Snotboogie would grab the money and run away, why'd you even let him in the game?
WITNESS: What?
MCNULTY: If Snotboogie always stole the money, why'd you let him play?
WITNESS: You got to. This America, man.
The WITNESS looks away, oblivious to the poetry of it. MCNULTY turns around, takes in the scope of the tragedy that is Baltimore.
Yes, of course, the Witness wouldn’t grasp the poetry of his own words. Of course, this is McNulty’s moment to sigh deeply at the “tragedy that is Baltimore.” This America, man.
“Mad Men” doesn’t condescend in that way, but I still find it hard to relate to. Money and status seem to be on the line in nearly every encounter. That’s why one character, a formerly slim, icy and glamorous blond who has become plump and was rechristened by “Mad Men” fans on the internet as Fat Betty, is a tragicomic figure in this show’s universe.
The direction and music seemed designed to convey that nothing is sadder than being overweight and shoved to the margins of the rat race. Betty is living through the aftermath of a divorce and a cancer scare, sure, but the fact that she can’t suffer these misfortunes in style, like Jackie O strutting down Madison Avenue, compounds the tragedy. It made me think of John Cassavetes’ brutal kiss-off to middle-aged Gena Rowlands in Opening Night: “You’re not a woman to me anymore.” Fat Betty is the flipside of chubby, lonely but bubbly Queen Latifah staring down the abyss in the comedy Last Holiday.
In the abstract, the show's emphasis on ruin, alienation and social faux pas ought to speak to me as a fragile human being living in a fast-moving, competitive society. That the characters have something to lose and something to gain from scene to scene satisfies the most basic dramatic necessity.
But it's what Don and his people have to lose that ultimately renders it esoteric. The ultimate nightmare for these folks is to lose the lifestyle that government and industry have sold to them since the end of World War II, as the (White) American Dream, the one that Don sells for a living. Their greatest unspoken fear is to go to the dogs, the dogs being, well, the redlined, depressed neighborhoods where I come from.
"Whiteness" has always been a socio-economic matter. In a "Mad Men" essay entitled "The Sad Clown Dress," Deborah Lipp describes a moment where Betty Draper suffers a humiliating night of faux pas and discovering that her cheating, secretive husband is not exactly the princely hero he projects: "The surface of perfection is gone. She’s exposed and looks broken. But underneath is a new found conviction about herself. Finally, she faces Don without makeup, without a hairdo, without even a color. The white robe accentuates the starkness of this moment. Now it is Don who’s afraid of losing everything. And it’s his expression of fear that brings her back. The next day, the house is filled with warm, renewing light. Betty is back to being an immaculate housewife, as if nothing happened. But a TV commercial brings it all back. It has all crumbled. Her perfect home, her handsome husband, they are empty surfaces that have all been sold to her. Betty is no longer buying."
It would be interesting to see what Quentin Tarantino, a product of multi-ethnic working class neighborhoods in L.A., would do behind the camera on a “Mad Men” episode. His punk history lesson Inglourious Basterds revels in “mistakes” (starting with the title) and the perseverance of life’s D-students in a world of letter-perfect sociopaths-in-power. What mischief, what banana peels would Q.T. set in Don Draper’s path?
What approach would we see from filmmaker Robert Downey, Sr., who actually worked in the real-life New York ad agency milieu in the 1960s, funneling these experiences into the anarchic Putney Swope (1969)? In Swope, militant blacks take over a swank agency, a one-joke premise crawling with cobwebs by now, sure, but one which still packs a punch in the stubbornly segregated Bloomberg-era Manhattan.
“Mad Men,” which so far has given a few lines to a black maid, a black girlfriend and, in the latest season, a black secretary, actually does resonate in that way: In any of the “good jobs” I held in Manhattan across 20 years, I was either the sole black person or one of two black people in the office. A smattering of Asians or Hispanics completed the rainbow.
But that may also be the reason I had such a hard time finding black professionals to talk to who watch “Mad Men.”
One black computer programmer who requested anonymity was candid about why he doesn’t: “'Mad Men' isn't for me…. I don't know any black people who watch the show. I know they're out there, but I've never met any of them.”
The programmer was quick to add that it’s not because of the low melanin content, but because it’s too familiar.
“It's not necessary for me to need a black or minority character to enjoy a movie or show, but ‘Mad Men’ is just so appropriately shiny and false,” he said. “It reminded me a lot of dealing with the sales people I've dealt with over the years as a software developer. I've worked in offices for 25 years now, and I've been the only Negro in my different office departments more years than I'll admit. It's that way right now, in fact.
“Programmers don't come in our shade unless they're from India. Until the 2000's, I didn't see many minorities of any stripe in high positions at places I worked. So for me, I've spent my entire career watching white office folks bicker, fight, backstab, love, hate, succeed and fail, all the while doing little to involve somebody like me. So why the fuck would I want to watch this on TV?”
In an email exchange after we saw each other at the critic-party, Kevin Lee said he identified with the show, which read to him as a corporate-America survival guide.
Great article. Gotta say, though, the opening scene of "The Wire"'s pilot is hardly indicative of the series. At least watch a whole episode or two before writing it off.
Awesome stuff, Steven.
One (somewhat off-point) comment to make:
You're free to have your interpretation--and I'm admittedly out of my depths in challenging someone regarding THEIR OWN feelings about race in a work of art--but I'd invite you to give The Wire another try. It's rightfully heralded as a fantastic show (though you are correct to point out that it is done so overwhelming by white critics), and part of the reason for that is that it really does challenge our preconceived notions about race, crime, poverty, disadvantage, and privilege. It may seem as though McNulty is "sigh(ing) deeply at the 'tragedy that is Baltimore.'," but you'd find that he's holds a similarly myopic view of the promise of America.
Also, part of the poetry (to borrow a phrase) of The Wire is that characters will lapse into this grandiose, stylistic prose, but remain oblivious to the clarity of their thought. Snot Boogie's opening scene is a great example, but characters of all race are subject to this tendency.
As I said, you're free to your own reading of the scene, and this is hardly the most important egg of an argument for me to pull out of this excellent post, but I'd hope that might give another chance to what I think is one of the greatest television shows of all-time. Sorry, just wanted to put that out there. Like I said, a very insightful piece, and an engrossing read!
...and I don't get Tyler Perry's work, but imagine if I wrote an article like this (insert "blackness" for "whiteness") and imagine how offended people of color would be.
I don't think you "get" Mad Men. I would say it's not about it's "white" or "blackness" -- this is a pretty racially 'blank' show -- you just seem to ignore that the whole show is based upon the cynicism inherent to people who have it all. Of course, since it's set in the 1960's (if you set a show about people who have it all in present times it would seem like escapist fodder), the protagonists have to be white. Back then, black citizens were still far from "having it all" from a capitalist point of view.
By missing this layer, you are missing out on the subtle tragedies the show tries to tell: how Betty is an ideal woman by society's standards and yet is so miserable that she stress eats to the point of becoming incredibly fat, thereby losing her looks, which in turn are a huge part of what made her so lucky to begin with.
You are not supposed to look up to the characters or, I daresay, enjoy the time you spend with them. You watch them, identify with them, and then observe their downwards spiral towards a soulless ideal. The show is not about what is said onscreen, but about what goes unsaid.
Race is peripheral to this theme. It will become an issue when it makes sense, historically speaking, to use it AS A TOOL to enrich the story.
But isn't that the point that the author is trying to make: that much of white media presents "whiteness" as universal/blank? I would add that for most non-white people, race is NOT a peripheral issue, only white people have the privilege to "peripheralize" issue like race.
Wow. What a nice piece of writing, and thinking.
I'm really sorry man, but I stopped taking your article serious after you said you wouldn't go past the "This is America" moment on the Wire. Not only is ridiculous to judge a television show after one scene, its first scene, realize that was based off something that actually happened between a homicide cop and a witness.
For me, the genius of Mad Men has everything to do with the sheer arbitrariness of the plotting. You really just have no idea what character is going to pop up to do what, and the dialogue is just as unpredictable. It seems to be that Matthew Weiner dreams every episode and then writes it all down -- and that is just a very rare feeling to get watching any TV.
I'm the age of Sally Draper, and my father was very Don Draper. We were raised in, of all places, Mount Vernon. Weiner gets so many of the details spookily right of what a white suburban child grew up perceiving his parents to be like in the 60s.
My block went from mostly white middle class to mostly black middle class in the 70s, and MVHS was majority African-American. My best friend was black (gay trumped color for both of us) and the Drama Society where I socialized was indeed a rainbow. Wouldn't I love to watch a drama based around black characters in that time, written and directed the black men and women who lived it. I saw them up close, and their stories were as interesting as anything on Mad Men, particularly against the backdrop of parents and grandparents who were almost always products of the great black migration from South to North. I imagine there's some pretty decent pilots running around town, and a network exec just can't be convinced to greenlight it. Damn shame. (Oprah, don't you need something like that for OWN? If not you, who?)
Fantastic piece.
"I’m not sure “Mad Men” is just “for white people,” but it hasn’t meant anything to me. The party, in fact, represented the first time I watched a complete “Mad Men” episode..."
I like the internet because it gives people an opportunity to write in-depth about a long-form story despite having only seen one fractional part of that story. In the old days you would have had to actually watched the entire series to publish a think piece on it, but happily those days are over.
Sadly, I haven't learned the new internet ways as well as you have, so I actually read your whole piece. I should have just read a paragraph and critiqued from there.
I think the author is disconnected from a space within the Black community that dissects popular culture. I know several Black professionals that watch Mad Men & have even walked into bars & had conversations with other Black professionals who were strangers that I've never met about the series. We are attracted to the historical accuracies & how they are portrayed. To assume that there weren't people that were enlightened about the cultural shifts that were happening around them in real time is what is condescending. If they weren't aware then, we wouldn't be as aware as we are now.
This sort of criticism about Mad Men has always confused me, slightly. Sure, the show is coming from a white POV, and focuses largely on "white America" in the sixties, but it seems presumptuous to say that Weiner doesn't care about race relations. The show isn't about race relations, but it has made several adequate attempts at addressing how race relations affects the show's premise. Maybe they haven't created a plethora of strong black characters (though the few the show has frequently come across more intelligent, compassionate than the regulars), it's use of casual racism in otherwise fan-favorite characters like Roger Sterling is always shocking & effective. It's akin to the moments in the Sopranos, when we'd see Tony Soprano do something horrible and awful. Maybe it's not a "black show" (I really don't know how to classify shows in those terms), but I think you're missing the point if you think the writers don't care.
Also, you're REALLY missing out if that's all you ever watched of the Wire. Maybe that's not the best opening scene ever ("Snotboogie" is a name that should have been cut in the writer's room), but you've grossly misinterpreted it (Mcnulty as a sage? Wow). You owe it to yourself to give it another shot, especially since I've heard nothing but praise for the show as far as creating strong roles for African American actors.
It's disappointing to read your account of dropping The Wire after one scene rubbed you the wrong way. Perhaps you could turn down your sensitivity meter just a bit and revisit it?
Had you given it a chance you'd have discovered a major focus of the series was to cast aside the distinctions between the crimes of the 'authorities' — police officers, politicians, newspaper writers — and the traditional criminals from the streets. That theme isn't new, but to your point, no group (or race) had a monopoly on making (and, yes, understanding) the weight of their world-weary insights.
Why do so very many otherwise intelligent people spend so very much time discussing terrible television shows, and why was Caucasia, a Mid-West Asian region of Mongoloid people, implicated in the context it was?
I've gotta say, they ain't MY white people, nor is the world of money and facades any kind of history for me. I find such a world about as creepily alien as you, most likely. Good essay, though.
I found this incredibly interesting. But the question you start the article with (questioning Mad Men being called Roots for White people) is one that goes unanswered. You delve into the technical aspects of the show and how you personally perceive it as a black man. Which is all well and good but Roots isn't a show exclusively for black people. In fact I am willing to put money down that Roots was just as eye opening, shocking and ponderous (as in it made poor ol' whitey reassess his values) from one person to the next no matter their color. And I think of Mad Men really is Roots for White People but not because of it's audience but because of it's mirroring themes.
Roots is the tale of The Black man's struggle against the white devil (Yakub oh what were you thinking). Through several episodes we bare witness to the suffering, hard labor and sacrifice had by slaves and through these episodes we as viewers are practically forced into sympathizing for the black characters and despising most every white man. Through means of subtraction we are left with more and more of the individual and less with the labels that surround them.
Mad Men is the exact opposite. Almost like a post-modern reaction to Roots, Mad Men focuses on the lives of supremely wealthy and well off White Men, great, valiant, handsome womanizers who are not only obsessed with image but make a living getting you hooked on their image. As the series progresses the characters fall deeper and deeper into their tightly knit, pressed, neat and crisp life style and they become less and less human. Almost becoming devils in and of themselves tearing their fellow man and their equally important images to cinder.
The fact that Mad Men takes place in the 60's and is now rolling into the 70's is far from a coincidence.
Mad Men is more like Breaking Bad than I think AMC would care to admit. They are both experiments in isolating the audience. But all the fancy camera work, expensive clothes and sex blinds you're average viewer just like it blinds your average shopper at the neighborhood Target...
I feel that this article is the equivalent of someone judging a novel based on the first few pages. Maybe if you'd watched five or so episodes of Mad Men or the Wire, I'd be able to accept your opinion as valid, but this is just lazy journalism.
And by the way, the Snotboogie scene actually happened - it's in David Simon's book, Homicide, which he wrote after being embedded with the Baltimore Homicide Department for a year.
Stephen,
Appreciated the article, but felt compelled to say two things.
First, I think you've totally misread The Searchers. The protagonist is a man deeply and fundamentally damaged by his hatred for the Cherokee – I strongly feel that in no way should it ever appear in the same sentece as 'Gone With the Wind,' let alone 'Birth of a Nation.'
Second, The Wire. I'm sure many people have told you that you've missed out, and should power through your squeamishness about the first scene. Frankly, I don't have a lot of respect for a cultural critic that would make his mind up about a world-acclaimed television show based on its first two minutes, especially because pilots and first episodes are piss-poor ways to judge a show's totality.
But mostly, I wanted to say that the scene in question is based on actual conversation – and was related to David Simon by a beat cop. That doesn't, of course, necessarily excuse its inclusion in the show as being condescending. But I think that's significant – and the exchange beautifully sums up the show's five seasons, in ways more complex than you allude to.
The Wire's not perfect and praise for it has sort of lost it's meaning – it's a token of cultural literacy among a certain set, and I know how that can irritate some people. But you really are missing out on something, and not, I think, for a very solid or well-evidenced reason.
Oh, and as for Mad Men: I don't think it's correct to say that the characters are fighting over status or money. They're struggling, and failing, to find success and happiness, which is something it has in common with a huge number of dramas. Again, I think your reads on the show would be different if you had been exposed to more than 40 minutes of it. Betty isn't a sad character because she's fat – she's a sad character because she's horribly emotionally damaged, and she's inflicting that damage on her children. A number of other reads you have on characters and plotlines aren't quite right, but I won't bother making this any longer than it already is. Again, appreciated the article – especially Kevin Lee's excellent insight. But it suffers in the specifics.
Finding stupid reasons not to like things isn't racial -- I know lots of people who have rules about why they won't watch/listen to/read/do certain things. A few years ago I adopted a simple rule -- if people I trusted said something was good ... then I gave it a shot. It's been working out very well. It turns out all the reasons I had for not doing something were complete bullshit.
No matter how much Mad Men & The Wire are dissected - they will still be categorized for what we actually are staring at and processing: shows about white folk and criminals. This is the beauty about art. It is subjective. Fan is short for fanatic, but guess what? Steve had the guts to say what a whole bunch are thinking. One persons fav show is someone else clicked away after briefly viewed quick stop. That is the reality of it.
I think your conclusion that you don't watch it because its too familiar hits the nail on the head. I do know black women who watch (and love) the show--they are in their twenties. And I read and hear comments from women who were adults in the early sixties that they don't watch the show because they don't care to relive that era. For women who were children in the sixties (myself) or younger, there is the thrill of nostalgia or voyeurism. Notwithstanding, good writing and good storytelling is universal and despite what may appear to be a sour familiarity, I think if you gave the show and its characters enough time to reveal themselves beyond their strivings for power and status, you would see that their principal conflict is searching for meaning and purpose.
Superb essay, now heres my take as a person from the ghettos of East Oakland who passes for white under most circumstances, but who has lived life on the outside of Mad Mens American dream, I don't relate to the characters, their aspirations or fears, or to their mileau. But I enjoy the artistry of the show a great deal, and I dont feel any need or desire to relate to the show in a personal way. These characters are not of my world, but despite the annoying problems of tokenism versus total neglect which you point out so well, within the world of the show there appears to be much truth being told, a challenging look at an unjustifiably glorified past that has shaped all of our lives, if only through its falsehood and irrelevance to our lives. If you believe that Reagan and Bush impacted our lives with their revisionist nostalgia which was a cloak for racist and economically unjust policies, then the nature and history of that willfully ignorant notalgic fantasy of America and the era in which its facade crumbled is relevant even today as Romney attempts to win control of the white house by telling us in a recent ad series that whether we like his policies or not is unimportant "compared to the feeling we'll get knowing were getting back to how things were before... Take our country back " etcetera. These are obvious appeals to both hardened racists and those simply uncomfortable with contemporary society (especially the gradual generationl shift towards public rejection of bigotry)
Man Men, admittedly through a narrow lens, reminds us that the fantasy of a perfect, polished patriarchal white world that supposedly preceeded our more diverse and slightly more liberated era is a lie, a con no different than the fantasies sold by the ad executives. this is a fundamentally radical critique of the fetishization of the segregated male dominated world that so many politicians are trying to recreate.
Perhaps mst importantly, the gender issues the show is primarily concerned with are important. Women's liberation is not just a luxury of the white and wealthy. It shoud be a concern for all of us including men such as myself and the author of this article, and many of the shows most powerful moments, addressing gender, transcend class, era, and race. Referencing last weeks episode, menstruation and pubescent frustration with the opacity of sexual communication are certainly issues that are universally human.
One final point, though not african american, as a kid I and all of my white and nonwhite friends and family watched and were profoundly effected by Roots. I am kunta kinte became the triumphant cry for my peers, black, white asian, chicano and otherwise, in my mostly non white neighborhood. I didnt need to be able to personally relate to the environment of the characters. The situations have analogies in any society, though the specifics were far different and incomprable, the injutice, the pain, he resistance, the triumph of spirit are all universal themes.
In any case, there is more to enjoy and learn from in cinema than just relatability. Sometimes experiencing an Alien world is an anthropological experience not to be missed. However, in my opinion the attempt to compare the fine Mad Men with the superb Roots is ludicrous. The have little in common.
In conclusion, mad men is not roots, but not every show has to be roots.
Really interesting, and usual, take on Mad Men. I agree with another commenter who said that the show isn't about money and status -- it's about all the complexities people deal with day after day while they strive for an elusive "happiness." Sometimes a happy moment is captured in landing a deal or making a perfect pitch. Sometimes it's just being recognized by another human being. But usually, they just go moment after moment unsatisfied and unhappy. Betty's character was never one to emulate, thin or fat. You seem to think that her becoming fat was a way to show failure in some way, but Betty has always been a desperately unhappy and unpleasant woman.
Just as an aside, I realize the piece takes off from the line from your friend that Mad Men is a white person's Roots, but I find that an absurd comment, and condescending at that. It's not even a half-complete representation of the country at the time. It is very specific to Manhattan with people who have a great job -- as even the worst job there is a pretty good gig compared to other options. I love Mad Men. It's one of my favorite all-time shows. But comparing it in any way to Roots is ridiculous in the extreme. The post is great, but I have to ignore the lines about Roots because otherwise, Mad Men comes across as shallow and silly, even to me as a huge fan.
Interesting perspective.
I'm white and I don't like Mad Men, for essentially the same reasons - the whole thing feels very cliche to me. Certainly the larger themes it addresses (mostly obliquely, which is also a cliche) are cliche - "Civil Rights Movement in the 60s", "Feminism in the 60s", "Homosexuality in the 60s" &c. You can tell that the writers are certainly a product of their parents' generation.
Anyway, nice piece. Thanks.
Great characters, great period and always deals with the theme of superficiality. The world the characters sell in the show is superficial and they all know it. It's all conceptual without any real heart to it. The difference between Don Draper and the rest of the characters is that he IS living a lie 24 hours a day. He's still Dick Whitman even though a few characters know it. Perhaps that's the reason he's more sure footed than everyone else. He really IS what he is selling.
I never thought the show dealt with race but much more with superficiality. They behave as they do because they feel they are supposed to. Maybe that's why the show is so relevant today. The image that is sold today is just as superficial as it was then. I'm 41 so I can't really know for sure what it was like then but if it was anything like "Mad Men" I see no difference between then and now.
That's why I have a hard time understanding the article. I don't see race anywhere in this show, or maybe it's because I'm canadian I don't know. Because of the period there is segregation but that's circumstance. I just see a bunch of characters who try to function in the world they know... or think they know. I have a friend at work who is black and he brings his iPad every night (night shift) and on his breaks watches "The Bold and the Beautiful". The fact that it is a white cast doesn't seem to matter a damn to him. He wants to be rich and influential like the characters in that show.
I suspect trying to see things in terms of race is typically american.
A refreshing read. I don't get Mad Men either -- or rather, I'm indifferent to it. Self-absorbed white people trying to get ahead in the rat race and dressed in vintage clothing.
I don't know, man, I always took that Witness in the wire as someone speaking poetry as art, not merely talking and letting the white man interpret it. The rest of the show was filled with that self-awareness. As a matter of fact, that's what hooked me on it, not that McNulty was having a moment of epiphany, but that he was laughing at this dude on the street giving him real talk.
"But it's what Don and his people have to lose that ultimately renders it esoteric. The ultimate nightmare for these folks is to lose the lifestyle that government and industry have sold to them."
I don't know if that's really a fair interpretation. Other than the fleeting "golly look how expensive Don's new car is" moments, which almost happen by-proxy, Mad Men has never really been about economic conquest. It's about people trying to achieve happiness and fulfillment. What they stand to lose are their souls. The ultimate nightmare for these folks (and what happened to pretty much every single one of them, over the course of season 5) is to have everything they wanted, and realize it doesn't fill the hole.
Black people do indeed watch Mad Men. I'm certain I'm not alone based on the pics I see on the Facebook fan page. I think anytime a Back cultural critic advances the idea that "Black People don't..(fill in the blank)" it's a disservice to the diversity of Black culture and experiences. I dig Mad Men because it examines the price of happiness, the illusion of having it all, and the mythology of the majority. The shows characters are living scripted lives based on the ideals they're being sold. I think Mad Men has a lot in common with the Hip Hop music videos where everyone drives a Bentley, drink Cristal, and hangs by the pool all day. The folks that get burned are the one's that believe the hype. Mad Men seems to be saying, see the world as it is, not how you wish it to be.
Very interesting article. And this is coming from someone who has watched all 5 Seasons of Mad Men but still doesn't care much for the show pretty much for all the reasons you listed (and I usually don't just stop watching a show because once I get started, for the most part, I like to see where it goes. The only exception being Hawthorne which even I couldn't continue to put up with).
*sigh* One thing I do hate regarding articles like this that examine entertainment and media from a racial perspective is what i call the "Shiny Object Effect". Whereas the entire article is basically questioned, criticized, or written off because of one aspect of something that was written. Half the comments I've seen have brought up "The Wire". Which I've also watched too but I'm sitting here seeing the comments and rolling my eyes at how that show seems to be getting almost more mention than any discussion with the racial issues in Mad Men, because of an example you made almost in afterthought. Can't say I was surprised though since I've seen SOE more times than I can count. The second you made that comment about "The Wire" I knew the comments would largely reflect on it for many people, to the expense of pretty much everything else you had to say.
And I do see where you're coming from. When I first saw Mad Men in that opening scene where Don Draper is talking to that Black waiter as if his opinion actually means something, after the first couple of episodes I watched after I figured "I bet we see no more Blacks with even a casual role in this series despite being the 60s in New York" and I was right. Because I've seen tokenism before. And that first scene I saw really made me question the direction the show was going to go in in terms of race/casting/diversity. And suffice to say I wasn't surprised and since I kept my expectations low wasn't disappointed. I almost gave up on it then but decided to keep watching because the show was so popular.
I also wanted to address a comment made earlier: "I don't think you "get" Mad Men. I would say it's not about it's "white" or "blackness" -- this is a pretty racially 'blank' show -- you just seem to ignore that the whole show is based upon the cynicism inherent to people who have it all."
This is the problem with the entertainment industry today. Mad Men is very much a "White show". There's nothing "blank" about an all White cast. Anymore than Friends, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, That 70's Show, Step by Step, Roseanne, Boy Meets World, Full House, Sex & the City, and countless other all White casted shows are "Blank". Those are "White Shows". The only difference is you can have a show full of Whites and nothing but Whites and it isn't considered anything except a movie or a show about people. As far as mainstream society is concerned there's nothing "White" about it despite everything about it being White and catering TO Whites. The minute you have a movie/show with all Blacks, all Asians, or all non-whites either the movie/show doesn't get the green light, or the casting is changed to make all the major characters/love interests White with a token minority here and there.
Movies/Shows with predominantly Black casts are labeled "Black movies" and tend to have much harder times being produced (ie: See George Lucas talking about Red Tails). It was why so many Whites couldn't understand what all the complaining was about when the casts of 21, Dragonball Z, Avatar the Last Airbender, Prince of Persia, etc all had casts that were made predominantly White or the head role was given to a White individual despite the fact the original plot/script/book/storyline is based on an ethnic character or ethnic group. Minorities saw what the problem was pretty much immediately. Many Whites who are used to seeing Whites as "Blank" in movies, television shows, commercials, magazines, etc despite dominating these industries already, didn't see a problem at all. And it's due to this "Blank" view of our entertainment industry that problems like this continue in our media.
For many Whites you can have a show with 10 White characters and 1 Black character, if that, and it's perfectly fine. For them it's simply 10 Blank people + 1 Black person = Diversity. For minorities it's 10 Whites + 1 Black person = tokenism.
I'm a black professional and I'm a fan of Mad Men. I've seen every episode. But it is indeed a white, white show. Whenever I give some analysis as to why a character did what they did, I ask myself, "What would I do in that situation?" Well, I would never be in that situation because I'm black. And my dad, who was a young man in the 60s would have never been in that situation because he's black. The show is very much about the upper-class urban white experience during a very socially and politically volatile time in America. I can't approach the show as if it's "blank." It is whiteness that gives these characters full range to be completely engrossed in something as superficial and douch-baggish as selling the American Dream in the form of products...beans, Jaguars, pantyhose...whatever.
But I think a part of the show (and maybe I made this up to appease my own guilt about enjoying show) is a criticism of the banality of whiteness and how it can completely protect already privileged people from very serious and complicated issues that were raging at that time. Black people couldn't get away from that and women, for the most part couldn't either. I find that point of tragedy in all the characters, particularly the men. Whiteness is their flaw. Race has been dealt with here and there, but it was treated more like a small annoyance than anything. They had that equal opportunity ad as a joke, then had to "hire one of them" just to shut the people up and get back to selling stuff.
The issue of sexism isn't handled that much more delicately either. Joan fucked her way into a partnership, because she had to, even though she's one of the smartest people in the office and Peggy only had a voice when a man was next to her, even though, the audience knows that she is extremely talented. The women are given the space to deal with the sexism of the 60s but the race stuff, Mad Men isn't touching that. Because to put a black character on the show as a professional equal, and to handle it authentically, would be to show the hazing, the inequality, the brute ugly force of race relations in America. Mad Men isn't build for that and the audience doesn't want to feel all that white guilt bubbling up. So yeah, its pretty damn white.
One day we will come full circle and be color blind. Until we reach that critical mass where we understand that color is a vibration like thoughts, like attitudes, like all things manifest, well,, we will continue to grapple with our low level, primitive, unevolved, consciousness and be stuck in seeing the world in Black and white...
You are missing the forest for the trees with all respect. I commend Matt Weiner for resisting all the pressures to accede to demands to include the civil rights, Viet Nam protests, and so forth in Mad Men with a quota of black or any particular group of actors. What is on his agenda during the five seasons so far exceeds these temporary historical events. Weiner is exploring through 'Don Draper' and the others huge existential questions about whether any human being can ever really change. The verdict is not in as we lawyers say but it does not look good. At the end of episode 13, season five Don is asked in a darkened bar 'Are you alone' while Nancy Sinatra sings 'You only Live Twice...' in a stunning ironic twist since 'Draper' indeed lived twice, first as Dick Whitman and now as Draper. This leaves in the dust any relevance to black and white issues raised by the author, and raises matters relevant for all human beings. What do any of us care about whether one or more actors 'of color' are in the series. I am certain Matt has studied whether as 'an historical fact' black men were in advertising agencies in the late 60s. I doubt they were. Lets see what happens next year. That said, it is not really all that important one way or the other, given the themes of alienation, and existential questions posed by Weiner matters relevant to all of us in 2012. I am disappointed you would focus on such a niche question in 2012, are we not really past all that!
Right on.
When Matthew Weiner recently said that 1967 is "too early" to be dealing with the civil rights movement, he's right... on his own ignorant terms. Which is to say that it's too early for his (white) characters to "care" about black Americans and/or civil rights... because they haven't yet been forced to pay attention. What this reveals is that Matthew Weiner has no more interest in civil rights than his 1960s characters do (which is why black characters are female and limited to brief, "exotic" girlfriends and closed-mouth maids––dropped or fired just as things begin to get interesting). Weiner obviously assumes that his (white!) audience has no more interest in black civil rights (or black characters) than he does. Sadly, the way (white!) people continue to fawn over the show, that might be true. I hope it's not. But I, for one, won't be watching next season...
Mad Men also doesn't care about ethnicity, queer characters, class issues... I find it to read as an extremely conservative show. It comes off to me as nostalgic for a time when the pasty normals "didn't have to" care about those outside of their own experience. I for one and sick of it. It showed signs of going in certain interesting directions and then it disappointed at every turn, opting to play it safe. They lost me.
I have to agree with other commenters on The Wire, though. I suggest giving it another watch. It's not perfect, but it's miles better than Mad Men.
I'm sorry, but this article comes across as a passive "oops, I didn't realize I was being racist" type of racism that white people often get accused of. A white journalist would never dare write an article with these types of words about an African American show. To do so would mean an immediate label of racist and ostracism by liberal media. One race should not be bound by rules of political correctness while another isn't. If this show is about anything, it is about the class system and the upper elite of Manhattan during the 60s. I'm white and I don't relate to the Manhattan penthouse apartments, expensive suits, and affairs with different woman every week. I still enjoy the show. Do you really think all white people are as financially well off as Don Draper and Roger Sterling? Your view is appallingly racist. This show doesn't confront the civil rights movement for the same reason it doesn't confront the counterculture movement and the male characters of the show seem oblivious to the women's movement: that class of people were oblivious and probably thought everything was fine during the 60s. It is still an interesting show about a moment in time for a specific group of Manhattan professionals. You shouldn't expect the show to be about something it isn't about.
I don't watch Mad Men, and I don't watch The Wire. I don't watch The Cosby Show either. I think your essay says more about your television view of the world than anything else. But, there is that great strain of "it's someone else's fault' for just about everything you come across. You only get one life, and it's sad to see you so caught up in unhappiness. Study some history, and not just the parts about you and the black world. You may get a new appreciation for the amazing times you live in. Or , judging from this essay, you won't. Go back to your TV then.
All your points are well taken and although I love this show I would be the first to say that for a show taking place in the 60's...it seems to utterly ignore the most important thing going on..i.e. the civil rights movement. I suppose Weiner might say that this is a reflection of how separate Whites and Blacks lived even in liberal New York in those days, and how the folks being portrayed really didnt feel affected by or take much interest in the experience of African Americans at the time. If that is so...then the experience of those left out should be portrayed in contrast. We never learn much about the long suffering house keeper. We catch only a glimpse of the few African Americans that appear on the show once in a great while.
That said...I just can't resist to take you up on the challenge you posed:
"It would be interesting to see what Quentin Tarantino, a product of multi-ethnic working class neighborhoods in L.A., would do behind the camera on a 'Mad Men' episode."
I suspect it might go like this:
Draper and Sterling pull up to a traffic light. They pull Extra-Large thick-shakes out of a Burger King bag, insert straws and continue an ongoing conversation.
Camera views the interior of the car from the passenger's side, centered on Draper over Sterling left of frame.
Draper: "I'm tellin' you, ten years and you'll be seeing these all over."
Sterling: "No. No, I just don't see it. McDonald's maybe, but this place is really for -
A car screeches around the corner. Shots fly out. Draper and Sterling duck as the driver's side window shatters.
Sterling: "It's BBD&O!"
Draper: "They call this a campaign? It lacks subtlety. It's devoid of human interpersonal warmth. Trust me--it won't sell."
The camera, focused on Don, swings around him 180 degrees to reveal him from through the driver's side wiindow
The previously unseen side of his face is now revealed to be bleeding profusely, riddled with bullet-holes to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.
He continues to talk as if nothing were the matter: "Gentlemen, I propose we allow their campaign to fail on its own merrits, then introduce a counter offer complete with point-of-purchase merchandising..."
I'm super interested in how many responses are urging you to watch 'The Wire"!
I personally have found 'Mad Men' very difficult to watch, primarily because, as a female professional in a male-dominated workplace, the sexism of the show REALLY bums me out. Of course it's historically accurate and making a larger point, but I experience sexism every day and it's just not what I want to do with my leisure time.
I really appreciate how the author is not saying the show is bad because it is poetry for white people (I agree with his analysis). Roots for white people? Not so much, we have no comparative model for that. Some would argue that Joan selling herself for the Jaguar account had some relationship with Kizzy, but I would disagree. Joan had some choice is that tragic interaction, Kizzy had none.
I am African American.Queer, non-monogamous, woman. When I first saw the show my reaction was very similar to yours - suspicious of the writers' intent. It took years before I rewatched the show. When I did, suddenly all that was aggravating and bland about it became deeply satisfying.
I think it appears at first to glorify a gluttonous white male dominated world and ignore race completely but that is precisely the perspective it is critiquing. I believe it is one of those self-reflective-critiques that spares no one. Everyone (mostly white and male) is implicated as a bigot. I think the intention is to depict this dominant perspective through a modern psychoanalytical lens so that the bigotry and narrowness of it appears just as stark as it does offensive. The message is in the shock and discomfort we feel.
I think you really do have to analyze something more in-depth to successfully critique it than you have. While I look to others' for their insight about the way the show handles race, I don't see it as an afterthought.
I think what satisfies me is the way it handles gender and domestic life more than anything. And there was not one mention of gender in you article, I think. You said it seemed like money and status were really the focus of the interactions. I see gender. Women are constantly disparaged and discriminated against. And that is not central to this era but to how human societies have been constructed.
And Lolita questions the same thing - how women have been treated thoughout the ages averywhere - and after waching the show more I see Lolitas everywhere.