BEERS, QUEERS, TEARS FOR FEARS

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» Sunday, September 18th

It seriously blows me away how so many people are so *bad* at watching Mad Men.

Hint: Mad Men is not about ~~finding the~~ people you identify with and/or have a natural affinity for, and then basing your entire judgment of every other character on that standard. Mad Men is one of the few TV shows, really the only show I have ever seen, that is about real people, as people. Not people upon whom you get to fasten your romantic or feminist or idealistic or moral or political or personal feelings, and then hitch a ride for the remainder of the show. It’s really not a show that (in my opinion) can be enjoyed that way, because it’s not meant to be enjoyed that way. Characters have different weaknesses and strengths, different families and histories and immaturities, different expectations for themselves and others, different historical situations, and as the viewer you are supposed to hate them, and love them, and sympathize with them, and criticize them, and laugh at them, and recognize them, continually and all at the same time. I love Mad Men because it’s not a show about you. It may somewhat be a show about your parents or grandparents, but it’s not about you. It’s definitely not a show about me.

I know people are allowed to watch TV for whatever reasons they want, blah blah blah. And I know Mad Men is so intensely aggravating that sometimes you simply have to vent by yelling at the screen or at the internet in general. But taking that level of personal animosity and convincing yourself that it’s really the ACTOR you’re hating, and not the character? January Jones may not even be the world’s most naturally talented and versatile actor. Who cares?? She does an unbelievably fantastic job as Betty. I honestly think that part of the whole point of Mad Men is to look at ourselves, in and through our reactions to the characters. When we hate Betty — and the writers are deliberately making her seem unlikeable for all the reasons people mention — we are supposed to look at ourselves. It’s supposed to be an exercise — and really an exercise, I have to work to do this — in understanding other people. Betty and all the other major characters do wrong things, and I think in certainly some aspects of their lives, are bad people. But none of the characters have been stretched to the point of being virtually unrelateable. And in fact, the audience has been very deliberately shown relateable or endearing aspects of every character. We are supposed to be sympathetic, while maintaining our ability to see the moral and personal failures of each.

Betty in particular has been shown to us so thoroughly — especially in the first three seasons — that I seriously question how anyone who watches the show can be totally unsympathetic towards her. In the fourth season she had way less screen time, and almost everything we were shown was unsympathetic — but still, not everything. Don is the character that it’s almost impossible to relate to 90% of the time. We relate to him because he’s the protagonist — and that’s enough for me, I don’t question that. But Don is the one who’s a fragmented, insincere, manipulative human being, totally incapable, it seems, of honesty and integrity. Don lives his own lies, and other people pay the consequences. Betty and Don are very similar in certain ways, but it is Don who takes advantage of his situation. The idea that someone could excuse Don’s virtually constant infidelities because they think Betty is a cold bitch? In what world could that *possibly* be okay? Don is the one who pursued her and married her under false pretenses. We can somewhat sympathize with his reasons for doing this; I can imagine what he must have thought or how he justified it to himself. But the falseness began with him. Don is the one who was a cold, distant, selfish, and verbally abusive husband. Don is the one who treated Betty like a whore. They were both equally shallow in their ideas of marriage, I’ll give you that. But nothing, least of all Betty’s *personality*, could justify how Don treated her for the majority of their marriage.

I sympathize deeply with Betty, and I relate to her, particularly her sense of her own lack of agency. This is partly due to her historical circumstance as an upper-middle class housewife, but also, I think, in large part because of her personality and her family history. But it bothers me how easily people idolize Peggy and Joan and despise Betty. Peggy and Joan are fantastic, although some of the things they have done or some of the ways they’ve chosen to deal with people, are not good. But they get a free pass so long as they fit everyone’s idea of what a modern woman should look like — ambitious, self-reliant, totally competent. Those are admirable characteristics, at least to a certain extent. But they don’t cancel out every other characteristic, good or bad. Peggy and Joan are complicit in much of what goes on around them and in their own lives, just like every other character, just like every other real person. I hate that, in the hands of certain people, feminism becomes just another excuse to despise weak or broken people, especially weak and broken women. Betty is a mess. She is privileged, selfish, childish, sometimes abusive, and ungenerous (just like Don). But she’s not totally despicable or irredeemable, and she’s not the bad guy. You could say the same thing about every character — and about ourselves. Which is the point of Mad Men.

~~< /soapbox>~~