The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    For "Mad Men" fans only: maybe you could call it creativizing history?

    By artappraiser on Thu, 03/29/2012 - 10:38pm |

    The opening scene of the first episode this season, (the Young & Rubicam water bombs thrown on Madison Avenue protestors) was not fiction. It came verbatim, including the dialogue, from a May 28, 1966 New York Times front page story.

    Comments

    Thanks, Artsy. I was working in NYC at the time and although I don't remember the incident, nothing about it surprises me, nor, for that matter, have more than a couple of scenes in Mad Men done so. The show is so accurate that it is sometimes hard to watch---showing, as it does, the bad, the ugly, and the not so bad and ugly. My life flashes in front of me with every episode.

    The issue about whether the closer, "And they call us savages", was good writing is interesting---whether it tells the viewer how to feel, or not. I thought the sentence rang true when I heard it. If anything the entire lobby scene might have looked over the top, but not any qualities about the closer. 

    I gather that the criticism of the ending line morphed to one of writing technique following the revelation that it was a true incident and true dialog. (What didn't ring true was Draper's later scene with his wife.)

    In any event, as a fan of the show I don't particularly like the change in photography technique. And I just assume that Draper is going to screw up this new relationship. Oh my, much too much projection on my part. 

     


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 03/30/2012 - 2:31pm

    Welcome; I was fascinated to learn it, glad to see someone else found likewise.

    I understand the criticism as the scene did seem a little bit odd/awkward as a start, just something off about it as far as the zeitgeist of the show, like it didn't fit. But then the ending, which went back to the start,  with all the black applicants to the "joke ad" sitting in the foyer, I found to be extremely satisfying drama,  Because each character sort of responded different, and they each did very well at that, developing all their characters more. And also showing a full range of white reactions to the civil rights movement. Examples: Don said "why don't we just hire one?" and someone else replied "we can't have one of them sitting out there!" And Bart Cooper seems more afraid of possible protests against them than anything else, and him or someone else is afraid even of that if they interview and don't hire. The scene with them all going out there and Lane Pryce speaking for them was pretty awesome, I thought--telling the men to go because they are only looking for a secretary was a nice touch for the youngin's to know what it was like before feminism--and when he handled accepting their resumes in such a dignified manner I thought back to how he had a black mistress before his wife came over and the differences between racism here and racism across the pond at the time.

    Really hooked me on wanting to know what they are going to do about it, I  hope that they do go back to it. One fault of this show for those who like it for plot is that they sometimes don't finish plot lines.

    P.S. Clearly, yes Don's new wifey is trouble, we just don't know what the trouble will be yet. There were hints, I think, that she is not going to stay at the firm. She has artsy tendencies, never developed-had to become a secretary, after all--it could end up back downtown with the beatniks or something like that?  Don does have his artsy side.surprise


    by artappraiser on Fri, 03/30/2012 - 11:15pm

    Don't know where to put this, I think it's a keeper, a superb short essay on which Etch-A-Sketch picture might be the real Mitt, by "M.S." at The Economist. Since he uses Don Draper, along with Gatsby, in his summary paragraph, I thought to plop it here. Here's the last graph for a taste:

    This model is probably the one that comes closest to the core issue: the instability in the American equation of freedom with the possibility of reinventing oneself. These big, chiselled men with their blue suits, asserting their right to invent themselves as exactly whoever the public wants them to be right now: where have we seen them before? They've been with us since the birth of the modern American moment. Jay Gatsby. Roger O. Thornhill. (Eva Marie-Saint: "What's the O stand for?" Cary Grant: "Nothing. I made it up.") Most recently, of course, Don Draper. Are these men of character? In one sense, absolutely: they deliver on time, they fulfill contracts, they take responsibility for the organisations they manage. In another sense...who are they, exactly? Who are we, self-reinventing Americans? We forget about what happened yesterday; memory is indulgence. We become whoever the moment demands. It works. It achieves great things. Does it make us free? Or does it make us an empty suit, a switched dog tag, a wrong name heard across the hotel lobby? Are we free, westward bound across the corn fields, or off on a marvellous jaunt across old Europe; or are we running for our lives, dodging the machine-gun fire, clambering desperately up George Washington's giant stone effigy, pursued by unknown enemies for reasons we don't understand? He's running, he's ahead, he's winning, they're not going to catch him, he's going to make it. But who is running, and what for?


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/31/2012 - 3:08am

    Hmmn. Draper vs. Romney.

    As for Romney, maybe "authenticity" is the relevant character question. Romney is essentially the transactional type, in his case, money. He's trying to be all things to all people for the purpose of winning an election, which makes him "inauthentic" as far as the general populace is concerned. For himself and the corporate and financial world, however, he is authentic. He doesn't need to be able to read complexities in people, or even in himself.  Nor does he care about the complexities in other people, just to best them with a $10K bet.

    Draper is transactional in sex but doesn't really seem to crave wealth for its own sake. He reads people, which is why he is good in his job. His reading people doesn't necessarily make him touchy feely with staff, but that doesn't seem to come from a lack of awareness in the way that Romney's standoffishness seems to do.

    Draper seems to be evolving. Romney just doubles down.

    On plot lines, they have so many good ones I guess it's hard to follow all of them.

    As for wifey, she's definitey in tension. It will be fascinating to see which way she springs. For a guy like Draper she's too good to be true---he cannot tolerate that kind of success.

    It's a great series, some of the best writing ever, in my opinion.   


    by Oxy Mora on Sat, 03/31/2012 - 9:59pm

    Well, in case you missed it, they managed to work Romney Pere into the script:

    Mad Men’s Henry Francis Calls George Romney a Clown!


    by artappraiser on Mon, 04/02/2012 - 2:33pm

    Update:

    Equal opportunity is obviously going to be a continuing theme as all of a sudden Don has an Afro-American secretary. (Her name happens to be Dawn, we know because the writers make it plain by playing up confusion about Don and Dawn sounding the same--this name thing drives Roger nuts--Don replies to him that  "she was the most qualified.")

    And they hire a Jewish copywriter who so far seems purposefully presented like a caricature of a young Jewish New Yorker of the era, and play it up.

    Also as the counterculture revolution is heating up, it's clear Don is running into the problem of all of sudden being seen as an old fuddy duddy.

    Which makes me wonder: by the end of the series will we see him wearing things like Nehru jackets and brightly colored wide ties and jackets or won't we? If my greatest generation father could make that transition--forced on him by his wife who dressed him--my mom who was only a few years younger than him--my bet is Don is going to, too. Especially if he's still with Megan. But even if not, because ad agencies were sort of a center of such faux hipdom, ala Sonny and Cher and Peter Max style.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 04/02/2012 - 1:45pm

    Ok, looks like here comes Carnaby Street and Twiggie at minimum; from Julia Turner @ Slate:

    For four seasons Betty has been this show’s generational fashion plate, but—even if she does regain her figure—the baton has been passed. As costume designer Janie Bryant explains in this interview with Slate, Megan’s wardrobe is the future, all bold color and mod lines. You’d never see her in fabric that could pass for upholstery.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 04/02/2012 - 1:59pm