ReportWire

Tag: Betty Draper

  • A Chasm in the TV Space-Time Continuum, Or: Rachel Green Fucks Don Draper

    A Chasm in the TV Space-Time Continuum, Or: Rachel Green Fucks Don Draper

    [ad_1]

    Just when you thought scenes of Rachel Green Alex Levy boning Don Draper Paul Marks (not the other way around, as some might sexistly presume) would stop at last week’s episode of The Morning Show, “The Stanford Student,” the latest installment of the third season, “Strict Scrutiny,” chose to pick up where the banging session motif left off. This time commencing a new one that viewers are made privy to after a few requisite “romantic foreplay” shots of a pizza box on the counter with two half-drunk glasses of wine next to it. 

    The tracking shot then passes by the sleeping dog (because dogs aren’t as perverse about watching as cats) and into the living room with the multimillion dollar view of the city—that looks like any megalopolis—before finally showing us Alex and Paul continuing to delight in their forbidden tryst from the previous week. But it’s not really Alex and Paul, is it? Or even Jennifer Aniston and Jon Hamm. No, no. All one can truly see is the unlikely fan fiction melding of Friends and Mad Men come to life. 

    And while it might seem that Green and Draper are worlds (and decades apart), when one stops to think about it, the two really have quite a bit in common. Or maybe, more accurately, Rachel has quite a bit in common with Don’s usual type: Betty Draper (January Jones). For instance, like Rachel, Betty is overly spoiled and a little too into spending money on clothes and other “look at me” frivolities. But, at least in Betty’s defense, she has little else to occupy her time (certainly not the raising of her kids). Even though Rachel could have landed herself a similar trophy wife lifestyle had she not left Barry Farber (Mitchell Whitfield) at the altar.

    Another key similarity between the two “TV queens” are that both Betty and Rachel serve as the quintessential representation of the spoiled daughter/Daddy’s princess. Who no man will ever be good enough for (and this is how Electra complexes happen). Except that Rachel would like to believe getting a job has changed her nature. Alas, the true essence of a person (and the effects of their upbringing) never really goes away. 

    And while Rachel is more like Betty and less like Alex, Paul Marks, though seemingly modeled after a less socially inept Elon Musk, instead has many Don Draper characteristics. Starting with an arrogance and self-assurance that mimics the creative director who was able to make Sterling Cooper change to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce by season four. Because while the Kennedy Camelot era had just ended in America, Don’s own Camelot era in advertising was just getting started. And so is Paul Marks’ proverbial Camelot era, as he extends his many business endeavors into the world of “legacy media,” cajoled back into a deal he was initially going to back out of thanks to Alex’s batting eyelashes. Granted, he had initially backed out in the first place largely as a result of her actions, so it’s only fair that she should be the one to reel him back in. 

    Indeed, the development of their attraction since the beginning of The Morning Show’s third season has almost felt as simultaneously prolonged and inevitable as the one between Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (with Rachel taking a little more time to get on Ross’ pining bandwagon). Except, in this case, there are far more risks involved beyond merely “weirding Monica out” or making things awkward for a tight-knit friend group after the unavoidable breakup. At the forefront of those risks is sabotaging the deal that would arrange for Paul to buy UBA. A deal that still hasn’t been locked down, despite Cory’s (Billy Crudup) best efforts to push it through without any more scrutiny from the government.

    And yes, the board would surely blanch over the knowledge of Alex and Paul banging, because what would that do for the optics of this deal? For the public would then be keenly aware of a huge conflict of interest. It is this type of high-risk behavior that Don was always known for engaging in throughout Mad Men, and Hamm appears to be attracted to characters with this sense of self-destructive bravado. Aniston, on the other hand, has a flavor for the “goody two-shoes” ilk. And Alex being America’s sweetheart (no matter what dirt on her comes out) plays into her usual typecasting ever since taking on the role of Rachel Green. 

    What’s more, this isn’t the first time The Morning Show has had TV worlds involving Friends collide, with Reese Witherspoon a.k.a. Big Little Lies’ Madeline Mackenzie having once cameo’d as Rachel’s sister, Jill Green, for a two-episode arc (though “arc” is a strong word for a character who doesn’t change) in season six. However, in contrast to Ross falling for Jill’s coquettish charms, Paul has zero interest in Bradley Jackson (lesbian or not), who shows up after Alex backs out of her agreement to partake in a suborbital rocket launch (yes, it’s all very Bezos meets Musk) with Paul on live TV. The power play on Alex’s part (designed to indicate to Cory how much clout she really has) ends up putting Bradley in the rocket launch seat next to Paul and Cory, and, ultimately, titillates Paul. Because, after all, what other woman would have “the balls” to flake out on him in such a public and humiliating way? And, in cliche fashion, powerful men are turned on by “things” they can’t have, seeing those “things” as a challenge. A new “terrain to conquer.” And oh, how Paul conquers Alex’s by episode six, “The Stanford Student.”

    After a brief pause on their “unwittingly” romantic day date, of sorts, in episode four, “The Green Light,” their story comes back into sharp focus. Namely, with regard to their clearly, um, mounting attraction. With Alex playing the Rachel card of delaying gratification for as long as possible before finally giving in after interviewing Paul at his Hamptons house for an episode of Alex Unfiltered. And yes, she was the one who suggested the interview, as though to confirm Paul had feels for her too…by seeing if he would agree to do it. Because Paul never agrees to do interviews with anyone. 

    Watching how “good” the two seem for one another (that is, in this portion of the program, before the invariable crash and burn that TV drama requires), it’s enough to make one contemplate how Rachel Green existing in the 60s, or Don Draper existing in the 90s, might have made things better, relationship-wise, for the two. Because we all know ending up with Ross Geller or, in Don’s case, at an Esalen-like retreat center, isn’t exactly a happy ending. Maybe Don wouldn’t have felt the need to suppress his more narcissistic, work-obsessed qualities, as Rachel possessed them as well. Maybe their mutual narcissism could have tamped down the other’s in some fashion, or they would have simply felt more free to be who they truly were.

    But since this pair of unlikely lovers could never exist in each other’s world due to the limitations of being hemmed in by their respective TV series and decade, The Morning Show offers an unexpected glimpse into a fan fiction narrative that perhaps no one ever thought to concoct before. So yes, they might tell us this is “Alex Levy” and “Paul Marks,” but na. The only way these two can be looked at with each other is: Rachel Green and Don Draper.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • That Littering Scene in Mad Men Cuts to the Core of How Corporations Would End Up Pulling A Fast One on Their Consumers

    That Littering Scene in Mad Men Cuts to the Core of How Corporations Would End Up Pulling A Fast One on Their Consumers

    [ad_1]

    Amid the many scenes from Mad Men that still linger in one’s mind, one of the oddest (at least to modern eyes) is the moment where the Drapers, on a rare family outing together, happily discard all their trash after a picnic. Taking place in season two, episode seven—entitled “The Gold Violin”—the year of this particular nonchalant act on the part of the Drapers is meant to be in 1962. A different world from the “Don’t Be A Litterbug” one that we know today. Considering that popular discourse loves to place all responsibility for the current climate crisis on baby boomers, this scene is especially topical. And yet, being that the chemicals and technologies we’ve come to know as categorically detrimental (e.g., pesticides, nuclear power, Teflon, etc.) were still new and deemed beacons of “progress” rather than implements of destruction that only corporations would benefit from in the long-run, maybe it’s unfair to blame boomer consumers who didn’t know any better at the outset.

    In fact, so “uncouth” were they with regard to environmental etiquette that they needed a campaign to tell them not to litter. Thus, people such as Don (Jon Hamm), Betty (January Jones), Sally (Kiernan Shipka) and Bobby (played by Aaron Hart in the second season) tossing their trash onto the ground like it was nothing would not be out of the ordinary for the (lack of) social mores of the day. Complete with Don chucking his beer can into the distance like a football and Betty shaking out their trash-filled picnic blanket onto the grass without a second thought. It’s not as though there was a nearby garbage can handily available, after all. For these were in the days before there was much initiative on the part of the government to regulate its population “correctly” disposing of waste, with fines for littering coming later. While, on the one hand, it can be taken as a sign of “barbaric” Silent Generation and boomer comportment, on the other, it’s apparent they couldn’t see the full weight of the mounting effects of “modern convenience,” including the Santa Barbara oil spill (which would ultimately bring about the first Earth Day in 1970), until the end of the 1960s. According to environmental historian Adam Rome, “I think [the oil spill] was one of the ultimately most important in a series of accidents or problems that made people realize that a lot of the modern technologies that seemed miraculous…posed unprecedented risks to the health of the environment and ultimately to ourselves.”

    These were risks that the corporation never wanted the average American consumer to take note of. Indeed, the real reason the Keep America Beautiful campaign was even started served as part of a deflection from the real issue: corporations needing the consumer to keep buying shit over and over again by building it not to last. Ergo, more waste from manufacturing and packaging. So of course there was bound to be more potential for littering.

    Per Mother Jones’ Bradford Plumer, “Keep America Beautiful managed to shift the entire debate about America’s garbage problem. No longer was the focus on regulating production—for instance, requiring can and bottle makers to use refillable containers, which are vastly less profitable. Instead, the ‘litterbug’ became the real villain, and KAB supported fines and jail time for people who carelessly tossed out their trash, despite the fact that, clearly, ‘littering’ is a relatively tiny part of the garbage problem in this country (not to mention the resource damage and pollution that comes with manufacturing ever more junk in the first place). Environmental groups that worked with KAB early on didn’t realize what was happening until years later.” When the indoctrination had already taken hold anyway. Americans held themselves accountable for being pieces of shit while corporations and their head honchos kept laughing all the way to the bank as a result of the misdirection.

    As for Mad Men’s creator, Matthew Weiner, born in 1965, he likely would have still been witnessing casual, cavalier littering in his own childhood. For it wasn’t until 1971 that the first vehemently guilt-tripping Keep America Beautiful ad came out—the one with the famous “crying Indian.” Preying on the germinal phenomenon of white guilt, the ad has been described as one of the greatest ever made. We’re talking Don Draper-level shit. Focused on a Native American (played by an Italian, obviously) canoeing through trash in what turns out to be oil rig-filled waters, a narrator says, “Some people have a deep, abiding respect for the natural beauty that was once this country.” At this instant, the Native American finds himself at the side of a highway as someone throws a bag of trash out their window that explodes open as it lands at his feet. Here the narrator concludes, “And some people don’t.” Read: and some oblivious white yuppie cunts like the Drapers don’t. To that point, it’s appropriate that Sally, in this particular picnic scene, asks her parents if they’re rich. Betty, ever the avoider of real topics, replies, “It’s not polite to talk about money.” Nor is it polite to throw trash wherever one pleases, but Betty and Don hadn’t yet gotten the literal (litter-al?) message. Along with the rest of their generation and the one that they had just begat.

    At the end of the “crying Indian” PSA, it’s declared, “People start pollution. People can stop it.” Ironically, the “people” who actually could stop it—corporations (legally deemed people, in case you forgot)—are not held accountable in any way in such ads that place all responsibility on the individual a.k.a. consumer to “do their part.” And yet, trying to put all the onus on the consumer to “self-regulate” feels like a small drop in an oil spill-filled ocean of what could actually be done if corporations weren’t a bottomless pit of profit-seeking.

    While this moment of littering in “The Gold Violin” is an accurate re-creation of what would have gone down in 1962 after a picnic, it’s also a larger statement from Weiner (who co-wrote the episode) about the false veneer of perfection that existed in those days in general and in the lives of Mad Men’s characters in particular. Because, beneath the surface, it was all a steaming garbage heap waiting to spew forth. For example, although Don has just bought a shiny new convertible to match his shiny new success at the agency, the bubbling up of consequences resulting from his latest affair with Bobbie Barrett (Melinda McGraw) is about to explode his marriage as he once knew it. Elsewhere, Sal (Bryan Batt) invites Ken (Aaron Staton) over to his apartment for dinner, where his wife, Kitty (Sarah Drew), is made to feel like the third wheel—giving her that evermore uneasy sense about Sal that doesn’t crystallize until episode two of season three, when he does his Ann-Margaret in Bye Bye Birdie impression for her. Then there’s Bert Cooper’s (Robert Morse) acquisition of one of Rothko’s signature “red square” paintings. Prompting Ken, Jane (Peyton List), Harry (Rich Sommer) and Sal to enter his office without permission while he’s away so that they can view it. Although Sal, as “an artist,” claims that it “has to” mean something, Ken counters, “I don’t think it’s supposed to be explained… Maybe you’re just supposed to experience it.”

    This idea that existence is dominated by total chaos as opposed to some “deeper meaning” would come to define the 1960s and beyond. Even as corporations did their best to insist that all chaos—especially of the environmentally-related variety—was simply the result of poor individual “manners” and “self-control.”

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link