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Tag: Don Draper

  • The Morning Show Season 3: Hollow Tears for a Hollow Billionaire

    The Morning Show Season 3: Hollow Tears for a Hollow Billionaire

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    “Jumping the shark” is bound to happen on any TV series if it goes on long enough. And maybe, after a mere three seasons, The Morning Show has exhibited itself to have done just that. Even if it took Jennifer Aniston’s “other” major show, Friends, slightly longer. Arguably not until season eight, when the writers decided to drag out Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel’s (Aniston) “will they or won’t they get together?” plotline by throwing Joey (Matt LeBlanc) as yet another wrench into the mix to delay the inevitable. The worst, most ill-conceived one yet. In season three of The Morning Show, Paul Marks a.k.a. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is that wrench delaying the inevitable. In this instance, that UBA is doomed to shutter after its endless sputter.  

    Although, initially, it felt as though the addition of Hamm (whose last name couldn’t be more ideal for an actor) as an Elon Musk-esque billionaire (minus the autism) would be a welcome “shake-up” to The Morning Show, things took a quick nosedive after the episode wherein a chasm in the TV space-time continuum occurred by way of Rachel Green fucking Don Draper. With four episodes left to go after that happened in “The Stanford Student,” it didn’t take long for the season to devolve quite quickly, with Alex Levy (Aniston) turning into the tone deaf, blinded-by-peen, villainous white woman to complement Paul Marks as a villainous white man. In fact, the suspension of disbelief viewers must invoke in order to believe that someone as “smart” and “shrewd” as Alex would go for Paul just because of the supposed “Hepburn-Tracy” dynamic they have at first is all but impossible to maintain for much longer after the seventh episode, “Strict Scrutiny.” The latter immediately commences with some cringeworthy moments between the two, complete with Paul making her a frittata for breakfast (as if even the most romantic of billionaires would ever) and Alex already looking upon this gesture as a reason to fall in total love with the man who has a nefarious reputation. One that leads the latest TMS co-anchor, Chris Jackson (Nicole Beharie), to casually mention to Alex while they’re both in the makeup chair, “There are studies that show power…it actually changes the brain. It erases the ability to empathize. It makes me wonder: what does Paul Marks really care about?”

    Why, amassing more power of course. And how does one do that by any other method but quashing all opposition to his money-making potential? For money is power in this thing called “life,” alternately known as capitalism (hadn’t you heard? Capitalism is life). Alex, too moneyed for too long to remember that there are actually people—nay, men—like Paul who still care about racking up a higher and higher “worth,” has always been more concerned with prestige and respect rather than the money that comes with it. What’s more, Alex, in contrast to Paul, only seems to care about racking up her previously low orgasm count (at least as given by another human being). Hence, being irritated rather than taking it to heart when her former morning co-anchor, Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon), tells her that Paul is not only bad news just because, duh, he’s a billionaire, but because she’s been doing some digging and everything she turns up points to something very shady going on at his company, Hyperion. The one that’s supposed to launch a SpaceX-inspired rocket. And does a test version of that in episode one, “The Kármán Line,” on live TV. Except that Paul’s big morning show moment is dampened by the transmission being cut, followed by a massive cyberattack on all of UBA’s servers. These major plot points ultimately being intertwined, as the big season three reveal in the final episode, “The Overview Effect,” is that Paul was the mastermind behind the hack all along, not to mention a master in the art of surveillance that rivals J. Edgar Hoover-level scope. All of which is to say that, yes, Jennifer Aniston was starring in her own version of Sleeping With the Enemy. Indeed, the ick factor noticeably increases when one stops to think about how the “attraction” between her and Paul was likely entirely manufactured on Paul’s side of things. The greatest sign of that being that billionaires rarely, if ever, date age-appropriate women. 

    After their “union” is exposed by The Vault, the same online rag that outed Bradley, the better part of the season is then spent showing Alex being branded as a hypocrite with an apparent flavor for shitty men (see also: Mitch Kessler [Steve Carrell]). As Alex deals with all of the fallout for the unwanted public consumption of their relationship, UBA continues to focus its news coverage on the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. And, considering the double standard Alex faces for being in a relationship with Paul, it’s a timely parallel to the form of gross sexism she’s experiencing. Even from her “own kind.” Namely, the interview subject Chip (Mark Duplass) talks her into for Alex Unfiltered, Jess Bennett (Shannon Woodward), a co-founder of an online magazine called The Break.

    Rather than focusing on women’s rights, as was the plan for their interview, Jess keeps bringing up Alex’s strange bedfellow, finally asking, “If a reporter hooks up with a billionaire who is buying her media company, people are going to ask questions. Like, ‘Is she actually capable of speaking truth to power?’” Alex, in the end, tries to prove that she still can…by giving up her precious dick in favor of doing “the right thing.” Or, more accurately, yet another desperate thing: merging with fellow “legacy media” network NBN. But hey, that’s still better than selling it to a man who plans to dismantle the whole outfit for “parts” (in a move that echoes Lukas Matsson’s [Alexander Skarsgård] on Succession) so he can make a quick few billion to pump back into his fledgling wannabe SpaceX company. 

    Despite knowing all this—that Paul was responsible for the hack, spied on and egregiously violated Bradley’s privacy, silenced multiple Hyperion employees, was willing to endanger people’s lives to promote his own bottom line, etc., etc.—she still manages to shed a few tears in the final scene they share together. And, after he walks away, watching Alex for almost fifteen seconds as the camera offers a close-up of her paltry tears and scrunched-up (or as scrunched-up as the fillers will allow) face, the absurdity of it all is accented when the camera shifts to a wide shot of her standing on her massive balcony with its unheard of skyline view. In other words, poor little rich girl—she lost her poor little rich boy. 

    In the scene that follows, she appears to have mended quickly, escorting Bradley to the FBI building so she can confess to her obstruction of justice (another “okay, what the fuck?” plotline being her brother’s involvement with January 6th) while saying that she’s not so sure about how to continue in the new UBA (/UBANBN) era without Bradley. But Bradley is there to comfort her by insisting she really will have a voice in the new company this time. Alex ominously returns, “Be careful what you fight for.” This apparently setting things up for season four, aimed at exploring what it “really means” for a woman to have power. If Margaret Thatcher was an indication, it means they end up being no better than men (harkening back to what Chris said about power altering people’s brain chemistry).

    Whatever the “message” of season four might be, season three’s was, despite being occasionally all over the place, mostly on-brand with the current ongoing hate campaign against the rich. Yet that doesn’t necessarily make for the most “stellar” of television just because the themes presented are “correct.” And, although the name of The Morning Show’s game from the beginning has been to “incorporate timely things” into its narrative framework, doing so in season three has caused a more jumping the shark effect than a “pause for reflection” one. Something that doesn’t necessarily bode well for the future of the series…however many subsequent seasons there might be.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • 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

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    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.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madison Beer Gives Alien Mad Men Vibes in “Home to Another One”

    Madison Beer Gives Alien Mad Men Vibes in “Home to Another One”

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    Being that Madison Beer’s entire “shtick” is essentially paying homage to Lana Del Rey paying homage to the 60s, it’s only to be expected that said decade would have a tendency to creep into her work. Even if by way of other pop culture zeitgeists’ interpretation of it. In the case of the video for “Home to Another One” that pop culture zeitgeist is Mad Men. 

    Co-directed by Beer and Aerin Moreno (who also helped Beer out with the video for “Spinnin”), it all commences with an image of the back of Beer’s head…topped by the same “alien antennae” we soon see her paramour, of sorts, sporting. Looking into the TV screen in front of her, the viewer is then permitted to see the same picturesque, snow globe-ready house she’s looking at before we find ourselves inside that very house. The one that looks like Don Draper’s (Jon Hamm) apartment circa his “married to Megan Calvet (Jessica Paré)” era. Which is fitting, considering that, for most of their marriage, Megan intensely felt the cold remoteness of Don’s personality, constantly wondering if he still loved her or, worse still, if he was cheating on her (which, yes, of course he was). For the “character” Beer is playing in “Home to Another One,” that same motif can apply. Though the song itself is meant to be about a failed relationship (the ultimate “muse” for most female singer-songwriters). Which also works when applying the Don and Megan comparison to the video.

    With a ribbon in her hair (again, the Del Rey influence) and a short black dress on, Beer stands alone in her apartment as a silhouetted male figure (with those alien antennae) approaches the door, placing his hand on it longingly while Beer sings, “Could’ve sworn I saw your face/Was it you?/Was it you?” All at once, a gust of wind blows her hair back, and he walks in with a suitcase. Perhaps trying to pretend as though he was never really gone at all (such is the Don Draper way). As he sits down calmly next to Beer (in front of the image of a solar system), they both seem to easily accept that he’s back as she then croons, “Say you hate me/It’s okay, boy, you’re not the only one.” This line serving as both a personal nod to what Beer has been through over the course of her career, as well as a nod to how women are generally hated by men (not to mention other women). Yet still seek their affection and love despite knowing better. 

    The scene then shifts to show us a montage of the two holed up in their 60s-influenced abode together, Beer now wearing the same white dress from her album cover paired with white go-go boots. The distance between them remains apparent despite being in the same enclosed space together—a reality made ironic by the realization that they’re also suspended in space together. If this wasn’t already showcased well enough by the backdrop outside the windows, a shot of Beer in another 60s-inspired ensemble posing suggestively atop a flying saucer ought to confirm it.

    More Don and Megan cosplay with an alien twist occurs in the next scene, as the two sit across from one another eating ice cream out of crystal stemware. The emotional chasm between them increasingly palpable, it seems as though the further apart that they grow, the more Beer wants to try to keep the relationship together. Ergo, her progressively more bombastic sartorial choices. 

    As the video comes to a close, Beer proceeds to dance in front of the control center (the one presumably operating the spaceship/house). Perhaps heavy-handed symbolism to connote that she’s finally the one in control. Flashing to more scenes of their claustrophobic relationship, Moreno then cuts to Beer picking up the same white telephone viewers saw at the beginning of the video and seemingly calling to her “replica” alien self (in this regard, the video reeks slightly of the premise for the Black Mirror episode entitled “Beyond the Sea”). Answering it, the viewer is finally able to see a frontal shot of Alien Madison answering, staring back at the TV screen where she’s now looking at Human Madison half-heartedly embracing her Alien Don Draper. 

    Appropriately, toward the end of the song, Beer remarks, “​​Now you hold her gently/Don’t you wish you saw us through?/‘Cause I do, I do.” Something about that echoing the lament-rage of Olivia Rodrigo’s “deja vu.” Alien Madison seems to inuit that Alien Don is still caught somewhere back down on Earth, so to speak, with Human Madison. Perhaps this is the reason why she flashes him a knowing, jaded glance as he walks into her parallel universe apartment now with a suitcase. Then again, it could just be a metaphor for how they’ve both become alien presences to one another as their love faded out. 

    Regardless, Don and Megan Draper vibes abound in the Mad Men-esque narrative featuring an intergalactic spin. With Don’s emotional stuntedness being all over this alien man…who isn’t so alien to most women thanks to his familiar behavior.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madison Beer Gives Alien Mad Men Vibes in “Home to Another One”

    Madison Beer Gives Alien Mad Men Vibes in “Home to Another One”

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    Being that Madison Beer’s entire “shtick” is essentially paying homage to Lana Del Rey paying homage to the 60s, it’s only to be expected that said decade would have a tendency to creep into her work. Even if by way of other pop culture zeitgeists’ interpretation of it. In the case of the video for “Home to Another One” that pop culture zeitgeist is Mad Men. 

    Co-directed by Beer and Aerin Moreno (who also helped Beer out with the video for “Spinnin”), it all commences with an image of the back of Beer’s head…topped by the same “alien antennae” we soon see her paramour, of sorts, sporting. Looking into the TV screen in front of her, the viewer is then permitted to see the same picturesque, snow globe-ready house she’s looking at before we find ourselves inside that very house. The one that looks like Don Draper’s (Jon Hamm) apartment circa his “married to Megan Calvet (Jessica Paré)” era. Which is fitting, considering that, for most of their marriage, Megan intensely felt the cold remoteness of Don’s personality, constantly wondering if he still loved her or, worse still, if he was cheating on her (which, yes, of course he was). For the “character” Beer is playing in “Home to Another One,” that same motif can apply. Though the song itself is meant to be about a failed relationship (the ultimate “muse” for most female singer-songwriters). Which also works when applying the Don and Megan comparison to the video.

    With a ribbon in her hair (again, the Del Rey influence) and a short black dress on, Beer stands alone in her apartment as a silhouetted male figure (with those alien antennae) approaches the door, placing his hand on it longingly while Beer sings, “Could’ve sworn I saw your face/Was it you?/Was it you?” All at once, a gust of wind blows her hair back, and he walks in with a suitcase. Perhaps trying to pretend as though he was never really gone at all (such is the Don Draper way). As he sits down calmly next to Beer (in front of the image of a solar system), they both seem to easily accept that he’s back as she then croons, “Say you hate me/It’s okay, boy, you’re not the only one.” This line serving as both a personal nod to what Beer has been through over the course of her career, as well as a nod to how women are generally hated by men (not to mention other women). Yet still seek their affection and love despite knowing better. 

    The scene then shifts to show us a montage of the two holed up in their 60s-influenced abode together, Beer now wearing the same white dress from her album cover paired with white go-go boots. The distance between them remains apparent despite being in the same enclosed space together—a reality made ironic by the realization that they’re also suspended in space together. If this wasn’t already showcased well enough by the backdrop outside the windows, a shot of Beer in another 60s-inspired ensemble posing suggestively atop a flying saucer ought to confirm it.

    More Don and Megan cosplay with an alien twist occurs in the next scene, as the two sit across from one another eating ice cream out of crystal stemware. The emotional chasm between them increasingly palpable, it seems as though the further apart that they grow, the more Beer wants to try to keep the relationship together. Ergo, her progressively more bombastic sartorial choices. 

    As the video comes to a close, Beer proceeds to dance in front of the control center (the one presumably operating the spaceship/house). Perhaps heavy-handed symbolism to connote that she’s finally the one in control. Flashing to more scenes of their claustrophobic relationship, Moreno then cuts to Beer picking up the same white telephone viewers saw at the beginning of the video and seemingly calling to her “replica” alien self (in this regard, the video reeks slightly of the premise for the Black Mirror episode entitled “Beyond the Sea”). Answering it, the viewer is finally able to see a frontal shot of Alien Madison answering, staring back at the TV screen where she’s now looking at Human Madison half-heartedly embracing her Alien Don Draper. 

    Appropriately, toward the end of the song, Beer remarks, “​​Now you hold her gently/Don’t you wish you saw us through?/‘Cause I do, I do.” Something about that echoing the lament-rage of Olivia Rodrigo’s “deja vu.” Alien Madison seems to inuit that Alien Don is still caught somewhere back down on Earth, so to speak, with Human Madison. Perhaps this is the reason why she flashes him a knowing, jaded glance as he walks into her parallel universe apartment now with a suitcase. Then again, it could just be a metaphor for how they’ve both become alien presences to one another as their love faded out. 

    Regardless, Don and Megan Draper vibes abound in the Mad Men-esque narrative featuring an intergalactic spin. With Don’s emotional stuntedness being all over this alien man…who isn’t so alien to most women thanks to his familiar behavior.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • 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

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    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.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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