Content area
Full Text
There's no one to like in Mad Men (Weiner, 2007-2010). The New York advertising world of the early 1960s and its suburban backdrop are etched in caricature; false self functioning dominates the scene. Men go to work, drink too much, seduce their secretaries; women stay home with their children or abandon femininity by trying to break into the male-dominated business world.1 Life is lived on the surface, pleasure is all. Even as the characters encounter the massive social/cultural disruptions of those years, we see little by way of inspiration. Certainly, there are changes, both political and personal, but none--not the civil rights movement, Betty's affair, the couple's divorce nor Don's job disruption--alters things dramatically. Nearly everyone remains affectively mute, frozen in the gender roles to which they have been consigned.
Women in the series (white and black) are unknown by their partners and largely devoid of agency. The professional ceiling is low and thick; women advance by sleeping with men. The few, like Peggy, who succeed to some extent, pay a heavy price for so doing. Peggy endures sexist ridicule and humiliation; she fights for recognition but never quite gets it. And she remains partnerless, seemingly on the road to a life of isolation and misery despite some professional success.
Women like Betty who embrace marriage and family while eschewing ambition pay too. Their husbands are unfaithful and rarely home; their children more irritating than not. Life revolves around superficialities punctuated by traumatic disruptions when infidelities are revealed. Interestingly (and also in line with 1960s stereotypes), it's Betty's housekeeper Carla who has access to her interior life and a sustained sense of dignity despite, of course, the dismissive, racist treatment she endures. Carla alone shows a capacity to relate emotionally to the children. She understands Sally and cares more about Sally's feelings than does her mother. But Carla pays for this. When she acts independently by allowing Sally to say goodbye to her young friend Glen, she is fired on the spot.
So there's no exit for women, white and not: Both homemakers and career women are sexual objects to be used and discarded; it's white men (like Don) who possess power and sexuality. Power--really the power to make money--is as empty as are...