Maddening Men
Posted on August 12th, 2009
by Clark Stooksbury |
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I’ve tried to wrap my mind around Scott Locklin’s Mad Men article at Taki’s Magazine, but it’s such a mishmash of bizarre statements and non sequiturs that I can’t quite grasp it. He asserts, for example, that “everyone on this show sports an accent that didn’t exist until around 1980 or so.” Really? I’d like to see a source on that.
He also says, “most people who enjoy this sort of program tend to work in similarly vapid ‘creative’ endeavors involving selling underpants on the internet, or doing the same sort of nonsense as the ad men on an interpersonal level using some psycho-therapeutic bilge.” Again, I wonder how he knows this.
Locklin writes, as I scratch my head in disbelief,
Mad Men makes the obligatory genuflection at the false god of the counterculture; making dumb nihilist beatniks appear to be somehow in on a secret that the ad men like Draper can’t fathom, when in reality, all they really have on Draper is an inferior drug stash. Booze and smokes, after all, were the background relaxants and cerebral stimulants of America’s greatest years. Booze and smokes split the atom and conquered the moon. Beatnik drugs are responsible for cultural innovations such as teaching second graders how to put a condom on a banana.
The only episode I remember featuring beatniks for any length of time, they seemed like jerks. How he equates “beatnik drugs” with putting condoms on Bananas for second graders; instead of say, Dylan’s Bringing it all Back Home or early Saturday Night Live episodes, is beyond me.
He continues in this vein while employing the sort of rightwing special pleading I’ve come to expect from sites such as Big Hollywood, while offering no genuine insight on an excellent program. He is under the mistaken impression that the viewer is expected to look down upon the characters and feel superior.
Filed under: Culture
Big fan of the show, own Seasons 1 & 2 on DVD. Unfortunately, some people cannot enjoy anything, whether it is a TV show, music, or a film - without trying to fit it into a 2009 political viewpoint. If anything, Mad Men was contemptuous of beatniks, such as when Don asks one, “Tell me, if you had a job, what would you do?” With the “major” networks serving up dreck like More to Love and Wipeout, Mad Men is a welcome reminder that TV can be a venue for engaging story-telling.
Locklin is a buzz kill. I really enjoy the program, as I enjoyed HBO’s Rome. I’m not an anthropologist, but I do work in what some may consider a “vapid ‘creative’ endeavor” — writing about politics. I need to indulge once in a while in intensely drawn, colorful characters moving through psychologically taut situations whether they be historically rigorous or laced with a few false notes (Mad Men is surely sprinkled with these; sometimes they are fun to point out). So what. Did Locklin hate “I, Claudius” too?
This reminds me of a Takimag review way back of Gossip Girl (never seen it or Madmen), in which they made such complaints about its portrayal of New York as “one couple moves from the Upper East Side to Williamsburg because its more real, when in reality a loft like there’s in Williamsburg would be almost as expensive” or “the elite high schools in Manhattan are not nearly so WASP and usually half Jewish” - each of these being exactly half right, but what of it?
Law and Order, I must say, is deeply flawed though enjoyable. The way they strain to portray white supremacists and Christian fundamentalists in Manhattan! Lay on top of that their absolutely stubborn refusal to portray Jews at elite high schools! Also they have a pretty lousy understanding of terrorism.
I’m only halfway through the first season, but, if anything, it seems to me the characters are drawn so compellingly (not to mention how cool and stylish they all appear) that the greater temptation is to overlook the racism, misogyny, etc. I just watched the episdoe with the beatniks the other night and they are indeed portrayed as dumb asses.
AMC’s first original series was a bland, mellow look back at 1940s radio called “Remember WENN.” It was so sweet and decent and respectful of all the old verities that it was painful to watch.
Matthew Weiner, who created “Mad Men” has a real love for the 1950s-1960s but he recognizes that you can’t make a show out of nostalgic longings. There has to be conflict and characters have to take risks and reveal unattractive aspects of their character. The impulse behind the show is still love, rather than hate, but it’s a complicated and conflicted love.
“Mad Men” came along at just the right time. The idea that 50s middle class culture is threatened and needs to be defended was a potent one in conservative circles for a long time. Today, we recognize that that’s the past, and we have to go on from where we are with what we have.
Well said, Al.
Better get used to watching this stuff. It’ll be all that’s left after we get rid of “conservative” media.
Check it out:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/52435
Tom, That is truly frightening.
I liked Locklin’s article very much.
Considering how much I love this show, what I read about ‘Mad Men’ makes me wish I had premium cable. Sure, there was hypocrisy and corruption then - fallen human nature and all that - but the world was better so there may be real nostalgia and not just hipster condescension/irony fuelling this show’s appeal.
Like studying Zapruder’s film, watching a play-by-play of this period is a way of figuring out what went wrong; why most of it imploded and so quickly.
Wrong thinking from this era produced Vatican II, exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time for the Roman Catholic Church.
Funny how all the self-consciously futuristic stuff - the Jetsons look - is now quaint.
Based on what I know about changes in society I thought Takimag on ‘Gossip Girl’ was spot-on.
[...] Clark Stooksbury at TAC responds to Locklin: The only episode I remember featuring beatniks for any length of time, they seemed like jerks. How he equates “beatnik drugs” with putting condoms on Bananas for second graders; instead of say, Dylan’s Bringing it all Back Home or early Saturday Night Live episodes, is beyond me. [...]
I realize that the conventional wisdom seems to put me on the wrong side of history when it comes to “Mad Men,” but just humor me for a minute. I have written before on this site about my low esteem for this show (which I would link to if I could figure out where it is, Canada!), but this love letter from the Times is so far off the mark that even if you love the show, you’ll have to grant me a few points.
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