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"Mad Men" brings the social commentary.
Aug. 1st, 2009 04:11 amI'm going to be talking about rape, folks, so back away now if that's going to freak you out. And there are "Mad Men" spoilers that I'm not cutting because season two ended way, way back.
I mentioned earlier that I watched the entire second season of "Mad Men" in three days. One of the things that I adore about the show is that it gleefully peppers the "then vs. now" dynamic throughout everything. There's a scene early in season 1 where one of the Draper kids runs into the kitchen with a plastic dry cleaning bag over her head. Her mother, Betty [played by January Jones], snaps at her that she's going to be in trouble. Not because she's running around in a plastic bag, but because the clothes that were in the bag might be wrinkled.
Other parts of the "then vs. now" dynamic are played much more seriously. Peggy [Elisabeth Moss] is constantly working to prove she's worthy of working with the men. She started out as a secretary, and now she's a copy writer, and while the men in her office are starting to accept her as one of them, there are still barriers scattered everywhere [she doesn't get invited out for victory drinks because the men go to raunchy bars, for example]. The unequal marriage dynamic of the day shows up constantly, and Betty's quiet desperation at being 26, educated, and no more than a pretty trophy for her husband is an ongoing theme in the show.
And then there's Joan [Christina Hendricks] who embodies, in my personal theory, the transitive woman. She's beyond the archetype of Betty, but she's not quite to the archetype of Peggy. Joan works hard but bows down to the convention that there are jobs for men [executives, script readers] and jobs for women [secretaries, office managers]. She's comfortable in her sexuality but keeps a tight rein on the other women in the office because she wants to project the right image for Stanley Cooper [the ad agency in the show]. And she wants to be in love.
Near the end of season 1, Joan meets a doctor named Greg. Near the end of season 2, they get engaged. In the next-to-last episode of season 2, Greg rapes Joan in Don's office because he says it's, "what [Joan] wants". It's a desperately quiet scene, with Joan repeatedly saying "no" and trying to push Greg off of her, and Greg pinning her arms and unhooking her garters and pushing himself into her. It's not glamorized. It's not fraught with melodrama. It is, in its scant minute of air time, a perfect clarification of how far we haven't come since the 1960s.
It goes like this: Women comfortable in their sexuality, even in the here and now, are still assumed to be lying or "mistaken" about being raped. It's only in the last 5-7 years that the "What were you wearing" defense has been disallowed in courtrooms. If you don't know that one, it goes like this:
DEFENSE ATTORNEY: "And what were you wearing when my client approached you?"
RAPE SURVIVOR: "I was in a skirt and a tank top."
DA: "Was it a short skirt?"
RS: "I guess. It was a mini."
DA: "So, you were dressed provocatively, yes?"
And so forth. It's also known as, "the bitch was asking for it", in some circles.
And in courtrooms today there are judges who won't believe that a husband can rape a wife [or vice versa] because they believe that marriage allows one spouse the right to act violently towards the other as long as the violence looks vaguely like sex.
I wasn't surprised during the season 2 finale when Joan didn't mention the rape to anyone. Who would believe her in 1962? She's always been comfortably sexual; she's had affairs with at least two men in the office, and no man can rape a woman he's engaged to, right?
And I sit here wondering who would believe her now. Because, sadly, that's a convention of the olden days that we haven't quite kicked out.
I mentioned earlier that I watched the entire second season of "Mad Men" in three days. One of the things that I adore about the show is that it gleefully peppers the "then vs. now" dynamic throughout everything. There's a scene early in season 1 where one of the Draper kids runs into the kitchen with a plastic dry cleaning bag over her head. Her mother, Betty [played by January Jones], snaps at her that she's going to be in trouble. Not because she's running around in a plastic bag, but because the clothes that were in the bag might be wrinkled.
Other parts of the "then vs. now" dynamic are played much more seriously. Peggy [Elisabeth Moss] is constantly working to prove she's worthy of working with the men. She started out as a secretary, and now she's a copy writer, and while the men in her office are starting to accept her as one of them, there are still barriers scattered everywhere [she doesn't get invited out for victory drinks because the men go to raunchy bars, for example]. The unequal marriage dynamic of the day shows up constantly, and Betty's quiet desperation at being 26, educated, and no more than a pretty trophy for her husband is an ongoing theme in the show.
And then there's Joan [Christina Hendricks] who embodies, in my personal theory, the transitive woman. She's beyond the archetype of Betty, but she's not quite to the archetype of Peggy. Joan works hard but bows down to the convention that there are jobs for men [executives, script readers] and jobs for women [secretaries, office managers]. She's comfortable in her sexuality but keeps a tight rein on the other women in the office because she wants to project the right image for Stanley Cooper [the ad agency in the show]. And she wants to be in love.
Near the end of season 1, Joan meets a doctor named Greg. Near the end of season 2, they get engaged. In the next-to-last episode of season 2, Greg rapes Joan in Don's office because he says it's, "what [Joan] wants". It's a desperately quiet scene, with Joan repeatedly saying "no" and trying to push Greg off of her, and Greg pinning her arms and unhooking her garters and pushing himself into her. It's not glamorized. It's not fraught with melodrama. It is, in its scant minute of air time, a perfect clarification of how far we haven't come since the 1960s.
It goes like this: Women comfortable in their sexuality, even in the here and now, are still assumed to be lying or "mistaken" about being raped. It's only in the last 5-7 years that the "What were you wearing" defense has been disallowed in courtrooms. If you don't know that one, it goes like this:
DEFENSE ATTORNEY: "And what were you wearing when my client approached you?"
RAPE SURVIVOR: "I was in a skirt and a tank top."
DA: "Was it a short skirt?"
RS: "I guess. It was a mini."
DA: "So, you were dressed provocatively, yes?"
And so forth. It's also known as, "the bitch was asking for it", in some circles.
And in courtrooms today there are judges who won't believe that a husband can rape a wife [or vice versa] because they believe that marriage allows one spouse the right to act violently towards the other as long as the violence looks vaguely like sex.
I wasn't surprised during the season 2 finale when Joan didn't mention the rape to anyone. Who would believe her in 1962? She's always been comfortably sexual; she's had affairs with at least two men in the office, and no man can rape a woman he's engaged to, right?
And I sit here wondering who would believe her now. Because, sadly, that's a convention of the olden days that we haven't quite kicked out.
