This week, Mad Men took yet another brave step into the dark side of the 1960s, revealing how in a society that objectifies women and an industry that objectifies everything, one will inevitably be placed in a situation that calls for some kind of prostitution.
Episode 2, “Christmas Comes but Once a Year,” sees several characters persuade themselves into scenarios that entail a compromise of dignity, be it for the so-called “greater good” or because they think it is what they actually want. Regardless of the reason, none are left feeling good about their decisions.
Throughout the show’s arc, the clients we are most often reminded of are the fellows over at Lucky Strike cigarettes. They are the first we meet in the Pilot, and they are the last remnant of the Sterling Cooper accounts that hold Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce together. Even in their once thriving agency, the stakes were always higher when it came to pleasing Lee Garner Jr. So much so that it cost Sal his job for what was a decidedly unfair reason.
It has also been a staple that whenever a character illustrates the lengths to which the company must go in order to please Jr, a new and somewhat unflattering color is revealed. For example, Don proves far less open-minded than we thought as he hurls the phrase “you people” at the still-closeted Sal, using his position as secret-keeper to its most despicable end.
Now it seems Roger’s turn, though his new facet is not so much unflattering as it is simply upsetting. The charmingly cocky, always buzzing Roger Sterling is reduced to a sad party quirk for the amusement of a powerful rich man (whose demands border on sexual kink). This underlying sense of sexual menace in the way Jr. commands Roger to don the Santa suit is a slightly more sinister version of last week’s interaction between Don and his Thanksgiving hooker. “You know what I want” and all the rest. When I saw Don’s expression of surprise and discomfort at Jr.’s aggression, half of me wondered if he was thinking back to Sal, realizing just how impossible a situation it really had been and that his sensitivity would have been appreciated.
Don’s downward spiral of desperate self-loathing reaches a new low as it claims its first emotional victim: the terribly sweet secretary Allison. When a female doctor begins a presentation, we watch in vague disgust as Don sizes her up and down, ogling like she is his next meal. The dynamic established is not unlike previous ones between him and women such as Rachel Menken and Bobbie Barrett. But women of this make: independent, strong-willed, equality-driven, are changing with the times and are no longer as easily impressed by men like Don. So instead of picking himself up and changing within, he simply aims his sights lower, in fact, just outside the door.
There was the strange interaction with his neighbor Phoebe, with whom he probably will sleep at some point, but she too takes a little more wooing than “Look where we are!” as she puts him to bed. No, instead he opts for the surprisingly naïve Allison, his secretary of almost a year, who has never been anything less than a sincere and devoted caretaker. The real tragedy of this scene is that she thinks it is something real having been raised on the belief that if a man wants to sleep with you it means he genuinely has feelings for you (how sad that even then this notion was seen as silly). Obviously Joan did not give her the same speech she gave to Peggy in season 1.
This is made abundantly and devastatingly clear the following morning when Allison enters Don's office to drop off presents she had bought for his kids weeks prior (or so she claims). She speaks to him with an air of comedic play-acting, as if to say “How silly all this formality is. But it’s tickling to keep it up a few moments longer.” But when it becomes clear Don is not play-acting at all (“Thank you for returning my keys”) the delicacy with which the confusion and humiliation register on her face leads me to wonder where and why Matt Weiner has been hiding Alexa Allemani all this time?
As if he weren’t making her feel enough of a whore as it is, Don hands her the bonus he had promised her that comes in the form of cash from his own pocket and a hand-written note: “Thank you for all your hard work!” which Allison now understands will never amount to enough. But, just as Joan brushed herself off after Greg violated her in Don’s office, just as Betty went years knowing instinctually of Don’s infidelity, and just as Peggy learned what it meant to be a secretary on Madison Avenue, Allison simply slides another piece of paper into her typewriter and carries on with her day, reminding us once again (brilliantly, I might add) that change has always been a process - and aren’t we glad we’ve come so far.
All in all season 4's first two episodes have proven the show is not losing steam by any measure, indeed, they are probably some of the best we've had since season 1. The messages are conveyed subtly but effectively, forcing us to remove the rose-colored glasses through which so many of us choose to see this period.
No comments:
Post a Comment