{"id":1168,"date":"2012-04-12T12:50:35","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T19:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libernetics.com\/?p=1168"},"modified":"2012-05-19T09:11:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-19T16:11:00","slug":"mad-men-notes-and-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libernetics.com\/?p=1168","title":{"rendered":"Mad Men: notes and comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mad Men season 5 premiered last month. \u00a0I don’t have super-duper cable so I don’t get AMC<\/a>. \u00a0I watched all 4 previous seasons via NetFlix. \u00a0I’m always a bit behind on popular culture because I don’t want to pay the full rate and freight for cable. \u00a0My wife and I just recently discovered Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations.”<\/a> We were among the last people to watch “Curb Your\u00a0Enthusiasm”<\/a>. \u00a0But we’re OK with that.<\/p>\n

I find Mad Men incredibly\u00a0interesting. \u00a0Marvelous production value, great acting, intriguing story lines. \u00a0Typically I’m not a big fan of period pieces, because they are either overdone, underdone, badly acted, or out of context. \u00a0I admit that at first I found Mad Men to be a bit of a farce, but that’s really the problem, isn’t it? Mad Men might seem funny now, but hindsight is a deceptive trickster.<\/p>\n

The most striking thing to me about the Don Draper<\/a> character is how much like James Bond he is. They are both promiscuous\u00a0drunks, they are profoundly destructive, they play by their own rules, and they are, in my estimation, profoundly lonely. Perhaps “singular” is a better word. I suppose “loneliness” only matters if you care.<\/p>\n

The best Bond book was “The Spy Who Loved Me” <\/a>because it\u00a0methodically\u00a0and precisely revealed the true nature of James Bond: he was a cold-blooded killer. Ian Fleming’s best work, for my money. All the Bond novels are silly and vapid, but that one was a minor masterpiece. Draper, like Bond, has much more in common with soldiers then civilians. They exist in a “do or die world”, with not much room for compassion in between. The carefully\u00a0constructed\u00a02000 year-old salon sensibilities of Western Civilization are lost on them; they are quite Roman in their outlook.<\/p>\n

Don Draper is a much, much more\u00a0sophisticated\u00a0a fictional character then Bond, which is a good thing from an entertainment perspective. There is nothing vapid or silly about Draper. His gargantuan flaws are revealed to be the result of tremendous psychological\u00a0shock. And from time-to-time he shows an incredible depth of compassion — visiting Peggy in the mental ward, allowing his angry child-wife to walk away with the children, the way he took extreme care to respect and support the woman whose husband’s identity he stole. I think Draper is the most interesting fictional character alive today.<\/p>\n

The supporting cast has an incredible depth of talent. These actors create a dynamic rhythm; they establish themselves firmly. \u00a0It must be a huge amount of work. \u00a0I’m envious of them.<\/p>\n

I admit Mad Men has a rather noir\u00a0silliness — could people really be that<\/em> callous? One wonders if it’s not the same thing one would have found right before Pompeii was destroyed<\/a>. \u00a0But the destruction in Mad Men is more psychological then physical. \u00a0Of course there is a much starker version of this same theme — see\u00a0Revolution\u00a0Road<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But I remember the sixties well enough. \u00a0One day my mother and I were coming back from a trip, and got into a taxi to get home. \u00a0The taxi driver was chatty. \u00a0He told us a bit about his life. \u00a0He had a good job once, made lots of money, but drank too much and lost his career. \u00a0That and his family. \u00a0I remember the cab smelled like cigarettes. He had been an advertising\u00a0executive; a life of booze and women as he described it. \u00a0My mother didn’t say a word the whole time we were in the cab. It took me a long time to understand why. \u00a0In fact it I didn’t quite get it until I had watched a few episodes of Mad Men.<\/p>\n

So which is it — art imitates life or life imitates art? \u00a0Beats me.<\/p>\n

Cheers.
\n