I’m sorry Don, I really am…
The film-watching challenge seems to have been buggered up slightly already by my near-obsessive watching of Mad Men. Hooked me from the start, with a top class opening episode that not only saw the show hit the ground running, but introduced all the main players perfectly. From weasel-faced prick Campbell to the sweet and anxious Betty, you gain the right insight into the characters within the first forty minutes.
There is however, one thing I don’t get.
The sexual allure of Don Draper.
Yes, he is a great character, and the amount of back story will no doubt lead to countless opportunities well past the second season I’m currently in the middle of. My problem isn’t really with Don. It’s the endless stream of women throwing themselves at him. They can’t not ‘have a go’ at him. You can see it in their eyes. It’s as if he washes himself in the results of an expensive pheromone experiment. Within minutes, any woman caught in his gaze is ready to drop her drawers and throw all caution to the wind – “Do me, Draper, do me NOW”. I just don’t get it.
He doesn’t really exude charm, does he? Just kicks about looking dour-faced. When presented with Don and his silver-fox* charmer of a boss, Roger Sterling, women ignore the flow of charm and compliments to instead swoon over a miserable bastard. Rendered helpless by a guy who looks like he came second in a Robert Deniro look-alike contest. Sorry Mr Hamm, but you do. It’s all in the chin…and that bloody frown. I look at Don Draper and all I see is “Godfather Part II”. I should go for that, shouldn’t I? Maybe it’s still too early for me to make an informed decision.
“You talkin’ to me?”
Yes, he’s not an unattractive man, but surely in a real life situation for any attractive man there must be encounters with women that don’t result in them becoming quivering wrecks? Ah, who am I to complain? Mad Men isn’t real life, and maybe the women of sixties Manhattan did instantly throw themselves at any troubled man with a chiselled jaw line and worried forehead they came across.
99% of the ladies seem desperate for the dick of Don, who am I to stand in their way?
I’ll be under the desk giving Sterling a quick hand-shandy.
*For the record, John Slattery hates the term silver fox. Man, he has no idea how sexual it sounds, does he?
This could use better punchlines, but it’s otherwise pretty on point:
Also: shitty video quality there. Sorry.
AMAZING!
Regardless of quality, that is spot on, and bloody hilarious.
Glad you enjoyed it.
This is a good piece on how guys relate to THE DON DRAPER THING:
http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/sex-offender-week-performing-don-draper
Which… I’ll come back to this, soon!
Right, so – apparently some ladies “get” Don Draper, others don’t, but what occurs to me that Don is a very male fantasy.
That Mike Barthel article I linked to gets into this pretty well, and it also usefully underlines the fact that Don Draper is literaly a fantasy figure – it’s just that Dick Whitman manages to sell the fantasy in a way few people could.
Don gets the girls, but more than that, his brooding Deniro face is all-conquering within the context of the show, to the extent that he can storm and strop and be moody or stay quiet and still he gets his way more often or not.
And… he’s got poise, too. Even when he’s grumping, he does it with a certain forceful style. Speaking as a lumpy, long-bodied freak, I definitely find myself envying that sese of control, you know?
Now the nasty, clever thing about this is that… it’s not enough. As Peggy says Don has “everything, and so much of it” and he’s still a miserable bastard, right?
Mad Men is often “about” the social barriers that stop people from getting what they want – it’s not too subtle about this, but gender and racial politics are a running theme of the show for good reason. What’s fascinating is that it’s also a story about how even if you can get what you want, you’re still unlikely to be happy. This theme recurs on multiple levels – you’ve got characters like Betty and Joan, who play the part that’s expected of them as women of their era and find themselves struggling with the lack of satisfaction they’re rewarded with. Then you’ve got Pete Campbell, who has a lot of power courtesy of his gender and family background, but who always wants more, sooner. In fact, despite the fact that Don lacks Pete’s social advantages, you can still see that gimpy wee fuck trying to be Don at points – strain you ears and you can he hear the words IT’S NOT ENOUGH/I’M NOT ENOUGH in the background of every scene he appears in.
The fact that Don’s life is relentlessly empty and unfulfilling tops the whole thing off just right. Fuck advertising, fuck sex, booze, cigarettes and style – it’s all just more paper over the cracks, and once you noticed the abyss, there’s no looking back…
His brooding, Deniro face is indeed all-conquering. And while I don’t “get” Don Draper, I do love the fact that he is actually just another part of the advertising. We only see the “real” Don when he becomes Dick Whitman, visiting the original Donald’s wife and letting himself rest easy. It seems to be the only time the ‘shopfront’ Draper disappears completely. The detached, carefully constructed image is gone, but only for a moment. I hadn’t seen that episode when I wrote the original post, but now – my understanding of him is a lot clearer…