Mad Men Finale: Take Note, Ladies!

This season of Mad Men has been filled with moments of heart-wrenching emotion.

Tonight’s finale, though, it was the engagement. Left in the lurch by Betty’s precipitous firing of the nanny Carla, Don enlists his secretary (and sometime-bedmate) Megan to accompany him and his children to California. During that trip, Don and Megan spend a couple more nights together. Don believes he is in love, and he asks her to marry him. When they return to Sterling Cooper Draper Price, they announce their impending nuptials to the office staff.

What’s sad about Don falling in love? Nothing... if it seemed based on actual love. There’s also the issue of his girlfriend, the smart and compassionate Faye Miller, who is waiting for him back in New York. There is the disappointment plain in Peggy’s face, when she says of Megan, “She’s very... beautiful”--the implication being that beauty is pretty much the extent of Megan’s contribution. Don counters by telling Peggy how much she (Megan) reminds him of Peggy. “She’s got that same spark,” he says. The difference is, of course, that Megan is merely beautiful, though it was Peggy who had just landed a new account in the wake of the Lucky Strike departure. (I find it amusing that I keep typing Don’t instead of Don’s. Yes, Don Draper is clearly a don’t!)

Megan is also young and in awe of Don. He watches her interact with his children, and it becomes apparent he is softening toward her, a definite contrast to Faye’s awkward interactions with them earlier in the season. She shows interest in whatever Don is working on around the office. She unfailingly supports his work, even when others are against him. Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of her character development.

Happily, Joan (recipient of the title-only promotion to “Director of Agency Relations”) and Peggy manage to bond over their mutual disappointments, which is a welcome change from the divisiveness of their dispute over the handling of the sexual harassment a few episodes ago.

Why is Don marrying his secretary so discouraging? Primarily, because no matter how much his character appears to have evolved, nothing really changed. Although Don has the pick of any number of women, he chooses the one who most closely resembles a schoolgirl with a crush, a benevolent babysitter. She is less assertive and more traditionally seductive. She uncritically supports Don. She’s already stepping into the mommy role with his kids. She is certainly not shown to be his intellectual equal, nor is she on equal footing with him at work, being his secretary and all. And that is precisely how he wants it. Because regardless of what Don might say (or think) he wants, regardless of who he sleeps with or dates or promotes at work, only a beautiful and pliable girl who's good with kiddies gets a ring.

All you ladies who think Don is the cat’s, take note. Or more precisely, take dictation, if you want to marry him.



Bitch magazine offers a thoughtful analysis of the finale in the context of the whole season here: http://bitchmagazine.org/post/tube-tied-notes-on-mad-mens-fourth-season. While I don't agree with their entire assessment, I do concur on many points, particularly their disappointment in how Betty is written.

Put This Wedding on Ice

Recently, I took my daughter to see a Disney ice show. Aside from not being able to get Harvey Fierstein's voice out of my head (that was an allusion to Death to Smoochy, yes), I have some very mixed feelings about the whole thing. One, despite my feminist bent, I am not completely anti-Disney. I plan to visit the 'World with my kid. As an amusement park nerd, I love the rides. I love many of the Disney villains. I sing the songs, I watch the movies, and I buy the merch. Although I am critical of many portrayals of women in Disney's animated films, I also appreciate that they have improved. And finally, I attended the ice show.

Were I merely playing reviewer, then I would compliment the performances and the production values, and how the actors interacted with the audience members. I would mention the costumes, which were beautiful. From that perspective, we got our money's worth. My daughter got to see Disney characters she loved, hear songs she knows by heart, and see scenes from movies acted out virtually right in front of her. All cool. Even the kid in me was excited about that.

But then there was the show's finale, which consisted of all the princesses in the show--Jasmine, Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Belle, Mulan, and Ariel as well as Minnie Mouse--coming out in full bridal regalia and waltzing around with the prince/Mouse of her choice. Although it wasn't ever called a wedding, clearly, given the profusion of ivory dresses and the pap about "dreams coming true," it was a mass wedding.

At this point in the show, the kid in me took a backseat to the feminist-mom-writer in me. Holy shit! A wedding as "all your dreams come true"? Being a bride as the pinnacle of one's woman-ness? Even for Disney, it seemed excessive.

Earlier in the show, I had even remarked that seeing so many little girls in proto-wedding gowns made me uncomfortable. Because, well, there are child brides in this world, even in parts of this country. It strikes me as profoundly disturbing to see little girls in bridal attire, even if they are "princess" wedding gowns. The fact that my daughter was one of the only kids NOT wearing a princess outfit made me pretty proud, and she didn't seem to care that we had left her dress-up clothes at home.

But here's the rub with all the weddingness. Clearly, the feminist-mom-writer in me was--and still is--pissed at the blatant sexism. But another part of me, the part brought up on Disney movies and who believes in the magic of weddings and the transformative power of love and all that other bullshit, found it so romantic. Yes, a tiny part of me still swoons at wedding dresses and cascading floral arrangements and candlelight. While I know that being married isn't about moonlight and roses, that doesn't mean moonlight and roses become any less appealing.

Over ten years ago, I had a church wedding wearing my mother's dress. If, for whatever reason, I were to have another wedding, I would not do it the same way. But that doesn't mean my buttons don't get pushed by the schmaltzy sentiment, by the sight of all these princesses in their sparkly ivory gowns, by the songs about love and devotion. Someday, my prince will come. A dream is a wish your heart makes once upon a dream. It's a whole new world, Beauty and the Beast.

It may be a whole new world but it's the same old crap: the same stereotypes, the same lack of ambitions beyond changing one's marital status, and for me, the same old conflict. I hate that what I know and what I feel end up fighting so doggedly with one another. I don't want to be hard and cold, denying the power of emotions and the importance of love. However, we have to stop indoctrinating kids (i.e. little girls) by privileging the white-dress-as-happy-ending concept of love.





For what it's worth, my daughter's favorite parts of the show, she reported the following day, were Gaston (the villain from Beauty & the Beast) and Maleficent (the villain from Sleeping Beauty). She admires villainy, and has not yet been infected by the virus that is wedding-as-pinnacle. I hope to keep it that way!