Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
No, I'm not terribly gripped by an episode recap with a sexism theme. I do think it's intriguing, in light of last night's show, to wonder how the whole workplace-sensitivity concept is snarled up in a decrease of manliness at work and an increase of boyishness. A lot of the charm of Mad Men can be boiled down to a taunting formulation: When sexists were MEN!
Which makes it odd, almost jarring, to see an episode built around Don's diary. Or journal, as you might prefer. Don's keeping a journal -- to keep better control over himself, and therefore over his drinking. There are only so many hours in a day to spend writing in a journal. A lot of people who keep journals -- I'm guessing here -- give up or don't keep up or don't really write with much more of a purpose than to unclog the pipes. In that respect, diarists are more similar than dissimilar to bloggers, or even habitual facebookers and tweeters.
But how many of the good diarists -- the ones whose diaries we'd like to read -- are we losing to the internet? As I'm wont to say, this isn't a case of the internet ruining our lives, or sinking our society into some kind of pastless torpor. It's a question of what the internet might be doing to certain kinds of our finest specimens. Maybe diaries are a very niche product. But autobiographies, confessions -- these things are often written from the vantage of years, at a time when only in the act of looking back can make proper sense of a lifetime of details. After a lifetime spent on the internet, who could bother to do that? Even among our would-be genius autobiographers?
- Comment (25)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments :
Sep '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living."
I beg to differ: "The unlived life is not worth examining."
May '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
We are in an age where Presidents write, not one, but two autobiographies before they're even elected and win Nobels in mere anticipation of things, so I don't think we are losing great thoughts by the passing of the diarist.
I, on the other hand, have written (or currently writing) several books to the future. They are individual tomes to each of my children with advice and family stories that I lost when I lost my father at a young age. If anything happens to me the wife knows where they are. But I am a nobody. Hopefully, they will care, but I will never know.
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
EJHill: We are in an age where Presidents write, not one, but two autobiographies before they're even elected and win Nobels in mere anticipation of things, so I don't think we are losing great thoughts by the passing of the diarist.
I, on the other hand, have written (or currently writing) several books to the future. They are individual tomes to each of my children with advice and family stories that I lost when I lost my father at a young age. If anything happens to me the wife knows where they are. But I am a nobody. Hopefully, they will care, but I will never know. · Sep 13 at 1:01pm
And see? You can write these important, wonderful books and be on the internet! Take that, naysayers! In seriousness, EJ, nobody who's doing what you're doing could possibly be a nobody. I could go on and on from personal experience, but instead I'll leave it at: bravo.
Aug '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
What, if you were a womanising alcoholic who happened to be guilty of appropriating the identity of a deceased army officer, you're saying you WOULDN'T keep a journal that could expose all your deepest secrets if it was ever discovered?
Why, that's just silly! ;-)
May '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
I blame the Senate Ethics Committee. Not that I was a huge fan of the (delightfully named) Bob Packwood, but it was a outrage (a outrage, I says!) that they subpoenaed his diary. That's private stuff, man.
Nobody will ever put anything really interesting in a diary these days, for the same reason they never say anything interesting. Cell-cameras are in every crowd.
Aug '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Misthiocracy: What, if you were a womanising alcoholic who happened to be guilty of appropriating the identity of a deceased army officer, you're saying you WOULDN'T keep a journal that could expose all your deepest secrets if it was ever discovered?
Why, that's just silly! ;-) · Sep 13 at 1:13pm
Heh. When Don starts his diary, he also said something along the lines of, "I've never written more than 250 words in my life." I found that a remarkably unbelievable statement from a character who's portrayed as being a senior partner in an ad agency.
For some reason, the lighting and the production design of Don's apartment in the diary scenes reminded me of Travis writing his diary in Taxi Driver. I kept accepting Don to look into the camera and ask, You talking to me...you talking to me...?
Jul '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
I found Joan's approach to sexism far more interesting than Peggy's. And sadly, I found Sue Sylvester's journal FAR more interesting than Don Draper's. I feel like there's got to be some type of Chuck Norris joke in there. Don Draper doesn't keep a journal.
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Mad Men hasn't exactly jumped the shark, but it's on the water skis. The trouble is that, unlike the British, we in the US don't know when a TV show should end. The original idea of Mad Men was that Don Draper represented an idea of early sixties America: self-created, living a fake suburban life while yearning for wild freedom, endlessly imaginative in the service of hype and commercialism, heading for a fall. Liberals (simpering twits that they are - and they so are!) could enjoy congratulating themselves on how much nicer they are to blacks and gays than the people in the show. Conservatives could enjoy secretly thinking, "Yeah, but aside from that, it was STILL better!" And we all knew what was coming. Then it came: JFK got shot. The marriage ended. The agency collapsed. The rest is given. End of show. Instead, creator Matthew Weiner has turned it over to the ladies in the writers' room and now it be getting all girly and stuff. It has no point anymore, it's just a soap opera - a fun, good-looking soap opera, but still...
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
I agree, Drew. And honestly, I kept hoping it would pick itself back up. For instance, the scene in last night's show when Don Draper walks out of the New York Athletic Club, with "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" playing on the track as he squints into the glare and watches the 1950's come to an end -- the very first shoots of hippie-dom springing up -- I thought, okay, got it, now they're back on track.
And then they had him start keeping a diary and I thought: anything else on?
May '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
How can you guys (Rob, Andrew et al) be so right about everything else but so wrong about Mad Men. OK, granted it is subjective. But the last two episodes have been two of my all-time favorites. To me this show keeps getting better and better, but maybe it's just because I've been out of sorts lately.
Jul '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
That's what I told my wife about the second season- it's become a boring soap opera with nice set design.
She's still fascinated, because being born in 1970 and having lived the first 30 years of her life in Russia, the whole disconnect between a world where people dressed like sophisticated grown-ups and the adolescent culture of today is fascinating.
Plus, she likes the hats.
Edited on Sep 13, 2010 at 8:29pmJul '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Judging by your avatar, I suggest a laxative might help.
Maybe even a high colonic.
Jul '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Most diaries are not worth reading.
There are exceptions, of course, such as those of Samuel Johnson.
Or my all-time-favorite, Jeffrey Dahmer.
May '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Kenneth
Judging by your avatar, I suggest a laxative might help.
Maybe even a high colonic. · Sep 13 at 8:28pm
Kenneth, while I truly appreciate the concern, I have made it a policy to avoid taking advice from people who use any of the following three words:
-Tweet
-Newbie
-Avatar
Which I guess is a roundabout way of saying that I agree with James' post...and sadly, the days of world leaders who can write like Churchill are gone forever. But Mad Men still PWNES...oh wait...that's the 4th word on my list!
Jul '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Rob Long: I agree, Drew. And honestly, I kept hoping it would pick itself back up. For instance, the scene in last night's show when Don Draper walks out of the New York Athletic Club, with "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" playing on the track as he squints into the glare and watches the 1950's come to an end -- the very first shoots of hippie-dom springing up -- I thought, okay, got it, now they're back on track.
And then they had him start keeping a diary and I thought: anything else on? · Sep 13 at 5:47pm
I have always thought the 50's came to an end with Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone".
My brother and I, raised on a California diet of the Beach Boys and Neil Sedaka, sat, transfixed, for an entire day, playing Dylan's opus over and over and over, non-stop.
We weren't sure what it meant. But we were absolutely certain the world was never gonna be the same.
Edited on Sep 13, 2010 at 9:05pmJul '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Tim Sweeney
Kenneth
Judging by your avatar, I suggest a laxative might help.
Maybe even a high colonic. · Sep 13 at 8:28pm
Kenneth, while I truly appreciate the concern, I have made it a policy to avoid taking advice from people who use any of the following three words:
-Tweet
-Newbie
-Avatar
Which I guess is a roundabout way of saying that I agree with James' post...and sadly, the days of world leaders who can write like Churchill are gone forever. But Mad Men still PWNES...oh wait...that's the 4th word on my list! · Sep 13 at 9:00pm
OK, then...your, um, picture-thingy.
I mean no offense, but you do look rather dyspeptic, like a very large, constipated baby.
Rob Long, being a Hollywood sophisticate, could direct you to a spa where your discomfort could be relieved by a budding starlet in nurse attire.
May '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Rob Long:
And then they had him start keeping a diary and I thought: anything else on? · Sep 13 at 5:47pm
Rob, how can you not like that fact that Don Draper is sitting there, struggling to write down his thoughts, and one of them is: "look at me, writing down what happened today like a little girl."
That's awesome.
Edited on Sep 13, 2010 at 9:14pmMay '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Kenneth
I mean no offense, but you do look rather dyspeptic, like a very large, constipated baby.
Rob Long, being a Hollywood sophisticate, could direct you to a spa where your discomfort could be relieved by a budding starlet in nurse attire. · Sep 13 at 9:12pm
Kenneth,
Your suspicious mocking of the man most responsible for the fact that we are not conversing in German would be well received in the White House. I do, however, thank you greatly for that last piece of advice.
Edited on Sep 13, 2010 at 9:26pmJul '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Tim Sweeney
Kenneth
I mean no offense, but you do look rather dyspeptic, like a very large, constipated baby.
Rob Long, being a Hollywood sophisticate, could direct you to a spa where your discomfort could be relieved by a budding starlet in nurse attire. · Sep 13 at 9:12pm
Kenneth,
Your suspicious mocking of the man most responsible for the fact that we are not conversing in German would be well received in the White House. I do, however, thank you greatly for that last piece of advice. · Sep 13 at 9:25pm
Edited on Sep 13 at 09:26 pm
Churchill happens to be the historical figure I - and millions of others - most admire.
Suspicious?
Ah, well.
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Just watched the ep in question. C'mon. If it was all that touchy-feelie Don would be sucking coffee from a Styrofoam cup in a basement alky-confab, ready to commit to AA - the only religion Hollywood respects (besides Scientology, but for different reasons.) This is a guy whose newfound restraint is shown by his decision to drink beer and wine, but not Canadian Club.
That said, it's something: he didn't have to hit bottom to decide it was the right moment to start climbing up. To see him crash the toddler party and buss his son while the Snow Queen took nervous hits off her Lark and Hubby McDaddyfigure pretended his wife's previous Sex-Slab wasn't standing there - well, it's all a set-up for Don's incremental redemption. And he'll do it without resorting to the candy-flavored tropes of the therapy culture.