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?
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Aug '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
But at least we're still in the cool, sleek, mod, mid-1960s. If the show sticks around long enough to make it to 1968 and (especially) 1969 and beyond, it's really all going to go visually to pot (apologies for the pun). A few years ago, a friend gave me Taschen's ginormous tome filled with the advertising from the 1960s, and you can see the ads get progressively uglier near the end of the book.
And it only gets worse from there, until we risk hitting the six scariest words in the English language:
Don Draper in a leisure suit.
Edited on Sep 14, 2010 at 1:22amRe: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Okay, okay. Tim, to be fair, I thought that this week's episode was the best so far this season -- and there's always something in each episode -- even the boring ones where nothing happens but moody staring -- that's sharp and unexpected. Joan's fall from power, her war with Peggy -- riveting.
And James and James are right: the drinking stuff was handled really well. No tears.
But they should wrap this up before the 1970's roll around. As Ed Driscoll says:
May '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Kenneth
Churchill happens to be the historical figure I - and millions of others - most admire.
Suspicious?
Ah, well. · Sep 13 at 9:40pm
Alright then I withdraw my suspicion. I thought maybe you preferred your world leaders to be effete academics with Mom jeans.
May '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Rob Long: Okay, okay. Tim, to be fair, I thought that this week's episode was the best so far this season -- and there's always something in each episode -- even the boring ones where nothing happens but moody staring -- that's sharp and unexpected. Joan's fall from power, her war with Peggy -- riveting.
And James and James are right: the drinking stuff was handled really well. No tears.
But they should wrap this up before the 1970's roll around. As Ed Driscoll says:
Sep 14 at 8:51am
Yes keep in mind Rob that being disappointed with Mad Men is often the result of it being a show that set a very high bar. There were packs of Sopranos episodes toward the end that disappointed me in a big way (coma-dream sequences galore)...but it was still better than watching anything else on offer.
May '10
Re: Mad Men #8: Dear Diary
Amen, comrade!