What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
I'm worried about Sally Draper, the pubescent daughter of brooding Mad Man Don.
As season five develops, and we get further into the sixties, Sally is becoming a central character. She's slowly growing up. In "At the Codfish Ball," her palette matures from spaghetti to cod--and, more revealingly, her wardrobe matures too. When Don sees Sally get dolled up in a short dress, knee-high boots, and makeup for the banquet at which he's getting an award, he demands that she take her makeup off and change her boots.
Oh, dads. Sure, Don can try to tone down her wardrobe, but he can't control what she sees and does. No adult can, especially during the changing times that they are all living in. At the gala, Sally is looking for the ladies room when she accidentally opens the door to a room where Roger Sterling is receiving oral sex from Megan Draper's alluring French-Canadian mother, a creepy and traumatizing experience for Sally. In an earlier episode from the season, Sally becomes terrified as she reads about the horrific Richard Speck rapes and murders in the newspaper, strictly against her step-grandmother's orders.
Sally has always been precocious. Throughout the seasons of Mad Men, we've seen her making cocktails for Betty and Don's friends at a party; we've seen her learning how to drive; we've seen her smoking one of her mother's cigarettes; we've seen her developing a relationship of sorts with an older boy named Glen, against Betty's order; and, of course, we've seen her get caught masturbating.
Sally is a girl who longs for the glamour of being grown up and pushes the limits to get it. But that's a dangerous combination in the rough-and-tumble world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll that's taking root around her, which has already punctured holes in her romantic ideal of adulthood. Her step-grandmother rightly complains that she is not a well-disciplined child. So what's going to happen to her as she navigates the world of late-sixties-early-seventies Manhattan as a teenager with an overdeveloped rebellious streak?
I don't think we can count on the real adults to protect her. Betty is at best an absent and uncaring mother. And Don, who's a good father when he's with his kids (which isn't often), finds himself increasingly alienated from youth culture, as this exchange with his new wife Megan from the latest episode reveals:
DON: Let me ask you something: When did music become so important? Everyone comes looking for some song. And they're so specific.
MEGAN: You love specific.
DON: But I have no idea what's going on up there [presumably referring to the room full of young writers who are in touch with contemporary pop.]
MEGAN: No one can keep up. It's always changing.
This generational gap, fueled by the kids revolution in pop culture, is affecting Don more than any other adult on the show. Not once, but twice, he gets mistaken for the symbol of authority and order in our society, a cop. It first happens at the Rolling Stones concert and, later, in a brothel where he refrains from the services of the prostitutes while his friends are otherwise engaged.
But it's Don's experience at the Rolling Stones concert that really accentuates how much he has changed--and also how much he's not changed--as a father and a man. He's trying to get backstage to see the band for business and, while he's waiting, he meets a wannabe groupie. But instead of flirting with her or trying to sleep with her, as he would have done in a prior season, he acts like a father-figure to her:
GIRL: You really think you're going to get the Rolling Stones to do a TV ad?
DON: They did one for cereal in England.
GIRL: Must have been a long time ago.
DON: It was three years ago--when you were probably, what, eleven? [She takes his tie off and puts it around his neck.] Did you see someone do that in a movie?
GIRL: You need to relax.
DON: So what do you like so much about the Rolling Stones?
GIRL: Why don't you get me backstage and you'll see.
DON: What do you feel when you hear them?
GIRL: Brian Jones, he's a troubadour.
DON: So you feel romantic?
GIRL: God, you're like a psychiatrist.
DON: What do you know about psychiatrists?
A few minutes later, after she explains that she wants to be Brian Jones's Lady Jane and do whatever he wants her to do, Don skeptically asks, "What do you think he wants?"
GIRL: None of you ever want any of us to have a good time just cause you never did.
DON: No. We're worried about you.
When is Don going to have a conversation like this with Sally? Maybe never. Don is only taking to "Lady Jane" because he's at work and trying to understand the mass appeal of the Rolling Stones. Though Sally wants to be more of a part of her father's world, work continues to trump family for Don.
So, in the absence of her father, she has turned to her pseudo-boyfriend Glen for emotional support, revealing her feelings and secrets to him over the phone. Is this older boy, who once purposefully walked in on Betty while she was in the bathroom, going to fill in as a father-figure for Sally?
Over at Vulture, Matt Zoller Seitz notes,
There are hints of deep fear and horrendous trauma lingering around the margins of every episode this year, with all the talk of random murders and riots and the war in Vietnam (we heard two snippets of war-related news in the background of this episode), as well as situations that prepared us for shockingly violent moments (Megan's disappearance at the Howard Johnsons' and Don's subsequent, stalkerlike pursuit of her in their apartment being the most disturbing examples). But the deeper we get into season five, the more I think that Weiner is not setting us up for some sort of conventional Big Moment: Pete going postal in the office, Don strangling Megan, Megan leaping to her death from the balcony of their oh-so-ritzy apartment.
Or, while the adults of Mad Men are wrapped up in their own lives, something terrible could happen to Sally. After all, if the adults are reverting to kid-like behaviors--like Roger doing LSD and Peggy moving in with her boyfriend--where does that leave the real kids? Rudderless in a sea of change.
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
The writers will run out of ideas that don't involve the sudden arrival of natural calamities and circus freaks.
May '10
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
Sally will get pregnant and die while having a back-alley abortion. The women on the show will wail, "If there were only legal government paid for abortions Sally and thousands like her would still be alive!" And then there will be a string of vindictive comments about Catholics and Republicans. What else?
Aug '10
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
Um, you are aware that it's a fictional character, right?
;-)
But seriously, I'm looking forward to the slow-motion train wreck that is Sally Draper. If she's 13 or 14 in 1966, that means she'll be 16 or 17 in 1969.
I'm actually more worried that Weiner isn't going to send Sally's teen years into a debaucherous hippy toilet. After all the things she's seen, and the bad parenting she's endured, could you imagine a more liberal outcome than if Weiner had her turning out just fine?
Imagine this possible scenario: Once in high school, Sally's friends are all sheltered and naive suburban girls with non-divorced parents. Sally's the only one who has had any exposure to the wider, adult world, thanks to her adventures in the city with her dad. Her friends end up doing drugs and getting pregnant, because they don't know any better. Sally is able to avoid those pitfalls because she had the "benefit" of a broken home.
I could totally see Weiner pulling that trick.
Edited on May 9, 2012 at 7:52pmApr '11
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
Even though the last two seasons have become increasingly tedious, I still enjoy the show. It does a great job of documenting the cultural change which occurred between 1962-72.
Nov '11
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
I disagree about tedium, I think this season especially has been dynamite.
Dec '10
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
Oh, Mist, that I would worry about. Hadn't anticipated that for a moment and if it happens, I shall blame you!
Aug '10
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
...and I shall go mad with power!
Mar '12
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
Misthiocracy
But seriously, I'm lookingforwardto the slow-motion train wreck that is Sally Draper. If she's 13 or 14 in 1966, that means she'll be 16 or 17 in 1969.
I'm actually more worried that Weinerisn'tgoing to send Sally's teen years into a debaucherous hippy toilet. After all the things she's seen, and the bad parenting she's endured, could youimaginea more liberal outcome than if Weiner had her turning out just fine?
My wife and I have been convinced poor Sally would embrace the hippie lifestyle and wind up somewhere like Haight-Ashbury. But, perhaps you're right. That might be too predictable of a plot line for Weiner.
Regardless, I've always been uncomfortable with those segments of the show that include her. I realize that's part of why they are included, but I find they simply detract from my enjoyment of the series overall.
Aug '11
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
Misthiocracy
Imagine this possible scenario: Once in high school, Sally's friends are all sheltered and naive suburban girls with non-divorced parents. Sally's the only one who has had any exposure to the wider, adult world, thanks to her adventures in the city with her dad. Her friends end up doing drugs and getting pregnant, because they don't know any better. Sally is able to avoid those pitfalls because she had the "benefit" of a broken home.
I could totally see Weiner pulling that trick. ·
Yep. Given how Weiner messes with expectations, I could see this happening as well.
And we're two weeks behind on our viewing, so the last thing we saw was Roger's LSD trip.
Edited on May 10, 2012 at 3:29amNov '11
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
I don't know. Mad Men isn't cliched. I feel like it'd be a cliche for Sally to go hippy.
Nov '11
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
Or maybe she'll go west and join the Manson family.
Mar '12
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
"When did music become so important?" That captured perfectly an aspect of the generational shift; music as background score to a life, allowing a degree of self-absorption which drug culture merely enhanced. I was in a different room when the Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows" came on at the end, and responded immediately; hadn't heard it in years. But the lyrics and feel of the music perfectly capture the stoned zeitgeist of the coming years. And Don Draper can't stand to listen to the whole song; it isn't just the music, its the whole culture shift he's missed.
Aug '10
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
No, I think she will end up in the Castro... as a feminist lesbian.
May '10
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
I think that before Sally becomes a hippy, Megan will become one. The relationship is turning slowly from husband/wife to father/daughter as he becomes increasingly square and out-of-touch and she heads off to the Village to pursue her "dream."
Aug '10
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
That whole storyline makes me scratch my head. How can she become an actress with such bad teeth, unless she moves to England?
Mar '12
Re: What's Going to Happen to Mad Men's Sally Draper?
Interesting call. Megan was definitely creeped out by the "personal is commercial" effect of her career/marriage to Don, which justifies her leaving the agency. But the return to acting seems like a holding action, and she doesn't have much interest in being a mom. I love the way Weiner captures that increasing way the late 60s forced everyone to choose (or maybe, from Don's perspective, see that you couldn't choose, that you were just on the other side).