Behind Every Mad Man There Is a Mad

Woman

On Male and Female Representations and Sexuality in AMC’s Mad Men

Ana Serediuc

Supervisor: Paper submitted in partial fulfilment of the Prof. dr. Gert Buelens requirements for the degree of “Master in de Taal- en letterkunde: Italiaans-Engels”

2016 – 2017 Serediuc 2

Acknowledgements

When I first started watching Mad Men it had never occurred to me that one day, I would write my dissertation about the show in order to obtain my master’s degree at the University of Ghent – and yet here we are a few years later. This pop-cultural topic of my choice did not always facilitate my research nor my writing process, but it did to a large extent made me greatly enjoy this entire journey. After experiencing some difficulties in finding a suitable subject matter, it was my supervisor who pointed me in the right direction. Therefore, I would like to express my gratitude to prof. dr. Gert Buelens, who not only helped me define my subject, but who has also put a lot of work in giving me thorough and supportive feedback.

Furthermore, I would like to thank my friends and family for their amazing support not only during the realization of this master thesis, but throughout the entire duration of my academic studies. A special thanks to Kessy Cottegnie and Marjolein Schollaert for being such dedicated proof-readers and supporters.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….. 2

Table of Contents …………………………………………………..…………………….. 3

List of Figures ………………………………………………………………………….… 4

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………... 5

I - Male and Female Roles………………………………………………………………. 10

Chapter 1 • Traditional and Modern Women ……………………………………...... 11

1 ⋅ The Traditional Housewife …………………………………………………..... 11

2 ⋅ Betty Hofstadt ……………………………………………………………...….. 12

3 ⋅ The Modern Woman ……………………………………………………...….... 16

4 ⋅ Peggy Olson and Joan Holloway …………………………………………….... 22

Chapter 2 • Men and Masculinity …………………………...……………………….. 30

1 ⋅ Male Messages ……………….……………………………………………..… 30

2 ⋅ Donald Draper ……………………………………………...………………….. 32

3 ⋅ The Male Employees ………………………………………………………….. 42

II - Sexuality …………………………………………………………………….……….. 47

Chapter 3 • The Birth Control Pill and Women’s Sexuality ………………………..... 48

Chapter 4 • Censorship ………………………………………………...... ………... 53

Chapter 5 • Homosexuality in Mad Men ……………………...……………………… 57

Chapter 6 • Donald Draper’s Sexual Transgressions …………………………...……. 66

Conclusion …………………………………………………………….……….…………. 74

Works Cited …………………………………………………………….………………... 79

Number of words: 23 710

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List of Figures

Fig. 1. O’Barr, William M. “Mad Men: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Sexuality, and Class.”

Advertising & Society Review, vol. 11, no. 4, 2011. Project Muse, doi:

10.1353/asr.2011.0004.

Fig. 2. “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” Het eerste seizoen [the first season], written by Matthew

Weiner, directed by Alan Taylor, Andrew Bernstein, Ed Bianchi et al, A-Film Home

Entertainment, 2012.

Fig. 3. “Flight 1.” Mad Men. Het tweede seizoen [the second season], written by Matthew

Weiner, directed by Alan Taylor, Andrew Bernstein, Ed Bianchi et al, A-Film Home

Entertainment, 2012.

Fig. 4. “Marriage of Figaro.” Mad Men. Het eerste seizoen [the first season], written by

Matthew Weiner, directed by Alan Taylor, Andrew Bernstein, Ed Bianchi et al, A-

Film Home Entertainment, 2012.

Fig. 5. “5G.” Mad Men. Het eerste seizoen [the first season], written by Matthew Weiner,

directed by Alan Taylor, Andrew Bernstein, Ed Bianchi et al, A-Film Home

Entertainment, 2012.

Fig. 6 - 8. “The Arrangements.” Mad Men. Het derde seizoen [the third season], written by

Matthew Weiner, directed by Alan Taylor, Andrew Bernstein, Ed Bianchi et al, A-

Film Home Entertainment, 2012.

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Introduction

On 19 July 2007, American television channel AMC released the series Mad Men (2007 –

2015), a period drama created by Matthew Weiner1. Over the following years the show was released in, among others, Australia, Canada and various European countries. Nicky Falkof explains that Mad Men, “[w]ith its jarring gender and racial politics, sleek visual aesthetic and intricate multi-strand narrative” has been a “significant critical and popular success, both in its home territory in the US and elsewhere in the Anglophone world” (31). To this remark, one could easily add that throughout the years, the show reached much further than the

Anglophone world alone. According to Elke Weissman, Mad Men helped define AMC as “a home of quality American TV drama” (91). “After a somewhat slow start when the first season of the series appeared, by the end of Season Two Mad Men emerged as the cornerstone of AMC's programming” (Krouse 187). On the AMC website, the show is described as the very first series broadcasted on cable television to win the Emmy Award for

Outstanding Drama Series in four successive years, that is from 2008 to 2011 (“AMC”).

In a 2009 article for The New Yorker, George Packer writes that the period drama is particularly fascinating for the generation that came after the Mad Men characters and for the generation after that (Packer). According to him, the show’s “mesmerizing retro sheen” hides an inversion of morals and manners: “everything forbidden [to] us is permitted to, even encouraged of, these men and women—smoking and drinking to excess, office sex up to and including blatant harassment, parental neglect, a kind of frank selfishness about ends and means” (Packer). Simultaneously, the show depicts its characters in their struggle to conceal some of their hardships including homosexuality, illegitimate children and childhood poverty

(Packer). Therefore, Mad Men “is all about repression—every character has a tell-tale tic, and

1 Knowing that the show has been running for seven seasons, this dissertation mostly focuses on examples from Serediuc 6 stiffness reigns over every scene—but it’s also about the license to indulge impulses that would soon be socially forbidden” (Packer).

Throughout the seven seasons of the series, the spectator is intimately allowed into the life of protagonist Donald Francis Draper, Don Draper, as he divides his time between his successful career on New York’s Madison Avenue, his house in the suburbs that he shares with his wife and children, and the apartments and hotel rooms where he and female companions of his choice perform Don’s recurring escapades. Much attention is given to

Don’s need for the affirmation of his masculinity, which often results in adultery and numerous one-night stands. Don’s complex persona is portrayed in the hyper-male context of a New York ad agency where other men are not afraid to measure their masculinity against

Draper’s. A great deal of attention is given to the masculine side of the spectrum, but Mad

Men does not forget to also assert the importance of the female characters. This period drama revolves just as much around Donald Draper, Pete Campbell and Ken Cosgrove as it does around Betty Hofstadt, Peggy Olson and Joan Holloway. The rich female presence on screen can be considered as a present-day aspect in a show that depicts an era in which women had fewer opportunities than men; this will further be extended in Chapter 1. The female characters are given just as much depth as the male characters in Mad Men, which, from a twenty-first century viewpoint is not surprising because, after all, behind every mad man there is a mad woman.

Mad Men’s opening episode “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” starts off with the image of a black waiter holding a tray in his hand while moving through the crowd in a busy restaurant filled with smoke and chatter while Don Cherry’s “Band of Gold” blasts in the background.

Creative director Donald Draper is sitting alone at one of the tables, scribbling ideas on a napkin as Sam, another black waiter, comes to clear his table. When Draper asks Sam why he smokes ‘Old Gold’, a white waiter comes up to the table to ask if Sam is bothering Mr Serediuc 7

Draper. The setting of the series is immediately confirmed and the spectators understand that everything that will follow hereafter, will be a projection of a time that seems to be far removed from their own, but simultaneously familiarly close. The feeling of going back in time, however, is established much sooner than the opening scene of the pilot episode. In the script for the one-hour pilot, executive producer and writer Matthew Weiner explains the title sequence:

Images and sounds from late 1950's and early 60's advertising: Doctors selling

cigarettes. Athletes selling liquor. Bathing suit models with vacuum cleaners. And

most importantly, proud Dads with their perfect wives and children driving their cars

to some green suburban utopia. We get a sense of the time and its ideals. (3)

As the episodes proceed, the series’ curious spectators preserve the pretence of watching an authentic sixties show – the seven seasons depict the period from the year 1960 to the year

1971. Every detail that appears on screen, from the secretaries’ hairdo to the toys the children play with, is a means to distract the viewers from their everyday life and into the decade of the Swinging Sixties. While some references and events – such as the presidential election with candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy in 1960 – can be recognized as authentically belonging to the sixties, others – such as the explicit mentioning of the recently approved birth control pill – are only possible from a noughties perspective. Even though in general the series gives the audience an accurate representation of the era, Mad Men is ultimately a product of the noughties as everything produced on-screen is designed with present-day knowledge and sensitivities.

Rob Salem calls the series “an absolutely uncanny evocation of time and place” and describes the Mad Men workplace as “a hotbed of casual, cavalier misogyny and racism, of non-stop all-day drinking, flirting, backstabbing and smoking” (Salem). For Stephanie

Coontz, the show is “one of the most historically accurate television series ever produced” Serediuc 8

(Coontz), and according to Tonya Krouse, Mad Men’s “glossy production values, the attention to historical authenticity and accuracy, and the fascinating characters” create a feeling of nostalgic longing and simultaneously a sense of a problematic identification with the show (188). “In contrast to the way the era is generally portrayed in cinema and television, this is not a 1960s that is about choosing between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; it is about corporate greed, suburbia and the sexual double standard rather than the sexual revolution” (Falkof 32). To the description of the series, the AMC website adds that Mad Men

“depicts authentically the roles of men and women in this era while exploring the true human nature beneath the guise of 1960s traditional family values”.

In this dissertation I will focus on the representation of exactly these male and female roles in AMC’s period drama Mad Men with further attention to the show’s portrayal of sexuality. In addition, though I agree with Rob Salem, Stephanie Coontz and Tonya Krouse when implying Mad Men offers its spectators a satisfying representation of the sixties in the

USA, I will argue that some aspects and details of the show could only be realized and understood from a twenty-first century point of view; or, in other words, that Mad Men in fact brings together elements of the sixties with attitudes of the noughties.

The first part of my dissertation will discuss the male and female roles in American society during the sixties and the way in which these gendered roles are implemented in the series. Furthermore, attention will be given to the discussion of which elements related to gender would and which would not be something one would see and expect in an authentic sixties television show. The most prominent female characters Betty Hofstadt, Peggy Olson and Joan Holloway will be considered according to the “type” they best represent, that is, in the role of the traditional housewife or that of the modern working woman. The discussion of the male characters will primarily focus on Donald Draper, with additional attention to his male co-workers in the Madison Avenue advertising agency. The second part of the Serediuc 9 dissertation will focus on the prominence of sexuality in Mad Men, with a specific discussion of the importance of the birth control pill and censorship in the USA during the sixties. The discussion of the oral contraceptive and censorship will be used to support my claim that Mad

Men portrays elements from the 1960s from a present-day point of view. This part will further explore Salvatore Romano, Kurt Smith and Joyce Ramsay, three of Mad Men’s most explicit gay characters. The final chapter of this dissertation will focus again on the protagonist

Donald Draper, but this time with additional attention to the omnipresence of his sexuality and its resulting in Don’s sexual transgressions.

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I - Male and Female Roles

In the United States, life for both men and women in the nineteen sixties was marked by significant changes. In his introduction to The 1960s, Edward J. Rielly explains how life in

1960s USA seemed to take a turn for the better as the standard of living increased thanks to higher wages, better healthcare and better education (3, 24). America’s optimism was intensified with the inauguration of president John F. Kennedy on 20 January 1961, but was also quickly shattered as the president was assassinated almost three years later on 22

November 1963 (Rielly 3). In addition to the improvements during the sixties, everyday life in the USA was simultaneously facing social challenges (Rielly 3). Among these were the civil rights movement and the feminist movement. According to Rielly, “Americans were coming to see both African Americans and women differently in the 1960s, as both groups struggled to achieve equal opportunity in basic areas of daily life” (9). The women’s fight for equality inescapably dragged along the American man in the direction of change. But what exactly were the roles imposed on men and women in the American society during the 1960s, and, more importantly, how are these expectations and their violations represented in the period drama Mad Men? This first part of my dissertation will focus on the stereotypical gender roles of the sixties and on Mad Men’s reproduction of women and men in their social environment, in the workplace and in the home.

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Chapter 1 • Traditional and Modern Women

1 ⋅ The Traditional Housewife

According to Sara M. Evans, the popular culture of the fifties in the United States was all about celebrating domesticity with the suburban housewife in her kitchen (190). “By 1960”, she explains, “Americans who wanted a bit more zing and glamour in their feminine ideals were happy to shift their allegiance from the grandmotherly Mamie Eisenhower to the beautiful and stylish Jacqueline Kennedy” (191). The general assumption of the time that a woman’s place was in the home was closely connected to the fact that women had “few protections in public”: job ads were released strictly for either men or women, the workplace was segregated with women primarily in the service sector, the pay scales were segregated, meaning that an equal job could pay less if performed by a woman, law and medicine schools set up quotas to limit the number of female students to as low as five percent and women could often not receive credit without their husbands (Evans 191).

The restriction on women’s freedom can easily be deduced from the female representation in American advertisements of the time. In 1975, Ahmed and Janice M.

Belkaoui published the results of their comparative analysis of the roles of women as portrayed in print advertisement in the years 1958, 1970 and 1972 – or in the periods right before and exactly after Mad Men takes place. This study was motivated by the sharp critique expressed by members of the women’s liberation movement regarding the stereotypical representation of women – that is, as mother and as wife – in mass media (Belkaoui 168). In the ads from 1958, “most women were portrayed in the following stereotypes which reflected the prevailing viewpoint toward females in North American society of the late nineteen- fifties” (Belkaoui 170). The scholars found only small improvements in the portrayal of women in ads from 1970 and 1972 as compared to those from 1958 (Belkaoui 171). The stereotypical representations of women in these advertisements were the following: (1) Serediuc 12 women in nonworking roles; even when represented in the context of the home there were no references to heavy household work such as vacuuming; working women were represented as unable to cope with the workload, hurried or in a not so glamorous working environment; (2) women as having a low income: the majority of women were represented as secretaries, blue- collar workers or in a clerical position; not one woman was represented in an executive position (which, according to Ahmed and Janice M. Belkaoui, is realistic for 1958), the little group of women performing some mid-level job were shown as inferior to their male colleagues; (3) women in decorative and idle situations and thus not working: women in non- occupational activities were portrayed at the beach, in the living room or as models for clothes and jewellery; (4) women in a position of possessing limited purchasing power: the ads for cars, machinery, cigarettes and alcohol were directed exclusively to men, while those directed to women were selling linen, health care supplies, food and clothing (Belkaoui 170). While more than half of the men in ads were represented working, a similar representation counted for only 13% of the women (Belkaoui 171). During this period, in other words, women were often represented as housewives and in positions of performing activities of little importance.

They were repeatedly portrayed as part of the furniture in their suburban house where their task was to look pretty for the hardworking husband and to make sure that the house was in good condition.

2 ⋅ Betty Hofstadt

Elizabeth “Betty” Hofstadt, who after her marriage to Donald Draper becomes Betty Draper, and later Betty Francis in her marriage to Henry Francis, is Mad Men’s best representation of the stereotypical housewife. Betty is a former model who enjoyed a decent education at Bryn

Mawr, a women’s college that is active to this day. On the official website, Bryn Mawr claims that by offering graduate education through the Ph.D., its founders proved their “refusal to Serediuc 13 accept the limitations imposed on women’s intellectual achievement at other institutions”

(“Bryn Mawr College”). After graduating from this promising college, followed by a short modelling career, Betty begins to live a plain life as a housewife in the suburbs and as the wife of philandering Madison Avenue’s ad man Donald Draper. She spends her days in the suburbs preparing dinner, getting groceries, having friends over for coffee and horseback riding. Apart from these activities that give her little satisfaction, Betty spends her time at home watching her two children, Sally and Bobby, and later also her third child Eugene. Once in a while, if she is lucky, she can join her husband in the city for a business dinner – but whether she will be there to take part in the conversation or as a trophy wife, depends on the kind of business for which her husband is meeting. When Don tells her they will have dinner in town with some clients, Betty asks him: “Is this one where I talk or I don't talk” (2:3)?2

Betty is clearly not one of Don’s priorities; that is the reason why she is only introduced to the spectator after Don’s mistress Midge Daniels is introduced in the first episode.

While Betty seems to lead a carefree life on the surface, something is clearly stopping her from reaching sincere happiness. Watching Betty on screen and familiarizing themselves with her persona, the spectators quickly understand Mrs Draper is very lonely in her world and she does not have someone with whom she can share her feelings and misery. Betty’s character is created from a twenty-first century viewpoint, and therefore, the audience can see that she is different from the stereotypical sixties housewife. In the second episode, the viewer learns Betty lost her mother three months ago and she is still struggling with her loss. After a few occurrences of numbness in her hands, and after her physician reassures her there is nothing wrong with her physically, he advises Betty to see a psychiatrist. Don has to get used to the idea of his wife talking to a psychiatrist since, in his mind, only unhappy people would consider visiting one – and his wife could not possibly be unhappy while living in a beautiful

2 Every Mad Men episode is indicated with the formula (x:y), in which x specifies the season and y the episode. Serediuc 14 suburban home, having two healthy children and a successful husband. That evening, in an attempt to make his wife happy, Don gives Betty a golden watch without realizing her sorrow cannot be cured with something material. During her first talk with the psychiatrist, Betty takes off her watch before speaking, as if to symbolize she is physically removing her sorrow before she can address it. Later that evening, Betty’s hands become numb as she hears Don’s car approaching the house. It quickly becomes clear that Betty is disappointed in the life she leads and that she is very much influenced by her husband Don. But Don is not the only man who has a negative impact on her. Betty lives in a world where even her thoughts are influenced by the omnipresent patriarchal control. Don agrees to let her see a psychiatrist, ostensibly so that she will get better, but the doctor does not seem to be very interested in her well-being and he does not take her seriously. In fact, Betty catches him peeking down her blouse one day: “I'm pretty sure Dr Wayne tried to look down my neckline the other day”

(1:7), Betty tells her friend Francine. Even during her talks with her psychiatrist, Betty is unable to escape her husband’s omnipresence, as doctor Wayne, who is hired by Don, reports everything she says to Don through the phone.

Unable to find someone her own age she can share her feelings with, Betty, in her thirties, finds a true friend in her neighbour Helen Bishop’s child, Glen, who is the same age as her daughter Sally. Glen’s mother forbids their unusual friendship after she finds out Betty gave Glen a piece of her hair. When Helen confronts Betty with this strange activity, Betty replies that Glen asked her for it. This makes Helen furious: “And you gave it to him? He is nine years old. What is wrong with you” (1:7)? Betty is at a loss for words and responds by slapping Helen Bishop in the face in the middle of the supermarket isle. Her child-like behaviour does not go unnoticed by her psychiatrist and her husband. Doctor Wayne, again not bothering himself with doctor-patient confidentiality, talks to Don on the phone about his wife’s session, reassuring him that her anxiety is not uncommon for housewives. He tells Serediuc 15

Don: “Mostly, she seems consumed with petty jealousies and overwhelmed with everyday activities. Basically, we're dealing with the emotions of a child here” (1:7). In the same episode Don and Betty have a fight and Don shouts at her: “Sometimes I feel like I'm living with a little girl” (1:7). After finding out that Francine’s husband cheated on her, and that Don is secretly calling her psychiatrist, Betty sees Glen sitting alone in his mother’s car in the bank’s parking lot. She starts crying, telling the nine-year-old: “Glen I can't talk to anyone.

It's so horrible. I'm so sad” and “Please, please tell me I'll be okay” (1:13). Glen does not know how to comfort her, and wishes that he could be older, to which she responds that adults do not know anything.

Betty’s child-like attitude is often portrayed in relation to Sally and Bobby, regularly showing the mother on the same emotional level as her young children. During a game of cards with Francine and her husband Carlton at the Draper residence, Don has to put his son

Bobby back to bed after he was scared of a ghost, to which Betty remarks: “He’s a little liar”

(2:2). She then interrupts the adult conversation about Flight 1, an American Airlines plane that crashed in Jamaica Bay, to talk about Bobby, who traced-over a picture of George

Washington and acted as if he has drawn it himself, to point out the dishonesty in her child.

Betty is not only unable to maintain a conversation with Don’s colleagues – as aforementioned, she is not always allowed to take part in the conversations Don has with his clients–, but she also proves to be unsuitable for a conversation between friends. Betty does not always behave according to her age, and this is especially visible when she tells her childhood maid Viola she is an orphan, after finding out her father’s health is quickly deteriorating.

The way in which she acts, reveals something is missing inside her and the fact that her behaviour and unhappiness are so emphasized in the show, can be seen as a noughties perspective on a 1960s issue. Betty’s beautiful dresses, her perfect hairdos and her seemingly Serediuc 16 happy family are a mask for the unhappiness she fosters inside. Mrs Draper’s immaculate image is a repression of her life, which has little meaning and in which no one seems to understand her. Her frustration culminates and she divorces Don, who, after finding out about her love life with Henry, loses his temper and ironically calls her a whore, counteracting the fact that his lies and adultery were the very reason for her sorrow and, ultimately, their divorce. After the divorce, Betty quickly marries her new husband Henry Francis. From beginning to end, Betty never seems to actually reach true happiness. She even starts to gain a lot of weight, which is significant when considering her youth and her relationship with her mother: from a very young age, Betty was warned by her mother not to eat too much because she would get stout. Looks and weight have always been important for Betty’s mother, and the importance of those values presumably increases for Betty after her mother’s death. She eventually loses the extra weight, but the emptiness remains. During one of her therapy sessions, Betty tells Doctor Wayne: “She [Betty’s mother] wanted me to be beautiful so I could find a man. There's nothing wrong with that. But then what? Just sit and smoke and let it go till you're in a box?” (1:9).

3 ⋅ The Modern Woman

During the sixties, more and more women were enjoying higher education, but in proportion to their male colleagues, female attendance remained low: in 1940, women represented 41.3% of college graduates; that number slipped to 23.9% in 1950 and then increased slightly to

35.0% in 1960 (Jacobs 158). Evans explains that women who exchanged the role of housewife for a more promising role of career woman, faced discrimination and accusations of failing as a mother and a wife (192). Even though Betty Draper graduated from Bryn Mawr

College, she did not pursue a career but instead became a rather frustrated fulltime housewife and a mother. Joan Harris too enjoyed a college education, but she opted for a career with the Serediuc 17 prospect of moving to the suburbs as soon as she marries. Her plan, however, is never accomplished. According to Evans, though, “[m]any women dropped out of higher education, overwhelmed by academic pressures and the unsupportive professors who openly believed that ‘women don’t belong in graduate school’” (193). Paraphrasing what Sara Ruddick and

Pamela Daniels write in their 1977 Working It Out: 23 Women Writers, Artists, Scientists, and

Scholars Talk about Their Lives and Work, Sara M. Evans notes that “[i]n professional settings, male colleagues routinely assumed that the white women they encountered were secretaries and the black women domestics” (193). When Peggy goes into a bar to find herself a one-night stand, her male companion immediately assumes Peggy is a secretary after she tells him she works in an ad agency in Manhattan. “I don't know how you girls do all that typing”, he tells her (3:2).

For most women of the time, marriage seemed to be the correct choice and an easy escape to a perfect life in the suburbs. During a focus group for Pond's Cold Cream, a number of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce secretaries have gathered in an office to talk about their make-up routine while Don, Peggy and Freddie observe them through a one-way mirror. One of the secretaries mentions her boyfriend left her, and tells the others in tears: “And I just kept thinking: ‘Why does he stare at other girls’? Well, men do that, but does he look at me that way? And we're not married, so who am I” (4:4)? For the girl in question, and for many other girls, a husband is what they need to be able to lead a stable and secure life. While watching the focus group, Freddy remarks that“[t]hey just want to get married and they'll buy anything that'll help” (4:4). After her engagement, Joan Harris is thrilled to show off her engagement ring to all the girls in the office and to give them all the possible details about her perfect husband. Even after Greg’s expression of jealousy towards Roger Sterling culminates in him raping his soon-to-be wife, Joan does not hesitate to marry him. Marrying Greg, as she expects, would mean her quitting her job and becoming a housewife in the suburbs. Barbara Serediuc 18

Ehrenreich explains the reasoning behind these women’s decisions: “The fact that men marry in precisely the same numbers as women do conceals a basic inequality of motivation: namely, that in the sort of marriage we have rather suddenly come to see as ‘traditional’, women need men much more than men need women” (1). According to Mary W. Hicks and

Marilyn Platt, various studies from the sixties confirm that the happiness of the marriage depends more on the male role performance than of the female (556). They discuss Axelson’s study from 1963, which found that “[h]usbands of working wives indicate a significantly greater amount of poor marital adjustment suggesting that the working wife may be perceived as a threat to the husband's culturally defined dominance and that the male believes the children will suffer from the wife's absence” (Hicks and Platt 558). Despite these findings,

Axelson found that the men were more accepting of their wives going to work in comparison to findings from the past. According to Hicks and Platt, Axelson therefore “suggested that this may indicate that there is a time lag between the acceptance of new societal roles for women and the acceptance of the new familial role distributions that are inevitably necessitated by these changes” (558).

Mad Men, for the greater part, is situated between the office walls of Sterling Cooper and later of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, in which the female personnel are represented rather numerously. The (male) big shots are closed-off behind their labelled doors, while vigorously typing and nicely dressed secretaries inhabit the rest of the open space. It is undeniable that the majority of those women perform menial jobs such as making telephone calls, preparing beverages and typing out forms and letters, confirming the general assumption of women’s capacities and their representation in popular ads as discussed earlier.

But “[g]enuine change in the economic and social status of U.S. women did not emanate simply from their increased labor-force participation, but rather, from their increase in professions and as ‘career women.’ Those changes first began in the late 1960's and early Serediuc 19

1970's” (Goldin and Katz 461). Several female characters in Mad Men already have such promising careers as early as 1960. In the first episode, Donald Draper and the spectators meet the charming Rachel Menken who is in charge of her father’s firm, a department store, after a period of low sales. Upon meeting for the account, Don, not expecting Rachel to be the one in the leading position, shakes the hand of the Jewish male Sterling Cooper employee who is strategically placed there to appeal to the Jewish department store.

Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz found that the oral contraceptive was of big importance for this break with the past in female accomplishments (461). “In 1960, 18.4 percent of professionals were women, as were 4.7 percent of ‘high-powered professionals’”, including “lawyers, judges, physicians, dentists, architects, engineers, scientists, and college and university teachers” (Goldin and Katz 461). They link the increase of women in the professional sector in the following years to the birth control pill, as will be discussed in the third chapter of this dissertation. Though there were various changes in the right direction, women were still facing problems and were stereotyped on a daily basis.

Elke Weissmann notes that Matthew Weiner considers himself to be a feminist, which can also be seen in his previous work The Sopranos, in which he subverted traditional gender assumptions (92). The Sopranos unites the hyper-masculine with the feminine by mixing the gangster genre with the genre of the soap opera (Weissman 92). According to Weissmann,

Tony Soprano’s need for talk during his therapy, suggests the dominance of the feminine genre and therefore also of the feminine values (92). To her, Mad Men seems to be even more feminine because of its genre, the period drama, in which costumes play an important role

(92). Weissmann adds that the genre is masculinized in Mad Men because the emphasis is more on the male than on the female perspective and the focus is on the world of work and business (92). It is hard to agree with Weissmann in this last statement because, even though men play an important role in the show and the protagonist is male, the female presence is Serediuc 20 still very strong – this will be further explored on pp. 28-29. She continues with the fact that the feminine perspectives, which do create a counterbalance, offer insights into feminist critiques of the sixties and into traditional gender roles (92). “However, the 1960s setting also allows audiences to feel superior to that time as it offers audiences the chance to ‘see how far we’ve come’. Inevitably, that means that, in part, the feminist critique is undermined as it is transferred onto an imaginary past” (Weissmann 92) – it gives us the opportunity to assume that there has been an advance in the treatment of women (Weissmann 93).

A stereotypical and rather misogynous division of women is presented in

“Maidenform”, the episode in which women’s lingerie brand Playtex is reaching out to

Sterling Cooper for a less traditional approach to their product. Though Paul Kinsey is not part of the project, during a night out with the men who are involved in the account, he comes up with one of Mad Men’s most memorable pieces of advertisement. Kinsey gets the idea of labelling all women as types: “Jackie Kennedy or Marilyn Monroe. Every single woman is one of them” (2:6). He invites Don and the other men – and Peggy – in the office to take a look at the secretaries, pinpointing them as either Jackie or Marilyn. After the realization of the idea, the finished poster (Fig. 1) is presented to the client. Donald Draper is in charge of selling the idea, and he fulfils his task by saying: “Women have feelings about these women because men do. Because we want both, they want to be both. It's about how they want to be seen by us: their husbands, their boyfriends, their friends' husbands” (2:6). In other words,

Don is clearly stating the only reason women dress up, and wear lingerie, is because they want to be noticed by men. Draper manages to take an ad that applies to women and to completely turn it around and make it about everything but women. Serediuc 21

Fig. 1.

According to O’Barr, the Jackie-Marilyn campaign proposes that these bras will help women fulfil both roles of the virgin-whore dichotomy:

As that idea is unpacked, the proposition emerges that women want to fulfill the

desires of men for a nurturing, maternal woman who will support a man emotionally,

raise children he can be proud of, and create and manage a perfect home environment

for him, as well as a sexually available, physically attractive woman who will satisfy

his sexual appetite and keep him coming back for more. These dual expectations that

in reality conflict with one another place extraordinary demands on women. They

require that a woman must be both a Madonna and a whore, and understand how to

jockey these disparate roles. (O’Barr)

While the most prominent female characters in Mad Men can initially be divided into two camps – that is, Betty Draper and Peggy Olson as Jackies and Joan Harris as a Marilyn –they break out of their stereotypical persona and experience a development in their character as the show proceeds. The women’s evolution of character is a noughties addition to the show, Serediuc 22 which looks back on the sixties. In her marriage to Don, Betty Draper is the ideal housewife who, with the help of her maid, takes care of the house and the children and, tidily dressed, awaits her husband’s return from work every night so he can enjoy her homemade dinner while they discuss his day. From the moment that Jimmy Barrett confronts Betty with the question “What do you think happened between the two of them”? (2:7), implying his wife

Bobbie and her husband Don are having an affair, Betty’s stable identity as an accommodating wife starts to gradually pulverize and she decides to not allow Don into the house anymore. After learning of her pregnancy and her inability to undo it, she enters a bar with a mission that she fulfils with an unknown gentleman wearing a wedding ring in the back room of the bar she got drunk in. Her frustrations made Betty switch sides temporarily from

Jackie to Marilyn, but she eventually returns to her original state when she takes Don back because of her pregnancy.

4 ⋅ Peggy Olson and Joan Holloway

In 1963 American writer and activist Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique.

According to Imelda Whelehan, Friedan’s book dealt with many issues characterizing second wave feminism (9). As opposed to standard studies of feminism that distinguish only two waves of feminism – the first in the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century linked to women’s rights; the second in the sixties associated with a remarkable increase in feminism and gender studies – Linda Woodhead believes it is better to distinguish three waves, considering the ongoing development of feminism (67):

(1) First wave feminism, which gathered momentum in the late nineteenth century,

tended to be gender-blind in the sense that it wished to claim equality between the

sexes and to subsume their differences under a common ‘humanity’. Serediuc 23

(2) Second wave feminism, which flourished between the 1960s and early 1980s,

developed a highly essentialist understanding of men and women, and campaigned for

the liberation of women from male oppression or ‘patriarchy’.

(3) Third wave feminism, which began to dominate the field in the 1990s, reacts

against essentialism and seeks instead to explore gender differences which are now

understood as complex, multifaceted, fluid, constructed, and only loosely related to the

body. (Whoodhead 67)

Imelda Whelehan mentions the following:

The scope of her [Betty Friedan’s] analysis of the ‘problem that has no name’ – the

alienation felt among US housewives dehumanized by the drudgery of domestic

labour – confirmed Friedan as one of the pioneers of modern feminism. One reason for

her book’s resounding success lay in its focus on the experiences of white middle-

class women – the very group that were to form the majority in the new women’s

movement. (9)

Evans explains that “[t]he contagiousness of feminism lay in its ability to touch women at a deeply personal level, giving political voice to issues that had gone unchallenged and bringing new opportunities for action” (200). The domestic ideology that Betty Friedan indicated as the

‘feminine mystique’ eventually led to significant changes: since the Second World War, which pushed women to work outside the house, American women became more and more prominent in the work field and in higher education (Evans 191). In this context, women all around the US were taking matters into their own hands: Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a segregated bus in 1955, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott – in which black women refused to take the city busses to commute between house and job for months – and the

Women Strike for Peace, established in 1960 with a 61 percent membership made up of housewives, raised awareness of the dangers of nuclear arms and radioactivity from a Serediuc 24 mother’s point of view, indicating the beginning of mobilization by housewives (Evans 191-

192).

Both Peggy Olson and Joan Holloway are the embodiment of this spirit of taking matters into their own hands. Sara Rogers points out that throughout the series, Peggy and

Joan are the only two female characters that are represented as being completely autonomous:

“Joan and Peggy are two very different representations of women, but I believe they send similar messages. Both Peggy and Joan are autonomous; they make their own decisions, run their own lives without measured evaluation or the input of others, and use their individual skills in the office to gain power and climb the corporate ladder” (164). Both women differ from the other female characters in Mad Men, but they have a completely different approach to their autonomy when compared to each other: Rogers suggests that while Joan uses her body to achieve what she wants, Peggy accomplishes her wishes with her brains (159).

However, with reference to the Playtex advertisement discussed earlier, I will demonstrate that the characters of Joan and Peggy are not so black and white as presented by Rogers.

In her discussion of Peggy Olson as an autonomous Mad Men character, Rogers uses

Susan Douglas’ theory of ‘The Ariel Syndrome’, which is named after Disney’s red-haired mermaid who looses her voice, and which is explained as a voice problem many women cope with. ‘The Ariel Syndrome’ is used to refer to women who do not speak up, who cannot say no and who say they do not want to talk about their problems – they make it more difficult for those women who do use their voices and who are therefore perceived as ‘bitches’ (Rogers

158). According to Rogers, Peggy causes a shift in ‘The Ariel Syndrome’ as she finds her voice and uses it to her advantage (158). Rogers, paraphrasing Emily Nussbaum, states that

“Peggy is in limbo in the show's representation of strict gender lines; she is not exactly one of the men in suits, but she certainly is not one [of] the secretaries either” (162). Peggy is clearly different from the other secretaries on the outside and the inside, and she is quite happy with Serediuc 25 that, because she likes to be different: “I don't think anyone wants to be one of a hundred colours in a box” (1:6). She not only distances herself from the other women in the way she dresses, but also in the way she acts, makes her decisions and in the way she accomplishes things by using her talents instead of her body. Peggy clearly reacts against the stereotypical expectations of her as a secretary in a big firm when she tells her boss Donald Draper she is not “that kind of girl” after she touches his hand (1:1) and when she tells Pete she gave away their baby because she wanted “other things” (2:13).

Peggy impresses Don with her creativity and she gradually becomes the career woman she aspired to be. She musters up her courage and asks her big boss Roger Sterling if she can have Freddy Rumsen’s office after his dismissal, to which he agrees: “There are 30 men out there who didn't have the balls to ask me” (2:12). Peggy clearly builds up her entire career through hard work and by using her brains instead of her body. When Pete asks her about her accomplishments, she can jokingly respond: “I’m sleeping with Don. It’s really working out”

(2:12). Peggy mockingly gives Pete the stereotypical answer everyone would expect from a female secretary who receives her own office – except in her case, that answer is far from the truth. When compared to Jackie Kennedy and to Marilyn Monroe, Peggy is a Jackie who sometimes wishes to be regarded as a Marilyn. Career wise she experiences the biggest advancement of all Mad Men characters and she lets nothing stop her, not even her unwanted child. She is satisfied with her career accomplishments, but while everyone around her seems to be married or in a happy relationship, she sometimes wishes to be seen as a Marilyn, at least from time to time. After hearing that the men find Ann-Margret singing “Bye Bye

Birdie” very attractive, she performs the piece in front of her bedroom mirror at night. Peggy is the optimization of hard work to achieve her dreams: she becomes a successful career woman and, in the end, she also finds her true love Stan Rizzo. The detailed portrayal of her Serediuc 26 dreams, her accomplishments and her way of living, however, can only be represented from a modern point of view.

Joan Holloway, on the other hand, is a Marilyn who fails in her every attempt to become a Jackie. She accomplishes her wish of growing in her career when she receives a five percent partnership stake in the company, but only reaches that point by sleeping with a man who repulses her. Though she is proud of her looks, and she is very much aware of their power, she also wishes to be taken seriously, but fails every single time. The men in the office always treat Joan with the respect she deserves, but they only talk about her looks when she is not around. According to Sara Rogers, it is her husband Greg’s inability to accept Joan’s power in her job and her sexuality that culminates in him raping his wife on the floor of her boss’s office (163-164). Rogers explains that Joan’s experience in bed, her ease in the office and the respect she gets from the men there, who seem to know her better than Greg does, lead him to committing this horrific act: “[t]his scene is indicative of Greg's fear of her sexuality. To him, she is so powerful that the only way he can assert his masculinity and power over her is to force sexual dominance” (Rogers 164). After Greg Harris lays violent hands on his wife, Joan purposefully leaves behind the flowers he gave her on the office desk.

To Rogers, who wrote her essay before the complete release of the series, the flowers might symbolize the fact that Joan perhaps is ready to leave her husband behind together with those flowers (164); but by now we know she only leaves Greg in the fifth season. Therefore, I believe the flowers she leaves behind symbolize her ideals of a perfect marriage and the realization that in order to become what you have planned for yourself, you have to make sacrifices. In other words, as previously discussed, Joan will marry Greg not out of love, but because of the expectations of the time that a woman needs a man by her side and in the hope of becoming a suburban housewife. Serediuc 27

In 1970, the Newsweek lawsuit took place, in which forty-six female employees won a sexism case against the magazine. Their accusation took place after the publication of

Newsweek’s article on the feminist movement with the title “Women in Revolt” on 16 March

1970 (Povich 1). The women filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission against discrimination in hiring, promotion and the forced assumption of a subordinate role because of their gender (Povich 1). Povich explains that “[i]t was the first time women in the media had sued on the grounds of sex discrimination and the story, irresistibly timed to the Newsweek cover, was picked up around the world” (1-2). It is this event, together with the Women’s March for Equality, that the series uses to inspire Joan

Holloway to take matters into her own hands and to stand up for herself against male colleagues. The goal of the Strike was to emphasize the three major issues suggested by the

NOW (National Organization for Women) to the media and spoken by Betty Friedan during her speech in the City Hall Park in New York City on 26 August: equal opportunity in education and employment, twenty-four hour child care centres and the right for women to control their own bodies (Dow 145). Bonnie J. Dow explains:

The Strike for Equality is a key event in the media history of second-wave feminism.

It was the first major feminist event representing a coalition of both liberal and radical

groups. It was the first major feminist event to receive front page coverage in major

national newspapers, including the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the

Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune. Finally, it was the first major feminist

event to receive extensive, on-the-scene coverage from all three national television

news networks. (144)

After being insulted at McCann Erickson with remarks such as “You should be in the bra business. You're a work of art” (7:8), Joan threatens to file a complaint against the company.

She stands her ground saying “I think the second I file a complaint, I'll have the ACLU in my Serediuc 28 office and Betty Friedan in the lobby with half the women who marched down Fifth Avenue”

(7:12). Joan’s struggle in a male dominated world is visualized in the episode A Night to

Remember (2:8), which “ends with Joan rubbing her shoulders where her bra strap has dug in, symbolizing the weight she carries on her shoulders as a woman in a patriarchal society”

(Rogers 164).

The change in women’s wishes and their aspirations for change as shown in the series is an accurate representation of what is happening for women in the sixties. The character development of the female characters in Mad Men is presented with great attention to detail and realization. The audience can take a look at their personal lives and see their social struggles and accomplishments in detail. However, this in-depth portrayal of their lives and their struggles is influenced by modern attitudes. Paraphrasing Paul Harris, Elke Weissmann notes that “[c]ontemporary American television drama – particularly of the ‘quality’ genre – has been celebrated for their female characters which appear significantly stronger than previous iterations of women on American television” (87). It would therefore be safe to assume that the thorough characterization of female characters is a product of our present-day that would never be presented in such detail in the decade of the sixties, in which Mad Men takes place. Weissman further explains that from the first to the last season, four out of ten characters in Mad Men are women, that is, if Don’s daughter Sally is included. “[T]his suggests a relatively equal distribution of roles and perspectives within the context of the representation of a sexist time” (Weissmann 93). In reality, this number is rather high, as according to Sara Rogers, who quotes David Gauntlett’s Media, Gender and Identity: An

Introduction, only 20 to 35 percent of television characters in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were women (157). The in-depth characterization of the prominent female characters in Mad

Men is a typical twenty-first century approach, and so is the high frequency of female Serediuc 29 characters: Gauntlett’s study found that even in 2004 and 2005, only 39 percent of television characters were female (Rogers 157).

Serediuc 30

Chapter 2 • Men and Masculinity

1 ⋅ Male Messages

While it is safe to say American men in the sixties found themselves in a more favourable position in comparison to women, they too were not completely free to do as they pleased since there were expectations connected to their gender as well. In her study of the representation of masculinity through Donald Draper in Mad Men, Nicky Falkof finds that the men in the series are represented as types: “[w]hatever their personal differences or circumstances, they largely operate within a single standardising notion of what white, working, successful, wealthy, able-bodied hetero-sexual masculinity is and does” (33). What exactly is expected of a white man in this position can be found in Ian M. Harris’s book

Messages Men Hear: Constructing Masculinities, in which the scholar distinguishes 24 dominant male gender-role archetypes, or as Harris calls them, ‘messages’. This non- exhaustive list of American origin captures the standards for appropriate male behaviour in the second half of the twentieth century and is universally applicable (Harris 12). The ‘C’, which stands for what Clyde Franklin has called ‘the classical man’ in 1984, accompanies the messages that are seen as traditionally masculine (Harris 12). Harris presents the messages as follows:

C Adventurer: Men take risks and have adventures. They are brave and courageous.

Be Like Your Father: Dad is your role model. Males express feelings in ways similar

to their fathers.

C Be the Best You Can: Do your best. Do not accept being second. ‘I can’t’ is

unacceptable.

C Breadwinner: Men provide for and protect family members. Fathering means

bringing home the bacon, not necessarily nurturing.

C Control: Men are in control of their relationships, emotions, and job. Serediuc 31

Faithful Husband: Men give up their freedom when they get married.

Good Samaritan: Do good deeds and acts. Put others’ needs first. Set a good example.

C Hurdles: To be a man is to pass a series of tests. Accomplishment is central to the male style.

C Money: A man is judged by how much money he makes and the status of his job.

Nature Lover: Love of outdoors. Respectful treatment of plants and animals. Harmony with nature.

Nurturer: Among other things men are gentle, supportive, warm, sensitive, and concerned about others’ feelings.

C Playboy: Men should be sexually aggressive, attractive and muscular.

C President: Men pursue power and status. They strive for success.

Rebel: Defy authority and be a nonconformist. Question and rebel against system.

Scholar: Be knowledgeable. Go to college. Value book learning. Read and study.

C Self-Reliant: Asking for help is a sign of weakness. Go it alone. Be self sufficient and do not depend on others.

C Sportsman: Men enjoy playing sports, where they learn the thrill of victory and how to compete.

C Stoic: Ignore pain in your body. Achieve even though it hurts. Do not admit weakness.

C Superman: Men are supposed to be perfect. They do not admit mistakes.

Technician: Men relate to, understand, and maintain machines. They fix and repair things around the house.

The Law: Do right and obey. Do not question authority.

C Tough Guy: Men do not touch, show emotions, or cry. They do not let others push them around. Serediuc 32

C Warrior: Men take death defying risks to prove themselves and identify with war

heroes.

C Work Ethic: Men are supposed to work for a living and not take handouts. (12-13)

To this list, Harris adds that the male identity is formed through the man’s culture, which

“contains patterned ways of thinking, feeling, and reacting that form the basis for his world views” (16). When applying the messages to the prominent male characters in Mad Men, one can see how instinctively they fit into these expected male roles of the latter half of the twentieth century. However, after an in-depth discussion of their persona, most ‘mad men’ seem to slip through the cracks of these established male archetypes. On the surface, the show’s male characters appear as the epitome of masculinity with their sleek hair and their tailored suits, but the reality is not as it seems. The men’s deviation from these gendered prototypes, and more importantly, the emphasis on that deviation, helps support my claim that despite being a renowned period drama, Mad Men is one produced with the knowledge of our present-day world.

2 ⋅ Donald Draper

Richard “Dick” Whitman by birth and Donald “Don” Draper through fraud, Mad Men’s protagonist is nothing but a mixture of contradictions. Born as the son of a prostitute who died in childbirth, baby Dick Whitman is given to his father Archibald "Archie" Whitman, an unhappy and aggressive farmer who lives together with his wife Abigail. After the death of his father, Don is fostered by his abusive stepmother Abigail, who sees nothing but her husband’s unfaithfulness in Dick’s face and who has a son of her own. During the Korean

War, only Dick, an insecure soldier, arrives at the destination where lieutenant Donald Draper waits for help to build a field hospital after building fighting positions. When asked why he is there, Dick tells him he volunteered for the army because he just wanted to leave. Lieutenant Serediuc 33

Draper is killed in an explosion, and that is the moment Dick Whitman assumes his new identity and becomes Donald Draper. With his new name he becomes a successful ad man on

New York’s Madison Avenue and marries Betty Hofstadt, a beautiful former model with whom he has three children. On the one hand Don is the personification of the American

Dream – and with that simultaneously of ultimate masculinity – with his escape from poverty and his climb to wealth and success, completed with a perfect wife and two (later three) even more perfect children, but on the other hand he is nothing but an empty person suffering from the inability to actually know himself and to show more than superficial human emotions.

At first glance, Donald Draper represents hyper-masculinity as he fulfils most male messages indicated by Harris (12-13): his war experience makes him adventurous, brave and courageous; as a creative director and partner at the company he pursues power and success, he is a diligent worker and does not accept being second; he is the breadwinner providing for his family; he is in control of his relationships (both with his wife and his mistresses), his emotions and his worklife; he is well-paid and enjoys the status that comes with his occupation; he is an attractive and muscular playboy, he pursues power and status and strives for success; he is self-reliant; he is a tough guy who does not show his inner feelings and does not cry. But Don’s carefully composed persona gradually falls apart, revealing his fabricated self. The key works in exposing Donald Draper’s faux masculinity are Nicky Falkof’s “The father, the failure and the self-made man: masculinity in Mad Men” (2012) and Michael

Mario Albrecht’s “Masculinity in Contemporary Quality Television” (2015). Though I agree with Albrecht’s approach to masculinity, my vision deviates from his when it comes to realism. Citing historian Stephanie Coontz, who states that that Mad Men is of extreme historical accuracy since it shows the naked truth of gender relations before second wave feminism, Albrecht notes that “the show explores gender relations in ways that evoke a historical reality and a mediated nostalgia and consistently blurs the line between those Serediuc 34 seemingly competing discourses” (50). One cannot but agree that the series is accurate in its depiction of what used to be during the sixties, but I am of the opinion that the way in which the producers choose to represent these details, reflects a present-day outlook on the topic rather than a sixties attitude.

Albrecht links masculinity in Mad Men to the notion of nostalgia in the painful sense of the word, as incorrectly defined by Donald Draper during his pitch for a slide projector:

“[I]n Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound. It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone” (1:13). He discusses Don’s definition:

On the one hand, Draper is gesturing towards his own secret past, but he is also

framing Mad Men as producing a twinge from an old cultural wound – the overtly

problematic recent past dominated by unquestioned patriarchal masculinity in which

the show operates. By foregrounding the painful aspects of nostalgia, the show

complicates any attempt to understand the show as a presentation of an idyllic past.

(Albrecht 49)

It is true that Mad Men reproduces a bold mixture of the glorious aspects of the Swinging

Sixties with its perfect hairdos and puffy dresses and, simultaneously, the oppressive aspect of society towards women, and not to be mistaken, towards men as well. While women were expected to take care of the house and the offspring, men had the difficult tasks of financially supporting the family, while at the same time being a sportsman, a tough guy, and all the other types listed by Ian M. Harris (12-13). With great attention to the expectations of the time, but with the realization from a noughties point of view, “[t]he patriarchal masculinity that the show glamorizes and critiques becomes a sign of difference dressed in a grey-flannel suit, and its hyperreal portrayal suggests the masculinity represented is incredibly different from twenty-first-century masculinities while astonishingly similar” (Albrecht 52). Serediuc 35

Contrary to Don’s acquaintances, the twenty-first century viewer knows most about the person that Donald Draper personifies, which is something Draper never seems to fully accomplish for himself. Not one character in the show manages to completely know Don

Draper for who he really is. This especially applies to his co-workers, who are well aware of the fact that Don is completely unfathomable, or as Harry Crane puts it: “Draper? Who knows anything about that guy? No one's ever lifted that rock. He could be Batman for all we know”

(1:3). According to Nicky Falkof, the trope of ‘knowing’ is an important recurring element in the series and it is often accomplished with the assistance of the female characters (37).

Falkof puts it as follows: “The most important function that Mad Men’s women play for Don is one of mirroring, of reflecting him. Women are the surface in which he sees himself and through which he comes to know himself” (36-37). Falkof then gives the examples of Anna

Draper who tells Don that she knows everything about him and she still loves him (4:3) (37).

After Anna’s death, Don tells Peggy that Anna was the only person who really knew him

(4:7) (Falkof 37). A third example is that of Megan Calvet, who, before sleeping with Don, tells him that she knows everything about him and that he is in her head all day while he does not know a thing about her (4:11) (Falkof 37).

Donald Draper’s life is filled with women and his relationships with them range from marriage to affair to one-night stand and sometimes to friend. Even though Don carefully chooses the most fitting woman to fulfil the role of wife, mistress, flirt or friend, the women eventually fulfil the identical task of bringing Draper closer to his real self. Every time Don enters a sexual or emotional bond with a woman, he does so with the sole purpose of discovering who he really is. Once the woman in question does not fulfil that role anymore, he leaves her and continues his search for another. Don’s sexual encounters are for him the only way to reach an emotional level, because he seems completely unable to express whatever goes on in his head in any other way. Serediuc 36

[…] Draper evokes the loner cowboy figure who avoids emotional ties with other men.

Though he consistently experiences emotional turmoil, he does not possess the

resources to demonstrate those resources through tears or even through conversation.

The feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s provided a discursive framework for

men to imagine a version of masculinity that involved such relationships or emotions,

but Draper is unable to imagine himself as a “new man” because such a figure does

not exist in the 1960s. (Albrecht 51)

Albrecht continues that the twenty-first century audience looks at Don with a present-day knowledge:

As such, while Draper might not have the resources to imagine an alternative

masculinity, the contemporary audience projects those new alternative masculinities

onto his character. Just as Dick Whitman is able to project an ideal postwar

masculinity onto the empty vessel that is Don Draper, the contemporary viewer

ascribes meaning to the under-determined performance of Draper’s identity. (51)

Anna Draper and Peggy Olson, the only two women Don allows deeper into his life on a platonic level, are the two female characters that bring Don’s masculinity out of balance and that cause him to momentarily retreat from his established ‘type’ as a serious and successful businessman whose emotions seem impenetrable. Anna Draper must be the only person in

Draper’s life to know him on a level that reaches beyond the superficialities of his smart suit.

As previously mentioned, Albrecht describes Don Draper as a loner cowboy figure who seems unable to express the unrest that goes on in his head with tears (51), but that does not seem to be correct. As Anna was the person who knew most about Mad Men’s main character and Don felt closest to her, he does shed a number of tears expressed in a few short bursts of cries when he learns about her death. This all happens before Peggy’s eyes. After telling

Peggy Anna was the only person in the world who really knew him, Peggy consoles Don and Serediuc 37 tells him that is not true. In that exact moment, Peggy seems to take on the void that Anna left behind in Don’s life, and she becomes the person to learn most about Don. Because of Don’s knowledge of Peggy’s illegitimate child, and because of Peggy’s knowledge of Don Draper’s accident and affair with Bobbie Barrett, the two were already connected on a much closer level than Draper and his own wife Betty have ever been. As Albrecht mentioned, Don does not share his emotions with other men (51), but he does do it with some women in his life.

“The effect of all this mirroring”, Falkof explains, “the way in which these women see Don and report him back to himself, illustrates again the dependency of heroic masculinity on a hidden but significant substructure of feminine support” (38).

According to Falkof, Don plays various roles of masculinity throughout the show:

“[h]e is the autonomous lone hero, idealised by his workmates and impassively unknowable.

He is the failure, the womanising alcoholic whose life spirals into dissolution. He is the self- made man, the American icon of capitalist success. But there is another, crucial role that Don embodies – that of the father” (39). Don initially has two children, Bobby and Sally Draper.

When Betty finds out Don has cheated on her with Bobbie Barrett and she does not allow Don in the house for a few days, she changes her mind as she finds out she is pregnant with

Eugene. She tries to tell her doctor that she cannot have a baby right now, to which he replies:

“Mrs Draper, if we're having the conversation I think we're having, there are alternatives, obviously. But I find it hard to believe that, as a married woman of means, you would even be considering that. That is an option for young girls who have no other options” (2:13). The fact that Betty would not be able to divorce Don with a baby on the way, is something that can be considered to be consistent with the times of the sixties. However, it is safe to say that the fact that abortion is not so subtly implied here – and also later in the episode when Francine tells

Betty about ‘this’ doctor in Albany – would not be tolerated on television in the diegetic era of Mad Men. In “Shut the Door. After she finds out about his true identity, Betty makes up Serediuc 38 her mind and decides to divorce her husband, which leads to Don’s verbal and physical abuse of his wife.

His picture-perfect marriage with Betty is one of the accountrements that symbolize

his representation of the early-1960s’ version of ideal masculinity, and as that

crumbles, so does his suave demeanor. Once Betty knows that he was born Dick

Whitman, he is no longer able to inhabit the subject position of Don Draper, and he

shows an angry violent self that lurks just below the surface of his Don Draper

persona. (Albrecht 61)

But Albrecht observes that the same episode, in which he becomes violent towards Betty, emphasizes another side of Don’s masculinity – one that after second wave feminism became associated with the ‘new man’, which is Don as the sensitive father who explains to his children about the divorce (61). “[R]einforced by flashbacks to his childhood that show the disdain and indifference that his stepfather showed towards him, Draper seems determined to change the cycle of violence through his paternal relationship with his kids” (61). This is already visible when Betty maintains her position that Don should hit Bobbie for his monkey tricks. One evening, Betty awaits Don at the door and immediately tells him Bobby broke the record player and lied about it. Don goes up to Bobby’s bedroom and tells him not to do it again, but he does not spank him, which angers Betty. Draper tells his wife that Bobby knows he did something wrong, but this does not satisfy Betty: “Don, you have to do something. He needs a spanking. How else is he gonna learn the difference between right and wrong”? (2:4) and later “You think you'd be the man you are today if your father didn't hit you”? (2:4).

When at dinner Bobby spills his drink while playing with his robot, and Betty desperately tells Don to do something, Don angrily throws the robot against the wall yelling: “Is that what you wanted” (2:4)? The viewer later on learns that Don chooses not to spank his children because he was spanked as a child, and it only led him into hating his father and wishing him Serediuc 39 dead. “Just as Don is unable to escape his violent and patriarchal past, the show suggests that the contemporary audience is unable to escape the patriarchal version of masculinity that haunts the present of the twenty-first-century” (Albrecht 61).

According to Falkof “[l]ike much else in Mad Men, though, an ostensibly admirable version of this male identity masks a more complex reality; Don as a father, like Don as a hero, is not what he seems to be” (39). Don repeatedly fails as a father: one example is when he picks up Sally’s birthday cake but never returns home, leaving the rest of the guests to celebrate Sally’s birthday with a cake from Helen Bishop’s freezer. When Sally cuts her hair to resemble Don’s mistress, she is not punished by Don but by a furious Betty who slaps her daughter in the face (Falkof 40). Here, “Don’s gentleness and understanding seem to take precedence over the fact that he chose to go out on a date rather than spend time with the children he rarely sees” (Falkof 40). In another episode, Don goes to Eugene’s birthday party even though Betty told him not to, where he heroically lifts his son in the air. In the same episode, Don later forgets he was supposed to pick up his children and instead lies in bed with a stranger (Falkof 40). According to Falkof, the effects of their divorce is shown most clearly in Betty as she becomes aggressive towards Sally, while Don deals with it by drinking to the point of alcoholism, which is not shown as having an influence on his fatherly duties towards his children (40). Therefore, Falkof explains, “we experience the father’s absence as maternal rather than paternal failure” (40). While Don’s shortcomings as a father are pushed to the background, “Betty’s failures as a parent are made extremely clear; there is no possibility of the viewer failing to notice them. Don’s, on the other hand, are largely expressed offscreen or in passing, while the interactions we see him having with his children are generally loving”

(Falkof 41).

Donald Draper is clearly shown in a more masculine position in comparison to his male counterparts. According to Albrecht, “[t]hough the men in Mad Men enjoy comfortable Serediuc 40 office jobs that require very little physical prowess, they at times need to demonstrate their masculine bona fides by displaying physical ability or narrativizing past physical feats” (58).

He gives an example from “Red in the Face”, in which Roger Sterling, drunk after a dinner with Don and Betty, takes Betty by the arm telling her “You’ve been making eyes at me all night” (1:7). Don immediately notices the tensions between the two and, while acting towards

Roger as if nothing happened the next morning, he gets angry at Betty telling her she made a fool of herself. What happens next, according to Albrecht, is Don showing his “masculine prowess” towards Roger (58-59). After a heavy lunch, the two have to climb multiple flights of stairs since Don has ensured earlier the elevator would not work upon their arrival

(Albrecht 59). After a heavy ascent, Don enters the office as if he just stepped out of the elevator, while Roger arrives covered in sweat and barely able to breathe, topping it up by vomiting before everyone’s eyes (Albrecht 59). “The scene closes with Don Draper exhibiting a knowing smirk as he has, at least in the show’s narrative, demonstrated his virility and prowess over Sterling” (Albrecht 59).

Don’s masculinity and his dominance over other people are often visualized on screen by showing him in low-angle shots. When in the very first episode Peggy Olson, who is trying to fit into her new work environment, puts her hand on that of her boss, thanking Draper for her great first day, he takes away her hand telling her “First of all, Peggy, I'm your boss, not your boyfriend” (1:1). While telling her this, Don is filmed in frog perspective, assuring his authority over Peggy (Fig. 2). After Peggy’s apology, Don becomes friendlier, telling her he knows she is not ‘that kind of girl’ and that tomorrow is a new day. Don is often filmed from below in situations where his masculinity needs to be emphasized. When Pete Campbell receives the news his father has died in a plane crash, the first person he goes to find is

Donald Draper. Though Pete is in constant competition with Don, he entrusts him with this sudden news and expects Draper to tell him what to do. Pete literally asks Don: “What am I Serediuc 41 supposed to do” (2:2)? Don tells him to go home and be with his family. During their conversation, Don is filmed from below (Fig. 3). He is portrayed as a dominant father figure who, though he can sometimes be harsh on Pete, is there when he needs him the most. When

Don is in a less favourable position that undermines his masculinity, however, it is the other character that is shown in a low-angle shot. This occurs during a train ride when a man named

Larry Krisinski meets Don but recognizes him as Dick Whitman. Larry’s information about the protagonist puts him in a superior situation, and this is affirmed by his position as opposed to Don’s on screen (Fig. 4).

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3. Serediuc 42

Fig. 4.

3 ⋅ The Male Employees

Many other male characters in Mad Men are in one way or another connected to Sterling

Cooper, and later to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The four most prominent Sterling Cooper employees are Harry Crane, Ken Cosgrove, Paul Kinsey and Pete Campbell. The overall behaviour of these young office members is characterized by boyish acts. Harry, Ken and

Paul are quickly distracted from their tasks at work by the female beauty that is ubiquitous in the office. They often assert their masculinity through machismo behaviour towards women, and their ‘compliments’ to the female co-workers are often filled with misogynous remarks.

Though their attitude would be tolerated at the time, the show noticeably magnifies it by dedicating a lot of screen time to it. The high frequency of their patronizing behaviour towards women in the series can therefore be considered to be a twenty-first century outlook on the issue.

Though Kenneth “Ken” Cosgrove often participates in the misogynous remarks, he seems to have reached a maturity his co-workers have yet to discover. Ken works as the account executive for Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency, and he later becomes a freelance writer under the pseudonyms Ben Hargrove and Dave Algonquin. His relations with Peggy Serediuc 43 are an example of Ken’s evolution in character. In the beginning of the series, when Peggy rips her skirt due to weight gain from her unknown pregnancy, Ken makes fun of her telling the others: “I think we're seeing the real her. One of those girls who slimmed down before she got here. Now she's here, and there she is. (…) It's a tragedy. Piece of fruit that went real bad real fast. And no one ever got to eat it” (1:9). Very quickly, however, Ken’s relationship with

Peggy improves as he often compliments her on her good work and he seems to be the first to take her work seriously and to consider her as ‘one of the men’. Ken’s masculinity is not only confirmed through his behaviour towards Peggy, but also, and more importantly, because of his creative nature and his daring to be proud of his talents and accomplishments. In the first season, Ken’s short story Tapping a Maple on a Cold Vermont Morning gets published in the national magazine Atlantic Monthly, which causes a profound jealousy amongst his co- workers, and especially in Pete Campbell, as will be discussed later. He is what Harris calls a

‘scholar’ (13): Kenny most likely enjoyed a college education, he is knowledgeable and since he is a writer, he is presumably also a reader.

Throughout the show, Peter “Pete” Campbell is in search of himself as a person and as a career man. Born and married into a rich family – his father is Andrew Campbell and his mother Dorothy is a member of the influential Dyckman family; his father-in-law is Tom

Vogel – he seems to have it all. Pete wants to assert his masculinity by fulfilling Harris’s messages (12-13), but he fails with every try. He tries to resemble his father when it comes to accumulating wealth, but in the eyes of his father Pete, as an ad man, is a failure; he tries to excel at his job but Peggy and other co-workers often prove to be more successful; Pete wants to be the breadwinner, to be self-reliant, but it is his father-in-law who buys the apartment

Pete shares with his wife Trudy; he is not in control of his job as he is almost fired but is eventually saved by his influential last name; he is an unfaithful husband and he is not a tough guy because he is often pushed around at work. Serediuc 44

Pete’s relationship with Peggy is of a precarious nature and the spectator cannot possibly determine whether he hates her or loves her. In “Meditations in an Emergency”, the trope of knowing reoccurs, but this time it is not connected to the character of Donald Draper, but to that of Pete Campbell. With the threat of a nuclear war, Pete tells Peggy he has been thinking about her and everything that has been going on. “And I thought who'd care if I was gone? I mean, Trudy would care, but she doesn't know me. But you do. And I know you. And

I think you're perfect” (2:13). He continues to tell Peggy he should have picked her then and that he loves her. Peggy then informs him about their child she gave away and tells him she could have had him for the rest of her life if she wanted to, but she did not because she wanted other things in life. Pete’s affection for Peggy is further revealed as he stands up for her against Ken. When Peggy leaves the office to go home, Ken tells Paul: “It's good she left.

It probably wasn't going to happen for her tonight”, to which Paul answers: “It depends how much we drink” (1:9). Ken tops his answer with: “How drunk do you have to be? My brother works at the Exchange. They call a girl like her a lobster. All the meat's in the tail” (1:9).

When the men start laughing, Pete becomes angry and starts fighting Ken.

Pete’s ambiguous behaviour towards Peggy is caused by the fact that he cannot deal with her as a colleague and a competitor for status and it seems that he can only feel affection and sexual jealousy as long as Peggy, in his mind, is not also a competitor for professional status. When Don suggests Peggy would be the perfect writer for Clearasil, the account Pete brought in with the help of his father-in-law, Pete is insulted and tells Don: “This is my father-in-law. He's expecting the very best. I'm expecting the very best, not some little girl who'll walk away” (1:13). When Pete uses the fact that Peggy is not even a copywriter but just a secretary as an argument, Don calls Peggy in and promotes her to junior copywriter and gives her Clearasil as her new account. Serediuc 45

Not only at work but also at home, Pete strives to become the masculine ideal. In this environment, too, he fails miserably every time. His failure in reaching the preferred masculinity is underlined by the emphasis on his child-like nature when, for example, he is shown eating cookies and drinking milk in bed next to his wife (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5.

In the same episode, his child-like attitude is further highlighted by his quest for fame. After hearing about Ken’s success with his published story, Campbell, filled with jealousy, writes his own short story. Though his wife Trudy thinks the story is too modern, Pete convinces her to meet with Charlie Fiddich, who is a publisher but also her ex-boyfriend, to persuade him to publish Pete’s story. Charlie agrees to publish it in Boy’s Life Magazine, which angers Pete, because, as he tells his wife, “you don’t want me to have what I want” (1:5). Pete suggests

Trudy could have done much more than just meet with Charlie to get him published in a more important magazine. His wife then angrily tells him that she could have gotten his story published in the New Yorker or the Encyclopedia Britannica if she wanted to, implying she could have slept with her ex, but that she did not. Campbell does not understand why his proposition is preposterous and asks Trudy: “So why didn't you? Why would you do that to me” (1:5)? In Pete’s artless attempt to be better or as good as Kenny, he does not realize what exactly he expects his wife to do. Pete again fails to attain masculinity because he is Serediuc 46 determined to reach his goal not through hard work, but through deception by using his wife

Trudy. Pete does not possess the message of self-reliance because he asks for help and depends on others, which, as indicated by Harris, is a sign of weakness (13).

In the many things he does, Pete wants to resemble Donald Draper, but he always fails, as his desired masculinity is unstable and miles away from the childish approach to life that he displays. The show often hints at ways in which Pete tries to imitate and sometimes even impersonate his rival Don because, in his eyes, Don has already reached the masculine ideal Pete wants to achieve in his career. In “Indian Summer” Pete, jealous of Don’s success, goes into his boss’s office and sits in Don’s chair with his legs on the desk. A mail boy delivers a package from Don’s brother Adam Whitman and gives the package to Pete, thinking he is Donald Draper. In this moment Pete literally impersonates Don by sitting in his chair and this is enhanced by his posing as Draper while accepting the package. With the information in the box, Pete learns about Draper’s past and his true identity. This knowledge makes him feel so superior to the point that he talks to Bert Cooper about Don’s secret in order to get him fired. Don continues to work for Sterling Cooper, however, and since he cannot fire Pete because of his influential family, Draper acts as if he was the one who fought to keep Campbell in the company, resulting in Pete’s obedience to Don.

Another trait shared by Pete and Don is being unfaithful in their marriage. Pete is bitter because he does not seem able to reach the masculine status he desires at home and at work. Don finds himself in a never-ending battle between his past and his present and he is unable to understand who he truly is. Both men express their unhappiness through the act of being unfaithful to their wives – Pete even cheats on Trudy with Peggy during his bachelor party. The fact that Pete would like to be in Don’s position is subtly visible in the way both men call their wives: Don calls his wife Betty Draper ‘Birdy’; Pete calls his wife Trudy

Vogel, whose last name refers to a bird, ‘Tweety’, again insinuating a bird. Serediuc 47

II - Sexuality

The countless sex and lovemaking scenes between husbands and wives, girlfriends and boyfriends, married men and single women, or single men and married women are essential indicators of the importance of the sexual aspect in Mad Men. The value of sexuality is particularly noticeable in the show’s straightforward portrayal of the theme. In the sixties, an important boost in women’s sexuality was established with the approval of the birth control pill, giving them the freedom to explore their feminine sexuality in a more relaxing manner and without having to think of possible consequences. The pill offers young women equal opportunities in the sexual field, allowing them to enjoy their carefree youths, as was the case for their male peers. It gave both sexes a chance to enjoy sexual encounters for the sake of pleasure and not just with the prospect of expanding the family. Not only did the contraceptive pill stimulate women’s sexuality, it also provided them with the opportunity of outgrowing the role of housewife, and of going to work alongside their husbands. The sixties were only a decade away from the free-spirited seventies, in which open sexuality and sexual expression were becoming increasingly acceptable. The progressive embracing of sexuality in the sixties is therefore an inevitable historical evolution. However, even though censorship was becoming more and more accepting at the time, it is hard to believe the innumerable explicit sexual scenes in Mad Men would be tolerated during this decade. Hence, the straightforward representation of the theme as done in the series is certainly a present-day influence.

Serediuc 48

Chapter 3 • The Birth Control Pill and Women’s Sexuality

The female attitude towards sexuality underwent a major shift in the nineteen-sixties. In a

1971 study, Kenneth L. Cannon and Richard Long found that more and more young women – that is 23 percent in 1968 in comparison to 10 percent in 1958 – were engaging in sexual relationships with their significant others before marriage (40-41). In addition, the duo noticed a decline from 1958 to 1968 in the percentage of girls who felt they had “gone too far” in all types of relationships (40-41). Steven Seidman confirms the previous findings by observing that “the exclusive legitimacy of marriage as the proper site for heterosexual sex gave way to more flexible conventions that tolerated sex in varied relational settings. This was related to the appearance of discourses that defended sex for its pleasurable and expressive qualities apart from its functioning as a medium of love or procreation” (293). This new untroubled female attitude towards sexuality is plainly visible in Mad Men, more specifically in the receptiveness of the young single girls with whom Roger Sterling and some of his male colleagues spend their time after, and sometimes even during, the office hours. Young models coming into the company for castings are often carefully picked out from the waiting rooms by confident young, and not so young, men who convincingly persuade them with corny compliments and enactments of some kind of machismo behaviour. The girls are willing to follow the men wherever they suggest to take them, while being well aware of the fact that their pleasures will be a one-time-only adventure. In episode “Nixon vs. Kennedy”, after some heavy drinking during an office party before the presidential elections, the married

Harry Crane and Hildy, Pete’s secretary, end up sleeping with each other in Harry’s office.

The next morning, after waking up on top of Harry wearing only her half-slip, Hildy tells him not to worry because “[i]t didn't mean anything” (1:12). After Hildy has left his office, another secretary is shown leaving the office next to Harry’s. The young women, sexually engaging with men without consequences, are well aware of the fact that these are one-night Serediuc 49 stands and one cannot but assume that they are prepared for such moments with some form of contraceptive. When Peggy and her male partner for the night lie down kissing on his sofa, she asks if he has an “you know” (3:2). After he replies that he does not have a condom,

Peggy is very straightforward and suggests that “there are other things [they] could do” without a condom (3:2).

In a 2015 Time article, Eliana Dockterman enumerates some historic events as they chronologically occur in the fictional show. Her list begins in May 1960 with the innovation that socially changed women’s lives forever; that is, with the approval of the birth control pill by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (Dockterman). According to Elizabeth Siegel

Watkins, after its invention, the pill had rather different consequences than originally intended by its developers. It so happens that the pill was invented with the mere goal of serving as “a scientifically based, technological solution to the social problems of family planning and population control”, however, it quickly became generally accepted as “the preferred method of birth control among both women and doctors in the first half of the 1960s” (Watkins 1).

Goldin and Katz confirm that “its diffusion was so rapid that, by 1965, 40 percent of young married women, using some form of contraception, were ‘on the pill’” (462).

Watkins denies the common belief that the contraceptive pill brought about the sexual revolution of the sixties as there is no data to prove it, but she agrees with the fact that the pill caused a contraceptive revolution (2). During the 1960s and the early 1970s, demographers have studied the contraceptive habits of married women for their documentation of the contraceptive revolution, while sociologists were looking at the habits of unmarried women for their study of the sexual revolution (Watkins 2). “Journalists combined the two contemporaneous changes and developed the lasting image of the pill as symbol of the sexual revolution; scientists and the public accepted and promoted this interpretation of the pill”

(Watkins 2). Serediuc 50

As formerly discussed in the first chapter, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz believed the increase of women in the professional sector was significantly linked to the use of the birth control pill (461). Golding and Katz state the following:

The pill greatly increased the reliability of contraception and its ease of use. In the

absence of reliable contraception, a young woman embarking on a lengthy

professional education would have to pay the penalty of abstinence or cope with

considerable uncertainty regarding pregnancy. The pill, therefore, enabled a larger

group of women to invest in expensive, long- duration training and not pay as high a

price. This direct effect of the pill lowers the price to women of long-duration

education. (464)

This can be connected to the fact that many professional women portrayed in Mad Men enjoyed a college education and pursue their careers, and they can easily plan a few brief affairs into their schedule.

Though legal, the pill was still stigmatized as giving women the dreaded freedom to explore their sexuality. Watkins explains that the attitude towards the pill in the sixties depended on the social class of the woman taking it: a woman from the middle or upper class taking any form of birth control was frowned upon because it implied her having sex, and even worse, her planning her sexual actions beforehand; lower-class unmarried women taking the pill were less of a concern to people than the actual economic effect of unwanted babies

(2).

Even if the actual approval is not mentioned directly in Mad Men, the birth control pill is considered to already be a legal drug for women, as Peggy Olson obtains her prescription upon recommendation from Joan in the year 1960 in the pilot episode. Before giving her the prescription, Dr Emerson warns Peggy he will take her off the pill if she is going to abuse it.

Peggy assures the doctor she is very responsible, to which he answers: “Well, I'm sure you're Serediuc 51 not that kind of girl. Now, Joan… I'm just kidding along here” (1:1). Peggy is a neat middle- class girl expected to eventually get married and to start a family; therefore she cannot allow herself to have too much fun before settling down into this traditional pattern. Though in theory Joan is in the same position as Peggy, her doctor does not seem to mind her abusing the birth control pill from time to time to his own advantage. Joan does not mind either: some time after getting her prescription, Joan questions Peggy about her visit to the doctor, adding:

“Dr Emerson's a dream, isn't he? (…) He has a place in South Hampton. I'm not saying that

I've seen it, but it's beautiful” (1:1).

Another example of the class-based stigma can be found in episode “Marriage of

Figaro”: as Betty goes through Helen Bishop’s personal things while babysitting her children, she stumbles upon the birth control pill in one of Helen’s bathroom drawers. The look on

Betty’s face during her discovery reveals little surprise, as among the married women of the neighbourhood, Helen Bishop is already known as the divorcee who likes to take long walks around the area in the evenings. The women of the community are seemingly threatened by

Helen’s arrival and especially by her flirty nature. Helen being a middle-class woman already aggravates the fact that she takes the oral contraceptive, and this is further intensified by her divorcee status.

Because it was approved in the same year as Peggy receiving her prescription in the series, the pill would be a sensitive subject to show on television at the time, especially since the discovery of the pill’s negative health effects lead to a feminist critique on the oral birth control and to a critique on the “male medical profession and its role in women’s reproductive health” (Watkins 1-2). Therefore, this topic is inserted in Mad Men with the mentality of a time in which the pill is generally accepted.

It can be concluded that the times were changing when it came to expressing and experiencing sexuality, especially as they were moving closer and closer to the seventies. The Serediuc 52 birth control pill enhanced those changes by offering girls and boys the opportunity to further explore their sexualities without having to think about possible consequences. In Mad Men, sexuality is often emphasized by the numerous portrayals of sexual scenes and scenes that show adulterous relationships. While it is a proven fact that sexual freedom was increasing, and it can be assumed Mad Men’s production team wanted to portray this positive progress, it is quite difficult to believe such direct sexual representations would be allowed on television in the sixties as censorship was still active in the USA during the time. The various sexual references are in reality a modern addition to a show that depicts an era in which explicit sexual scenes would not be tolerated on television.

Serediuc 53

Chapter 4 • Censorship

With the advent of motion picture everything changed, but that was not always for the better.

As early as in the days of the silent movies, debates about the “content and control of this new medium” emerged, and these were even intensified with the invention of sound films (Vaughn

39). According to Stephen Vaughn “[p]rogressive reformers and religious and civic organizations, as well as local authorities, tried with varying degrees of success to suppress pictures that dealt with a wide range of controversial themes”, among which were birth control, abortion, sexual license, suicide and drinking (40). Vaughn further explains that in

1908 already, law enforcements did not permit nickelodeons in Chicago to show Night Riders

(1908) because “it encouraged ‘malicious mischief, arson, and murder’” (40). In 1930, the

Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) established the Production

Code in an effort to control the content of the movies. Paul Monaco explicates that the major

Hollywood studios founded the Production Code in order to be in line with governmental censorship (56). Brisbin mentions that due to the Depression, a decrease in ticket sales and the expenses of transferring to new sound technology, the MPPDA “lacked the desire and the means for the enforcement of the Code” (4). This meant that several movies that were screened did not respect the code on the level of content, and showed, among others, leftist messages, violence and explicit sexuality (Brisbin 4). What followed was the search for scientific studies by various religious leaders – the Roman Catholic and the Protestant clerics

–, which showed the negative effects of movies on children, collecting assistance for national motion picture censorship (Brisbin 4). This eventually led to the foundation of the PCA

(Production Code Administration) in 1934 by the studio leadership and by Will Hays, who was the president of the MPPDA, leaving behind the previous attempts of control of the studios (Brisbin 4). According to Brisbin, the PCA was created to enforce the Production

Code, while aiming at reducing the risk to directors and producers who tried to circumvent the Serediuc 54

Production Code from Catholic criticism and from public officials aiming at censoring (4).

“To achieve this goal, the PCA served as both a surveillance body and central negotiating site for the participants in movie regulation. To perform these tasks, the PCA developed an autonomous role in the censorship bargaining” (Brisbin 4). From 1934 to 1968 the regulation of motion pictures’ content was a constant bargaining process between the PCA, the Catholic

Legion of Decency, the film studios, the state and local government censors (Brisbin 2-3).

The PCA, under the rule of director Joseph J. Breen, handled as follows:

(1) It remained up to date about elements that could lead to objections, complaints and

cuts by both state and foreign censorship boards, by the Legion of Decency and by

other groups or individuals;

(2) producers were obliged to send every script and musical lyric to the PCA;

(3) the PCA examined the visual and musical elements of the movies in rough-cut and

often for a second time in final cut to be sure it was within the bounds of approval and,

if necessary, a member of the PCA would visit the movie set to negotiate about

‘difficult scenes’ for which the PCA staff recommended eliminating scenes with

“shots of sensual touching; hugging in bed; open mouthed kissing; seductive dances;

the display of intimate garments off the body; female characters in underwear or brief

bathing suits; suggestions of nudity, sadism, and rape; and costumes with ‘undue’ or

‘unacceptable’ exposure of female breasts” (Brisbin 4-5);

(4) the PCA aimed at removing scenes that alluded to homosexuality;

(5) members of the PCA discussed the representation of foreign nations and ethnic

groups with the studio as a means of evading foreign censorship;

(6) two PCA staff members inspected the script while a third judged the entire movie

with, if necessary, negotiations with the studio for further eliminations; Serediuc 55

(7) the PCA presented the approved movie the MPPDA seal of approval that was

almost always necessary before being able to show a movie (Brisbin 4-5).

Paul Monaco explains that the seal of approval was “awarded based on adherence to a set of guidelines largely concerned with how sex and criminality were treated in a film” (56). “Once the PCA issued a seal, the movie underwent review by state and local censors and the Legion of Decency” (Brisbin 5). Brisbin further explains that producers, in an attempt to maintain the respectability of not being censored, tried their best not to violate the rules set up by the PCA; this was done from the very beginning of the introduction of censorship (5). The producers who did transgress the limits of the acceptable, faced the consequences of having to cut improper scenes from their movies. According to Brisbin, “[a] majority of state censor’s deletions appear to have involved cutting a few dozen feet of film to eliminate nudity, erotic touching and caressing, sexually suggestive body movements, erotic and suggestive dialogue, interracial kissing, scenes of childbirth, profanity, and ‘indelicate’ words” (5).

As mentioned above, the PCA paid a significant amount of attention to homosexual representations and even to allusions to it. According to Pennington, “[t]he wording of the

Code’s prohibitions against homosexuality reflected both the antihomosexual [sic] beliefs of the Catholic Church and the dominant pathological view of homosexuality at the time as a

‘sex perversion’”, and, therefore, the PCA forbade any type of representation of homosexuality (130). At the institution of the Production Code, this ban was easily ignored, but once the Code was strictly enforced by the PCA, even lesbian kisses were banished from the television screens (Pennington 130-132).

During the years in which the PCA was fully operating, there was an inflow of foreign films that did not have to satisfy the rules of the Code since they were not produced by the

Hollywood studios (Monaco 58). Foreign movies such as the French Hiroshima, mon Amour

(1959) by Alain Resnais and the Italian La Dolce Vita (1960) by Federico Fellini, flooded Serediuc 56 across the American screens and “were all sexually daring compared to contemporary

Hollywood releases. (…) Their success pointed to a market for movies with adult treatment of sexuality and occasional nude scenes that could not be seen at home on television in the

United States” (Monaco 58). This need for a more tolerable television and cinema led to the disintegration of the PCA and eventually to its disappearance. In 1968 the PCA was replaced by the CARA, the Classification and Rating Administration, which was “a ratings board to assign movie ratings and inform parents about the suitability of a movie for children” (Brisbin

18). The CARA proved very effective as it has remained the rating system for movies until our present day (Lach 573). To demonstrate the irrevocable change that took place after the replacement of the PCA with the CARA, Richard Brisbin gives an example of the movies

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? from 1966 and A Clockwork Orange from 1971. While state, local and industry censorship almost prevented Elizabeth Taylor from saying “You son of a bitch” in the first movie, the latter contained “a scene of rape, frontal nudity, and an accelerated sequence depicting a ménage-à-trois” (Brisbin 1). Mad Men takes place in a time in which the PCA was still active, and therefore, the countless sexual scenes between men and women and the representation of homosexuality in such a direct and positive way would presumably not be tolerated at the time, which again proves Mad Men is a product of our present-day mind-set rather than of the long-gone sixties.

Serediuc 57

Chapter 5 • Homosexuality in Mad Men

The display of sexuality in Mad Men is approached in a direct but elegant manner – direct in the sense that the characters are often portrayed having straightforward sexual interactions; elegant in the sense that a lot is left to the imagination during the sex scenes, as the actual act is never shown. More than once the spectator is allowed a glance in the characters’ private lives, which not only reveal some hidden secrets but also show the characters in the most intimate and vulnerable way possible, that is, moments before or after their sexual experience.

Donald Draper’s character as Mad Men’s adulterous protagonist is mainly formed through the portrayal of his numerous sexual pleasures outside his two marriages – but he is most certainly not the only character shown in that position. Draper’s colleague and friend Roger

Sterling is repeatedly shown enjoying myriads of extramarital rendezvous’ with Joan

Holloway and with other young female characters. Beside the countless portrayals of infidelity, Mad Men also depicts married couples and young careless characters in the bedroom. Sexuality, though, is not only dealt with through the traditional representation and insinuation of heterosexual sex, but also through the presence of gay characters.

Mad Men comprises at least three definite homosexual figures, Salvatore Romano,

Kurt Smith and Joyce Ramsay, of whom some have a more clear-cut sexual orientation than others. Two of these three Mad Men characters live a happy life outside the closet, while a third is hiding his true feelings behind the façade of a seemingly happy marriage. Kurt and

Joyce’s openness about their sexual orientation is represented rather positively, making one question whether this would be the case at the time the series is shown to take place. During the sixties, the public attitudes towards people with ‘other’, ‘non-traditional’ sexual behaviour were slowly improving, but they were still precarious. Jody W. Pennington explains that until the late 1960s, gays and lesbians were forced in the background of American society due to legal and medical sanctions including sodomy laws and psychiatric diagnoses (129). Serediuc 58

Simultaneously, the representation of homosexual individuals in mainstream films was limited by the intervention of the Code (Pennington 129). After the Code was amended in the early 1960s, “Hollywood began peaking inside the closet”, though movies throughout the

1960s typically “reflected widespread antigay sentiments” (Pennington 129). “Sex aberration” was allowed after 1961, but it still had to be treated with discretion, restraint and care

(Pennington 132). With the modern gay liberation movement in the late 1960s, more and more homosexual individuals “came ‘out’, increasing their political and legal efforts to change their status in the United States”, but it was only in the 1970s that “attitudes toward homosexuality gradually became more positive both off-screen and on-screen” (Pennington

129).

Well aware of his precarious position in society as a gay man, Mad Men’s Salvatore

Romano maintains a low profile when it comes to his sexual feelings and he hides behind his marriage with his wife Kitty. His sexual orientation is never clearly mentioned, but Sal is more than once shown to prefer male company to that of women. After Lois Sadler’s invitation for drinks with the rest of the Sterling Cooper employees as a celebration of

Peggy’s success for the Belle Jolie ad, Sal confirms with little enthusiasm in his voice and in his expression. According to Wallace, Salvatore’s intimate telephone conversations with his mother are a clear indicator of his homosexuality: “Unlike the naive LoisSadler, who thinks a grown man’s intimacy with his mother indicates his eligibility as a husband, we take this as reliable evidence to the contrary” (214).

Instead of going to P. J. Clarke's, where his colleagues are dancing the cha-cha and the twist as Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” blasts from the jukebox, Salvatore goes to the

Roosevelt Hotel to meet with Elliot Lawrence from the Belle Jolie account. The reason for their encounter is Elliot’s energetic report about the renovations of the hotel earlier that day in the office and Sal’s seeming interest in the hotel’s transformation. After drinks at the bar, the Serediuc 59 two men move to the restaurant where they have dinner and where Elliot invites Sal to his hotel room to see the view from up there. Salvatore expresses an uncertain “I don’t know” and Elliot asks his companion if he can taste some of his Sambuca con la mosca as an excuse to touch Sal’s hand that is holding the glass (1:8). Sal refuses Elliot’s approach and his advice to drink another glass and to think about it, telling him “Elliot, I have thought about it. I know what I want. I know what I want to do”, presumably implying he cannot express his true self if he wants to achieve what he wants in life (1:8). Elliot correctly assumes Romano is inexperienced and reassures him by telling Sal he will show him what to do. He then asks Sal what he is afraid of, to which Romano responds in a rather outraged way: “Are you joking”?, upon which he leaves the restaurant and with that also his very first homosexual encounter, at least from the spectator’s point of view (1:8). Salvatore clearly fears the consequences of his feelings, but his curiosity appears to be much stronger: he decided to go to the hotel after clearly understanding Elliot’s flirtations earlier that day.

After finishing his new short story The Gold Violin, Ken asks Salvatore to take a look at it, since he is not like the others in the office: while the other employees made fun and were jealous of Ken, Salvatore was one of the few to actually appreciate his work. Ken is invited for dinner with Sal and his wife Kitty in their home, where Salvatore only pays attention to

Ken and does not even give Kitty the opportunity to participate in their conversations. Kitty eventually notices Salvatore’s ‘divergence’ after she tries to seduce Sal while he is in bed and he uses the excuse of being too busy with work. At that moment, Salvatore was in charge of the “Bye Bye Birdie” remake for the new diet Pepsi product called ‘Patio’. Kitty questions her husband about his strange behaviour the last few months and tells him: “You know, I don't need that much, but I do need tending”, referring to her lack of sexual satisfaction (3:4).

Salvatore ensures her it has to do with his job and then stands up to perform the “Bye Bye

Birdie” commercial in front of his wife, extending his hand and waving goodbye (Fig. 6), Serediuc 60 holding his ‘dress’ in both hands (Fig. 7) and looking seductively over his shoulder (Fig. 8), leaving Kitty flabbergasted and lost for words (3:4). It is at this moment that Kitty realizes her husband is not behaving like other husbands are.

Fig. 6.

Fig. 7. Serediuc 61

Fig. 8.

Salvatore’s sexual attraction to men reaches its peak in the series when he is kissed by the bellhop after the latter fixed the air conditioner in Romano’s hotel room. What follows is a shaking and panting Salvatore while the young man is undressing himself. When Don descends the fire escape stairs he sees his co-worker with the bellboy, he pauses, and then continues going down. On their way back from Baltimore, Sal is in complete shock as Don tells him: “I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to be completely honest with me”

(3:1). Sal, and the spectator, immediately assume Don will address what he has witnessed in

Sal’s hotel room during the evacuation, but the mood quickly improves as Don starts to talk about the London Fog ad and gives the tagline “Limit your Exposure” (3:1). According to Lee

Wallace, Don’s tagline has the double duty of unspoken advice and of making sure what happened will never be addressed directly (215). “‘Limit your exposure’, he says, thereby mandating the closet in the very act of stepping back from it, a position that is simply not available to the gay man in the world in which the story is set though it is presumed to be a possibility in the world in which that story is watched” (Wallace 215).

Because of his job as art director, Salvatore has several “workplace privileges that compensate a closeted existence: the freedom to look at other men, the freedom to sketch and direct beautiful women as versions of himself, the freedom to judge in matters of fashion and Serediuc 62 design” (Wallace 216). According to Wallace, Sal’s kiss with the bellhop frees him from his position as a latent homosexual man: he then becomes a visible gay man within the sphere of the story, which immediately makes him “vulnerable to the sexually rapacious heir to the

Lucky Strike fortune” (215). “This mode of gay being as an aesthetic sensibility (…) is terminated by the roughhouse treatment Sal receives at the hands of another man, Lee Garner

Jnr, the work-hard, play-hard Lucky Strike man who represents in sexual and commodity terms the drive for gratification cut free of any social responsibility” (Wallace 216). Sal rejects Lee Garner Jnr’s advances by telling him, in a rather confident manner, that he is married (3:9). After he implies Garner should leave his office, Sal starts throwing around things in anger, probably out of disgust for Lee and his overfamiliar approach, the same man who earlier did not take Romano and his work serious by calling him ‘Sally’. Offended by

Salvatore’s denial, Lee Garner Jnr misuses his power and insists on Sal’s dismissal from the company. When Romano tells Don what happened, Don seems disappointed in Sal’s reaction, to which Romano reacts emotionally and shocked: “I guess I was just supposed to do whatever he wanted? What if it was some girl” (3:9)? Before Sal is officially fired, Don coldly replies: “That would depend on what kind of girl it was and what I knew about her.

You people”, revealing Don’s opinion that Sal should have given in because he is a homosexual (3:9). In comparison to Sal and his fate, “Lee, who represents another kind of fag, remains integral to Sterling Cooper when it relaunches as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in Season Four, establishing in story terms at least that the recesses of the closet are for anyone to use except the man who might need it most” (Wallace 216). In a way, Sal loses his job because of his sexual preference. Therefore, his story, and especially its outcome, accurately represents the difficulties gay people were facing during the sixties. The display of his homosexual encounters, on the other hand, are only possible in a twenty-first century setting. Serediuc 63

Kurt Smith, an employee for Sterling Cooper’s creative department, is Mad Men’s most pronounced and perhaps proudest gay character. Kurt invites Peggy to join him at a Bob

Dylan concert and later that day, in the break room, he reminds her he will pick her up at eight, causing the other Sterling Cooper employees to raise their brows at Kurt’s proposal.

Harry, in a jokingly, but simultaneously condescending manner, reacts to the situation with

“Peggy and Kurt in the Village, oh, my” (2:11). After everyone has had their saying, Kurt corrects the others and informs them in the most natural way that he is homosexual. After

Ken’s remark that that ‘homosexual’ does not mean what Kurt thinks it means, Kurt corrects him and the others again: “I make love with the man, not the woman” (2:11). This immediately silences every individual in the room, and everyone is shown to clearly be in shock and confused by this information, including Peggy. Harry, still in shock, asks Kurt’s colleague Smitty Smith if he knew about this, to which Smitty replies that Kurt is from

Europe and that it is different there. Harry then tells the others: “So Kurt is a pervert”, to which Ken adds: “I knew queers existed. I just don’t want to work with them” (2:11). In the meantime, Salvatore is shown to keep aloof from the conversation, hinting at his own homosexual desires.

Peggy seemed rather doubtful about accepting Kurt’s proposal of going to the concert earlier on, telling him she does not want to impose and that she lives all the way in Brooklyn, possibly because she does not understand why Kurt would show so much interest in her. Even if she is just as shocked as the others by Kurt’s straightforward statement in the office, she does not look down on him, but she cannot hide her disappointment either. When Kurt comes to pick Peggy up in her Brooklyn apartment, she unburdens herself by sharing her feelings of loneliness with Kurt, telling him she does not know why she always picks the wrong boys – this time again, she picked a ‘wrong’ boy – and she asks Kurt what is wrong with her.

Peggy’s new friend informs her she is just “old style” and offers to “fix her” just before they Serediuc 64 leave for the concert (2:11). He sits her down on a bar stool in the middle of her kitchen and cuts her hair, transforming Peggy in a more modern workingwoman. As mentioned earlier in the discussion of Salvatore Romano, Lee Wallace interprets the gay man’s telephone conversation with his mother and the intimacy between the two as a stereotype for his homosexuality. He then adds that Mad Men “starts out making the viewer, not just the gay viewer but any viewer schooled in gay cliche [sic]" (Wallace 214). In the light of Wallace’s statement, Kurt’s skills with a pair of scissors and his ability to transform a woman and give her more confidence about her appearance could also be considered as an indication of his cliché gay behaviour.

Later on, Peggy befriends another homosexual friend, this time a woman named Joyce

Ramsay. The two meet in the elevator and start a conversation about a pile of rejected pictures

Joyce holds in her hand. Joyce, who works as an assistant photo editor for Life magazine, explains to Peggy a friend of hers took the pictures, but they got rejected by her boss because he hates nudes. Peggy takes a look at the photos of nude female models and Joyce jokingly closes the folder as Peggy touches one of the pictures. After their brief encounter in the elevator, Ramsay comes up to the reception of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce to invite Peggy to a party downtown. Upon leaving, Joyce takes a look at Megan, the reception secretary, and says: “Thanks, sweetheart” (4:4). At the party, Joyce starts licking Peggy’s neck, telling her she is ‘hungry’ after smoking her joint, to which Peggy replies she has a boyfriend. When

Joyce tells her he does not own her vagina, Peggy jokingly answers: “No, but he's renting it”

(4:4).

A few episodes later, Joyce puts in an appearance again, but this time in Peggy’s office. As Peggy enters, Stan informs her Joyce is in her office by saying in a rather joking way: “Peggy, your boyfriend is here” (4:9). As the girls are having a conversation and Joyce is inviting Peggy for drinks, Stan starts singing Petula Clark’s “Downtown”, replacing Serediuc 65

“downtown” with “midtown”, probably referring to Midtown Sacramento in California where

Lavender Heights is situated, Sacramento’s gay-lesbian district: “When you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go Midtown” (4:9). The girls do not really seem to mind Stan’s joking around and he then tells Joyce: “I'm not shocked by your lesbian hijinks. I just hope you know you can never do what a man can do” (4:9). Joyce is not insulted at all, admitting he is right, and then turning to Peggy to lick her face in front of Stan, whose facial expression is a mixture of disgust and pleasure.

What is clearly noticeable in Peggy’s behaviour, and in that of Stan, is the light- hearted handling of the topic of homosexuality. Their openness to people with a different sexual orientation is in great contrast with the reactions Kurt received in the break room earlier in the series. Though Peggy and Stan’s approach can only be encouraged, it is reasonable to assume the depiction of their acceptance in the series is a kind of tolerance avant la lettre. As discussed earlier, up until the 1960s, gay people were facing harsh times due to sodomy laws and even psychiatric diagnoses (Pennington 129). In addition to the exclusion of gays and lesbians in public life, the PCA did everything in its power to put a stop to the representation and to every implication of homosexuality. The PCA discouraged loopholes by supervising every script and watching an entire movie before it would appear for the big public (Brisbin 4-5).

Serediuc 66

Chapter 6 • Donald Draper’s Sexual Transgressions

Donald Draper is Mad Men’s most sexual character on screen. As discussed in the second chapter, Don’s numerous sexual encounters are partly linked to his search of knowing himself through the female characters and to his need to move on to the next woman when the one he is with at the time does not suffice for that role anymore. But it can also be linked to Don’s hunger for power and his yearning need to feed his sex addiction. In addition to several one- night stands, Draper sometimes holds on to some women for a longer time. However, his relationships with those women always remain somewhat superficial; Don never goes very far on the emotional level, not even with two wives. He keeps looking for something that is never named throughout the seven seasons, and he never seems to be satisfied with just one woman.

Don clearly does not believe in love, or at least not in the common idea of true forever love everyone is talking about and searching for. Nonetheless, Don does express his love to various women a few times, but he has a different interpretation of the concept. In the very first episode, he tells Rachel Menken: “You mean the big lightning bolt to the heart where you can't eat and you can't work and you just run off and get married and make babies. The reason you haven't felt it is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons” (1:1). When he calls Faye Miller to inform her of his recent engagement with Megan, Faye is heartbroken and tells him: “Well, I hope you're very happy, and I hope she knows you only like the beginnings of things” (4:13). Don does seem to only like the beginning of things as he quickly loses interest in most women with whom he has ever shared his bed.

It all begins with Midge Daniels, Don’s very first mistress on screen, who, as mentioned earlier, gets introduced before his actual wife Betty. After bringing Betty to the psychiatrist, he goes to his own “psychiatrist” Midge, telling her he is not feeling good either.

Midge is well aware of Don’s marriage, but she tells him not to mention his wife because it Serediuc 67 makes her feel cruel. Don’s mistress is leading the unworried life of an artist, and she has friends who are just as carefree and who enjoy a nice evening of smoking marihuana. Don tells Midge he cannot decide if she has everything or nothing, presumably implying he is considering becoming like her (1:2). On the one hand, she has everything: she is an unmarried woman who can do whatever and whenever she wants. On the other hand, though, Midge is completely alone and she is just a mistress to someone. When Don receives his promotion, he takes the check to Midge and asks her to go to Paris with him. But after he takes a picture of

Midge and her friend Roy, Don realizes the two are in love and this puts an end to their affair.

According to Jeremy Varon, when it comes to Donald Draper, the most important question is whether he is capable of a legitimate transformation (267). Varon doubts it, because “[w]henever he is cornered, Don's instinct is to scoop up the woman du jour and escape, which is something far different from change” (Varon 267). And this is exactly what he does with Rachel Menken when he asks her to run away with him and to start a new life after being confronted with the possible leaking out of his secret past (Varon 267). Don’s impulsive proposal makes Rachel realize he does not want to run away with her per se, he just wants to run away, which angers her and results in her ending their relationship. Before they start their affair, Don tells Rachel: “You're born alone, and you die alone, and this world just drops a bunch of rules on you to make you forget those facts, but I never forget. I'm living like there's no tomorrow because there isn't one” (1:1). To that, Rachel replies: “I don't know what it is you really believe in, but I do know what it feels like to be out of place, to be disconnected, to see the whole world laid out in front of you the way other people live it.

There is something about you that tells me you know it, too” (1:1). Varon gives these examples from their conversation to explain that because of her own insider-outsider position as a woman, a Jew and an entrepreneur, Rachel can appreciate Don’s personal outsiders position, without even knowing its source (262). “Chiefly, she intuits that Don has both the Serediuc 68 gift and the curse of reflexivity” (Varon 262). Varon further explains that Don’s ability to see the desires and habits in others is what makes him a great ad man and gives him the ability to combine a product with the right emotions, but it simultaneously leads him to believe that everything is artifice, even love and happiness: “Although season 2 finds him declaring that the essence of advertising is to make people “feel,” he himself can scarcely feel at all [2:1]

(…). In a final irony, he is acutely perceptive about the inner life of others but has almost no insight into his own” (Varon 262).

After his separation from Rachel, Don finds a compliant replacement in Bobbie

Barrett. Before giving Bobbie a ride back to where her husband Jimmy Barrett is, Don and

Bobbie, both married, start kissing in the car. Their touching, and later Don washing his hands with soap when entering his house, imply their adultery was not limited to kissing only.

During a telephone conversation between the two, Bobbie tells Don: “I like being bad and then going home and being good” (2:3). Because she was the one to start their affair, Bobbie finds herself in a dominant position towards Don. She wants to maximize her power towards her lover by insisting on a newspaper article and $25,000 in return for her husband’s apology to Don’s client. Her haughtiness is immediately knocked down by Don’s molesting hand down her skirt and by his other hand grabbing her by the hair while pronouncing the words:

“Believe me, I will ruin him. Do what I say” (2:3). According to Varon, there is some similarity in Don to The Sopranos’ protagonist Tony Soprano, who is a good representation of wanting everything from both worlds: on the one hand he has everything he needs to fulfil his macho dreams including great cars, the authorization to use violence, a strip club for an office and sex appeal, while on the other, Tony is concerned with his family’s future, making sure his wife is happy and his children can enjoy a good education (261). “Swapping seduction for violence, Don Draper from Ossining, New York, presents a comparable embodiment of this duality” (Varon 261). Up until his divorce, Don does not have to choose between the two Serediuc 69 worlds of happy family and young mistresses and “[i]t is as though Mad Men's creators have, as a thought experiment, stacked the deck in favor of male fulfillment” (Varon 263). But in the end, there is always a flaw with the picture of this duality: “Tony Soprano has anxiety attacks and need of a therapist. And Don Draper [too], along with most everybody in the Mad

World, is miserable” (Varon 261).

With his next mistresses, “[f]urther buds of possible regeneration are quickly cut down” (267). When Sally and her classmates dance around the maypole in a grass field, all the parents sit down in the shadow to enjoy the spectacle. Though Don is there to support his daughter, the only thing he can look at is Sally’s teacher Suzanne Farrell, who is joining the children barefooted in their dance. Don subtly lets his hand down and caresses the grass as if to feel Suzanne’s skin. “‘Renewal’ for Don”, Varon explains, “is merely the sexual possession of youth” (Varon 267). Don eventually succeeds in his “renewal” by convincing Suzanne to sleep with him. When Betty is out of town, Don and Suzanne plan a trip together, but she is left sitting alone in the car as Betty has returned home earlier and confronts Don with his false identity.

In “Out of Town”, while Don is heating up some milk for his pregnant wife, he starts hallucinating about his mother, telling one of her clients: “You get me in trouble and I'm gonna cut your dick off and boil it in hog fat” (3:1). After her giving birth to an unwanted child, she pronounces the exact same sentence seconds before passing away, and the

“confused nursemaids name the child Dick to honor her apparent wish” (Varon 265). Varon proceeds: “Don is thus born under the sign of castration, his phallic power swallowed up in the grave of his ignominious mother. This lack is compounded by his biological father's early death and his stepfather's disapproval and physical abuse of him” (Varon 265). According to

Varon, Dick’s new name Don, which goes together with his new identity, alludes to Don

Juan, “the great seducer of cross-cultural legend” (Varon 266). With every woman Don Serediuc 70 meets, he “wields his ‘dick’ as power in serial compensation for his phallic loss and chronic unhappiness” (Varon 266). According to Varon, for Draper, sex tends toward violence: Midge asks him to “savage me and leave me for dead” (1:5), Bobbie Barrett expects the “full Don

Draper treatment” (2:6) (Varon 266) and this mixture of sexuality and violence reaches its peak during Don’s affair with Sylvia Rosen.

While married to Megan Calvet, Don begins an affair with his neighbour Sylvia

Rosen. During a new-year’s celebration at the Draper residence with two couples from their apartment building, Arnold, a surgeon and Sylvia’s husband, needs to leave to see a patient.

After helping him find his skis and boots, Don goes up again and sneaks into Arnold’s apartment to sleep with his wife Sylvia. When being asked what he wants for this New Year,

Don answers Sylvia: “I want to stop doing this” (6:2). But he cannot possibly stop because, according to Varon, it is not Betty but Don who is most in need of a therapeutic session to find a cure for what we would indicate as a “sex addiction” (266): “[n]ot by accident does

Midge confess pleasure at being Don's ‘medicine’” (1:5) (266). Varon proceeds that such therapy is neither a clinical nor a cultural option for the men of his time (266). It is likewise incongruous with Don's lack of introspection and ‘strong, silent type’ persona” (Varon 266).

Even if Don tells Sylvia he wants to stop his infidelities, he does continue to see her.

Don begins to play a power game with his new mistress, one that clearly establishes the link between sexuality and violence, as previously discussed. In “Man With a Plan” Sylvia calls Don at the office to tell him she needs him and nothing else will do. Don instructs her to go to the Sherry-Netherland and to call him with the room number. When he arrives at the hotel, he asks Sylvia to repeat what she has said on the phone, and so she does: “I need you and nothing else will do” (6:7). Her need for him and for his sexuality seem to awaken Don’s dominant character and after having slept together, he demands her to find his shoes: “I want you to crawl on your hands and knees until you find them” (6:7). After she puts on his shoes Serediuc 71 while on her knees, Don gives her new instructions: “I want you to get undressed, then get back into bed” (6:7). He leaves the hotel room and, from his office, calls the Sherry-

Netherland to tell Sylvia not to leave the room and not to pick up the phone anymore. When he calls the hotel again, to test her, Sylvia is so turned on by Don’s game that she starts to touch herself under the blankets. When Don goes back to the Sherry-Netherland, Sylvia is dressed in the red dress Don had sent to the hotel and he informs her they are not going anywhere: “You are for me. You exist in this room for my pleasure” (6:7). That same evening, Don crawls into bed next to his sleeping wife, having completely forgotten about his wish to stop being unfaithful.

When he goes back to the hotel to continue their masochistic game, Sylvia tells him she thinks it is time to put an end to what they had. Don remains in his position of dominator, but quickly realizes his mistress is being serious. With his other women, Don was always prepared for their separation, because he was easily satisfied. With Sylvia, on the other hand, he lived a new sexual experience that presumably, for the first time, made him feel something real. Don is not satisfied yet, and he is not ready to let go of her, and so he tells Sylvia: “It's easy to give up something when you're satisfied” (6:7). But Sylvia’s perseveres and tells him

“It's easy to give up something when you're ashamed” (6:7). This immediately puts Draper in a submissive position, resulting in him begging her to stay: “Please” (6:7).

Don keeps visiting Sylvia without her knowledge, by standing outside the backdoor of her apartment and listening to what is going on inside. Eventually he succeeds in enjoying her company again, after helping her to keep her son out of the Vietnam War. Sylvia thanks him and tells Don she did not want him to fall in love with her, to which Don, in tears, replies:

“You didn’t feel anything?” (6:11). Their carnal pleasures are quickly interrupted when his daughter Sally catches them in the act. Throughout the series, Don has broken many hearts, but his seems to have never been broken. Betty was devastated because of his adultery, Serediuc 72

Rachel called him a coward, Allison called him a bad person and Faye Miller realized Don prefers the hunting above the prey. Even though he has expressed his love to many women, he does not seem to have meant it, since he was never satisfied with just one woman; even the end of his first marriage seems to have hurt his ego more than his feelings. For the first time in Don’s life, it seems that he has found someone who has had the ability to make him feel something, but she is not returning his love. Finding himself in the position he put so many women in, Don cannot handle what is going on, and his entire persona of the composed business man starts to crumble. Don’s numerous affairs and one-night stands are elaborated and portrayed in detail on screen, which is something the PCA would not allow at the time in which Draper’s character exists. As previously discussed, the PCA did not tolerate “shots of sensual touching; hugging in bed; open mouthed kissing; seductive dances [and] the display of intimate garments off the body” (Brisbin 4-5). The presence of all these elements in Mad

Men reveals present-day influences in a show that portrays the sixties.

Don keeps pursuing sexual endeavours after his affair with Sylvia, but they never go beyond a single night, and Don seems to completely lose the identity he has created for himself. Don’s drinking gets more and more out of control and he gets suspended at work. He is eventually allowed back in the company, but in a position where he has no power at all and in which he works under Peggy and is not allowed to talk to clients. Don is assigned Lane

Pryce’s old office in which the latter earlier hanged himself in a desperate moment. Don, who was once the face of the company, ends up in a humble position in which he has nothing to say or contribute. His marriage with Megan comes to an end and after his apartment is sold, he remains without a house. Don eventually goes to California where he, together with

Stephanie, joins a facility that offers classes of psycho-technics, anxiety and tension control and a class named “Divorce, A Creative Experience" (7:14). Though sceptical at the beginning, Don gets completely absorbed by the freedom he finds in California, which is Serediuc 73 something completely different from the double life he was leading in New York City. It is unsure whether Draper will return to his previous role of powerful business man; however, it is safe to assume he will never fit in and he will never find happiness, because “[w]hat Mad

Men repeatedly shows is its characters' maladaptation to prescribed roles. Even when those roles are altered by the bending or breaking of rules, the disaffection persists, and weariness sets in” (Varon 265).

Serediuc 74

Conclusion

In a total of seven seasons and 92 episodes spread over a period of eight years, Mad Men offers its public an intimate glance into a number of characters’ lives. Set in the 1960s, the women and men of the period drama seem to dress and act accordingly, but that is not always the case because, as demonstrated, Mad Men combines elements from the 1960s with a present-day approach. Life in the American sixties implied acting according to various expected social roles, but it simultaneously contained the breaking of prescribed conventions as done by the civil rights movement and the feminist movement during that period.

The first part of this dissertation dealt with the following question: What exactly were the imposed roles on men and women in 1960s American society, and more importantly, how were these expectations and their violations represented in Mad Men? This question was answered by discussing Mad Men’s stereotypical portrayal of men and women, both in the workplace and in their personal lives, with additional attention to their deviation from these prescribed roles.

Focusing on the stereotypical expectations during the 1960s in the USA, the first chapter discussed the roles of women in American society and their portrayal in the series.

The first and second part of this chapter took a closer look at women in the traditional role of housewife. To demonstrate the restrictions on American housewives’ freedom, I included a comparative study performed by Ahmed and Janice M. Belkaoui in 1975. Their comparative analysis of the roles of women as depicted in print advertisement in the periods right before and exactly after Mad Men takes place, showed little improvements in the female representation throughout the years. Women were still portrayed in the stereotypical roles of not working, of having a low income and in decorative and idle situations (Belkaoui 170).

Betty Hofstadt, who later becomes Betty Draper and even later Betty Francis, is Mad Men’s best example of the stereotypical sixties housewife. Spending most of her time at home, Betty Serediuc 75 seems to be the perfect stay-at-home mom with her spotless presence and her equally spotless house and children. On the surface she seems very happy, but Betty has a rather troubling persona and, being unable to find someone to confide in in the patriarchal society she lives in, she finds a true friend in an eight-years-old boy named Glen. The discussion of Betty was used to demonstrate she is not at all a stereotypical happy housewife.

The third part of the first chapter took a closer look at the modern educated and working woman during the 1960s. Sara M. Evans’ work was discussed in order to demonstrate the difficulties young women who opted for an education were facing: those who chose the role of career woman instead of traditional housewife, had to cope with discrimination and accusations of having failed as a wife and a mother (192). Goldin and

Katz’ work was used to show that times were changing and that more and more women were making progress and were becoming career women. The same chapter then discussed the misogynous division of women as presented in episode “Maidenform”, and defended the claim that Mad Men’s female characters can initially be seen as either a Jackie or a Marilyn, but that they eventually escape from this stereotypical division and experience a development in their character. The fourth and last part of the first chapter considered Peggy Olson and

Joan Holloway as examples of Mad Men’s career women, with a reference to the importance of feminism during the sixties. Peggy is indicated as a Jackie who sometimes would like to be seen as a Marilyn, while Joan is a Marilyn who would not mind to be considered as a Jackie every once in a while. The detailed attention to the women’s fight and struggle for their careers can be seen as a noughties perspective on a sixties’ battle.

The first part of the second chapter discussed the male stereotypes in the 1960s by linking them to what Ian M. Harris indicated as the 24 dominant male messages. The chapter further focused on the most pronounced masculine character in the period drama, that is, on protagonist Donald Draper. Draper’s apparent masculinity is debunked with the support of Serediuc 76

Nicky Falkof’s and Michael Mario Albrecht’s works. Falkof’s theory on the trope of

‘knowing’, which is achieved through the female characters, is used to prove Donald Draper uses the women in his life to learn more about himself. From the moment a particular woman does not fulfil the role of bringing him closer to himself, Don loses interest and finds a new woman apt, at least temporarily, for that role. Albrecht’s work proved particularly helpful in the discussion of Don’s attempt to assert his masculinity towards other male characters. His work was then used to further indicate the fact that Mad Men’s spectators see the show from a twenty-first century point of view, because they project new alternative masculinities onto

Donald Draper’s character (51). The second chapter was concluded with a discussion of Ken

Cosgrove and Pete Campbell and their expression of masculinity.

The second part of this dissertation focused on sexuality and its display in the show to support my point that Mad Men unites attitudes from the sixties and from the noughties. The third chapter took a closer look at the influence of the birth control pill on the changing female attitude towards sexuality and on women’s renewed possibility to take part in the professional life. These claims were supported by the works of Kenneth L. Cannon and

Richard Long, Steven Seidman, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz. The following chapter gave a brief overview of America’s censorship history and a description of the way in which censorship was active in the United States during the 1960s. This chapter was referred to numerous times to support the claim that Mad Men is a product of the noughties looking back on the sixties, since certain elements could not possibly be accepted at the time within which the show is set.

The mixture of sixties attitudes and a present-day mind-set was partly illustrated by the discussion of three of the show’s most prominent homosexual characters. In the fifth chapter, special attention was given to characters Salvatore Romano, Kurt Smith and Joyce

Ramsay. In the series, Salvatore is portrayed as a closeted homosexual who hides behind his Serediuc 77 heterosexual marriage, but who cannot resist his curiosity. Romano’s sexual orientation eventually is the cause for the end of his career, indicating the fact that his story mainly demonstrates the negative aspect of homosexuality. Kurt Smith and Joyce Ramsay are two proud gay characters and, though Joyce never pronounces the word herself, she is depicted as a proud lesbian woman in the show. The discussion of Kurt’s character, and especially the example of him giving Peggy a makeover in her kitchen, were used to illustrate Lee Wallace’s point that Mad Men contains various gay stereotypes (214). The emphasis on Peggy’s rapid acceptance of her gay friends was encouraged, but it was also indicated as tolerance avant la lettre.

The argument was concluded with a discussion of Donald Draper’s various sexual transgressions throughout the series, but it was restricted to some of his longer affairs, thus leaving out his one-night stands. The explicit portrayal of Don’s numerous flings is a modern element in a show that depicts the 1960s. Jeremy Varon’s work was used to support the claim of Don’s changing character. This last chapter discussed Draper’s growing dominance in his sexuality, and concluded with the complete disintegration of the composed persona he tried so hard to maintain throughout the seven seasons. Sylvia Rosen is the only female character Don cannot win over and cannot use until he does not need her any longer, resulting in his desperate begging for her love. Sylvia is also the first female character Don expresses his true love to, and when his love remains unanswered, Don’s life and character begin to crumble.

The goal of my dissertation was to give an overview of the stereotypical and prescribed male and female roles in the American society during the 1960s, with the addition of how sexuality was perceived at the time. The next step was to establish the link between these sixties representations and Mad Men’s portrayal of its male and female characters and of their sexual interactions. The overall aim was to prove that the show is in reality a noughties Serediuc 78 product that looks back on the sixties, and that it therefore brings together elements from the two eras and represents them on the screen in harmony.

Serediuc 79

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