Rod Dreher

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‘Mad Men’: P.C.-Era Porn

By Rod Dreher • March 23, 2012, 11:54 AM

I swore I wouldn’t do it, but I’m going to watch the Sunday night premiere of the new “Mad Men” season, to see if it bores me. Steve Sailer has some interesting insights. Excerpt:

The one thing I would add about Mad Men is that it’s becoming more apparent, year by year, that 21st Century women of the educated castes who watch Mad Men find themselves increasingly sexually bored by all the pathetic, politically correct weenies of their own class. That’s Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner’s big conceptual breakthrough: that women these days are aroused by men masterful enough to violate today’s thought crime taboos, if the ladies can simultaneously maintain plausible deniability that they are actually shocked, shocked by all the old “racism … cigarettes, sexism, anti-Semitism, alcoholism, homophobia.” Mad Men is not actually a satirical put-down of the past; instead, it’s designed to be a titillating turn-on for the present.

70 Responses to ‘Mad Men’: P.C.-Era Porn

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Mitchell Young says:

March 23, 2012 at 11:53 pm

“Um, women are attracted to Don Draper because he is played by Jon Hamm, who is really, really, really handsome. This is not rocket science.”

But are they attracted to him in the same way they are attracted to the Asthon K. fellow?
freemansfarm says:

March 24, 2012 at 12:27 am

“Um, women are attracted to Don Draper because he is played by Jon Hamm, who is really, really, really handsome.”

Um, most Hollywood leading men are really handsome, but, apparently, something about the character that Hamm plays appeals to women, above and beyond the norm for handsome actors. I find the rationalizations here to be unpersuasive. As are the claims of folks who say the show is boring. Who cares? The issue is not whether the show is any good, from a dramatic viewpoint, but whether the old school male main character appeals to women.
Dave D says:

March 24, 2012 at 12:56 am

“And the big intellectual skirmish going on was “Is it great that we’re so different, men and women, or is there no difference at all?” No difference at all is where is started. Let’s have equality and legistlate it like that. And then it became so much more complicated when you added sex to it and biologically the relationship is always sexist in some way. What’s sexist in the office is fuel in the bedroom. We’re wired that way to some extent. Women become more aggressive and it becomes strange for men. The Girls Gone Wild generation – I was not a part of that. Men had to work very hard to get women into bed and we had to be charming. I’m sure there were still plenty of guys who were like Don Draper who had women throwing themselves at them. I did not have that.”

Italics mine. Steve’s post didn’t seem to have a link, so quoted it from http://weblogs.variety.com/season_pass/2008/10/mad-men-qa.html
Lewis Grant says:

March 24, 2012 at 2:21 am

Freemansfarm, you’ve now stolen my response twice. You’ve hit the nail on the head.

In the dating/mating/marriage game, one must learn to observe what women do, rather than listening to what they say. Talk is cheap.

Indeed, many women specifically want to get called out on what they say, because it’s a test to see if the man is strong enough not to let her manipulate him. Much of feminism simply represents the strongest test men have yet faced. That’s one of the big reasons why many men are failing.

The main reason it’s so rare to hear this coming from a woman is because a woman would be betraying her fellow women by letting out the secret. In addition to the reference above, Natasha Vargas-Cooper also had a fascinating and revealing anecdote in her Atlantic article, but it’s probably not meant for the delicate sensitivities of some readers here.

Many things Roissy/Heartiste say are true; many things are nasty. (A few things fall into both categories). Susan Walsh is equally accurate without as much nastiness; Athol Kay and (to some extent) Haley’s Halo have started learning to use Machiavellian means for good and not for evil. (Parents must also learn to do this, in regard to their children. We are spiritual and physical creatures; we need to use both love and punishment/manipulation. Machiavelli shows how to use the latter. The trick is to learn the right balance between the two.)

Women may like PC weenies who follow their orders, but women don’t respect them – and thus generally don’t date them. If they do, it’s grudgingly, and the marriages are rarely happy.
JonF says:

March 24, 2012 at 9:54 am

Leo,

Most of the posters here defy easy categorization. There’s a few “by the book” rightwingers and leftwingers, but the majority are all over the map. You might be tempted to stick me in the liberal caregory- but I am pro-Life and pro-religious faith, indeed also an Orthodox Christian (and Rod attracts a fair number of us, for obvious reasons).

Rod has strong beliefs on some things, but he does not have a closed mind. He is intelligent and willing to challenge received wisdom on both sides, to the point of occasional political incorrectedness. That’s true of other contributers to this site as well– I may well start buying the dead tree magazine on the newsstand, as it seems to feature independent and well-reasoned POVs that the National Review and First Things once offered before they became propaganda mouthpieces for the Bush administration. If you are looking for rightwing knee-jerkery perhaps RedState would be a better fit?
TTT says:

March 24, 2012 at 10:13 am

“Many things Roissy says are true”

Roissy or Gunwitch (the one who shot a woman who wouldn’t put out)? They all sound the same, and certainly their fanboys do.
sjay says:

March 24, 2012 at 11:12 am

It always seems a little unseemly when guys past adolescence spend a lot of time obsessing about how women really want “real men” and it usually indicates a troubled state of mind in the guy that doesn’t bode well. A real man keeps his mouth shut about such topics and takes care of the relationship he has.
sjay says:

March 24, 2012 at 11:18 am

I wonder if it’s something of a conspiracy–a strike against Rod because of his outspoken support of marriage–to suppress what might otherwise be a nice crunchy con community of letters.

Boo hoo. Actually, Rod was perfectly suited for the American Conservative, which to my mind has become what the New Republic was in the 1980s, a journal of opinion that is constantly challenging the tendencies of its ostensible audience. I’m a consistent leftist voter and a practicing Catholic but I’ve been subscribing to AC since Larison came on board. Rod’s addition just sweetened the pot.
Sam M says:

March 24, 2012 at 1:14 pm

“Because that’s what Matthew Weiner, who has made a huge amount of money by creating Mad Men, thinks: “What’s sexist in the office is fuel in the bedroom.”

I guess you have more faith in authorial intent than I do. L Frank Baum probably meant the Wizard of Oz as a political allegory about the Robber Baron era. Does the fact that my six-year-old likes it indiciate that it’s apparent kids these days like political allegory, or have a strong interest in learning more about Teddy Roosevelt? Or is it possible that other elements of the characters and story appeal to them, and they are actually interested in it for its surface appeal rather than its deeper meaning?

But even assuming that Weiner is correct, what’s this say about educated women in general these days and how bored they are with men who are weenies? The audience for Mad Men is actually quite small.

Fine. Matthew Weiner believes this to be true about women these days. What makes it apparent that he is correct? And more correct every year?

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/155972-why-arent-more-people-watching-mad-men/

According to this article, the viwership for AMC’s Walkng Dead is twice the viewership of Mad Men. NCIS gets 20 times as many viewers. Should I conclude from this that modern women find zombies sexy? How to account for all that attraction to non-smoking Mark Harmon?
JonF says:

March 24, 2012 at 4:19 pm

Re: most Hollywood leading men are really handsome, but, apparently, something about the character that Hamm plays appeals to women, above and beyond the norm for handsome actors

I’ve never seen Mad Men so I am going out on a limb here, but if cold-blooded alpha males with money and power are what is appealing then why isn’t Steve Buschemi’s charcater on “Boardwalk Empire” attracting more of a female fan base? Buschemi is not classically handsome (though not ugly either), the character, Atlantic City bootlegger and political boss Nucky Thompson, is charming, rich, amoral, danegrous and the ultimate opoerator, but from what I’ve sen on the HBO comment boards he isn’t a hearthrob. In fact, even within the show the chaharcter doesn’t seem to atrract women: his first girlfriend was a bimbo in it for the money, and there are hints that his mistress, and now wife, Margaret is basically looking for money and security too. Bad boys don’t always finish in first place.
Andrea says:

March 24, 2012 at 4:54 pm

Mad Men is a fantasy and the attraction of a character like Don Draper is pretty much the attraction of the average alpha male in a romance novel. Everyone likes an attractive bad boy. There’s also a pleasant fantasy, seldom realized in real life, of being the one woman who can change such a man, make him settle down and become a good husband and father. In real life, a serial adulterer and liar would not be at the top of any rational woman’s list of prospective boyfriends/husbands.

As for the discussion on this blog, I keep responding because there’s an interesting mix of opinions and its’ a relief not to be expected to toe a party line. I wouldn’t find it nearly as interesting otherwise.
Andrea says:

March 24, 2012 at 5:00 pm

I’ve never seen Boardwalk, but Don Draper sounds more multidimensional as a character. He shows some vulnerability, was supportive of his co-worker Peggy, shows flashes of concern for his children, had a terrible, abusive childhood that makes the audience sympathetic, etc. They’ve given us some reasons to see him as more than the sum of his many faults.
JonF says:

March 24, 2012 at 6:09 pm

Andrea,
Nucky Thromson has some depth too: he had a wife who lost her mind after their infant child died, and killed herself. He genuinely loves Margaret and dotes on her children by her late husband (whom he had murdered for beating her and causing a miscarriage). As a child he was beaten by a cold and absuive father. So the character is complex. But there’s a lack of magnetism about him, which I would ascribe to the fact the Buschemi, though in no way incompetent as an actor in the part, doesn’t have much sexual charsima.
Turmarion says:

March 24, 2012 at 6:23 pm

What I would have italicized in the part that Dave D. quotes from Weiner is this:

Women become more aggressive and it becomes strange for men. The Girls Gone Wild generation – I was not a part of that. Men had to work very hard to get women into bed and we had to be charming. I’m sure there were still plenty of guys who were like Don Draper who had women throwing themselves at them. I did not have that.”

I checked Weiner’s bio on Wikipedia, and he was born in 1965, which means he came of dating age in the late 70′s/early 80′s. Now from this particular phrase, he almost seems to be saying something like this: “I’m too young to have been in the Don Draper era where women would put up with more chauvinist crap, and too old to have been able to take advantage of recent ethos of raunchiness as empowerment (that is, Girls Gone Wild and such). I actually had to related to women and treat them as equals in my day, and that sucked!” Which sounds kinda whiny and pathetic.

This, from the same interview, is also significant:

I think what’s more interesting is that the most exciting idea going on intellectually when I was in college was feminism. And it had overtaken every single aspect – feminism and semiotics. They went together. And both of them had a huge ring of bullshit and both of them had a big PC element to it, which made people like me, who were slightly subversive and anti-authoritarian, kind of hurt because those were my politics and the people who had my politics were constantly rejecting me.
Actually, if you read the whole interview, he seems conflicted.

If you read the whole thing, he seems conflicted. His mother was a lawyer and his sisters are a lawyer and a doctor. He says his father “is as liberated as someone could be from that era….” On the other hand, he obviously seems to have some issues with feminism and seems on some level to want to identify with the Don Draper alpha-type himself. Thus I think one has to take what he says with a little salt, at least.

What’s sexist in the office is fuel in the bedroom.

You know, I suspect this is more than a little true. I suspect that even many liberated, egalitarian couples, even some role-reversed couples where the woman is the dominant one in public, are much more traditional behind bedroom doors. That’s OK–each couple is individual, and whatever works for a couple is their business alone. However, this doesn’t mean sexism is OK in the office–far from it.

In other words, to say “what’s sexist in the office is fuel in the bedroom” can be taken as implying that sexism isn’t really all that bad, because that’s what women really want. Such an implication is what needs to be rejected. The fact that a woman might like her husband to be dominant and sweep her off her feet at home does not mean it’s OK for her boss to be a sexist swine to her at work; and anyone who thinks otherwise is just wrong.

Finally, I’d like to associate myself with the comments here by elizabeth, Megan, TTT, and especially sjay, to whom major high five!
TTT says:

March 24, 2012 at 6:41 pm

JonF: excellent point in bringing up the Don Draper / Nucky Thompson disparity. Nucky has all of Don’s “charming, pre-PC” personal attitudes towards women, personal restraint, ethics, and everything else we are told makes him irresistable. Yet…. he’s fishfaced Steve Buscemi, who is not even credible with the women we see him landing onscreen, much less with the fangirls purportedly attracted to Jon Hamm’s Draper.

I’ve had several otherwise seemingly intelligent, adult friends of mine suggest that maybe serial killers, Nazi SS officers, and other notorious criminals are really misunderstood and were more good than bad because of an epiphany they had by watching the antihero from “Dexter.” It is astonishing, and morally horrifying, to see how easily people can substitute scripts for reality. It has taught me never to underestimate the power of narrative to dazzle the mind.

Any star of any TV show is just about guaranteed to be better looking, cleverer, luckier, and possessed of more acute moral certainty than your average person – because their lives really are intelligently designed, according to a manner meant to satisfy human desires instead of according to their own luck and potentially hapless efforts. The more people fall into the trap of expecting real life to be like a movie, the more disappointing and miserable their own lives will be.
sjay says:

March 24, 2012 at 10:20 pm

Hey, thanks Tumarion — I’ve been admiring your comments on various blogs for years!
Lewis Grant says:

March 25, 2012 at 3:18 am

*They all sound the same, and certainly their fanboys do.*

Fanboys like Susan Walsh? My point was that the bloggers I listed don’t all sound the same, and that they aren’t even all men.

Part of what makes the community so good here is the willingness to learn from people who occasionally say things that you disagree strongly with. That’s the approach I take to bloggers like Roissy. Sure, he says some distasteful things. But that same boldness is what allows him to point to some realities that most others won’t. As I said, people like Athol Kay and Susan Walsh require less filtering.

sjay: likewise, I’ve usually agreed with Turmarion over the years. On this issue, I don’t. That’s OK.
JustMe says:

March 25, 2012 at 2:24 pm

Men like Nucky Thompson because he is rich, has awesome suits, gets any woman he wants, holds on to enough power that he can influence the presidential nomination, and can have people killed on his orders. That has nothing to do with why women find him attractive. It’s why MEN find him attractive. It says a lot more about men that they are drawn to gambling, promiscuous murderers than it says about women who find Don Draper attractive.

Now, most men don’t have a lot of money, aren’t powerful, can’t order people killed, and don’t have mistresses on their beck and call. On the other hand, it’s not that hard to be sexist and racist, so I can see why those features would be highlighted in their minds of, “how to be ultra manly.”

One of the other limitations of fiction is that writers are generally unwilling to portray their anti-hero protagonist as anything other than positive. Especially in a TV show, you have to give the audience something to keep coming back to, and to do that, the protagonist has to be compelling. That and I think writers get attached to their creations and want them to seem positive.

If Don Draper were a character in another tv show where he was the “bad guy” to a different protagonist, he wouldn’t be seen as an object of desire or a role model (and a less attractive actor would have been cast in his place).
Dave D says:

March 25, 2012 at 2:37 pm

Except we can argue even more examples than Draper:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DracoInLeatherPants/LiveActionTV

Sylar from Heroes was a freaking serial killer and I knew women who would have wanted to have his kid. That whole trope is about how evil characters often become beloved by the fangirls, with their flaws papered over if not ignored.

You have to forgive some level of confusion from the men when they see this constantly. While it’s not ironclad, too many times women seem to fall for the evil guy in general as long as evil has a handsome face and is sufficiently masculine and attractive.
stef says:

March 26, 2012 at 2:14 pm

I loathe and despise both Don and Betty Draper as characters. I’m only continuing to watch to see how the creative team handles the hippie movement, and the birth of 2nd wave feminism. By 1967, both Don and Betty (in reality) would be considered boring, old-hat, and hopelessly “out of it.” The next 40+ years belong to Sally Draper’s generation (much to Gen X’s disgust and despair.)