windupbasilisk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
windupbasilisk) wrote2009-08-24 10:03 am
windupbasilisk) wrote2009-08-24 10:03 am
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My brother and I were watching Mad Men on the DVR, at a few minutes' delay to skip commercials. The DVR cut out right after the maypole scene ended, and by the time we passed through "oh fuck" and switched back to AMC... we got a millisecond flash of the very last bit, and roll credits. ::pouts::
That said, mid-episode I had an epiphany and was all "ha, writers, I see whut u did thar." So!
I loved, loved, loved Peggy's thread in this episode. Not so much for the surface layer—though I did like the implication at the end that she'd proved her point to herself, and felt no need to see college-idiot again. If I read that right, then they were at least trying to subvert the asexual-businesswoman-wants-love cliche; that's reassuring. I think the previouslies did this ep a disservice; by talking about Pete, they emphasized the cliche layer. To me, this ep's real antecedents were "Maidenform" (the Jackie/Marilyn ad, Bobbie's advice, Peggy's discomfort while trying to follow it) and to a lesser extent the bit in 2x01 where she pushes the guy at Paul's party away.
The underlayer to Peggy's thread was brilliant. It was all about the roles imposed on Peggy by the men in her life, and the way they listen to what they assume she's saying rather than what she's actually saying. It starts in the very first scene, with (paraphrased):
when of course Peggy actually means, "Perhaps we should aim an ad for a womens' product at women rather than men." What's interesting here is that while Harry's comment had the effect of shutting down that line of conversation, I got the impression that Harry almost meant to be reassuring—this is backed up by his general positioning, within the show, as the one nice guy at S-C. That says two things to me. One, it makes me wonder about the extent to which Harry realized that he was shutting down discussion. Two, it's notable that it's a comment about her body—that indicated, I think, an unwillingness/inability to think about Peggy in ways that aren't mediated by her perceived sexuality or lack thereof.
So, I think her envious look at Joan a bit later was as much about... well, Joan is obviously a person who has integrated the advice Bobbie gave Peggy in "Maidenform." Peggy's still smarting from the "Birdie" meeting, and I think her envy of Joan has as much/more to do with her holding attention period as it does with the fact that the attention's sexual.
I could, of course, be trusting the writers too much here.
Anyway, then we get the conversation with Don, which I thought was really interesting in light of the fact that Don has always been the one most willing to engage with Peggy as a colleague rather than a girl. I again saw a disconnect between the conversation Don thought he was having and the conversation Peggy was trying to have—she was, I think, trying to introduce not only the idea that a) "guys want her so girls want to be her" is oversimplistic* but that b) in this specific case, girls will not want to be someone they think is bloody annoying. She's moved on from "Maidenform" to the extent that the rest of S-C is willing to let her. That's... not very far, but it's further than Don has; maybe this is a conversation he has with her every time they target a womens' ad at men. I can read it as Don thinking that this is that same conversation all over again, whereas Peggy's trying to integrate what she's learned and have a slightly different one. That would explain why this is the only Peggy scene where she really actively fights to be heard instead of assumed-heard.
Peggy's subsequent scene with Sterling in the elevator was, actually, the point where I started to get the disconnected-conversations motif, and had to pause the DVR for a few seconds while I excitedly went on about what they did thar to my brother. This is because the conversation with Sterling is so.obvious about it; he wants validation from a girl his daughter's age, and he picks Peggy. Overtly, that's because she's moar serious than the others, but really I think it's because Sterling doesn't want to use someone he's attracted to as a stand-in for his daughter. He is not interested in what she has to say whatsoever; he just reads the validation he wants onto her, and conversation over.
The bit with Peggy at the bar was therefore a "ha-ha I win" moment; Dumb College Boy very literally couldn't hear her and therefore had the conversation he expected to have. Peggy's decision to roll with it in this one case, because all she wanted from him was sex anyway, was interesting; I don't know if that indicates that she's realizing that she needs to work in the context of other people's assumptions, or if I'm just reading that in because I want to see that arc.
I reaaaaaaaally wish I had seen that final bit with Don and Peggy. Sooooooo much. ::kicks ahem-aggregator::
*Oh hey! Or maybe that's what the Joan bit was about, because for all she's willing to steal Joan's lines Peggy does not want to be Joan.
That said, mid-episode I had an epiphany and was all "ha, writers, I see whut u did thar." So!
I loved, loved, loved Peggy's thread in this episode. Not so much for the surface layer—though I did like the implication at the end that she'd proved her point to herself, and felt no need to see college-idiot again. If I read that right, then they were at least trying to subvert the asexual-businesswoman-wants-love cliche; that's reassuring. I think the previouslies did this ep a disservice; by talking about Pete, they emphasized the cliche layer. To me, this ep's real antecedents were "Maidenform" (the Jackie/Marilyn ad, Bobbie's advice, Peggy's discomfort while trying to follow it) and to a lesser extent the bit in 2x01 where she pushes the guy at Paul's party away.
The underlayer to Peggy's thread was brilliant. It was all about the roles imposed on Peggy by the men in her life, and the way they listen to what they assume she's saying rather than what she's actually saying. It starts in the very first scene, with (paraphrased):
Peggy: Listen to me about the diet pill; I'm its target audience.
Harry: But you're not fat any more.
when of course Peggy actually means, "Perhaps we should aim an ad for a womens' product at women rather than men." What's interesting here is that while Harry's comment had the effect of shutting down that line of conversation, I got the impression that Harry almost meant to be reassuring—this is backed up by his general positioning, within the show, as the one nice guy at S-C. That says two things to me. One, it makes me wonder about the extent to which Harry realized that he was shutting down discussion. Two, it's notable that it's a comment about her body—that indicated, I think, an unwillingness/inability to think about Peggy in ways that aren't mediated by her perceived sexuality or lack thereof.
So, I think her envious look at Joan a bit later was as much about... well, Joan is obviously a person who has integrated the advice Bobbie gave Peggy in "Maidenform." Peggy's still smarting from the "Birdie" meeting, and I think her envy of Joan has as much/more to do with her holding attention period as it does with the fact that the attention's sexual.
I could, of course, be trusting the writers too much here.
Anyway, then we get the conversation with Don, which I thought was really interesting in light of the fact that Don has always been the one most willing to engage with Peggy as a colleague rather than a girl. I again saw a disconnect between the conversation Don thought he was having and the conversation Peggy was trying to have—she was, I think, trying to introduce not only the idea that a) "guys want her so girls want to be her" is oversimplistic* but that b) in this specific case, girls will not want to be someone they think is bloody annoying. She's moved on from "Maidenform" to the extent that the rest of S-C is willing to let her. That's... not very far, but it's further than Don has; maybe this is a conversation he has with her every time they target a womens' ad at men. I can read it as Don thinking that this is that same conversation all over again, whereas Peggy's trying to integrate what she's learned and have a slightly different one. That would explain why this is the only Peggy scene where she really actively fights to be heard instead of assumed-heard.
Peggy's subsequent scene with Sterling in the elevator was, actually, the point where I started to get the disconnected-conversations motif, and had to pause the DVR for a few seconds while I excitedly went on about what they did thar to my brother. This is because the conversation with Sterling is so.obvious about it; he wants validation from a girl his daughter's age, and he picks Peggy. Overtly, that's because she's moar serious than the others, but really I think it's because Sterling doesn't want to use someone he's attracted to as a stand-in for his daughter. He is not interested in what she has to say whatsoever; he just reads the validation he wants onto her, and conversation over.
The bit with Peggy at the bar was therefore a "ha-ha I win" moment; Dumb College Boy very literally couldn't hear her and therefore had the conversation he expected to have. Peggy's decision to roll with it in this one case, because all she wanted from him was sex anyway, was interesting; I don't know if that indicates that she's realizing that she needs to work in the context of other people's assumptions, or if I'm just reading that in because I want to see that arc.
I reaaaaaaaally wish I had seen that final bit with Don and Peggy. Sooooooo much. ::kicks ahem-aggregator::
*Oh hey! Or maybe that's what the Joan bit was about, because for all she's willing to steal Joan's lines Peggy does not want to be Joan.