Re: "Mad Men" post-finale Matthew Weiner interview
tdciago
post. The only message currently appearing in this thread is Ian J.
Ball's.
On Nov 10, 9:08 am, "Ian J. Ball" <ijball-NO_S...@mac.invalid> wrote:
> In article <4qto3hlk1wzn$.t129p9oqzdbw$....@40tude.net>,
> Ian Galbraith <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> > On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:33:05 -0500, David wrote:
> > > Weiner: It’s so unambiguous to me that this marriage is over, but the
> > > audience seems to cling to the idea that they should be together
> > > because we want to believe in those things. The marriage was not good.
> > > It was built on a lie and the lie was exposed. In the end, Don coming
> > > clean really damaged his relationship with her, more than the lying,
> > > her seeing who he actually was.
What's strange to me is that, in "The Gypsy and the Hobo," Betty
actually seemed to be warming to Don. It appeared that being in on
the secret with him was going to make their marriage stronger, not the
reverse. Then again, I find the way her character is written to be
very bizarre. I can't relate to her in any way, and her behavior
often seems to come out of nowhere. She's hot and she's cold, and
it's not always clear what sets off the change. When Don walks into
that house, he must wonder: Which Betty am I going to encounter
tonight?
> Of course, it's also possible the Betty's thing with Henry Francis will
> fall through, which might end up leaving a regretful Betty pining for
> Don...
She's a fool if she walks away with nothing from Don. Anything could
happen. Henry could drop dead or get hit by a truck, or he could just
get sick of her hot & cold game. Honestly, it makes no sense to me
why this guy would decide so quickly that he wants to marry her. He
barely knows her, and what he *has* experienced is having a cash box
thrown at him, then getting all hot and bothered and having her pull
away. Not to mention the three kids. What the hell is the appeal?
I did really enjoy the business aspect of the finale. It was great
to have Joan back, efficiently and discreetly smoothing out the path
to independence from the big corporation.
tdciago
> NOTE:...The only message currently appearing in this thread is Ian J.
> Ball's.
And now that's gone, too. Lovely.
Alane
> She's a fool if she walks away with nothing from Don. Anything could
> happen. Henry could drop dead or get hit by a truck, or he could just
> get sick of her hot & cold game. Honestly, it makes no sense to me
> why this guy would decide so quickly that he wants to marry her. He
> barely knows her, and what he *has* experienced is having a cash box
> thrown at him, then getting all hot and bothered and having her pull
> away. Not to mention the three kids. What the hell is the appeal?
The first thing I thought of was what happens if he keels over from a
heart attack? Then where will she be? I suppose Don would pay alimony
if she doesn't marry Henry immediately. But I can't see where this
represents any real growth for her. She'll just be going from one man's
home to another.
Alane
myrtlewood
<fb837c14-7acb-43c8...@p36g2000vbn.googlegroups.com>,
tdciago <tdc...@aol.com> wrote:
> When Don walks into
> that house, he must wonder: Which Betty am I going to encounter
> tonight?
Exactly. And Don's recourse a little while back was to Betty her to a
shrink.
> [....] Henry could drop dead or get hit by a truck, or he could just
> get sick of her hot & cold game. Honestly, it makes no sense to me
> why this guy would decide so quickly that he wants to marry her. He
> barely knows her, and what he *has* experienced is having a cash box
> thrown at him, then getting all hot and bothered and having her pull
> away. Not to mention the three kids. What the hell is the appeal?
I don't think Henry would feel that Betty was playing some obscure game.
He seems to see a beautiful princess in trouble, and wants to be a
knight in shining armor for her. If she hadn't acted all balky, he'd
probably discount her as "easy," or at least too sophisticated.
My take, anyway.
Myrt
--
"a swingin' minidress from Mama's kitchen
curtains and old bedsheets!"
Micky DuPree
<fb837c14-7acb-43c8...@p36g2000vbn.googlegroups.com>,
tdciago <tdc...@aol.com> writes:
: What's strange to me is that, in "The Gypsy and the Hobo," Betty
: actually seemed to be warming to Don. It appeared that being in on
: the secret with him was going to make their marriage stronger, not the
: reverse.
I didn't see that. I saw her moved by the news of Adam's suicide and
the fact that Don was genuinely sorry about his part in it. But on the
subject of Don lying to her their entire time together, she wasn't going
to budge. The next morning, Betty was stony. Halloween night, Betty
was still stony.
: Honestly, it makes no sense to me why this guy would decide so quickly
: that he wants to marry her.
The only thing I can think of is looks, but that seems to be enough for
some.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
In article <cw42s47f8ufd.v...@40tude.net>, Ian Galbraith
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
: On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:01:27 -0500, Steve Newport wrote:
:: No one should pine for Don. He's really a pretty awful person.
:
: Yes but we understand what made him the way he is. And Betty is just
: as bad anyway.
Did we really need to see a flashback of a little girl running after her
mother's car saying, "Mommy, Mommy, don't leave me," because the mother
wanted to teach her a lesson about watching her weight? Well, maybe it
would have helped audience reaction if we had. It is remarkable to me
how much the audience lets Don skate for such a repetitive record of
truly appalling behavior while excoriating other characters for lesser
offenses, or even just for reacting adversely to Don's ill treatment of
them.
Before Betty could possibly be as understanding about Don as we are,
she'd have to know what we know (or at least part of it), not because
she forced it out of Don, but because he voluntarily brought her into
his confidence. And whose fault was it that she didn't know the truth
for ten years? Don's. Whose fault was it that keeping that knowledge
from her destroyed her trust in him? Don's. I find Betty to be
shallow, but frankly, so are most of the characters in the series,
including Don most of the time. Even a deep, sympathetic wife would
have come to the same conclusion that Betty did. Their entire marriage
was based on a lie, and since the wife derived her identity from her
husband in those days, Don had involved Betty's entire adult life in the
lie without her consent. I wouldn't trust him either, and I don't have
the problems Betty has with his sullied origins.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
<m...@privacy.net> writes:
: Wiener states that [Betty] is who her parents and society made her,
: however one criticism I have of the show is that I don't think the
: show has really made us feel this like they have say with Don.
I have wanted to see flashbacks to the other characters' childhoods for
some time now. I suppose it's easier for me to imagine Betty's
childhood than for some, because Betty is what the female world was all
about in my family when I was growing up. It was perhaps a storytelling
mistake for Betty's mother to have just recently died when season one
opened, as opposed to us getting to see Ruth Hofstadt interact a bit
with Betty for a season and then killing Ruth off. I think it was
easier for us to see, for example, what made Pete what he is today from
his encounters with his unloving, unsupportive parents. In Betty's
case, we had to hear about her mother entirely in dialogue.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
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In article <7lukm7F...@mid.individual.net>, Alane
<alan...@aol.com> writes:
: But I can't see where this represents any real growth for [Betty].
: She'll just be going from one man's home to another.
She doesn't have any other reasonable means of support. An 11-year-old
degree in anthropology isn't really a career starter. I suppose it's a
positive step to no longer passively accept a relationship based on a
lie. What gives me pause, though, is that having left one man whom she
started out knowing very little about, she's going to marry another man
whom she knows very little about. What cause does she have to trust
Henry more than she trusts Don? The fact that Henry's willing to jump
off a cliff with someone he knows very little about? In what universe
is that reassuring? What if he likes her less the more he gets to know
her? Where would that leave her? Flying back to Reno in season five?
-Micky
Micky DuPree
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In article <288kf5lj2kkq59ql4...@4ax.com>, Clifford Blau
<cliffo...@yahoo.com> writes:
: On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:08:12 -0800, "Ian J. Ball"
: <ijball-...@mac.invalid> wrote:
:: I suspect [Betty will] pop up in the context of Don's kids (which Don
:: still may end up with, except maybe Baby Gene).
:
: I doubt he will, if Betty's remarried and he's single.
It was very rare in those days for divorced fathers to get custody of
their children, and to the best of my knowledge, there was no such thing
as joint custody back then either. Since Don said he wasn't going to
fight Betty, Betty getting custody is a foregone conclusion.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
myrtlewood <myrtl...@example.invalid> writes:
: In article
: <fb837c14-7acb-43c8...@p36g2000vbn.googlegroups.com>,
: tdciago <tdc...@aol.com> wrote:
:: When Don walks into that house, he must wonder: Which Betty am I
:: going to encounter tonight?
:
: Exactly. And Don's recourse a little while back was to Betty her to a
: shrink.
Betty was the one who wanted to go to a shrink in the first season. Don
argued against it. She was having psychosomatic symptoms of her
dissatisfaction. Don did what he always did. He insisted on pretending
everything was normal and all right. He said that the only people who
go to shrinks are unhappy people. Duh. Wake up and smell the coffee,
Don.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
jayj...@blarf-fake-not-real.com (jj) writes:
: Hey wait, did I miss something - Sal is just MIA/decending to skid
: row, he didn't commit suicide did he?
Nah. Sal once intimated to that guy from Belle Jolie that indulging in
same-sex relations would jeopardize the career that he had labored to
build up. Since he indirectly lost his job because he was gay, that
would no longer be at risk if he had gay sex. I think he's been
drowning his sorrows in long-denied sexual indulgence. I don't know
what he's been telling his wife since he was fired, though.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
In article <4b05031b...@news.flex.com>,
jayj...@blarf-fake-not-real.com (jj) writes:
: Ronnie Bateman <OurOwnRon...@earthlinc.net> wrote:
:: If I could ask Weiner any question, it would be "WHAT was the deal
:: with that lawnmower/foot subplot??" That was just so strangely,
:: strangely out of sync with the show's established tone.
:
: While what you say is true, I loved that tangent.
The one thing I can see that was different after that story was that
everyone at Sterling Cooper could see where they stood with Putnam
Powell & Lowe. It tipped upper management's hand. However, it didn't
seem to cause anyone at Sterling Cooper to alter their behavior, so
ultimately it was a difference that made no difference.
What isn't clear to me was what PPL would have done had the accident not
happened. They all seemed to think the world of Guy MacKendrick.
Surely he wouldn't have been sold off to McCann with the rest of them.
Why didn't PPL tell Pryce he was going to Bombay after all when they
told him Sterling Cooper was being sold?
-Micky
myrtlewood
MDu...@theworld.com.snip.to.reply (Micky DuPree) wrote:
> In article <myrtle.wood-30E0...@nntp.usenetserver.com>,
> myrtlewood <myrtl...@example.invalid> writes:
>
> : [that Don had sent Betty to the shrink in Season 1]
>
> Betty was the one who wanted to go to a shrink in the first season. Don
> argued against it. She was having psychosomatic symptoms of her
> dissatisfaction.
Thanks for correcting me on that account. I thought I remembered how it
happened, but I'll have to go back and review the first few episodes.
When I first looked at the show, I didn't like it as much as I do now,
and probably didn't pay close attention. Seemed to me then that the
scripts were taking the easy way of scoring points off the characters
for their un-modern attitudes. I really wasn't until Peggy showed up
that the show really came alive for me. She still seems like an actual
person, an actual young woman, and seen from the inside more than any
other character: the others still seem a bit pastiche-y from time to
time.
Myrt
--
"I'm like an oven
That's cryin' for heat"
tomcervo
> I did really enjoy the business aspect of the finale. It was great
> to have Joan back, efficiently and discreetly smoothing out the path
> to independence from the big corporation.
Sad. They have no lives, only jobs.
Micky DuPree
myrtlewood <myrtl...@example.invalid> writes:
: When I first looked at the show, I didn't like it as much as I do now,
: and probably didn't pay close attention. Seemed to me then that the
: scripts were taking the easy way of scoring points off the characters
: for their un-modern attitudes.
While the series does seem to go out of its way to illustrate instances
where '60s attitudes and folkways differ from the 2000s', I don't think
it's to score points so much as to bring younger viewers into a
different world and occasionally for humor. In the broader view, I
think Matt Weiner disagrees with a lot of '60s attitudes, but by
portraying them as the norm back then, he's actually trying to show the
characters more sympathetically, not less, because he's making it clear
that they're products of their time.
: I really wasn't until Peggy showed up that the show really came alive
: for me.
Well, she does show up in the pilot.
: She still seems like an actual person, an actual young woman, and seen
: from the inside more than any other character: the others still seem a
: bit pastiche-y from time to time.
I still have a bit of a problem with the portrayal of Peggy. I wish
they'd show some flashbacks to her childhood. I'd like some sense of
why she turned out to defy many conventions where most females of that
time did not. Why she wants what she wants is still very murky to me.
-Micky
Micky DuPree
<6286094e-9d75-4c82...@37g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
tomcervo <tomc...@aol.com> writes:
: Sad. They have no lives, only jobs [in _Mad Men_].
We get hints, but it mostly falls within the constraints of a workplace
drama. Some of the execs have spoken of playing golf. Pete showed up
to an emergency meeting once dressed for squash, and the guys were
listening to a Bob Newhart comedy album in his office once. Peggy
checks books out of the library. Kurt goes to concerts. Paul talks up
the antiques shop near him. Sal cooks. He also keeps up with the
Broadway musicals, as do a lot of the straight guys (used to be more
common among straight guys). Ken goes to museums and writes short
stories. Even Don sees all the subtitled foreign movies. Poor Harry
watches TV nonstop to make sure all the commercials they've paid for get
aired, so he doesn't get to make a distinction between work and
relaxation.
-Micky