Don Draper - Blog Posts
Controversial Post
Good morning, afternoon, or evening to those reading this.
This will be a controversial post, so please grab your pitchforks and hold on to your keyboards.
Many people like to point out fictional characters that many viewers idolize, despite the creators pointing out that said characters are not good role models. The most mentioned characters are Don Draper from Mad Men, Walter White from Breaking Bad, and The Joker from Joker.
However, movies and TV shows about middle-aged men are not the only sources of media that feature characters who are poor role models but receive a lot of worship from fandoms.(please excuse my use of passive voice). Many Disney films and TV shows, which are typically about high school and college-aged girls, feature main or supporting characters who are poor role models but are idolized by their fandoms. These are broad statements, so I will not name names. I am solely generalizing.
This was inspired by @dani-luminae 's post comparing Mal Bertha and Elsa of Arendelle. I recently re-blogged the post.
The majority of the featured characters are from films, but a few are from TV shows and TV movies. If you would like to add any more, please do so by replying or re-blogging.
At the top of my head, I have listed Mal and Audrey from the Descendants franchise.
Next, jumping to the Encanto fandom is Isabela Madrigal and maybe(emphasizing maybe) Dolores Madrigal.
So much collateral damage. Thankfully this scene takes place in a small town(nothing against small towns. I am from a small town myself), and if it took place in an urban area, the scene would look like the aftermath of an Avengers movie.
Lastly, since this post is getting too long, is another magical big sister, Elsa of Arendelle from Frozen(Same w/ the girlies from Encanto above: being a bad sister, plus, and mainly, collateral damage).
Yes, all of the ladies I mentioned above are b*d*ss*s, and do display some positive personality traits and engage in prosocial behaviors. However, despite that, they are not good role models in universe, as IRL, they would be felons, and their family members and friends may limit contact with them.
There is nothing wrong with sympathizing with any of the characters above. There is nothing wrong with relating to the characters above. There is nothing wrong with liking the characters above. However, you can sympathize with, relate to, or even like the characters above while simultaneously recognizing them as poor role models in universe and IRL.
Thank you for taking the time out of your day or night to read my very controversial post, and please be kind and polite in your replies and re-blogs.
To anyone who read my entire blog post, and have a great day or night.
Casablanca (1942) dir. Michael Curtiz
You will be okay.
I see a lot of people talking about the Mad Men finale in a cynical sense. They see it as the punch-line culminating from seven years of build-up; one of the longest, cruelest shaggy dog jokes ever told. Without sounding too stand-offish, I think this is absolutely the wrong way to view the finale and that is does a great disservice not so much to the writers or the show itself, but to Don.
The ending is one that is immediately a little polarising, but once given time to digest most people agree that it really does just click. The reading I’m so opposed to is the idea that “after all that Don just made an ad! Haha! People never change” in regards to the series ending with the iconic Hilltop Coke ad, after Don has a huge emotional breakthrough.
The thing is, to take this view (like many people have, from random tumblr users to Wired), you have to completely ignore the kind of man Don is. The question of Don’s character has been at the centre of the show since it’s very first season, and has been examined in so many ways that it makes the conversation hard to ever really finish, and harder still to begin. However, there is one thing about Don that I will always believe, that has been supported by the show since the very beginning;
Don is a man who believes in a pure ideology. He wants to connect with people and he wants the best for them.
Now, does this mean Don is morally sound? No, he’s actually anything but. He cheats on his spouses, he’s not really a great Dad and he is prone to being unreliable. Despite all that, Don beliefs have always been idealistic, lofty and sincere. That is what makes the character so wonderful to talk about, and at the same time makes him so incredibly tragic: he is a man whose weaknesses constantly betray his own morality.
Don may be cynical, but he really, really doesn’t want to be. Rachel calls him on this way, way back in season one, when he gives his “born alone, die alone” speech. She see’s through it immediately, and it catches him off guard. One of the things I’ve always adored about the show is its incredible level of humanity, and even seemingly casual interactions can be incredibly powerful character moments when this is properly utilised.
This lack of cynicism goes doubly for advertising. Think about it; how many times has he brow-beaten Peggy (and everyone else who works under him) for being phony in her work? For not being sincere?
Don doesn’t want to sell you a product; he wants to sell you a feeling that he associates with a product. Why is Don so passionate about this? Why is this what Don wants to sell? Simply put, it’s because it’s a way to connect. Connection has always been what Don has ached for.
Why did Don leave his new place of employment? Well, because he didn’t belong there. That was a place where Ivy League ad gurus sat around a table and talked about the demographic they were after while taking notes like they were studying for an exam. It was a place where the product they were selling was their ability to sell a product.
This not the place for Don. Don, who used his own life and pain to demonstrate the value of the carousel. This is the man whose first experience with love was being given a Hershey bar, which he would eat alone in his room and pretend to be normal. Maybe this is sad to you, but to Don it’s real.
With this in mind; think about what the Coke ad Don apparently creates is about; a collection of people, of all genders, races and ages, united together by a common product. This is the image Don envisions for a product that, hand to God, used to have vending machines that said “White Customers Only” (that’s right, Coke had honour-based racist vending machines). A product that isn’t even mentioned until 20 seconds into the commercial. What Don wants to sell you is the feeling that when you sit down and drink a Coke, you’re drinking it with a million other people all over the world. There’s a reason it’s the most successful commercial of all time. It may look schmaltzy, cheap or silly today, but at the time it was something people genuinely wanted to hear. Don doesn’t want you to know how great this sugar water tastes, he doesn’t want you to know that it’s better than a competing brand, or even cheaper; he wants you to feel what he feels.
And what did he feel? Well, his epiphany in that episode came when Leonard, seemingly the opposite of Don, gave a speech that rocked Don to his core. He told a story of loneliness, or worthlessness and of the desire to be loved. And Don understood. So much so that he hugged this man, who he had never met, and wept. He knew the answer to the question he repeatedly asked Peggy only a few episodes ago. Don wants to sit down with the world and buy it a Coke. It’s really what he’s always wanted.
Mad Men was always a show about introspection. To think that the show’s final moments wouldn’t reflect this is an incredible oversight, and to think that Don changes for the worse in the very last moments of the show is doing him a huge disservice.
The Hilltop ad is about empathy. It is Don, realising that not only is he not special, but neither are his worries. The way Jon Hamm played the scene supports this; he realises who he is. He is an ad man, he is a human being, who wants to connect to other human beings, and that want is ubiquitous. Don does not just “come up with a great ad”, because ads were never that cheap to him. He finds a way to communicate the feeling of profound empathy he felt the previous day, when he and Leonard were both people, together, in the only way he knows how; an ad.
Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is Okay. You are Okay.
Goodbye to one of the greatest shows of all time, and thank you for the beautiful send-off. You are not alone. You will be okay.
Finished watching Mad Men for the first time or as I have renamed it The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Prince
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