Mad Men Again

I have never done anything I love halfway, or once.

Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? I actually heard somebody say that at a party the other day. Maybe he was hoping I'd picture something exciting, like a menage a trois, hang gliding, mescaline, jumping out of an airplane, and so on. In fact, I'm a little disappointed as I write this that I haven't done any of those things.

If his self-description could be applied to me in any way, I guess it would be more appropriate to say that I tend to be slightly obsessive with a certain things, and with a need to repeat the experience in question again and again. At my other blog (read: I'm a mostly unread writer) I too need to keep repeating memories and experiences - in this case of being a lifetime fan of a particularly frustrating football team. I'm sure my wife would love it if doing handy work or gardening were among my obsessions, but they are not.

I am however obsessively attached to the AMC show Mad Men.

Recently, a contributer to what used to be called "The Week In Review" in the New York Times discussed the decline and fall of the English major. I think that the article is an exaggeration since it's written by an English professor; every professor I ever had in any discipline would wail on about the decline of Western Civilization because of the intellectual failings of the generation sitting right in front of them. I've been a high school English teacher myself for almost 15 years, and I also taught years before that as an adjunct composition instructor at colleges around Philly. I could wax on about how vital it is to read and write, but on the surface, these talents are not terribly well rewarded in a culture in love with the actual unreality of reality TV (is it even worth pointing such things out anymore?). English majors can often pretend like they're jedi holding onto a vital, lost tradition, but if you think you're cool because you've taught Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or "The Waste Land" (I do), you're not getting anywhere in Peoria. And I say that as a person who loves this beloved country.

Then came Mad Men, a TV show made for English majors. It's a successful show that's actually English major porn. Its mixture of brief and extended metaphors, its titillating red herrings, its themes of spiritual annihilation and cultural depravity are wonderful for the English teacher who's taught Lord of the Flies and The Crucible way too many times and still enjoys it. The show references poetry by Frank O'Hara and Dante. It uses a painting by Mark Rothko as a prop. Each season's promotional poster is deconstructed online in such a way that you'd think people were still looking for clues that Paul McCartney is dead. The show is crack cocaine for the literary dork.

Needless to say, when Mad Men wrapped up its sixth season last night and told us we'd be seeing them again - presumably for the last time - in 2014, I knew couldn't handle it. So I've decided to revisit - every week - every episode from Season One on until it's back on the air again, and write about each episode with the benefit of hindsight, knowing that we are coming to The End. It will be consoling, maybe occasionally revealing, or just a great way for me to avoid actual work.

Having said that, with this hindsight, here are some things I am going to be persistently referencing as I return to Mad Men week after week.

- Where are the black people? The limited role of people of color on the show is either the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about, or has become the elephant in the room that the homeowner regularly feeds, cleans up after and points out to guests as an unusual but appropriate piece of decor. I have no idea whether or how that latter metaphor works.

- Wha happened? The bits of popular culture and newsworthy detritus that floats in and out of the character's lives, and why some things get emphasized over others. For example, why does Richard Speck's 1966 killing spree get more airtime than Bobby Kennedy's assassination? And where was the 1964-65 World's Fair? No reference to the Jets' Super Bowl season, other than "Broadway Joe on Broadway?"

- I see what you did there. Little bits of symbolism, maybe even some that Matt Weiner and company didn't even put there, but that I see. Oh, I see it.

- Red Herrings. Yes, I thought Pete Campbell would hang himself. Yes, I thought Sylvia Rosen would jump to her death after being knocked up by Don.

- Don's women. They come and go, but they never come back, and it bugs me. I wanted to sleep with all of those women when I was single.

- Where'd they go? Characters that should have returned. Sal, obviously, sure, but what about Kurt: "I have sex viz de men?" Didn't he end up working with Cutler Gleason and Chaough?

- I can't watch. I will point out scenes through which I will be fast forwarding. Many of them will probably involve Don's memories from his past, Betty's little cruelties toward Bobby and Sally Draper, and any scene involving Jimmy Barrett.

So, anyway, it starts this week.