Some thoughts on Mad Men, episode 2

here's what Ive posted today on "What's Alan Watching:"

About Joan and racism, I think what I have been trying to do is see these people and their attitudes, as much as possible, as they are in terms of the times they inhabit. It may be easier for me than most because I am of that period. I came to New York in the early sixties, straight from a college where I always say I majored in picketing. I well remember that then, I was frighteningly sincere about my liberal code of ethics, and I am proud of much that I did and said. But I also confess that a little of Paul's posturing cuts uncomfortably close to home, because I was very proud to have a "Negro" boyfriend. And proud that I shocked my family by doing so. So I try very hard not to apply today's more politically correct mores to that less-enlightened time.

About Peter and Peggy and who knows what. I agree with Alan that Pete is clueless, and I'll go further. I believe Pete is being browbeaten, ever so nicely, by his in-laws into taking responsibility for the lack of children running around his tastefully furnished apartment. If his wife turns out to be infertile, that may bring Peggy's farmed-out child back into focus. I think that Don knows some, if not all, of Peggy's situation. As the person she reports to and the one who would have had to sign off on an extended leave, Don either knows she had an unplanned pregnancy or some sort of breakdown. I suspect the first would be easier for her to return from, work-wise, than the latter, in the early 60s.

Finally, Betty may nor have crossed the border into borderline personality syndrome, but there is some serious and ugly stuff underneath that pretty blonde 'do of hers. Whatever happened after she sent a message to Don via her shrink, she is becoming quite the homemaker/ballbreaker. And what she says to her children makes me fear that I might add sociopath to the mix. Come to think of it, she did harm small animals last season. Remember the birds?