Mad Men 1x07 Reaction

milana said at the intro she put it on her tv time is that on twitter (x) or in a post here? i love to see what people shows of choice

its a chip ‘n dip

One of the aspects of masculinity/toxic masculinity brought up in the show so far but not necessarily in the discussions has been the generational conflicts. Specifically, and in order from ‘eldest to youngest’ in the hierarchy- Bert Cooper > Roger > Don > Pete. Couple episodes ago Roger gave the speech to Don about how he’s bothered by Pete because he’s ‘competing’ with him, ‘not on a personal level, but for the world.’ This kind of thinking seems to colour a lot of Roger’s interactions - whether it be being emasculated by Don in the bar, him and Bert making fun of / scolding the younger men in the Nixon meeting when talking about Kennedy (and even Kennedy himself, he doesn’t even wear a hat!). In this episode we also had Bert chastising Roger for smoking as a sign of weakness. This also comes up whenever they talk about the wars. Each of them, Roger, Don and Pete either fought in different wars or didn’t fight at all, and they all think lesser of the others for it. Roger shows disdain when Betty says that Don doesn’t talk about ‘The War’ because how dare he say Korea is ‘The War’, his war, world war 2, was much more important! (“You guys took most of the glory.”) And yet even then, Roger still feels lesser than his dad for having fought in a ‘real’ war in the trenches in WW1. (“He always had that over me.”) This doesn’t even begin to get into how both Roger and Don feel about Pete’s generation for not even fighting at all. Roger physically bristled when he gave Pete the speech about how Don is his ‘commanding officer’ and Pete responded by saying ‘I won’t let you down!’, as if that’s just never what someone would say if they had any sense or experience.

Fun fact: Both Roger & Mona Sterlings' actors are married in real life (John Slattery/Talia Balsalm) similar to Silvio and his wife in Sopranos

I wrote a longer comment about Roger while watching the reaction to the episode, but then in the discussion they said most of it already, so just to add: Roger also feels bad about himself or not in control/emasculated because Joan rejects him in the beginning of the episode. (Also in a way in the episode before when he talked about keeping her in cage or whatever. Plus look at the visuals at the end of the last episode when they leave the hotel...) Still, it's pretty funny how he puts down Pete. (Who is correct about Kennedy...)

Your analysis of Pete is why I love your channel, and why I knew Mad Men would be a fantastic show for you guys. This is going to be such a fun journey

I'm glad you're both able to empathize with poor pitiful Pete Campbell. He's an incredibly swell character! He is my favorite out of... literally dozens of amazing characters.

Do the girls know Matthew Weiner, Mad Men's creator also wrote for the Sopranos?

First great Mad Men episode. So many more to come. Very glad you guys are with it and already clicking with the show; it really gets rewarded down the line.

Literally the only thing Pete would need to do to go from being miserable to being perfectly happy is to care even half as much about what other people think, the performative masculine stuff is so incredibly lame and desperate and the worst thing is he doesn't even want to do it. You could say that about a lot of dudes even in current times, pretending to be someone you don't even want to be because you're being told by the wrong people that it'll make you happy.

That would be wonderful.

While understand that Don's behavior toward Betty is inappropriate and misplaced, I don't at all think that it's borne of insecurity. Don is not *threatened* by Roger. Rather, he felt *disrespected* by Roger... and rightly so. It's not pathetic to be angry at the fact that your boss - or anyone - makes a move on your spouse, in your own home no less. You wouldn't find it "pathetic" if Betty were angry because some woman actively hit on Don - at home while Betty was next door. That shit is flatly disrespectful. Yes, Don's reaction toward Betty was wrong and misplaced. But there is nothing "pathetic" about a person of ANY gender being angry at such blatant disrespect. That part is not a masculinity or patriarchy thing. Don intentionally took his revenge on Roger for that infraction, and rightly so.

There was some conversation last week about when Mad Men finds the je ne sais quoi that makes it *really* special, and I think this episode has that magic. There's something loose and fun about everything here -- Pete's chip 'n dip odyssey, Don running that elevator scheme on Roger, even Betty slapping Helen in the supermarket has the anything-can-happen verve that makes the series so special. This is a terrific Pete episode from a serious psychology & theme standpoint, obviously, but Kartheiser is so good even in the smaller moments. ( "We got two!") The hunting fantasy he shares with Peggy does a perfect job of tiptoeing between genuinely sad and just plain goofy. Great stuff.

You probably saw it in the edit, but Don paid the elevator attendant. That entire thing was his way of getting back at Roger. Roger confirmed to Don with his apology that despite Betty saying nothing happened, he had in fact walked in on “something” in the kitchen.

It's a small detail but Roger's "epic war story" he told Betty was about when he was on a battleship and they shot down a lone Japanese (?) scout pilot, then had enough time to swing by the wreckage to check it out. This isn't to discredit Roger's military service at all but just to reinforce that he was a "navy boy" who spent most of WW2 on big boats, shipping gasoline around the Pacific. He wasn't one of the characters in Band of Brothers parachuting into the frontline etc. It's not super relevant but I always find it interesting that Roger was from a very privileged / rich background and still went and served. If you were a young man who didn't serve in WW2, it was a real black mark of shame, no matter how rich or powerful you were. Pete's little fantasy is a bit off-putting but ultimately kind of nice. Like a lot of men he yearns for this cottagecore hunter rural lifestyle but he's actually a city-born baby boy with an office job who brings a gun into the office because boys made fun of him. Someone needs to tell Pete if you get rich enough you can just buy land or a ranch + pay people to run it + go visit it once a year to hunt and roleplay to "feel like a man" lol, like the other millionaires and billionaires. I agree, as far as we're aware Pete is the first/only person Peggy had sex with and she's like ~20yo. I forgot the slap was in this ep so when it cut to the supermarket i was gagged. imagine calmly talking to a random neighbour who gave your son her hair and then SHE slaps YOU lmfao. and then YOU get socially ostracized for it. being a divorced woman in 1960 is life ruining. I agree, Don was really horrible to Betty here. like we're all trying to find the guy who brought his horny boss w/ boundary issues home for a meal. You know what I love about Mad Men? it's not afraid to cut to a static wide camera shot where you can see all the performers on screen at once. sooooo many shows we watch these days are all close up handheld shots and then they figure out the story in the editing room. i miss when shows weren't afraid to pull back the camera and let us sit with the characters, looking at all their faces and bodies and the blocking, the lighting, everything telling a story. there are no boring scenes cuz its all visually engaging.

I will say that I am shocked -- SHOCKED -- at how far ahead you recorded! Your dual simultaneous reactions as Roger started hitting on Betty was the perfect reaction for how uncomfortable and ugly that whole situation was. There was no other way to take that. I didn't watch the show until after its original run, and had already seen a lot of pop culture references and jokes and commentary. This episode was the first time that I realized that the pop culture idea about the series was nothing like what the actual show was. I'd seen SEVERAL other TV shows talk about how this show glamorized day-drinking and drinking on the job, and when those other shows wanted to be clever they condescendingly talked about how this series would never show the downsides of alcohol abuse. But we're only seven episodes in, and here we see one of the main characters literally vomiting on-screen due to over-indulging during lunch. He's drunk and gluttonous, and the shot doesn't even cut away to let him retain some dignity. It's center-focus. We're not laughing WITH Roger here, and we're not even laughing with Don who set him up. We're laughing AT Roger. This is when I realized that this show isn't blind to what they're putting on-screen, they're very deliberate.

Last episode - zionism. This episode - chip n dip 🤔 Not sure if they noticed that Don paid the elevator guy to say that it was out of service. I missed that my first time watching. But I thought I'd mention it because it's funnier that he deliberately took Roger for this lunch of oysters, martinis and cheesecake before making him walk up the stairs, rather than just taking pleasure in it after the fact.

I am shocked

its a chip n dip https://i.imgur.com/dgoYlwG.png