& Moira Bianchi: maio 2016

terça-feira, 3 de maio de 2016

50c on a dollar

Hello,
Here I am again bitching about Mad men. Oh, well... it's closure, I suppose.

We've finished binge-watching all the 7 seasons and here are my views on the series.
It was a waste. 
Yeah, Draper. I was disheartened as well.

Such cool atmosphere, the rich Americans in the 60's! Right in the beginning, first or second season, Don says to Betty he's bringing his boss for dinner, she complains about not having enough food and he asks what's the use of the new freezer he had given her. A freezer to stock food in the 60's! You know when my mom got a freezer? When I was old enough to remember! Probably early 80's! How cool to see how US middle class life was, so advanced compared to Brazilian middle class!... I was raised in a small town, but my hubs was a kid in Rio and he said things were different here too.

The wardrobe was spectacular! I remember a dear aunt wearing those short, short, short dresses Megan wore... And Sally's boots with high white socks! I had those! My dad had that big mustache... 

The sets, specially the Draper apartment, WOW! Roger's white office - a Saarinen, a Corbu lounge chair... I loved it.

But when it comes to the characters... Meh!
I kept telling my hubs that if we stopped to devour House of Cards' 4th season, I'd never return to Draper. I mean, how can weak Don compete with bad-ass Claire?
As I said in my first Mad men post, I do like my heroes (and anti-heroes) tall, dark and handsome. I do, I'm a Darcy girl. But Draper... what a weak character. I don't mean a man's character (if he is a scoundrel or a family man or a cheater), I mean as a fictional character. He doesn't make sense, he's watered. The whole show seems watered to me.
Take his second married, f.e. Who was the Megan character? Before she accepted baby-sitting for him in California, she was no one. We didn't know she had a family name - we only knew her mom didn't use soap to wash her face and was French - we never knew she was an actress, had friends - including black and gay, a major issue in the show - or that she didn't like to be taken for granted. Wasn't she taken for granted when she accepted to be Don's girlfriend after spending three nights in his bed (one in his office and one in a hotel: bam! He says he needs to know if he'll be able to come back... really?)?
So, the beautiful girl with awkward teeth accepts the ring of a dead woman he cared about, the guy was grieving, blah, blah, blah and: the major character has a wife. Who is she? Have you heard from her? Has he thought about her? Has he known who she was two episodes ago? No, neither did we. 
Therefore, Megan had to be created from scratch. I never got to like the character, for me she was all wrong. And then, suddenly, she had to go. Guess? She was deconstructed in a single episode! Oh, please...


Good riddance, blue eyeshadows...
'Why am I being punished for being young?
An aging, selfish, sloppy liar.'
Draper presses his lips in contempt at her words in their divorce settlement. I did too.

And what about the black secretaries? Couldn't they be really good copy writers? Or a black client bringing them big money? 
What about a gay client? Where is Salvatore? Why did he had to leave and only when the lights went off we got to see a gay woman kicking ass? 
There was the gay-good-guy who never had a voice, was vicious to Pete and sweet to Joan. Then what? He vanished.
There was the gay-weird-friend of Peggy's who never made an opened pass and suddenly, there wasn't.
There was Don's secretary who was upped to controller and suddenly, vanished.
*sigh*

The best character's arc for me was Joan. She was my favorite character since the beginning because she fools us. You see boobs and hips, she forces strength down our throats.
There was the marriage to a pig, a bastard child, a mother (that no one knew she had until she appeared out of thin air), the ever suspicious friendship with Peggy (who wouldn't? Peggy is a weirdly developed character), keeping the rich guy on the back-burner, and more importantly, the struggle to keep afloat. From a super secretary to administrative chief to controller to partner to accounts manager to her own company. I'd love to watch a Joan spin off, to see how her producer career developed. Maybe on Fanfiction.net there are a few good reads on that, I should check.

This dialog sums up what I mean:
You go, girl!


Joan:
'I'd be happy to take my half-a-million and be on my way.
Big shot:
'I'm willing to give you 50c on a dollar to never see your face again.'
Joan:
'I guess I wasn't clear, I'm not negotiating.'

The whole McMann&Tate, oops, McCan&Ericson thing was a bore. Everyone was lost and actually, Draper ending up on a weird people's weird camp for weirdly dealing with weird emotions made total sense to me. A show with great potential that was totally wasted...

So, for me, in what it concerns 'Mad' (men), I'm all for Mad about you.

Let's hold each other's hand, as we jump into the final frontier...