Mad Men Season 3 Unpopular Opinions
OK- continuing the UO Mad Men/The West Wing Unpopular Opinions series- but I need to put more thought into my West Wing S3 UOs. (Hmm, the choices I use for the LJ cut tend to be...ahem, Sterling's Gold. Sounds about right for my taste in sound bites.)
I said this in my general Mad Men UOs- but to expand, I LOVE the Patio Bye Bye Birdie commercial. As I wrote:
I thought it actually worked because it was a head tilt to Ann Margaret (unlike Peggy's assumption) but it worked even better because the actress was so hilariously inferior to Ann Margaret (unlike the guy's assumption and Roger's comment). The commercial trades on how Ann Margaret made that song so memorable and delightful so it sticks in your head. However, the commercial starred more of an everywoman who your diet soda drinker could relate to and whose screechy voice could make dieting into something funny instead of a perpetual joke *on women*. Patio really should have gone with that commercial. It was a winner and I bet, your average 1960s woman would be *tickled* to hear a funny parody of the latest big musical....on her four-channel TV set long before the world was desensitized to the wit of parodying pop culture by SNL, Internet memes, etc.
However to add, I don't think Peggy was PRESCIENTLY predicting that women wouldn't respond to a Bye Bye Birdie rip-off to sell parody. IMO, Peggy was making an instinctive feminist argument that high school girl!Kim Macafee is the sex symbol of the moment and women (including older women) are influenced by society to be like Kim/Ann Margaret even though that's unattainable for most and it's even questionable whether unkissed, virginal, hung-up-on-a-celebrity-crush schoolgirl Kim SHOULD be aspirational for more mature, worldly women. However, I think the tricky part is that it's a cold hard truth that society WAS set up that women would like to be the Ann Margaret-type because men want the Ann Margaret-type. Even aside from that, the song is so dynamic and well-choreographed and instantly iconic.
Maybe I'm oversharing but when, I was a little girl, *I'd* do Bye Bye Birdie intro and outro in front of the mirror like Peggy but WTIHOUT the irony. I think I was more like how *Sal* got into the dance and how it's choreographed. Seriously! I'd try to mirror the moves, frame-for-frame and get caught up how she turns her back but then RUNS to the camera. And as always, Don and I have a big nothing in common on the surface but he frequently ends up voicing some of my inner-most sentiments that I either gloss over or only occurred to me after he said it. "She's throwing herself at the camera. It's pure. It makes your heart hurt." (Although, it's the contrast between the intro and outro at seeing Kim grow up but grow cynical that makes your heart hurt through the pure joy of the song.)
The Patio execs were right to believe that a Bye Bye Birdie type commercial would sell Patio drinks- to satisfy women's desire to be like the current It girl of 1963, but also the song IS charming and catchy and commercials that riff off popular *culture* culture tend to be more memorable.
IMO, the commercial failed because Peggy took her personal but completely legitimate social objections to telling ladies that they should diet to become like a Hollywood Vixen version of a high school girl COMBINED with her personal, but IMO, off-base opinions that Ann Margaret's voice is shrill and the song is annoying COMBINED with her instinct of "Is it just a knock-off? Are we allowed to make fun of it, at least?" into casting. Peggy led casting, and ended up casting an actress with a REALLY shrill voice who was set up to make fun of the song and Ann Margaret's performance instead of playing it genuinely.
IMO, Peggy didn't set out to tank the commercial with her choice in casting. First, I don't think Peggy has that kind of guile. Second, SC didn't have Patio as clients yet; they were only going to make money off this commercial if it appealed to the Patio execs and they, hired SC as their regular agency (and as Ken Cosgrove hoped, that'd be an entree to Pepsi). Instead, Peggy subconsciously took her legitimate and illegitimate biases into casting, and accidentally played a big role in tanking the commercial by not merely failing to cast Ann Margaret, but casting a deliberate actress who'd REALLY spoof and mock Ann Margaret. Now, despite that, the commercial still worked for me because it was so funny but it was emphatically not what the Patio guys were looking for.
2. I liked Suzanne OK. I don't adore her or anything- but she was a short-term character. I liked her enough for her screentime. The actress was beautiful and I really did believe her as a sweet, idealistic teacher and excellent sister who made a bad romantic impulsive decision. Her wonder at the "I Have a Dream Speech", her shock that Don and Betty didn't inform her that Grandpa Gene died, and the way that she actively played with the children were all pretty gorgeous. I love Sally so much that she can really vouch for a character, even indirectly. Copying the transcript without Kiernan's delivery but I loved:
Sally: But she says that those eggs can never become a chicken, even though they come out of a chicken.
Don: Why's that?
Sally: Because they're from the store!
Also, I object to this rule that Suzanne was THE WORST OTHER WOMAN and somehow REALLY DID BETTY WRONG because Suzanne is a teacher. It's not good for a woman to sleep with another woman's husband. However, Don started up with Suzanne over the summer, after Sally graduated from her class. When I moved to fourth grade, I just saw my beloved third grade teacher rarely. My mother never saw my third grade teacher again. In my experience, it's pretty rare for parents to maintain sustained contact with a past teacher. It's not even like Betty was a parent who attended all of the school functions. It was earth-shattering for her to go on Bobby's field trip in S7, prompted by Francine making her feel insignificant.
Frankly, it's a contrast to how Mona and Jane, as an Company Wives, were always in Joan's professional life. Mona and Jane came to office, came to the office's major social events. A large part of their "jobs" focused on Roger's career. We didn't see as much of Nan Chaough but I think it's implied that she was very much involved in her husband's life and career and likely to run into Peggy. Ditto for Trudy, although Peggy was somewhat excused in that regard because I don't think she knew how the social system worked in early S1. Ironically, *those* were instances where the Other Woman was likely to frequently interact with the Wife. Why is there a double-standard where urban-dwelling women can have SEX-AY affairs with their male co-workers because they're in the professional zone but Suzanne must be beyond reproach because she's a schoolteacher?
I can recognize that it's worse for *Don* to carry on an affair that brushes too closely to Sally's life and it's bad but not as bad, for him to confine his affairs to the non-Sally parts of his life. However, I hold Don to that standard because he has a continuing relationship with Sally as her father and he had lots of other options to cheat but he made a choice to not even slightly mitigate the disrespect to Sally. However, this is all doesn't apply to Suzanne (as much).
3. On a smaller note, I feel like some of the stranger Betty-centric eps are downgraded like on this (actually thoughtful and detailed but still wrong, LOL,) Buzzfeed list declaring The Fog as the second-to-worst ep. Au contraire, mon frère ! (Plus, WHAT THE HELL? at Mystery Date as the worst ep.)
The Fog was one of my favorite eps of S3. One of the most surprisingly gripping and meaningful shots I've ever seen in film and television.
I said this in my general Mad Men UOs- but to expand, I LOVE the Patio Bye Bye Birdie commercial. As I wrote:
I thought it actually worked because it was a head tilt to Ann Margaret (unlike Peggy's assumption) but it worked even better because the actress was so hilariously inferior to Ann Margaret (unlike the guy's assumption and Roger's comment). The commercial trades on how Ann Margaret made that song so memorable and delightful so it sticks in your head. However, the commercial starred more of an everywoman who your diet soda drinker could relate to and whose screechy voice could make dieting into something funny instead of a perpetual joke *on women*. Patio really should have gone with that commercial. It was a winner and I bet, your average 1960s woman would be *tickled* to hear a funny parody of the latest big musical....on her four-channel TV set long before the world was desensitized to the wit of parodying pop culture by SNL, Internet memes, etc.
However to add, I don't think Peggy was PRESCIENTLY predicting that women wouldn't respond to a Bye Bye Birdie rip-off to sell parody. IMO, Peggy was making an instinctive feminist argument that high school girl!Kim Macafee is the sex symbol of the moment and women (including older women) are influenced by society to be like Kim/Ann Margaret even though that's unattainable for most and it's even questionable whether unkissed, virginal, hung-up-on-a-celebrity-crush schoolgirl Kim SHOULD be aspirational for more mature, worldly women. However, I think the tricky part is that it's a cold hard truth that society WAS set up that women would like to be the Ann Margaret-type because men want the Ann Margaret-type. Even aside from that, the song is so dynamic and well-choreographed and instantly iconic.
Maybe I'm oversharing but when, I was a little girl, *I'd* do Bye Bye Birdie intro and outro in front of the mirror like Peggy but WTIHOUT the irony. I think I was more like how *Sal* got into the dance and how it's choreographed. Seriously! I'd try to mirror the moves, frame-for-frame and get caught up how she turns her back but then RUNS to the camera. And as always, Don and I have a big nothing in common on the surface but he frequently ends up voicing some of my inner-most sentiments that I either gloss over or only occurred to me after he said it. "She's throwing herself at the camera. It's pure. It makes your heart hurt." (Although, it's the contrast between the intro and outro at seeing Kim grow up but grow cynical that makes your heart hurt through the pure joy of the song.)
The Patio execs were right to believe that a Bye Bye Birdie type commercial would sell Patio drinks- to satisfy women's desire to be like the current It girl of 1963, but also the song IS charming and catchy and commercials that riff off popular *culture* culture tend to be more memorable.
IMO, the commercial failed because Peggy took her personal but completely legitimate social objections to telling ladies that they should diet to become like a Hollywood Vixen version of a high school girl COMBINED with her personal, but IMO, off-base opinions that Ann Margaret's voice is shrill and the song is annoying COMBINED with her instinct of "Is it just a knock-off? Are we allowed to make fun of it, at least?" into casting. Peggy led casting, and ended up casting an actress with a REALLY shrill voice who was set up to make fun of the song and Ann Margaret's performance instead of playing it genuinely.
IMO, Peggy didn't set out to tank the commercial with her choice in casting. First, I don't think Peggy has that kind of guile. Second, SC didn't have Patio as clients yet; they were only going to make money off this commercial if it appealed to the Patio execs and they, hired SC as their regular agency (and as Ken Cosgrove hoped, that'd be an entree to Pepsi). Instead, Peggy subconsciously took her legitimate and illegitimate biases into casting, and accidentally played a big role in tanking the commercial by not merely failing to cast Ann Margaret, but casting a deliberate actress who'd REALLY spoof and mock Ann Margaret. Now, despite that, the commercial still worked for me because it was so funny but it was emphatically not what the Patio guys were looking for.
2. I liked Suzanne OK. I don't adore her or anything- but she was a short-term character. I liked her enough for her screentime. The actress was beautiful and I really did believe her as a sweet, idealistic teacher and excellent sister who made a bad romantic impulsive decision. Her wonder at the "I Have a Dream Speech", her shock that Don and Betty didn't inform her that Grandpa Gene died, and the way that she actively played with the children were all pretty gorgeous. I love Sally so much that she can really vouch for a character, even indirectly. Copying the transcript without Kiernan's delivery but I loved:
Sally: But she says that those eggs can never become a chicken, even though they come out of a chicken.
Don: Why's that?
Sally: Because they're from the store!
Also, I object to this rule that Suzanne was THE WORST OTHER WOMAN and somehow REALLY DID BETTY WRONG because Suzanne is a teacher. It's not good for a woman to sleep with another woman's husband. However, Don started up with Suzanne over the summer, after Sally graduated from her class. When I moved to fourth grade, I just saw my beloved third grade teacher rarely. My mother never saw my third grade teacher again. In my experience, it's pretty rare for parents to maintain sustained contact with a past teacher. It's not even like Betty was a parent who attended all of the school functions. It was earth-shattering for her to go on Bobby's field trip in S7, prompted by Francine making her feel insignificant.
Frankly, it's a contrast to how Mona and Jane, as an Company Wives, were always in Joan's professional life. Mona and Jane came to office, came to the office's major social events. A large part of their "jobs" focused on Roger's career. We didn't see as much of Nan Chaough but I think it's implied that she was very much involved in her husband's life and career and likely to run into Peggy. Ditto for Trudy, although Peggy was somewhat excused in that regard because I don't think she knew how the social system worked in early S1. Ironically, *those* were instances where the Other Woman was likely to frequently interact with the Wife. Why is there a double-standard where urban-dwelling women can have SEX-AY affairs with their male co-workers because they're in the professional zone but Suzanne must be beyond reproach because she's a schoolteacher?
I can recognize that it's worse for *Don* to carry on an affair that brushes too closely to Sally's life and it's bad but not as bad, for him to confine his affairs to the non-Sally parts of his life. However, I hold Don to that standard because he has a continuing relationship with Sally as her father and he had lots of other options to cheat but he made a choice to not even slightly mitigate the disrespect to Sally. However, this is all doesn't apply to Suzanne (as much).
3. On a smaller note, I feel like some of the stranger Betty-centric eps are downgraded like on this (actually thoughtful and detailed but still wrong, LOL,) Buzzfeed list declaring The Fog as the second-to-worst ep. Au contraire, mon frère ! (Plus, WHAT THE HELL? at Mystery Date as the worst ep.)
The Fog was one of my favorite eps of S3. One of the most surprisingly gripping and meaningful shots I've ever seen in film and television.