What happened to Mad Men?

I know this blog is meant to publish poetry, so please excuse this abuse. I'd like to talk about a television show that once named its episodes after Frank O'Hara books, interspersed mentions of poetry, fiction, philosophy and art throughout its first four seasons and grappled with interesting, if not subtle, commentary on American social change in the past 50 years.

"Mad Men" has returned after a 17 month hiatus only to massively disappoint its hoards of (perhaps too) devoted fans. One obvious outcome from the drawn-out negotiations between creator Matt Weiner and network AMC was that the series lost some funding. The show, once famous for its unmatched glamor and mouth-watering shots that had all the polish of a box office film, turned up for its fifth curtain call looking tacky, too bright, and unfinished. The sound left something to be desired, too, with that contemporary remix of the theme welcoming us back from the surprisingly frequent commercial breaks.

But perhaps it is not quite fair to fault the creators for their loss of funding. I do, however, fault them for their loss of direction. While watching last night, I kept wanting to comment on the poor acting before realizing how impossibly trite the dialogue was. Lines seemed alarmingly inconsistent with what I knew of characters from past seasons. Tough, no-nonsense Joan crying to Lane about missing the office? Lane, who had an African American girlfriend last season, making racist remarks? Don being sappy and disinterested in work? Even Pete's petulance seems to have lost all its conniving bite. Who are these people? It honestly looked like a crude parody of its self. I'd also like to know if Don's employment of "cool" and "what's up" were in line with the meticulous historical accuracy viewers have come to expect from this show.

Worst of all was the two hour episode's treatment of women. "Mad Men" was once praised for its sensitivity to the women's movement. Stephanie Cooontz, among others, argued that "Mad Men" did well to remind female viewers how recent oppression was. In the past few months these intimations seemed to become particularly poignant as American women watched certain people try to turn the clocks of progress back. Now, I doubt that Nelle Engoron, who contended that when "Mad Men" inundated its episodes with vignettes of beautiful women suffering terribly, it bordered on the pornographic, could have predicted the vulgar turn the series took in Season 5.

Did the creators think they could cover the gross lack of plot by placating their audience (whom they clearly have a high estimation of) with objectified images of women in their underwear? More sensual than sexual, the wild appeal of the past four seasons had been how subtly and tastefully they dealt with desire. To have Harry (who had been alternately blundering and sympathetic) now make degrading and explicit sexual remarks about one of the central female characters without any humor, punishment, or insight from another character was a telling thread. The show is no longer about social commentary on past eras; it's voyeuristic sensationalism about a time when minorities and women suffered greatly.

Men should be mad, too. The show has abandoned its project to show the complications of manhood: the burden of the breadwinner, the moral disconnect between the office and the home, the often-damaging environment of paternalistic bullying, etc. to reduce its male characters into two camps: witless, sexist frat boys and mushy, Nicholas Sparks-inspired new husbands.

Last season left us with Don Draper artfully putting his meditations into writing. I find I no longer care about the so-called "moral ambiguity" of our hero. Friends, I ask you: what happened to Mad Men?

-Erin Lynn

"Mandolin" by Joel Allegretti

You are the runt of the lute’s litter, the parasitic twin excised from its half-pear belly. Sideshow dwarf to the guitar’s trapeze artist and bass fiddle’s strong man. You ring with tarantellas and bluegrass. You plink, plink, plink for revelers sweating spider poison and parry with the banjo at Saturday night clog dances.  You are limoncello and moonshine, the Apennines and Appalachians, Vivaldi’s Concerto in G Major and Bill Monroe’s Blue Moon of Kentucky.                 

"Ming and Al" by Amy Holman

Ming and Al
“All I wanted was a Garden of Eden.”--Antoine Yates


After Yates was arrested in East Harlem, Ming and Al were alone. The rabbit was good,
but hunger can have little to do with what fits in the stomach, just read MFK Fisher.
Three days in those close rooms, and they didn’t come down on each other. Truth is,
they weirded each other out, always had. People insist oddity is the basis for friendship
among misfits, but Ming and Al would never miss each other. Yates had held them both
in high esteem--a place so cold it should be snowing, Ming would say, if words were
appealing. Al kept looking for the truth to bathe in and was insulted by porcelain. He
just knew he should be hanging on the surface of it like a cloud in the sky. Ming slept
in a state of velocity, mysterious tundra opening his mind. New York’s Finest shot him
through the window. No matter, he woke to familiar stripes and the scent of snow. Al is
contributing to a population explosion in a subtropical state, no longer of the mind.

"Morning Glories" by Michael T. Young

Morning Glories

These flowering funnels burst like waterspouts

frozen in the first perfect flight of spray.

Perhaps that’s why their violet suggests

the last moment of night, its final thought

surviving into the early stages of daylight.

I rise and stand at the window admiring

how they lace the chain links and stretch

their spindles toward the bench.

No photograph could frame their tenacity

as they reach like a deliberate wave breaking

over the lawn. It will take days, like a work of art.

Yet their leafed ambition is a figure of modesty,

a flourishing that withers by the afternoon hours.

Even as they twine the bench’s wrought iron

sending their blooms up through the planks,

they shame my recollection of how their name

was used to mean someone whose promising youth

never blossomed.  Tomorrow they will trumpet

their arrival with new flowers so vivid

it will seem that today never existed.