The first episode of the new season of Mad Men struck comedic gold, every situation a laugh riot straight out of the best bedroom farce and classic satire. The fire alarm interrupting Don's and Sal's trysts in the hotel, Pete and Ken in the elevator, each thinking the other is congratulating him on the promotion, Sally Draper finding the stewardess's wings in Don's pocket and asking if he'd brought them back for her---these were scenes worthy of Feydeau, Wilde, and Shaw.
Too bad none of them were played for laughs.
But this has always been one of the most maddening things about Mad Men. It's a comedy with all the jokes removed.
Last Sunday's episode, Out of Town, is a perfect illustration. Except for the opening, Don Draper's bizarre vision of "Dick Whitman's" birth, the whole episode could have and should have been funny. It wasn't just that drained of humor the situations I listed were flat and lifeless. They were also without point or purpose. More than that, though, they were without sense. Played as they were, as naturalistic drama, they came across as mere constructions for construction's sake, there simply to give the actors things to do and say. But a character like Shelly the Stewie only makes sense as trouble for the philandering male lead in a farce. The point of her being there is to give us reason to laugh at the man who's foolish enough to pursue her. She doesn't exist as a character except in the act of causing laughter for us and embarrassment for the man. Any line of dialog she's given that isn't a variation of "Coffee, tea, or me?" reveals her not as a person but as a fantasy, and a not particularly imaginative fantasy at that. Take away her jokes and what you have left is a pretty actress acting her heart out to bring a stick to life.
Written and played as comedy, the point of Don's outrageous lies about his top secret work for the government and Shelly's falling for it would be that Don was talking himself into trouble, again. The joke would be on him. In Out of Town, the "joke" is on Shelly. She's not a stock company dumb blonde bringing out the worst in Don. She's a fool made more foolish by her own lust. When, as she's doing her little striptease at Don's command, she tells him that people often ask her if she's done any modeling, she comes across as pathetically vain and insecure. This is actually something that Shelly has in common with Don's wife Betty. Betty spends a lot of time trying to convince herself that she is beautiful and attractive. It's likely that her idea of foreplay with Don includes some form of a demand that Don reassure her that she is both. Given that the actress playing Shelly resembles January Jones, who stars as Betty, this could have been a moment when Don realizes that he's in the process of seducing his own wife by proxy and that it's Betty he really wants at the moment. But the situation won't allow that. This is farce not drama, and the fire alarm is going to go off.
The farcical basis of the scene prevents any realistic drama from playing itself out. But without the laughs, there isn't actually any farce. So what's the point? Don's a jerk? I think we know that by now.
Of course the real point is for Don to find out about Sal. But that could have been taken care of without the scene between Don and Shelley being shown.
And of course Sal's scene with the bellhop was farcical too and should also have been played for laughs.
There was more in the episode that should have been funny because the situations and the characters derived from farce and satire. The two new Brits at Sterling Cooper, the totally humorless and unflappable Lane Pryce and the fussy male secretary John Hooker, are comic types, caricatures, but only if played as such. Played as if they're well-rounded characters, they're just stereotypes, cartoons. Burt Peterson's temper tantrum after being fired could have been a deleted scene from Office Space. And even the minor, throwaway scene at London Fog, where the father and son team who run the company don't serve any purpose except as representatives of themselves, could have gotten laughs by doing something Dickens did all the time---find the humor in people just being themselves.
Played straight, as drama, Burt's tantrum looked like bad acting and the scene at London Fog looked like, well, pretty much likefour actors sitting at a table staring at each other while they all try to remember what line comes next.
But this is SOP on Mad Men. Go back through your memories of the first two seasons and think of all the bizarre, lifeless, seemingly pointless moments and then try to imagine them with jokes. Suddenly they make sense, don't they?
Well, most of them. Mad Men also has a habit of being deliberately opaque. What Jim Wolcott said about Sunday's episode can be said about almost every episode:
...these and other mysteries will go unsolved for several episodes, when more minor mysteries will be introduced, which will also go unsolved.
But Mad Men is one of the most relentlessly and deliberately humorless shows in the history of television drama. It goes beyond erasing the jokes from situations that have no reason for being except as platforms for telling jokes. None of the characters on the show has the ability to be funny or witty, which is very strange considering that most of them are supposed to be very smart and creative types working in a field in which humor is a highly prized commodity. (It's also weird that none of them are the least bit musically inclined either, considering that jingles were the favorite advertising tool of the period.) I get that Sterling Cooper is meant to be a bit old-fashioned and stodgy. But I don't get that they've been able to hire only old-fashioned and stodgy employees. It makes sense that Harry doesn't ever get off a good joke. He's scared that he's out of his league and he may be right partly because he doesn't have a sense of humor. But Ken and Paul ought to know how to deliver a good line. All they ever do, though, is trade "barbs."
Sal often seems to be witty, and he can be droll, acerbic, sarcastic, and ironic, but it's all tone. Very few of his "jokes" and witty retorts are actually funny. What they really are are announcements that he's gay. Everything "funny" he says can be rewritten as this:
"I'm a deeply closeted homosexual with a very different sensibility than everybody else in this room that I am compelled to express from time to time, but if you'll pretend you didn't hear me say that I'll pretend that I didn't say it and we'll all laugh and go on if it's just another case of Sal being Sal."
Now, as it happens, the same sorts of situations and characters that aren't at all funny on Mad Men were routinely played for laughs in the movies and TV shows of the time. The Apartment, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Sex and the Single Girl, the Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies, the Doris Day-Rock Hudson movie Day made without Rock Hudson, The Thrill of It All, Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys, quite a few episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show and even Bewitched satirized much of what Mad Men attempts to criticize and expose.
To the extent that Mad Men is about the period in which it's set---and I think that that can be over-emphasized; Mad Men is more about its characters' reactions to that period than about the period itself---its themes are obvious and unoriginal to the point of banality. Well, what do you know, before gay and women's liberation, before the sexual revolution, back in those days when men were men and women wore girdles, people were unhappy and life was hard for women and gays and black people! I don't mind this as a given. But it's annoying when it's pushed as if the writers seem to think these things never occurred to me before. And, I think, one of the ways they push this is by taking things that ought to be funny and removing every trace of humor.
Mad Men has always been at odds with itself. Theme and style work against each other, with style having the advantage, because this is TV and the show is a feast for the eyes, and the writers having to insist that we shouldn't be fooled by the pretty clothes and classy decor. "Nobody enjoyed any of it," is the subtextual refrain. "Nobody had any fun. They didn't drink highballs and martinis for a pleasurable buzz and to loosen up and have fun. They drank to anaesthetize themselves. They didn't dress that way to look good. They dressed up to disguise their real selves. The nice houses, the modern offices, the cool, shadowy bars were stage sets on which they acted out scripts they didn't write for themselves instead of real places where they lived out authentic and meaningful lives. So don't get the idea that anything you're looking at was a good thing. And above all, don't treat it as a joke. Whatever you do, don't laugh."
As I've said before, Mad Men has a very literary sensibility. Individual episodes are more like short stories than they are like episodes on other, more ordinary TV shows. But part of this literary sensibility is a habit of writing as a method of literary critique. I suspect that much of the comedy that isn't treated comically is a response to the comedy in the films and TV shows of the period.
It's as if the writers can't resist telling us over and over again that we were wrong to laugh at Rock and Doris because of what was really going on at the time.
As if those movies weren't actually telling us what was really going on at the time under the cover of "just" being funny.
As if the writers of Mad Men missed the whole joke behind Tony Randall's characters or think we have.
Nevermind that we can't watch those movies now without being aware of the irony in the fact that Randall was straight and it was Rock Hudson who was gay.
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Quick post script added Sunday night: From some things said in the comments here and elsewhere, I have a feeling that I didn't make my point clear. I'm not criticizing the actors for not making their scenes funny. I'm criticizing the writers and directors for putting them in comic situations and then giving them nothing funny to say or do and having them play every scene tristezza. A little scherzando now and then is all I'm asking. It's not up to actors to make things funny by clowning around. Comedy needs to be played straight. Characters in comedies don't know they're in comedies. Comedy is a matter of timing, tone, touch, and pacing, and Mad Men is generally directed at the pace of a high mass during Lent back before Vatican Two.
I'm not saying Mad Men isn't good because it's not funny. I'm saying I think it could be better if Matthew Weiner and company trusted that their audience would know that these are sad stories even when we're laughing.
Lance, why do you watch this show, given its wide-ranging failures in delivering what needs to be delivered?
On first reading, I agreed with some of your points and just sort of gaped at others. So I viewed the show again to double-check my perceptions. Here’s what strikes me:
Yes –
Mad Men is about moments, not plot momentum, and if you’re not into moments it must be a misery. Me, I like moments and I like watching actors who clearly enjoy playing the script they have been handed. Yes, its messages about the “truth” of the period can be underwhelming, but then again most TV shows are less than brill in the insight department – and I include the much-vaunted Sopranos in that list, which had me shouting, “Oh puh-leeeze!” every time I watched it.
No –
Making Sal’s near-breakthrough in the hotel a comedy would have been a cruelty. We like Sal, we long for him to live a true life. I would not enjoy laughing at that moment. The cost of being found out in 1963 was genuinely life-threatening. I feel for this character.
Does it really seem to you that Betty spends a lot of time trying to prove that she is beautiful and attractive? I think she knows perfectly well that she’s a knock-out. Her fear is that she will lose it. Because it’s all she’s got. If only she could make the rest of her world as perfect as she looks…
When Shelly said the line about people asking if she’s done modeling, it was poignant because Don’s married to an actual model, who far outdoes Shelly in that regard. Shelly in no way imagines who/what Don has at home.
Don’s understandable hatred for his over-sexed father is always coming up against the fact that he carries a big piece of his father’s flaw. I don’t think of Don as a jerk; I think of him as an addict. – So the bookends of this episode – recalling the hell of his father related to his own birth night and then being asked to tell the story of his own daughter’s birth as she sits there wearing the TWA wings seemed something above banal.
The funny. Roger is consistently witty; he’s also the funny. “Sometimes they don’t get the inflection.” Cooper is amusing. And the comparison of reactions as Pete and Ken are offered their promotions made me giggle. (And therein lies the purpose of Peterman’s temper-tantrum, which, I’ll grant you, was more plot device than plausible.) Other than that, I don’t think we can expect a lot of yuks from a creator as compulsive as Weiner. Not gonna happen. Change the channel.
Posted by: Victoria | Friday, August 21, 2009 at 02:53 PM
Man, I just couldn't disagree with you more here, Mannion.
Draper's tryst with the stewardess was an insanely personal drama for him. Fresh off of the will they/won't they stay together drama that ended last season (now, apparently, solved by the fact that "a kid fixes everything"), Don is now in a place to revert to his old ways.
How does he do it? By making up a story about who he is. This is familiar territory for him, making it that much easier to disassociate himself from his problems to give into his baser carnality.
Because, when it comes down to it, Don Draper is just a dispicable human being. He doesn't like to think of himself that way, but there's no denying it. He combats his internal disappointment with himself by keeping the stoic, quiet demeanor that makes him mysterious and therefore desirable, but as he said, no matter where he vacations, he realizes he's somewhere he's already been.
Compare this to Tony Soprano. An equally (if not more so) despicable person, but whose lumbering oafishness led to moments of pure comedy. But The Sopranos was supposed to be a pure representation of a modern time. Mad Men is supposed to be a representation of a time most of us know only from screwball comedies and JFK clips.
I think that's the point. If the screwball comedies of the era were comedic reflections of that time period, then Mad Men is the reflection of what people felt who were supposed to be living up to that happy-go-lucky postwar ideal, but who weren't and were therefore disappointed in themselves. And, of course, in the next few years it would blow up into a culture war that has yet to fully die.
Posted by: Dylan | Friday, August 21, 2009 at 03:43 PM
So ... I wasn't supposed to find Ken and Pete each thinking they were the new head of accounts, or Sally finding the wings, or Burt's tirade funny even though I did, because they weren't? Or ... what? Not every joke has to be played with a laughtrack or mugging.
Posted by: MaryRC | Friday, August 21, 2009 at 04:46 PM
Mary, just the opposite. Those situations were funny. I just think the writing and the directing were done in a way that was meant to tamp down our laughter. Mugging and laughtracks I don't need. But comedy is a matter of tone, pace, and lightness of touch, and none that was on display in any of those scenes. If that wasn't done deliberately, then it was just bad writing and bad directing. But I think it's deliberate and I don't like it.
Which doesn't mean I don't like the show.
Which brings me to...
Victoria, I watch the show because it's generally well-written and well-acted, and always interesting, if never funny. I also really like Peggy and Roger. I'm a John Slattery fan from way back. (Although I think that Slattery does a fine job of making Roger seem witty, just as Bryan Batt does a great job with Sal.) Had the pleasure once of seeing him live in Long Day's Journey Into Night with Sam Waterson. I don't mind the show being all about moments. Out of Town had some nice ones---Joan's getting the better of Hooker, for one. (There are some people who've accused me of liking the show only because of Christina Hendricks.) I think Sal's scene should have been played for laughs because it was a scene from a farce. But that I wanted it to laugh at Sal's predicament. I would have rather the writers had come up with a different sort of scene with the same result. But if they were going to use the structure of a farce they should have had the courage, or the wit, to follow through. I don't think laughter is always cruel.
Also, Betty's constant comparisons of herself to her mother are what make me think she's insecure about her looks. I think you're right that she's afraid of losing what she has, but I also think she's afraid she doesn't measure up. And she does seem to connect being beautiful with being successful and competent and happy and since she doesn't regard herself as any of those latter things, she creates doubt for herself that she is the former.
See, this is why I watch the show. To think about stuff like that.
Dylan, it's the same as the scene with Sal. Whatever did come through the scene with Shelly could have been presented through a different sort of scene. As long as they were using the structure of farce, they should have gone for the laughs. I don't think comedy has ever been an obstacle to presenting psychological truths.
Posted by: Lance | Friday, August 21, 2009 at 05:43 PM
But the scene WASN'T a farce! Neither was the scene with Sal! It was Sal's first moment to give into this gay desires fully (if with trepidation) as was Drapers fling with Shelley. These weren't farcical moments, they were serious.
And, yes, comedy has never been an obstacle to presenting psychological truths, but neither has drama which Mad Men, ya know, is.
Posted by: Dylan | Friday, August 21, 2009 at 05:57 PM
Hey, I've got an idea - let's beat up on Lance some more!
Dylan's point about Don making up stories reminded me of another thing I liked bout Sunday's episode - Betty says, "You're good at this" as he invents a bedtime story that puts her where she is not, and then he falls into his fake story with the flight crew with the same ease... modeling for Sal the fun of faking life before realizing how thoroughly Sal already does. And yet, he is haunted by his own true story and unable to tell the true story of his daughter's birth. Good stuff, but a little tough for comedy.
Posted by: Victoria | Friday, August 21, 2009 at 06:32 PM
What good are comment sections if you can't beat up on the blogger?
Victoria,
Nothing's too tough for comedy. Some things are too tough for naturalistic drama.
Dylan,
Real life is often farcical and part of the farce is how things conspire to make us look or feel foolish at moments when we want to feel noble, heroic, romantic, smart, admirable, etc. I don't think it would have hurt Sal at all if we'd been allowed to laugh at his predicament.
D and V and M,
As I said, I think Matthew Weiner shouldn't use the conventions of comedy if he didn't want us to laugh. BUT here's the real thing. I don't think that any thing that was good in the episode wouldn't have been good, in fact wouldn't have been made better, if they'd been played for comedy.
Posted by: Lance | Friday, August 21, 2009 at 07:40 PM
If I may be the voice of reason here, Lance, I think you hit the nail out of the park on this one (to coin a phrase).
I've watched every episode of the show alongside my long-suffering wife. She loves loves loves every episode, and despite my love for this period, I always end up thinking I should enjoy it more; that I like the idea of the show far more than the show itself, and the reasons are the ones you name: that the show is far more interested is telling us "Oh, we're so much better off now than those poor schlubs; if they only knew better ..."
But what keeps me coming back, ironically enough, is the quality of the writing and the acting. If they'd just loosen up and let the characters in on the joke a little more, it'd be as good as it thinks it is.
Posted by: Dave | Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 01:55 AM
To me the whole series is a one-dimensional tragedy - told in pretty pictures. More than that, it is an extract of tragedy, much like heroin is an extract of opium. The characters are not just experiencing sexism, racism, homophobia, and disassociation, they are the essence of all these things. To play up any comedic aspects of the action would dilute my overdose on the deliciousness of the tragedy. Don't water down my heroin. Don't mix any soda with my whiskey. Don't even give me any ice cubes. I like it just the way it is.
Posted by: lina | Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 11:44 AM
lina, very nicely put, but don't worry. Nobody important listens to me. Still, what Dave said. I don't think the show's bad because you're getting your tragedy without soda. I just think it would be better if the writers didn't go out of their way to kill every potentially humorous moment. And comedy isn't the enemy of tragedy. Lots of yuks in all of Shakespeare's great tragedies. Well, not so many in Lear, but Hamlet kills.
Hamlet kills? Get it? All those dead bodies at the end? Ho ho ho? Hello, is this mic on?
Posted by: Lance | Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 10:15 PM
I thought I'd make another comment just to see of Lance still has fight in him.
I have been trying to picture what the correct allotment of Lance-described humor would be beyond the mostly behavioral stuff by Roger and Pete and Cooper.
For me, the imbalance lies elsewhere. What's striking to me is that there are very few scenes where anyone is having any fun. There was the dumb fun of a drunken office party on election night - that was hardly the stuff of real fun. It surely wasn't meant to feel good to us. Don seems to have the teeniest bit of fun with his children from time to time. But does anyone at the ad agency actually enjoy their work? You'd think there would have to be more enjoyable repartee among creative collaborators in any halfway successful ad agency. But not in this group. Had there been some fun before, the British owner impact would have provided more contrast.
The show, of course, is about a shadow-laden world view that was supposed to have died in the 60's... but didn't. Reminds me of the joke: "What do you hear about Harry these days?" - "Harry? Good lord, been dead for years... just hasn't laid down yet." So maybe it's this zombie aspect that keeps the damper down.
Posted by: Victoria | Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 07:28 PM