Slate's TV Club is having great fun dissecting Mad Men, praising the show more than not. But my friend Matt Labash, a writer at The Weekly Standard, sent me a dissenting rant this morning. Matt is semi-horrified that I asked to publish his email, but I wonder what all you fans think? Is Matt right that Mad Men is losing its way this season? His guest post:

Gosh-damnit, what’s a brother gotta do to get Roger Sterling involved in the show again? The thing’s falling apart dramatically. And I haven’t quite been able to put my finger on why, because it’s still better than most things on television. But there are two problems, the way I see it (you will probably disagree).

1) It’s getting all message-y. An inevitability as we ebb further into the '60s. But it feels broad and ham-handed: Women and blacks are people, too? Really? No shit! Even the sexism and racism are vanilla and clumsy and predictable. Rather unlike Mad Men, Season One. And if I wanted my effing consciousness raised, I wouldn’t watch Mad Men. I’d watch every other preachy, politically correct show on television. The time-capsule element is the appeal—even for people whose politics are diametrically opposed. Good drama involves ambiguity—solving riddles—and the writers are taking it in directions where we all know the proper preapproved outcome. We don’t catch up to the characters, they catch up to us. No fun.

2. But a much bigger problem is no Roger Sterling, played brilliantly by John Slattery. They walk him on for three lines per episode, and invariably, these are the best lines per episode. If I’m creator Matthew Weiner, here’s my simple two-step recipe for continued success: Hand Slattery scenery, watch him chew it. Easy. Every show is 30 percent better straight away, maybe more. Enough with little Sally and gramps and all the other extraneous BS we don’t care about. The only ray of hope as I see it is Sally’s teacher. We already know Draper is going to shtup her, and I hope he gets to it soon, quite frankly. Cause he hasn’t shtupped any women this season, including his wife. Which is why I hate baby storylines. In real life, kids = happiness. In television, babies = stillborn story arcs. Some of the best scenes in Mad Men ever were the early Greenwich Village scenes with Don’s boho paramour and all her artsy friends. There were some great culture clashes there, where the suit and pocket square, for a change, was the good guy, even as he was essentially raging against his own obsolescence. Now that was knotty and interesting and unpredictable. I’m just surprised they didn’t make January Jones (Don’s wife, Betty) have the baby in a stuck elevator, like every other dumbass show on television. That’s the way it’s going this year. Enough! More Roger. Less "evolving." And to think, we still have the Kennedy assassination ahead of us. Good God. I don’t even want to think what that looks like.

Tags: DOn Draper, january jones, john slattery, matt weiner, roger sterling

I'm not as down on this season of Mad Men as Matt, though I agree that Don as well-behaved husband is sadly ho-hum (and therein lies a whole treatise on marriage that I don't want to read). And Matt, you're right that the race/gender messaging is more didactic and less surprising than in sparkly Season One. But I'm finding bits of the messaging moving and real. This week's episode was mostly drifty and even boring (for me, those dream sequences were beyond saving, despite Julia's valiant effort). But Peggy's failed bid to convince Don to pay her what she's worth made me sit up. The Equal Pay Act of 1963, which Peggy referred to (a thrill for the lapsed lawyer in me) absolutely should be her weapon. It prevented an employer from paying employees "at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions." That's Peggy, every bit as good as anyone in her posse of fellow male copywriters and doing as much or more work—that is, when they don't exclude her from their meetings.

But Don didn't get it. Which goes to show: 1) All that we owe our 1960s sisters for such moments of humiliation, and 2) that anti-discrimination laws don't work their magic without lawsuits to enforce them. (Matt, that one's just for you.) So yeah, it was message-y, but I'll take it. On the Mad Men message boards Peggy's devoted followers are terrified that she'll leave Sterling Cooper and the show, but also cheering for her to slam the door behind her if the company won't appreciate her. Would you go for that plot twist?

Photograph of Peggy Carin Baer © 2009 American Movie Classics Company LLC.

Tags: equal pay act, mad men, peggy olson

Another round from Matt Labash on Mad Men, Peggy, and lip-plated cannibals. Is he right about why we watch?

Sure, I’d go for that plot twist. But at the risk of offending my DoubleX sisters, I’d actually like to see much less of Peggy until she can figure out what to do with her bangs. They’re distracting. You’re right on all the merits, of course. Never would I suggest for a moment—especially not to you, Emily, who I have struggled and marched with—that women shouldn’t receive equal pay for equal work. Of course they should. But we’re not talking about gender equity in employment law. We’re talking about a fictional subculture on a television show. I’d put Peggy’s subplot in another category from what I was complaining about yesterday (ham-fisted topicality), since her tensions are intrinsic to the goings-on at Sterling Cooper.

But to put you and many of the show’s viewers on the couch for a second, I’d submit to you that the reason you watch Mad Men isn’t to see Peggy collect shards of glass ceiling in her lint-roller bangs. You watch with intense interest precisely because she is oppressed. The clubby frat-boy barbarism that you would never tolerate in real life is actually what fascinates you on some visceral level. If David Plotz, say, acted similarly on the Slate Political Gabfest (knowing Plotz, I can’t swear that he wouldn’t), he’d be frog-marched out by an HR rep in about a half a second and put in a stockade, where the women of Slate would jeer him and poke him with sticks. Which would make a swell podcast on Slate V, come to think of it. In other words, it’s behavior that’s become completely foreign to you, because the men in your life presumably don’t behave that way, and therefore, it’s more interesting to watch. The same as if you’d watch a documentary on some exotic, lip-plated tribe of cannibals. The anachronistic and unfamiliar holds interest because their ways are not yours. Hell, Mad Men’s ways are not my ways—except for the daytime drinking, which I’ve always held is a pretty useful model for living. (Note from Emily: More from us on DoubleX about drinking like Mad Men, soon.)

The genius of Mad Men, particularly Season One, is that it was as proud and unapologetic a period piece as I’ve ever seen, in that it did not condescend to its unenlightened characters. They merely were what they were. They behaved as they behaved—as they would’ve behaved at the time. If you wanted to pass judgment, that was your business. But the writers felt no need to club us over the head with what the sit-commers call the M.O.S.—the nice, tidy moment-of-shit ending. And so you quietly enjoyed the frisson provided by Draper’s caddishneess or Roger’s piggishness—as much as you enjoy Peggy’s steady build-up to the inevitable bra-burning that I suspect will happen mid-Season Four, shortly before the Woodstock episode, which I’m not looking forward to. Why? Not because I don’t love braless women and Jimi Hendrix. I do. I understand the outside forces the writers are bringing to bear, and can’t fault them for it. But the story they’re heading for has been written a million times in a million different ways. The story they’re telling hasn’t.

I don’t understand why it’s considered impossible to freeze fictional time and milk it until it moos. It’s totally possible. Otherwise, Brenda and Brandon couldn’t have stayed high school students on Beverly Hills 90210 for the better part of 10 years, and MASH couldn’t have lasted four times longer than the Korean War. By taking the leap ahead into the ’60s, the show will become something else. If you’re watching the documentary on lip-plated cannibals, do you really want to see them rescued by missionaries, brought to Passaic, N.J., and enrolled in classes down at the community college? No. You want to see them eat people. It’s what they do. And there’s something dramatically satisfying about watching people fulfill their nature, even if its base and cuts against the accepted norms of today.

Or maybe my doomsday predictions won’t happen. Hell, it’s early. And though I don’t think the show is up to Season One standards (I didn’t think Season Two was up to Season One standards, either—it was a ridiculously high standard), it’s still one of the best two or three shows on television, so its makers should be forgiven much. Weiner and co. have given a gift. I just want to make sure it keeps on giving.

Tags: beverly hills 90210, David Plotz, daytime drinking

Matt, I can assure you, David Plotz is no Roger Sterling. He cooks, he changes diapers, and he’s still married to his first wife. That said, he feels the same way you do. Every time we sit down to watch he yells, “Bring back Roger!” I was thinking of having bumper stickers printed to that effect. (If I do, I’ll send you one.) He’s never articulated why he misses Roger, but I think you put your finger on it: Mad Men is getting too preachy, and Roger is the answer.

I, too, was wary about the drift into the mid-'60s. The whole beauty of Mad Men is that it’s suspended in that moment before the dam breaks. Then the question becomes, can they hold that pose in perpetuity, or for at least five seasons? I think not, because then the show is entirely about style and periodicity and Weiner’s anal accuracy about types of liquor and train schedules, and that’s not ultimately all that interesting.

The new, groovy Mad Men is growing on me. I am curious to see who can make the transition into the new age and who can’t. Don Draper has gone mute and backwards-looking. Betty Draper is clearly frozen in time. The boys in the office—a question mark. Unclear if they will adapt or not. Ditto for Peggy. Roger, God bless him, is definitely moving into the new age of self-fulfillment and free love. As is Sally, who is well on her way to becoming a Goth cutter.

Tags: mad men, TV

Matt, I've been going all introspective in response to your analysis of my Peggy fandom, thinking about how, yes, it's true that the frank frat-boy act at Sterling Cooper is a relic rather than my workday, but on the other hand, subtler effects of sexism seep into work and affect a lot of women, so don't think for a minute that we're all set on this score. But you know what, I'm going to spare you and me both the rest. Because in Peggy's spirit, why let you take the lead in writing copy? Instead, let me put you on the couch (or the hard-backed chair that's actually in my office). I think you pine for Roger Sterling because of his license to be wolfish. I don't mean that you want to sleep with the Joanie in your life (she probably doesn't exist, anyway) or marry Jane. One of the things I count on you for (and David too!) is your solid and secure marriage. But to foreclose all possibility of such transgression? Ah, that's a loss as keen as the banished daytime whiskey. Yet to be a civilized man in our world is to take not even a step down that path. You—as in the collective you—can look, you can flirt, but you can't have. And that changes the meaning of looking and flirting. No wonder you're not eager for the future, which will soon go from equal-pay suits to sexual harrassment law, to arrive.

Tags: mad men, roger sterling, sexual harrassment law

Wow, Emily. And I thought we were friends. Here I am, minding my own business, trying to have a high-toned conversation about cannibalism, and you lunge for the sexual jugular by essentially suggesting that the reason Mad Men appeals to American males is that collectively, they are repressed Roger Sterlings (I paraphrase). Well, I can't let that stand. The last time I checked—in the shower, this morning—I was an American male. So I will take up their burden and speak on their behalf.

First, I should say strictly on my own behalf, in the interest of staying married, that I have never wanted to have sex with my secretary. Partly this is because, while I love women, I regard all of them—even the ones I'd secretly like to have sex with—as nightlights that flicker dimly next to the blinding luminosity of the aurora borealis that is my wife. (I love you, baby!) Partly it's because I don't have a secretary. But if I ever get one, and we have inappropriate relations, you can be sure I won't take Mad Men-like liberties. In fact, she will likely be the aggressor when I slather myself in Axe Body Spray and she loses all control. (I've seen the commercials, and know how that story ends).

But now that I've acquitted myself at home, let's honestly address your Sterling/Wolfman fantasy theory. Does Roger's licentiousness appeal to men? Sure, to some of them. Because all men, even the ones who are spoken for, love to look at beautiful women, and a lot of men like to touch after they look, even if they shouldn't. But I don't think that's the true power of Roger's appeal, or Draper's, or the appeal of the entire ethos they exude. Vivid characters like them and their male minions provide funhouse-mirror catharsis. But modern civilized man doesn't truly pine for a time when he could make bets on the color of his secretary's panties, then chase her down and flip up her skirt to see if he should collect. (I can't speak for Plotz here, Hanna.)

Not to go all Robert Bly on you (I can't stand him, as the last thing most men want is to sit around in a circle-jerk playing drums with each other), but what men really miss from the Mad Men era is the freedom to be men. To not be civilized and sensitized and effeminized to within an inch of their lives. To not be written up by some meter-maid-like HR poindexter putting a protractor up to their eyebrows to make sure they didn't flex five more degrees than the employee handbook deems platonically allowable in a workplace filled with women. And the dirty secret is, most women I know pretty much feel the same way. Even good neoliberal, feminist women such as yourselves. Women might have (badly) wanted men to change how they operated during that time. And rightly so. But they didn't want them to stop being men. And the reason modern women find Draper and Sterling so dangerous, which often translates to finding them appealing, is because those characters don't really give a toss what women want. They are a true relic: men undefined by women. That's why the Drapers and Sterlings of this world ended up getting the crap kicked out of them from the '60s onward. But compared to the poor humpbacked, henpecked, khaki-panted 2009 version of civilized man, I'm sure many women think that Roger Sterling almost looks like an attractive alternative.

Many of the correctives that make Mad Men a period piece were completely necessary, don't get me wrong. But Madison Avenue circa 1961 wasn't the most libertine time in our modern sexual history by a long shot. Just wait a few years (or a season, at the rate Mad Men is lurching forward), and you'll be reminded that people were no longer playing grab-ass around the water cooler, they were rutting full-on in Max Yasgur's mud-caked cow pastures. So the real danger of Mad Men isn't that Draper screws everything that isn't nailed down (okay, that's some of the danger). It's that he doesn't apologize for being what he is. Which is imperfect and amoral and badly in need of a woman who runs a tighter ship than Betty does, a woman who can actually civilize him. And I fully concede that he would benefit from such civilizing.

But to take the simple, eternal, and inevitable music of man/woman relations and to codify it and make it nearly transgressive—aside from the equal-pay suits and sexual harrassment law that you mention—I think this is why even liberal women are willing and even eager to plug into Mad Men, a show that is half written by women, need I remind you? Remember the episode from Season 1, in which Roger rides one of those redheaded twins around his office like a pony? Horrifying, right? You almost had to avert your gaze. But maybe good, God-fearing, liberal feminist third-wavers are making Sunday nights on AMC appointment television for a reason that is much more elementary than can be provided by all the over-analysis of the show. Maybe they're sick of gender wars. Maybe they're sick of having their emotions governed by the courts and turgid, abstract theory. Maybe they just want something simple and primal and gratifying. Maybe they want a pony ride.

Photo from Mad Men of character Roger Sterling by Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC. All rights reserved.

Tags: DOn Draper, mad men, roger sterling

Hmm, Matt. As commenter GemmaM points out, I did open myself up to the "what women want" game. And I thought for a minute I might have to concede that you've figured us out. Because, of course, you're right that I don't want my emotions governed by the courts or Feminist Theory 101 or, worse, 403. Does anyone, really?

But you're also arguing that women watch Mad Men because they yearn for men like Don Draper and Roger Sterling. To marry or have a relationship with, as well as to adore on TV. And there, I can't go. Don't get me wrong, I'm as crushy about Don as the girl in the next cubicle. (Though my heart still goes first to Tim Riggins on FNL, as you do like to remind me.) But even if I weren't as devoted to my husband as you are to your wonderful wife, I wouldn't want to have a relationship with anyone like Don. (And forget about Roger entirely. You won't believe me, but I didn't remember that pony ride scene until you mentioned it. Guess I won't be writing to Daniel Bergner about that for his project about sex and passion for DoubleX.) I mean, why would I, when if I imagine myself single for just a second, I'd have so many better flavors of man to choose from? You're offering me only two: The henpecked, effeminized, sensitized guy with a bad haircut, and raffish, sexy, cheating, perfectly groomed Don. What about all the men in the far more interesting in-between, the ones who are "free to be men" (Have you thought of launching a clothing line? Or a Lance Armstrong bracelet?) and who also take women seriously, intellectually and emotionally and otherwise. I'm with Loth and some of the other commenters: We've moved beyond the place to which Mad Men reels us back, and I don't want to go back. Not even for a pony ride. Though thanks for asking. I feel like you're really looking out for me.

Tags: DOn Draper, mad men, roger sterling