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    mary-c-curtis

    Mary C. Curtis

    Contributor

    The Personal Becomes Political in 'Mad Men'

    Posted:
    10/13/09
    Filed Under:Gay Rights, Race, Woman Up, Culture
    3 Comments  + 
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    Can't the people on "Mad Men" be a little nicer to each other?
    Well, it is 1963.
    The women of Woman Up took a rest from our "Mad Men" dialogue, perhaps chastened by readers who wondered what it had to do with politics. A lot, as it's turning out. Even the mid-century Madison Avenue big-shots are finding it harder to ignore life moving on in ways we're still dealing with today.
    As our present president vows to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the military -- and even those who disagree believe it's more a matter of when, not if – closeted Sal the art director on "Mad Men" is fired after he resists the advances of a vindictive and powerful client.
    If he expected some sympathy from Don Draper, who has secrets of his own, Sal wises up after "Mad Men's" alpha male dismisses him with a "you people" aside. When last we see Sal he is on the phone lying to his wife with some unsavory characters hovering in the background. Flash forward to thousand of gays and lesbians and their supporters in a National Equality March through Washington last weekend, a scene poor Sal could not have imagined.
    While Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" lingers in the background, suburban wives denounce the South's backward ways while being waited on by black servants. You know what their reaction would be if the Draper's maid Carla tried to move in next door.
    Carla slides the radio dial to easy-listening music when Betty Draper walks in on her listening to the services of the four little girls murdered in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. Betty's comment while Carla seethes is all the more chilling because she thinks it's reasonable: "I hate to say this, but this has really made me wonder about civil rights. Maybe it's not supposed to happen right now."
    Knowing that change is on the way makes it easier to watch "Mad Men," but sometimes you want to either comfort or slap the people who inhabit its carefully reconstructed world.

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    Mary C. Curtis

    Mary C. Curtis, an NPR contributor based in Charlotte, N.C., was previously a writer and editor for The New York Times and the Charlotte Observer... more

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