tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post5192661481944069623..comments2024-03-11T02:18:33.966-05:00Comments on Kritik: Mad World on Kritik: Mad Men Season 4.13 "The Blue Pill"Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200566567765991464noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-45945075467364402402010-10-24T16:59:53.664-05:002010-10-24T16:59:53.664-05:00I'd reframe "cliche," Zina, as gende...I'd reframe "cliche," Zina, as gender norms. Megan offers a life where the man/husband is never to be questioned. Faye told him to get his head out of the sand and embrace a more complex, challenging reality--she pressured him to do something he's avoided doing for decades. She acted as more than an equal--as someone who knows his life better than he does. Whereas Megan rejects his attempt to describe his past. "I've done things." "I don't care. I know who you are now." A bland and surely deceptive assurance that she'll accept whatever he wants and stay subordinate. <br /><br />In this sense, gender norms work as the addictive drug. Which adds an interesting interpretation to the red/blue pill schema here. Norms as a seductive fantasy rather than an oppressive reality, as they are for everyone but Don. (And they are for Don, too--norms are as much of a problem for him as for Peggy or Betty, but he doesn't need to register them as such bc he clings to the fantasy that hetero mail white privilege affords.)ehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03537545055354267561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-64657950159510091022010-10-23T19:59:37.434-05:002010-10-23T19:59:37.434-05:00Great post. Yes: addiction vs health; fiction vs r...Great post. Yes: addiction vs health; fiction vs reality; simulacrum vs truth; surface vs. depth; jouissance vs contentment; desire vs banal satisfaction. However there is an irony at the heart not only of this season but of MM in general and of DD. The question is: what is he addicted to (beside alcohol and nicotine)? Why dangerous substance does Megan provide, rather than Faye? <br /><br />One possible answer is that she allows him to be "Don Draper", who is only interesting because it covers Dick Whitman. "DD" is no Superman, he is ordinary: this is his point. The now famous spilled milkshake scene is one of trivial domesticity, and this is why Megan is so attractive. This is the irony here: the lamp-kicking great sex and lengthy chase are on Faye's side, on truth side. Yes, desire is preserved by addiction, but Don's desire is so utterly for the reasonable and the mundane. His desire is for contentment. Megan is someone he barely had the time to desire before he had her (or she had him). The first time he notices her is when her lawyer speaks about her. The lawyer's desire awakens his. His desire is for the expected, the norm, the type. He wants to be the type that does what "happens all the time" (per Joan), marry his secretary on the rebound after a bad divorce. His addiction is to cliché.zinanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-49016655008525386192010-10-23T17:12:55.232-05:002010-10-23T17:12:55.232-05:00I think you've put your finger on the 3rd pill...I think you've put your finger on the 3rd pill, Sandy! ;)MPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08984136164543370547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-71879600765121475452010-10-23T16:34:12.330-05:002010-10-23T16:34:12.330-05:00Such rich posts and comments, it's hard to kno...Such rich posts and comments, it's hard to know where to start. One thing that occurred to me as I was watching Don's deciding to start over with Megan is the essential optimism that such a decision requires. Besides no longer using carbon paper and rotary telephones, perhaps our worldview has changed. Perhaps we have lost that feeling that better lives were possible and that we had an unlimited number of do-overs. In other words, perhaps we describe Don's decision as deluded because that's the way it appears to us now, from this perspective.Sandyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06854916064336492187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-19637777459313811082010-10-22T13:09:10.169-05:002010-10-22T13:09:10.169-05:00I agree that addiction is a powerful way of concep...I agree that addiction is a powerful way of conceptualizing much in this show (yes, I am addicted, too), including the terrible repetitions that plague so many people. I can’t help but think of Nietzsche’s image of our existence as visited by a “demon” who reminds us cruelly of the fact that life continually repeats, “there will be nothing new in it.” And of Walter Benjamin’s description of time in modern life as a “terrifying phantasmagoria” that deceptively promises constant newness and progress, while in fact “the face of the world never alters.” Which is what makes modern time--until the radical transcendence of revolution--the time of “hell.” Don knows this. At least he embodies this.<br /><br />And adding some lyrics to the earlier offerings lyrics, here are some (roughly translated) bits of a song, “Opium,” from the crisis-filled Russian 1990s (so formally even more anachronistic) by the Russian band Agatha Christie"<br /><br />“Hell appeals to me….<br />Let’s get together tonight<br />And speak Chinese…<br />Let’s die happy tonight<br />Playing at decadence.<br />Kill me, kill yourself<br />It doesn’t change a thing<br />This myth has no end.Marknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-28473813259495927462010-10-22T07:44:37.856-05:002010-10-22T07:44:37.856-05:00I've had Velvet Underground's "Heroin...I've had Velvet Underground's "Heroin" on my mind ever since the episode with Midge. I thought, since Jeremy posted the lyrics to Bob Dylan's song in other other thread, I'd put these here. They're from 1967 and so a little anachronistic. But I think they capture all the things that addiction does so very well--and not only to heroin.<br /><br />I don't know just where I'm going <br />But I'm gonna try for the kingdom, if I can <br />'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man <br />When I put a spike into my vein <br />And I'll tell ya, things aren't quite the same <br />When I'm rushing on my run <br />And I feel just like Jesus' son <br />And I guess that I just don't know <br />And I guess that I just don't know <br /><br />I have made the big decision <br />I'm gonna try to nullify my life <br />'Cause when the blood begins to flow <br />When it shoots up the dropper's neck <br />When I'm closing in on death <br />And you can't help me now, you guys <br />And a <br />You can all go take a walk <br />And I guess that I just don't know <br />And I guess that I just don't know <br /><br />I wish that I was born a thousand years ago <br />I wish that I'd sail the darkened seas <br />On a great big clipper ship <br />Going from this land here to that <br />In a sailor's suit and cap <br />Away from the big city <br />Where a man can not be free <br />Of all of the evils of this town <br />And of himself, and those around <br />Oh, and I guess that I just don't know <br />Oh, and I guess that I just don't know <br /><br />Heroin, be the death of me <br />Heroin, it's my wife and it's my life <br />Because a mainer to my vein <br />Leads to a center in my head <br />And then I'm better off and dead <br />Because when the smack begins to flow <br />I really don't care anymore <br />About all the Jim-Jim's in this town <br />And all the politicians makin' crazy sounds <br />And everybody puttin' everybody else down <br />And all the dead bodies piled up in mounds <br /><br />'Cause when the smack begins to flow <br />Then I really don't care anymore <br />Ah, when the heroin is in my blood <br />And that blood is in my head <br />Then thank God that I'm as good as dead <br />Then thank your God that I'm not aware <br />And thank God that I just don't care <br />And I guess I just don't know <br />And I guess I just don't knowMPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08984136164543370547noreply@blogger.com