Mad World on Kritik: Mad Men Season 5.8
"It Is Being"
Guest Writer: Jeremy Varon
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
posted under
authenticity
,
Beatles
,
Bob Dylan
,
death
,
Jeremy Varon
,
Mad Men
,
Mad World
,
psychedelia
,
Revolver
,
Sylvia Plath
,
Timothy Leary
by Unit for Criticism
"It Is Being"
Written by Jeremy Varon (The New School)
By the time Pete Campbell beds the forlorn wife of a philandering suburban fellow traveler, an old-school Mad Men slime-fest seems full on. Explaining his entitlement to “a side dish in the city” — while playing Pete for a life insurance sale — the train mate Howard Dawes had restated the delusional macho writ of Seasons 1-3 which gave husbands license and left their wives miserable: “She’s happy because I provide for her.” Pete, taking the pitch too well, parlays — as per the vintage Don Draper — ennui into conquest, complete with post-coital, existential pillow talk and handsomely mussed hair.
But there’s a twist. Beth Dawes, after all, had initiated the vengeful seduction, confessing “I used to be like this . . . reckless.” (No prudish Betty, she). As Meg’s mysterious night out snakes through the Campbell plotline, we appear to have graduated into a world in which women at least give as good as they get. Call it progress, the 60s on the slow march.
Read more