I rewatched Sunday's episode again, and I think that that blackface stunt pointed to something powerful (if unoriginal) about racism--how it reflects on its bearers. Roger looked ridiculous. In part this was because he is ridiculous, blackface aside. But it's also because blackface--seen in full color like that--looks ridiculous. I may be off on this, but I've just never thought blackface was funny--not just offensive, unfunny. I have no idea why people, decide to show up to parties in the stuff. And yet they do.
I think it's a waste of energy getting offended about this sort of thing--mostly because it says so much more about the person in black-face, than anyone else. It's like the Confederate flag, and "heritage not hate." Why get upset? These people are walking around with signs that say, "I'm ignorant of the basic facts of American history, and I'm proud of this." Why be angry at that? It's on them.
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Hey TNC, sorry if I missed a post on it from last year, but what did you think of Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder? I have to admit, when he started quoting the Jeffersons I lost it!
Haven't seen it yet, but I hear he was really good. I'm a Downey fan, and I'm sure he was great. It's worth distinguishing from blackface meant to mock black people, and blackface meant to mock Hollywood conventions. Downey is doing the latter, no?
Ah yes I see. That was actually the first time I had seen blackface before(other than pictures of old vaudeville), having been too young to be allowed to watch the Ted Danson/Whoopi thing way back. Brent below sums up my thoughts on it pretty well. RD and Stiller took a big chance, and knocked it out of the park. You gotta see it!
If you want to read more about black-face minstrelsy, Love and Theft by Eric Lott is a great book.
First off, I was also going to recommend Lott's "Love and Theft." It's not what you'd call a "casual" read (it is an academic, not trade, book) but what it reveals about the history of blackface minstrelsy in the 19th century says much about the ambivalence - and persistence - of issues dealing with racial hatred AND fascination (the whole "love and theft" part), and the ways through which B.M. profoundly shaped American identity. It's not an exaggeration to say that no popular culture form has been as powerful in American history as B.M. and the fact that it continues to return in various forms, some obvious (the "Mad Men" episode), some less so ("Borat," Mickey Mouse), reflects its legacy.
I've got nothing to ad here except to second (third?) the recommendation. "Love and Left" is a really great book.
It is a very funny movie and the RDJ character was not what I expected after reading about it; I was prepared to be bothered but thought it was all well done.
Yep, Tropic Thunder was all about mocking Hollywood and its conventions. It was interesting to see the advocates for the mentally handicap get all up in arms while there was not much backlash about the blackface (at least that I was aware of). The movie was a tour de force of mockery all aimed squarely at the entertainment industry (actors, producers, directors, writers, prop guys, Academy Awards voters, product placement, etc.).
Obviously I can't speak for TNC but I thought it was brilliant and in part because of what TNC is saying in the post. RD's blackface in the movie was about exposing that his character lacked both self awareness and any sense of his own identity. Indeed it is somewhat pointless for the character who is actually black to be angry with him (although he obviously is). I also really enjoyed the way that he would switch from 60 idioms to more modern ones as he shifted around in the character. Downey is an ameican actor playing an Australian, playing the part of a modern black actor, who is playing the part of a 60s black soldier. Hilarious. Like working with mercury.
I thought the character was pretty innocuous. Not very edgy, not especially funny. Kind of like the movie overall, which was more or less the hamfest I expected...
It's also a very visible display of just how ridiculous Roger is and how oblivious he is to his own ridiculousness and inappropriateness.
Roger is not terribly self-aware.
I think part of the reason Don left the party at that point is because Don is incredibly self-aware. He knows his affairs are wrong. In his mind, he knows that at least he has the decency to be discreet and to stay with his family. He can be very good at compartmentalizing his life, and he is always working to maintain control over his life.
Roger is not in control lately. He is impulsive. He is not discreet. He sees nothing wrong with leaving his wife for a girl his daughter's age, and he is absolutely mystified that people aren't celebrating this. Seeing Roger acting so clearly inappropriately may make Don uncomfortable and angry.
The black-face routine also reveals Roger as being dated. Black-face wasn't as popular in the 1960s as it had been. He's doing his best Al Jolson while the creative team is getting high back at the offices. The music at the party is also out-dated (esp. Pete and his wife's dance scene). Roger is being left behind - the world and Sterling Cooper are moving on and Roger is clinging to old timey music and his 20 year old wife.
As to the music being outdated, this was on the heels of the Trad Jazz revival among the white middle class that went into full swing in the 50's and was probably still popular with someone Roger's age 7 or 8 years later. Like folks now in their early 30's still bumping Urban Hang Suite and Mama's Gun like they just came out.
Thank you! I was completely flummoxed by that element of the show. I was sure it was important, and in fact probably tied with The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but I had no way to figure it out on my own.
I thought the blackface and Charleston at the party was a stretch - unless that was some kind of 20s "theme" party and I missed that. Even accounting for a cornball jerk like Roger, my guess is that folks at such parties in that era - around 1963 - would be making fools out of themselves or having fun, depending on your POV, doing the Twist.
And the "trad jazz" thing had pretty much been knocked out by the roster on Playboy magazine jazz polls by the early '60s - which was mostly "cool." (I may be giving Roger too much credit because he works at a major ad agency in Manhattan, but I bet such a character would be paying more attention to cultural trends and flaunting them, whatever his personal tastes, especially with a young wife.)
I think that the show is entering a danger zone where the events and cultural shifts of the '60s are so enscribed as "important" in historical memory that the effort to draw these themes into the show might start to get strained. Hope not. Despite my not quite buying the totally anachronistic entertainment at Roger's party, that episode was terrific.
Yeah, the trad jazz revival began in the mid-40s and was definitely on the wane by 1960 or so--the weed-smoking Princeton '55 guys would have been more likely to be into it. But maybe the Long Island old money types were holding onto some kind of Great Gatsby nostalgia.
But what really bugged me, in this scene and when Joan played the accordion, was the really poor sound design. The music wasn't placed into the ambient sound at all, and the sound and images weren't aligned (e.g. Joan's lip-synching, clarinet player onscreen but tenor sax on the soundtrack).
In a show that's all about getting even the tiniest details right, that was pretty jarring.
Whats notable, though, is that while we see the "datedness" and the ridiculousness of Roger's performance (and to a lesser extent that of Pete & Trudy's Charleston), the intended audience at the party, by and large, doesn't seem to - they laugh easily and comfortably at the sight. This episode was very class-themed, and I think that the ability and desire to hold on to such things felt as much like a class division as anything else. Because if you're Roger, nothing ever truly HAS to be dated - people like him can and will always be able to go to their private club and "be happy" and "choose your guests." And lord knows there are still places where old rich white men congregate, where one can catch a nigger joke if one looks right and sticks around long enough. Peer pressure only does so much when you get to choose your peers.
That, as much as anything, is why I think Don was uncomfortable with the performance, and maybe generally with the party .... it showed in his discussion with Connie at the bar, after he ducked out. He, at heart, isn't one of "them" and he knows it, and his experience as an outsider allows him to see the ridiculousness for what it is.
I also think Roger is showing Don that there is a line that charming/dashing men can cross, when they become a charicature of themselves, and Don clearly doesn't want to be in the same position as Roger when he hits that age, and approaches that line. One of the reasons young women may find older men attractive is because of their sense of accomplishment, support of a family, and relative worldliness; so when the older man throws those things away for the sake of said other woman, a huge part of what made him attractive in the first place has been diminished.
Why get angry at them? Because we spend our hard-earned tax money to edumacate people who waste their time in the classroom. To be willfully ignorant is a sin worse than most others, and it's OK to get angry about it.
So, so true. It ends up dragging the whole country down.
I grew up in East Texas at a majority white school. To hear a nigga joke while walking the halls was not a shock. Hell, the visiting speaker at our Athletic banquet told them(he didn't use the n-word, but does it matter). I worked a few years at a bookstore and had a conversation with a man who was well read on various subjects, particularly american history. We discussed a local school district that was being asked to stop displaying the confederate flag. He said that people should think of the feelings of the kids who just want to hold on to their family history. I responded, "What about the feelings of the kids whose families were dehumanization under that flag?" I don't know how much of it is ignorance of the facts or not caring. Either way, I am with TNC, crazy is easier to see when it displays a flag. I know to keep it moving because there are more interesting people to meet.
"Why get upset? These people are walking around with signs that say, "I'm ignorant of the basic facts of American history, and I'm proud of this." Why be angry at that? It's on them."
On one level, I get what you're saying, TNC. I remember seeing a pickup truck with PA plates rolling through a local western PA outlet mall with a giant Confederate flag. I mean this sucke was full One of the things that came to mind was "uh, you do that Pennyslvania was a Union state, don't you?"
Or, on a higher level class-wise, the Late Night Shots crowd is great fodder for Wonkette and as a whole an easy target for scorn.
These people are fools, it's true. BUT...
On another level, the latter are the ones who tend to believe the Obama's a secret Muslin and that shouting people down who disagree with you is a healthy, viable form of public discourse. The latter either believe that the old ways were better (e.g. Trent Lott) and/or willingly use the ignorance and bigotry of others to gain power. And once in power, the Jeff Sessions of the world rarely enact policies that benefit anyone but themselves and their cronies.
I know that this sounds like borderline hysteria, but remember that it's no mistake that many on the Right are so obssessed with re-writing history to suit their ideology. The contradictions, complexities, and ambiguities of this country's actual past don't suit them as it lends itself to people taking the time to actually think things through instead and get out of their ideological 'comfort zones.' (This also applies to a lot of folks on the Left, too, but lefites are by and large not the ones toting guns to health care town halls.)
*pant* *pant* Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now.
I think this gets to what TNC said yesterday: Tell me a story. And this episode had several great ones about important group rituals that are often fraught with peril. The dinner party. The wedding. Weekend at the office. Grandparents and kids (and the hired help).
This episode was more tense for me than a crime drama show because there were so many opportunities for people to act like idiots. I would've left when Roger did the blackface routine too -- not because I'm a cool cat like Don Draper but because I get physically uncomfortable watching people debase themselves. I literally have to leave the room when my siblings or father-in-law say stupid things over Thanksgiving dinner, for example.
But the episode also had true grace. The shot looking up at Peggy, who for once is in total command -- and knows it. The granddad having his no-good granddaughter read to him (a classic relationship, as I've come to discover with my kids and parents). And Don and Betty for once being totally carefree and happy and in the moment.
It had everything: incredible tension, humor, wisdom, great acting, great writing, great directing. A great, great episode. Best show on tv and it's not even close.
Let me add to that the final shot of the episode -- Don, all in black, fading into the shadows; Betty, all in white, standing out of the shadows and holding on to him. Brilliant.
The scenes between Grandpa Gene a.k.a John McCain and the grand-daughter always have me holding my breath, praying he doesn't do anything wacky (again). I think that would be far too tragic (even moreso than Joan's rape) and the writers and Weiner probably won't go there. But it always feels like it might.
There's definitely an air of doom hanging over the whole Draper household with Grandpa Gene there. It's weird, and I don't know what's causing it, but i feel like there's going to be some kind of disaster and I don't know why.
I am so glad I am not the only one who thinks 'John McCain' every time I see or hear Gene. Of course, he's about 7 inches taller, but I can't help but think this is an intentional resemblance.
They've been using him since '06 or '07, when they started filming, so I doubt it's intentional because McCain wasn't the frontrunner nor candidate yet by then. But the facial resemblance is striking. And I could totally see and old upper crust, military royalty guy like McCain making Megan's future daughter read him passages from the Decline and Fall while sitting on his shaded deck on Scottsdale somewhere.
Sometimes when confronted with something (bigotry is one of these things but there are others) all we can do is step out of the way.
Only deaf cows, and the suicidal wait for trains to hit them. It's important to try and educate people, but when that fails sometimes a person has to step out of the way. If we see the train coming it's always best to move. On the other side of the coin sometimes we don't see the train coming. That can really suck.
This episode was like watching oblivious people in a tunnel looking at a light coming at them, most of them not realizing that the oncoming light is a train.
The problem with the current appearances of blackface in today's media is a lack of understanding of its history or its context. The oft stated claims of satire often ring false because many of the people who say that they are using blackface to satirize racism never acknowledge that racism is still an issue. Without recognition or knowledge of the object of satire, it's just racist caricature. Roger's blackface act in Mad Men struck me as the death throes of a society that doesn't know it's dying.
White people think that black face is funny, which is why they started doing it in the first place.
It's worse than that. Even black people did black face (see Bert Williams).
I would caution against a sweeping statement like "white people think that black face is funny." Not all of us do, although there may have been a time when the majority of us did.
Meanwhile, "My Old Kentucky Home" was the perfect nightmare song to use. That's Stephen Foster actually knowing that slavery was a nightmare, actually working on the grief of sundered families, and then deciding that if he put "Tom" in the title, white Southerners would think he agreed with Mrs. Stowe. It's almost perfectly haunted by history, as I notice every time I rise and sing it with the crowd on Kentucky ritual occasions. (Being haunted is built into my Faulknerian heritage, so I do, indeed, stand and sing.)
I guess I sort of knew of this song but I had no idea the history or certainly the lyrics. When people 'stand and sing' on these 'ritual occasions of which you speak do they actually sing that 'And all the darkies are gay' line? That blew my mind.
The darkies have become cousins, but remained gay.
I don't find blackface itself funny, but I would have found it funny if Roger had argued with Don with the blackface still on.
"These people are walking around with signs that say, 'I'm ignorant of the basic facts of American history, and I'm proud of this.'" - I can not say that I won't continue at times get angry when seeing some fool proudly display a confederate falg, but your larger point is one with which I agree. At the end of the day it says so much about the person. They may not be a proud or blatant racist. They may believe the "pride not prejudice" BS they've been fed. Which leads back to being ignorant, even if unknowingly. If a teaching moment can happen, all the better. Otherwise I pray for folks and watch my back.
At some point in that last six months or so I was flipping through the channels on the old TV when I happened upon some 'Special' of Kid Rock Live in Concert somewhere. With his black drummer and a couple of black back up singers, Kid himself sometimes rapping and then a huge projection of a Confederate flag on the backdrop of the stage.
Pretty weird. I don't even know what to think. I've certainly never been a fan of the 'Kid's' music or anything. I know he's a Republican and obviously works hard to maintain his 'Cowboy' cred, or whatever. I guess that is what it is for some people. A symbol of some kind of authentic 'redneck' pride while ignoring or forgetting the racist history.
He did play 'Sweet Home Alabama' at one point. And I couldn't help but remember that scene in Eight Mile where Eminem and Mekhi Phifer start riffing on that song while sitting around in the trailer park.
Wow. Not surprising but, just for the sake of not pushing ignorance, I'd ask that the flag be taken down if I were to perform. Perhaps this is yet another reason why I'm not in the entertainment business.
Funny how when boys from hood do things to maintain street cred they are called thugs. When boys from the sticks do things to maintain cowboy cred they become patriots and real Americans. Sometimes I just can't stand folks.
I've been hearing "Heritage not Hate" my whole life.
(Though I saw my first "I Ride With Forrest" bumper sticker last week, that was a treat...)
I've heard it from casual acquaintances and I've heard it from the occasional elected official.
On the wider point of being ignorant of basic American history, especially as it regards race, one doesn't have to go very far to find plenty of officials that speak and to a large extent govern out of just that kind of ignorance.
It's even worse in the electorate itself.
I think we get so angry because racism keeps finding ways to perpetuate itself and it's frustrating to watch it influence government and infest generation after generation...
Blackface can studied from arm's length because it's by and large a dead form of racism.
Ignorance is alive and well.
I'm slightly annoyed as I am looking for (and I searched the IMDB for it as well)the name of the woman whose character was the maid in the Draper home in this episode. Can't find it thus far - dammit. At any rate...
LOVE "Mad Men" as it's so pitch perfect. I was 12 in '63 and remember having to contend with a lot of the fallout of what this show is revealing. So many, as is often the case here, are commenting on many of the aspects of the show AND this particular episode. Something no one has pointed out yet, but LEAPED out at me....
The black maid took NO guff from Grandpa Gene - or the Drapers either, for that matter. She put it out there while staying where she had to simoultaniously. Noooot an easy feat, folks. And, many black folk did it every day. Remnants of it remain, for example, as we watch our President do it (and, in case you think he doesn't wrestle with this - think again).
This is one of the best presentations of American WASP repression that, to me, has ever been shown. And, keep in mind that '68 is but five years away.
"Mad Men" clearly shows - and black face is yet another aspect - why the lid blew off (my senior year in highschool) at that time. And, this program, it seems to me, is verrrrrry slooooowly building to this explosive point in American history.
Her name was Carla and she was GREAT last Sunday because she was firm but obviously understanding why Grandpa accused her first...
Ironies: Bert Williams - the first great black "star" - had to perform in blackface. Al Jolson (who apparently used his own "star" status to promote black performers and black shows on Broadway) was the first American entertainment celebrity who was openly Jewish !!!
brucds, if you can, try and catch the PBS program, "From Shetl to Swing." Narrated by Harvey Fierstein, it begins with a quick look back at the huge migration of Eastern Euro Jews to the US at the turn of the last century, then explores the rise of Yiddish theater and of the great Jewish composers (Berlin, Gershwin, Hart etc) and entertainers (Cantor, Brice, Marx Bros. and Jolson) and their transformation of American popular music at the time. The last third or so of the program is devoted to how so many of the Jewish greats incorporated Black music idioms into their own. There is a great clip of the first fully integrated jazz quartet: Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa and i think Benny Goodman, the leader. They wailed.
For this post, the relevant piece is Fierstein's long explanation/apologia of Jolson's Black face rendition of "Mammy" in the first talkie, "The Jazz Singer." Harvey almost had me convinced.
That sounds great - I'll keep an eye out.
Goodman was Jewish but from what I've read it was John Hammond, an uber-WASP "Vanderbilt," who convinced Benny to integrate his band. (Hammond recorded the last Bessie Smith sides for Columbia, the first Billie Holiday sides with Goodman's band, the first Basie and Lester Young and is credited with "discovering" everyone from Charlie Christian to Joe Turner to Aretha to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Springsteen. Probably the most important guy in American music who never played or sang anything.)
Here's a good riff on the episode from Tim Goodman, SF Chron:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/tgoodman/detail?entry_id=46529
I grew up watching Amos and Andy because I loved TV sitcoms and thought the characters were hilarious. Sorry, but Bill Cosby neglected thatthese folks had the first black sitcom and it was waaay funnier than Ozzie and Harriet, Life of Riley, or Our Miss Brooks. It was up there with the Honeymooners. Was it stereotypical? I didn't get that, really, except for one supporting character. The ladies were members of the women's club, the men the lodge. The bufoonery was more on the men as foolish dreamers--also true of Ozzie Nelson (often bumbling and with no discernable job), goofy Lucy Ricardo, Riley, and countless other characters, especially Dagwood Bumstead. Women were genrally portrayed as smarter, having more sense than their husbands, even sometimes in Lucy's case. So I was sad when they disappeared because there was some grear comedy writing and it is a historical show.
What ruined their reputations, however, was the radio version in which two white actors (badly) played Amos and Andy. That made a total minstrel mockery of the show's concept, allowing those understandably sensitive atthe time to revoke its usage.
That black face was more insulting back then was because it caused one to ponder, "Okay, m---r, go ahead and wear that in Birmingham and se how funny you think it is. These days, different story. All the air is out of the tires to the point where the N word long ago lost its sharpness for this generation, at least, You are right; it is merely a reflection of the wearer, like some juiced up cracker-moron carrying an Obama as Hitler sign...as though that concept were even possible on anything other than a parallel universe, if even there.
Amos and Andy was "problematic" in the context of early television's "blackout", but I've looked at some old episodes in recent years on DVD and it was a great show with brilliant characters, easily the equal of The Honeymooners. Lucy, Honeymooners and Amos & Andy are the only early sitcoms that I've found still watchable and very, very funny.
As a side note, the whole Ted Danson thing happened years back, but Mad Men creater Matt Weiner was a staff writer on Ted Danson's show Becker for years, so there's really not much doubt that the Danson episode informed Mad Men's latest, and very well could have been the spark of the idea.
Grrrrrrrrrreat catch!!!
No. That position is way too comfortable with the existence of ignorance. If no one points out -- with anger -- how completely fracked up these goofy blackface/yellowface/brownface parties are and why they are wrong, the events will continue to occur, along with sprouting concurrent ignorant attitudes.
No, it isn't like the flag issue, really. "Heritage, not hate" shows less an ignorance of facts than an unwillingness to accept reality. Which is scarier? Down here, the "heritage" crowd knows their history, can tell you what General Lee said just before he went to the bathroom on the last day of the war or whatever. They don't comprehend the significance.
To modern audiences, perhaps even only Mad Men's erudite, over educated literate mostly White liberal audience, the guy looked silly in blackface; but the kind of person who might still think wearing a purple pimp hat and shoe polish on their face is the height of comedy maybe not so much. It's such a slow pitch for Mad Men to swing away at on a short field.
Decades ago, when I was very young -- both factors in making the details quite fuzzy -- I saw a TV movie called "Minstrel Man", about a black minstrel troupe. At the beginning of the film they had to wear blackface themselves to fit in with the other troupes, but they pushed to break out of the format so they could perform openly, as themselves, and in a more natural, less stilted, style. They apparently had trouble finding advertisers -- the most solid memory of a uncomfortably long intermission featuring animated white-gloved hands on a black background above the title, as piano music played.
When I first started watching Mad Men it was great to watch from the standpoint of the Decline and Fall of the White Male Professional.
Now it's even more relevant to my life because of the grandparent-grandchild dynamic. My brother and I fought over what to do with our dad, who suffered from Parkinson's. And my daughter loves my mother-in-law so much that she physically hurts when we have to leave her home after visiting for a weekend. So much of the recent episode speaks to me.
Which is why Mad Men is such a great show. It's about great stories -- and it doesn't lean on hip, urban violence like The Wire or The Sopranos does to captivate you.
Driving through rural Mississippi a few years back, I saw a little Confederate flag staked out in the yard of some tiny little side of the road business, and it seemed like basically a substitute for "Whites Only".
The Confederate flag is a racist symbol, because whether it's about heritage or hate, it still says, "I don't care how black people feel."