Don Draper
The art of appropriate responses to inappropriate situations.
I wrote this about a year ago when season 5 ended. It was the thing to do, write about MAD MEN. I never could quite get it right. So I’m hitting publish now, late, old, and unfinished……. Because it is doing no good sitting in my Drive. It will feel good to delete it and I need to move on.
What a splash MAD MEN made. Even with the wait time season 5 was great. The articles abound that discuss the gender roles and feminism, and chauvinism, and racism. There are entire books dedicated to understanding existentialism and other themes in MAD MEN. It is quite interesting that we can look back now in awe of the social fish bowl that MAD MEN offers us. We can now study it from a far coincidentally with wonderfully complex characters, excellent plot developments, and good writing. There is always room for improvement, but our society has changed. The interesting thing about MAD MEN is of course Don Draper. It’s easy to look at Draper’s womanizing, smoking and drinking and think that he is right and well in the 60’s social soup of ism’s. But Don Draper is a man out of time. He is a man we put in a box who at every turn says to us he is not. Don Draper is so out of time that we cannot find a time to put him in. He doesn't fit in the past where he grew up as an orphan on a farm with an outhouse. He doesn't fit in the 60’s where he lives and constantly bucks the expectations of a man in that period. As we watch him we cannot place him with us in the future as well. Just for starters he cares nothing for political correctness, a mandatory skill for most workplaces in our time. Draper never fits, and we love him for it.
One way that Don surprises us is his compassion towards women. Don’t get me wrong, Don has plenty of coping mechanisms. There’s the women, the smokes, and the alcohol. There are even some obscure mechanisms like his naps and secret solo trips to see foreign movies. But even with all that Don seems to evade the degradation of women that runs rampant among the other characters of MAD MEN. It is easy to confuse his sexual exploits for chauvinism but it is a mistake. Only one time does Don allegedly uses his position to sleep with his secretary Allison. In that instance he shows the audience real remorse as she quits. His relationship with Meghan develops organically unlike the affair he has with Allison (remember her dropping off his keys). In addition, that event happens at the height of his transformation from from his affairs and at the peak of his divorce. Of course it is not justified but in it we see Don change. As best as we can tell Don has maintained monogamy with Meghan. But Don does show us compassion for women that is not seen among many of the other characters. For one there is Peggy’s pregnancy where Don pulled her out of a hard situation. What would have happened to her if he hadn’t? She may have ended up committed in a psychiatric facility for who knows how long. He may have saved her life. Fast forward to Joan’s divorce in season 5. When she is loosing her mind after being served divorce papers, Don takes her out to drive the Jaguar and for drinks. The perfect gentleman he tells her exactly what she needs to hear, no more no less.
In fact the farther away you get from Don the worse the treatment of women gets. Avoiding the elusive Cooper, the first ring away from Don is Sterling. Sterling is the ultimate connoisseur of women. This is more acceptable than mistreatment but at best it is a mild form of chauvinism. In all Don’s exploits he has made arrangements with women who are clearly nymphomaniacs, or if not, like the Jewish department store woman, they are power equals. This distinction cannot be made for Sterling(or any of the other men in the show) who has shown that he appreciates women like an artist but is not concerned with the outcomes of his actions in their lives. After Sterling we get to mid-level management like Campbell, Ken Cosgrove, Harry Crane and Lane. In each of them we see varying degrees of guilt as they cheat on their wives. We also see them pining after the models and secretaries in the office. At this level we see cat calls and a lot of crass discussion of women. The next level away from Don is the creative help. Here we have the delineation between the office and the world outside. Outside the office are the clients. Of course the first thing that comes to mind is the price Joan pays for 5% of the company and the Jaguar account. Something by the way that they should have given her already. While the other cowardly men in the office look the other way it is only Don who steps in too late to say it doesn’t have to be that way. That being said, don’t forget the previous seasons with Lee Garner Jr. and his advances on Sal. They are always taking the clients out to meet women and drink and dine. We see the lowest of the low in treatment of women from the clients.
There are times that Don is in theses situations but he never is a part of it. Playing to the existential elements of the show, it is as if all these lives in the context of the 60’s are happening around him as he watches. He occasionally interjects but mostly he just lets what happens, happen. That being his strength is also his weakness. He clearly does have unhealthy coping mechanisms when it comes to family, past and present. His, dare I say, failure to engage his brother was the same sin he made with Lane. Each of them not coincidentally hanging themselves. These two situations noticeable shake Don up, although not as much as the others involved. Otherwise Don is mostly annoyed when people try to bring him into the drama of the situation they are in, their ego or lack of it, or other petty arguments.
The transcendent beauty to Draper is the art of appropriate reactions to inappropriate situations. If you cannot tell I have made him a bit of a role model. There are plenty of things he does I would never partake in. Primarily the affairs. He is not a perfect man, no role model is. But this art of the perfect response is the thing about Don that I admire the most. There are a few instances where I can think of Don’s reaction being inappropriate. It seems like me, he is learning the art as well. It is just that he is more practiced at it than I am. Even when Don doesn’t know what to do, or gets too frustrated, he gets a drink and goes for a drive alone. Or he goes to a movie alone. And in a way this is actually the perfect response. That leads me to the rules.
Rule #1. If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything until you do. When I first started watching MAD MEN I watched Draper do this very thing. He will wait till a situation is about to go nuclear. The ‘threat level’ does not bother him. A few years ago I was borrowing a friend’s motorcycle till our car was fixed. I spent over an hour a day with no radio or phone. This changed my life. I began to problem solve and plan and replan. In that is the lesson. Move forward with a plan and be patient and intentional to make a plan. Another way of saying this is do not haphazardly make a move hoping it works out. Move with a plan or wait till you have one. Know what you’re doing and why, even if it doesn’t work out which is....
Rule #2. Make the best next move. This is a lesson I got initially from playing chess but saw it played out in Don’s actions. Fear and anxiety can cripple us. We think we know what to do but decide that we are not sure and so we hesitate. We hesitate because we cannot accurately predict the outcomes. In these situations we must set fear aside and make the next best calculated move. That is our only real choice. Moving backwards or stagnating are not options. Sometimes in chess we make all the best moves we know to make and still lose. Even though we lost we have to walk away with the lessons under our belt knowing that we played the best chess we could. Don writes an editorial on why he is quitting tobacco. It was a well calculated plan but he had no idea exactly what would happen. All he knew is that the editorial is what had to happen next. So he did it, calculated and moving forward apologetically.
Rule #3. Know the strengths, weaknesses, insecurities, and hidden motivations of others. Don seems to be either awesome at this or completely apathetic and very lucky. While he is constantly challenged by others, mostly because of their inflated egos(or deflated egos), he responds perfectly never quick to allow them the denial of their condition. To us he seems crass at times, but usually the people he is in conflict with end up as his ally. Even Campbell has respect for him now. In season 5 just as Peggy did, his new creative help Rosenburg is trying to get Don to jockey for superiority. Don’s responses seem cold but bet eventually Rosenburg will come around and Don may even help him out at some point. I have realized that 99% of the people around me are worried about themselves. They are little narcissists. They are typically concerned with their insecurities. I do learn a lot about them from this, but I also learn a lot about myself. Realizing that they are focused on themselves allows me to realize my own insecurities are holding me back, and realize that people are probably not watching me. In those uncomfortable moments you see people making mistakes and dealing with them poorly. That foreknowledge helps me deal with my mistakes. That leads to rule 4.
Rule #4. Know your own strengths, weaknesses, insecurities, and hidden motivations, and more importantly, leave your insecurities out of it! Seeing the insecurities of others, and how they drive them, makes it apparent that my insecurities should not play a role in my decisions making. They are not interested in my best interest or what is best for my family. They are interested in fear mongering and manipulating me to play it safe always. I was afraid of college for the longest time. Not being good at it made me more afraid of it which made me insecure and more apt to quit. Ironically in life if you are not good at something and you do not want to do it because you are not good at it the only way to get good at it is to start doing it. Which is the exact thing you are scared to do. This negative reinforcement cycle has to be broken by action; action by denying your insecurities permission to your will.
Rule #5. Do what best and right for people regardless of their opinion and situation. Placation has become a cancer to our society. Obviously when the best thing for someone is a treat or a reward then do it. That is easy. The harder thing is when the best thing is hard for them. We do no favors for people by not being honest with them. Sure, we do not want to deal with their pain. And sure we do not want to be responsible for their pain. But if you wife asks you if she is fat, shouldn't you really tell her the truth. Guys, she knows already. Are you really going to lie? Do you want her to believe a lie? Wouldn't you want her to know the truth and then take the steps to get to a healthy weight? I know it is a cliche but we do this all the time to people. Doing what's best can be hard. It can also require sacrifice. Like when Peggy was in the hospital and no one else was willing to find her. The rest of the office was willing to let her fade away into oblivion, never knowing what happened to her. Don took the time to find her and save her, again saying exactly what needed to be said and nothing more. Doing what is best for others no matter how easy, hard, or what the cost puts you in the moral ethical right, and that is a good place to live.
Rule #6. Be aware of your surroundings and situations. This is where Don’s drinking gets the best of him. Being aware of others and your own motivations is where you start. You cannot stop there. You must be in the moment using a sort of third eye to see that a situation is approaching or has approached. Hopefully someone else created the situation if it’s bad. Don’t stoop to others level. Your job is to respond appropriately. If you created the situation it is even more important that you respond appropriately. Rule 7 will help.....
Rule #7. Meditate. For a big plan you may need months. For a quick situation it may need only a few minutes. You would be surprised how fast you can work out a situation if you apply your faculties. Dont forget rules one and two - and take the needed time to plan.
Rule #8. Respond appropriately.
Rule #9. Critique yourself remembering rule number 4. So many times I think dang, if I would have said X it would have been perfect, or I should have done Y. Thinking about the situation afterwards helps make you faster next time something comes up.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Our goal is to make this a fast and subconscious process. It may never be totally subconscious but it can become automated with practice.
I guess if I was going to say anything it would be about how often our responses to situations are wrong. Just learning to respond appropriately can take a lifetime. Thanks for reading.
