A Rambling on the Personal
by strugglingactivist
Contains spoilers about the 4th season of Mad Men, or a vague hint as to what’s going on.
I’m currently obsessed with the current season of Mad Men. It is an incredible achievement and is possibly the best 13 episodes of TV you will ever watch. It effortlessly depicts a certain time and place, filling the scene with perfectly drawn characters that are complex. What’s more is that it’s set in one of the most fetishized eras of history; the 60s. You’d think the show would be obsessed with the cultural revolutions that are happening but they’re only placed in context of the characters and a very occasional a mention that generally feds into a storyline or character development.
Yet I find myself thinking about the latest episode over and over. In it Peggy, who works at an advertising agency, is arguing with a member of the counter-revolution. He thinks its morally questionable that the agency is producing work for a company that refuses to employ African-Americans. She says she’s not political. He replies that she is political, whether she likes it or not.
The immediate echo for me is the feminist mantra of the personal is political. Peggy has managed to climb a career ladder mostly closed off to women and she views the civil rights struggle, and the 60s counter-culture at this earlier stage, irrelevant to her as a woman. The feminism and sexual revolution is yet to come but the show sends an echo out to it.
It got me thinking though, not just about Mad Men and how everyone should watch it but about the line. “You’re political, whether you like it or not.” This moment seems to be a good time to point out that every life decision we make has a political consequence whether we like it or not. What job we get, if we vote or not, who we marry and where we live. It turns us all into a statistic, can paint us as either opposing the establishment or joining it, and certainly turns us all into a political tool.
After finishing the episode I found myself on Russell Brand’s YouTube show, the Trews. It made me think of Brand’s refusal to vote. He paints it as a political decision that opposes the system. It’s not apathetic, he says, as we should still actively seek revolution through other actions. He can certainly get away with this, he has so much wealth which equates to power, but can the rest of us? How many of the youths, who are the most likely to follow his advice, are going to join in the active fight for non-violent social revolution when they stop voting?
Brand also pulls out a Kindle in some of the videos. So I’m guessing he still supports the global capitalist system and Amazon, who must have changed their tax and employment policy for Brand to give his money to them. I must of missed the memo. Like I say, almost every decision we take has a political consequence (I must point out that I’m guilty of this action with regular visits to Starbucks and orders off Amazon but I like to make excuses for myself).
Barely any of us really understand the fact that the choices we make are political, whether we are aware or not makes no difference. Take the example of benefit cheaters, their actions are not politically motivated but they are used politically. Often the action of one person in an isolated moment, normally young acting in a negative way, is used to paint a picture of decline. A thousand examples spring to mind but the most recent is the tragic death of Ann Maguire, a high school teacher in Leeds. She was apparently stabbed by a teenager who had normalised violence through playing video games. Damn the fact he was mentally ill, ignore the broken mental health system. The “broken” implies that there was a time it was fixed, was there? Probably not. Instead of pointing out a real issue the actions of one man are a turned into a political tool, mostly by the right-wing, to brand the technological advances of the last decades as dangerous. The personal becomes the political.
There is no way of escaping this and it’s worth reflecting on. Its nothing new but I think with the rise of instant news and instant comment its definitely worth bringing up again. Do you all have to turn into angels? Should Peggy quit the ad agency that produces work for a racist company? Should Brand and the rest of us simply stop supporting Google, Amazon and pretty much every other multinational corporation? It all seems too impossible. Perhaps we can only dream.
In other Places 
A very interesting ramble. I can accept that “personal is political”, however that doesn’t make the actions politically important or influential. It’s like voting in a national election. You can vote, but your vote by itself has only a remote and infinitesimal effect upon the outcome. On the other hand, what’s personal has a large effect on your own life. I do think wrestling to free yourself from the cage of materialism is extremely important.
To me the core theme across all the episodes of Mad Men is an examination of the relationship between personal AUTHENTICITY and material success. In the Sterling Cooper (whoever) world, those most adept at lying, to themselves, to clients and to the consuming public, reap the greatest rewards. That is, until the weight of all the deceptions, especially self-deception, cause the character’s lives to implode.
Don Draper is the villain of the show, disguised with great sympathy to lie to the audience using the same dynamic. Despite being truly creative, he uses his gifts over and over to manipulate people. The legacy of his whorehouse and abusive upbringing (and stealing a dead guy’s name) is that he’s incapable of intimacy. I fully expect him to implode by the last episode. Perhaps that stylized title sequence is how he will commit suicide, unable to find a chair to land in.
Peggy has had a much wider character arc. In earlier seasons, she was the most sympathetic character, the “creative” with the most heart. But a combination of her ambition, and slamming repeatedly into that glass ceiling (not her fault) has turned her bitter. I’ve disliked seeing her soul get poisoned, but it fits what Matt Weiner’s trying to say.
Overall, the show is a cautionary tale, using the 60s as a framing device. I lived through those years too, but the closest I got to seeing life like these people do was watching TV and dreaming.
Thanks for the thoughts on Mad Men, to be honest the quote just got me thinking about other things.
However, I do love it. Not up to date and enjoying the glorious Season 4 at the minute. I must say that I love Peggy’s story arc and the Suitcase episode, not sure if you remember it, has to be the best one of TV I’ve ever seen.
I spend hours reading about all the themes and motifs within the show so appreciate your input.
Unfortunately/fortunately I missed the sixties by a long shot so only experience it through dreams and television too