Okay, so Mad Men from last week.
For obvious reasons, this was a difficult episode for me to watch, and the interesting bits for me were not at all related to Betty. I have trouble separating my visceral reaction to Roger's slurs from my critical assessment of a piece of pop media.
I think the show thinks it did an equitable job of presenting the issues and portraying the racial tensions of the time. Roger's carefully backgrounded outbursts are countered by the others and delicately frowned on. But as the viewer, I'm clearly supposed to
understand
the pouting Roger with Joan afterwards. I'm supposed to respond to the war trauma that caused his prejudices and feel like he's been hard done by and be back to empathizing with and supporting him next episode.
But I don't. Roger's epithets are the same ones that accompanied countless atrocities against Japanese people, both those from Japan and Japanese-Americans. Don't get me wrong. I'm not discounting war atrocities committed by the Japanese, as they were copious. But I had an aunt watching the planes fly over Pearl Harbor and one watching the planes fly over Hiroshima. War's not happy fun times for anyone.
And yet, racism is not the correct response to it. One of the greatest ills of racism is that its assumptions prevent us from getting to know one another as individuals. Roger's attitudes prevent him from being willing to do business with a nation.
So. I now carry a grudge against Roger, a bias against him because of his prejudice.
Now let's turn to the show. The show slaps Roger's hand, but has Joan pet it. Then the entire rest of the episode, the work based bit, is Don successfully manipulating the Japanese businessmen based on the assumptions made in a book written in wartime about how to understand an enemy.
For me, Don's gleeful superiority (purportedly against his rival company, but effectively directed against the Honda execs) exploits as prevalent a stereotype as Roger's more blatant insults. That this gambit is successful indicates to me that the show sees this as fine.
Things the show did get right, at least: the names were correct and the actors portraying Japanese characters are apparently Japanese-American. So there's that, at least.
I think I'll stop there. I'm clearly still processing on this.
I don't think the show condones Roger's racism, but just shows it as a fact. And in that time and place and with his position he's not going to suffer any consequences for it except that he's going to be increasingly out of step with the world.
The show does a pretty good job of indicating that Roger's hard feelings are racist when they note that nobody's got an issue about working for a Volkswagen campaign.
Also, the others in the office aren't any more enlightened. They object to Roger's behavior because it's unprofessional, not because it's racist. Bert's interest in Japanese culture is neatly balanced by his total lack of progressive thought with the civil rights movement.
I don't think they're exploiting stereotypes or endorsing anybody's behavior. Like the sexism and the antisemitism and the homophobia it is the characters' unexamined prejudices which reveal so much about the era.
Leverage: How did the con get the girl out of custody?
The problem with Roger is not that you're supposed to understand his viewpoint(s), but that you're supposed to like him anyway. Which I often do, thanks to John Slattery -- he says the most offensive shit, and it makes me laugh. Oh,
Roger!
But that doesn't mean I think it's right, or OK, and I don't think Matthew Weiner does, either.
Although, the whole show is slightly tainted for me after hearing that he doesn't think Betty is a bad mother. So lord knows what he really thinks about the rest of it...
Neal dressing Peter. A little something inside me just up and died in absolute pleasure.
I just have to say how ridiculous it is to think of one person going in to do an audit.
The problem with Roger is not that you're supposed to understand his viewpoint(s), but that you're supposed to like him anyway.
As a person or as a TV character, though? Because for me, he's firmly in that category of "I love you and THANK FUCKING GOD YOU'RE NOT REAL."
Yeah, I like that Roger is both genuinely charming AND genuinely racist. This is the man who did a blackface routine at a party after all. It's an interesting character choice.
As to his attitude, it seems true to the time. My mother will not visit Germany when she is with my Bro in Europe. She--the lifelong liberal--firmly says she will never forgive them. Not only did friends of hers die at their hands, the Holocaust is inexcusable. Intellectually, she knows it's a lot of new people, but she can't get past her anger.
Start with Neal dressing Peter, continue with Neal rushing to save a delirious Peter's life (and Peter being all noble), and then the whole "I'm glad I know the .... people .... I know" speech and the pledge not to lie to each other?
People, be gentle with me.
