Don & Duck

Does Don plus Duck equal 'Donald Duck'?

 

(Duck Phillips and Don Draper in AMC's Mad Men)

It's clear to me that the Mad Men writers have a file for almost every one-on-one relationship in the show, simply because of the intricacies of dialogue and recurring motifs between characters.  One of the most fascinating relationships is between Don Draper and Duck Phillips.

Is it just a coincidence that whenever these two appear together on screen, the short tempered child comes out in both of them?  Or perhaps is Donald Duck the microcosm of the relationship between Duck Phillips and Don Draper?

The incident that gets their frictional relationship started is when Sterling Cooper drops Mohawk Airlines to avoid a conflict of interest to pursue "a wink" from American Airlines according to Don.  Obviously a national airline, with more flights and passengers meant potentially more money for the firm.  The ambitious new Duck Phillips was all over the chance to put Sterling Cooper advertisements on national television and in big name magazines.  But Don hesitated. He told Duck that dropping Mohawk Airlines would be unethical and look like they have no loyalty to their current and prospective clients.  Moreover, Don fought for the account by saying that "We have a good client, that likes our work, who pays their bills on time." In a later conversation with Roger, Don asks him, "What kind of company are we going to be?"  to which Roger says "The kind where everyone has a summer home."

Ultimately, the American Airlines ambition failed and Don hand fed a heavy-helping of 'Itoldyaso' right into Duck's oddly delicate beak.  When a new face of the agency makes such a violent mistake in his first month, it forever sets a precedent on the relationship that can never be broken.

You may recall an episode in the fourth season depicting the night of the Mohammed Ali vs. Sonny Liston fight in which the recently fired, alcoholic Duck storms into the office and attempts to leave a gift on Don's desk. When Don comes back into the room, the two have an amicable fight which Duck triumphs.

It seems that when these two come together, they produce a frustrated immature dynamic that can only be explained by such a lively and irritable Disney character. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but a notable one at that.

Mad Men Ad Inspired Art

I was recently online shopping for a Mad Men poster, due to my crippling obsession with the show and my absence of Mad Men memorabilia on my walls.  After looking for posters on various websites, I realized I wanted something simple. "How about just the outline they show in the opening credits?" I thought. It turns out, AMC doesn't sell anything like that on their Mad Men posters.

Why is that? I'm sure plenty of people want that logo on their walls. So why wouldn't AMC mass produce a super simple poster that would sell to your run-of-the-mill Mad Men fan? Because much like Sterling Cooper (Draper Price), the ad men for Mad Men would never be so predictable.

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AMC has been more inclined to produce products like this.

Not exactly what you would expect for a TV show ad.  But then again people aren't going to buy a Mad Men poster if they've never seen the show.  And anyone who's ever seen the show would immediately get the reference this poster's making.

But like one of Draper's unsatisfied client's, I thought I had a better ad idea than the boys in suits on Mad Ave. So I just decided to paint it.     

                                                                      

After doing the outline to the exact specifications of the outline shown on the opening credits of every episode of Mad Men. But after looking at it a while, I realized that it just wasn't enough.  So I started thinking of ways to improve it.  

I immediately thought of the Season 7 poster (above).  I knew without a doubt I don't possess the artistry to draw that. So I decided to go all Jackson Pollack on it which would hopefully achieve the same effect.  And with that process, I gained my own unprofessional, yet unique representation of the show.  The point of all of this is that there is no way to advertise the advertising show without using a unique or intriguing medium to do it. 

The innovative advertising of the hired ad men for the show caused me to pick up a hobby which I haven't dabbled in since elementary school. Maybe my simpleton mindset made me want something less ambiguous than what the official memorabilia offered, but then again it inspired me enough to take the advertising into my own hands, which is very successful advertising.  

Take Me to the Pilot

I have recently restarted Mad Men on Netflix, marking the start of my seventh lap through the series. 

The pilot episode of any TV show is usually one of the best episodes in the series.  To illustrate the importance of a pilot episode I'll quote Samuel L. Jackson's character, Jules, from Pulp Fiction: 

"Well, the way they pick TV shows is, they make one show. That show's called a pilot. Then they show that one show to the people who pick shows, and on the strength of that one show they decide if they want to make more shows. Some get chosen and become television programs. Some don't, become nothing."

So as you might imagine if the producers are excited about a show they'll pump a lot of money into the pilot, hoping it will be picked up.  A successful pilot begs for whatever's next.

So what's so cool about Mad Men's pilot?

Betty and Don Draper (played by January Jones and Jon Hamm)

As any pilot should, it sets the stage for the remainder of the series.  It introduces us to Don Draper, "the greatest ad-man ever."  He wings his way through a meeting with Lucky Strike cigarettes, pulling the phrase "IT'S TOASTED" out of the smoky air.  Through the course of the 50 minute show he sleeps with an artist named Midge, charms his female client Rachel Menken, declines a strong offer from his new secretary Peggy, and in the end goes home to his wife, Betty (played by January Jones, who I might add is a total babe.)

One of the best sequences in the episode is when Don has his first conversation with Pete Campbell, simply because Don so eloquently and offhandedly sums up Pete's entire career in advertising as he walks into a meeting. 

"Advertising is a very small world and when you do something like malign the reputation of a girl in the steno pool on her first day, you make it even smaller. Keep it up, and even if you do get my job, you'll never run this place. You'll die in that corner office, a mid-level executive with a little bit of hair who women go home with out of pity. Want to know why? Cause no one will like you."

As we get this misogynistic, yet heroic portrait of the most creative mind on Madison Avenue, there are still a lot of blank spaces left to be filled.  The pilot only scratches the surface of the most important parts of Don, like his family and background.  And it drops anecdotes about his arrogance, ignorance, and lack of a sense of meaning in life.  



"The reason you haven't felt it is because it doesn't exist. 

What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell
nylons...

 ... I'm living like there's no tomorrow, because there  isn't one. "





So we've established within this first episode that Don Draper is a charismatic asshole who makes love to many, but doesn't truly love anything, except booze.  He has a history in the army, resides in the top 1% tax bracket, and treats his family, fellow employees, and clients like garbage but still gets mad respect from all of them.  

If you love character based stories, you'll probably be jumping around like a kid about to pee himself until you watch the next episode.  And THAT, is precisely why this pilot is so good.  

Seven time through the series, and I've always watched the second episode immediately after the first.  The desire to unravel the enigma that is Don Draper is more addictive than Lucky Strike cigarettes.  

Walter White vs. Don Draper

The following is an info-graphic I created about the two, often-compared and strikingly similar "anti-heroes" of AMC.

Don's Tragic Flaw

One element of a Hero that I may have touched on, but didn't explore in the last post, is the tragic flaw.  Now this isn't necessarily the case for all heroes, however as we know most protagonists face consequences of their poor choices along the way.

A good example of a tragic flaw is Achilles weak heel.  Achilles is the strongest, most fearless, and charismatic leader in the Mediterranean.  Unstoppable except for his human heel, that becomes the death of him.

King Midas' tragic flaw is the golden touch, which helps him and then destroys him and turns his family to gold statues.

If we consider 'flaws' first as poor choices, Don has plenty of qualifiers.  Buying prostitutes, poor business ethics, cheating on his wife, alcoholism etc.  However these flaws aren't necessarily the tragic flaw.

The tragic flaw is an element of the story that exists all along, but eventually defeats the hero.

I believe Don Draper's tragic flaw is ego.

We know that Don is arrogant from the beginning of the show.  In the first episode, Don takes a report on cigarette smokers and throws it in the trash calling it "some psychology bullshit", in front of the researcher who wrote it.  Like many Ad Men of the time, he believes in his work so deeply, he will yell at clients in order to convince them of the same.  But Don's confidence also gets him what he wants.  It's functional for him to be an arrogant ad man, because people love his work. Don's lover, artist, and heroin addict friend Midge once said "there's that ego people pay to see."  

Ego is the root of all of Don's problems.  He sleeps with women while married because he believes he deserves everything he wants.  He yells at Peggy because he believes he's always right.One of Don's top egotistical moments was when he replaced his idea instead of Ginsberg's at the last minute just to prove his was better.  Everyone in creative agreed that Ginsberg's idea was best, however Don wanted to put the young copywriter in his place.  Ginsberg later told Don on the elevator "I feel sorry for you" to which Don replied "I don't think of you at all."

Mostly, Don uses his ego to his advantage.  But at times during the show, his ego-induced actions come back to haunt him.  When he drives to the beach house with Bobbie Barrett and crashes his car after having too much to drink. Peggy comes to his aid with discretion and bails him out of jail and takes car of Bobbie.

When Don stays late at work on the night of the Ali v. Liston fight, Duck Phillips wanders in to relieve himself in Don's office.  Don attempts to sucker punch him with negative consequences; Duck topples him and threatens to beat his ass.  Peggy got Duck out of the office and stayed with Don until morning when he found out Anna died.

In either case, Peggy comes and saves Don when his life becomes out of balance.  She's a reliable, caring, helper for Don's journey.  This is the role of the helper in mythological stories.  They save the hero in times of adversity.  Like Sam Wise saves Frodo from the giant spider.  Or when Toto and friends save Dorothy from the Wicked Witches castle, the helper helps bring the hero out of the darkness.

The Mythology of Mad Men

Philosopher and theologian Joseph Campbell said that mythology does 4 things;

1. It uncovers 'mystical' or mysterious truths of life.

2. It 'pedagogically' teaches us how to live fruitful and prosperous lives.

3. It makes us 'sociologically' aware of others.

4. It acknowledges the 'cosmological' questions and paradoxes which we can never fully understand.

Mythology is a testament to the human condition told through stories.  As with all stories, myths have characters, archetypes, themes, symbolism, settings, and truth.  But the truth of mythology does not exist within the profane realm.  Myths are stories, that didn't necessarily occur, but help us live a life of meaning.  

Santa Claus is one of the world's greatest myths.  Every year on Christmas Eve parents around the world tell their children a fat man is going to land on the roof and deliver presents.  As the kids age, they start to question the validity of Santa's gift-giving spree that happens every year on a really cold night.  Many parents tell their children that Santa was a fake and that they lied to them, and it makes them sad.  Although I don't have kids, I would tell children that although the story of Santa's sleigh isn't necessarily true, it doesn't mean it's not truthful.  

Santa Claus comes only once a year and he makes everyone happy, and generous, and he spreads a lot of cheer.  Santa brings with him the joy of the Christmas season.

So what does any of this have to do with Mad Men?

Mad Men is a very rich, complex accumulation of characters in a TV drama that dances effortlessly between several layers of story line.  When analyzed as myth, the drama unleashes truth through mannerisms and tone of speech.  Maybe we can't have a drink with Don himself (although we'd all like to), but we can watch his suave character transform based on his context.  We see him make the same mistakes again and again, but we don't want to change him for it.  We're along for the ride with the protagonist; the hero. 

It teaches the 'mystical' secrets of living in a time where "the bomb" could drop any minute, and there may be no tomorrow.  Don teaches his associates how to live, write, and prosper by being the best at all of those things and leading by example.  Don's platonic and sexual relationships give us sociological perspective on our own relationships.  Finally, Mad Men teaches through a cosmological function which establishes the niches of archetypal characters, to illustrate where each piece and person fits in the universe.  

Joseph Campbell also said that every myth that has ever been written is true... for a certain context.  "If we give truth a contemporary medium, we too can have myth."  

Writers of myth speak in a vocabulary of acts and adventures.  Mad Men is one compilation of acts and adventures that illustrates a dynamic cast of characters in a fascinating time period.  The wisdom that is delicately sown into the script can help illustrate a plethora of humanity's truths, while keeping us on the edge of our seat with passionate dialogue.  My hope is this blog will help share ideas and create discussion about the deep layers within AMC's Mad Men.

Don Draper's Hero's Journey

In Joseph Campbell's revolutionary 1949 book, The Hero with 1000 Faces, he described a basic pattern that every "hero" follows in a story.  This isn't to say that all stories follow this pattern, however when considering a character as an individual, you can probably apply this model to their life in many ways.  Also, the journey is not a one time adventure.  The hero's journeys are cyclical, repetitious, and occur on different time scales.  A journey can transpire over the course of a lifetime, or a year, or even in a single 45 minute episode of Mad Men.  A single 'challenge' or 'temptation' could be considered a journey in itself or a journey within a journey.

Don Draper is clearly the main 'hero' of Sterling Cooper (...Draper Price).  The pilot episode of the series introduces us to Don's suave brilliance, pure talent, infidelity, and drinking tendencies that comes with his job.  Don Draper conducts himself in a way that makes his presence known when he walks into a room.  He's the boss; the Don; the King.

One element not included in the model below, but a commonality in hero myths according to Campbell is a miraculous birth.  Don's birth story is only mentioned twice.  Once in a flashback that showed a baby left on a door stoop.  Secondly, Don told a client (Heinz Beans) that he was "like Moses... a baby in a basket."

As I said before, these journeys are cyclical and therefore there isn't a "correct" answer to any of these elements of the journey.  However, you can certainly point to an element when you see it.  For example, maybe Don's "Call to Adventure" to become an ad man came when he was working in a fur shop, and Roger came in to buy a fur scarf.  Don recognized Roger's importance as a business man and chewed his ear enough to get a lunch meeting with him.  Roger later hires Don after having a few too many drinks and he doesn't realize he's hired him until Don shows up at the office the next day.  They show this flashback when Don drinks too much and pitches to Life cereal the catch line "The cure for the common breakfast" which Peggy reveals is the line of a young (talentless) copywriter, and Don is forced to hire him.  The point of the parallelism shows a call, or a beginning to an adventure of their careers.

As mythology relates to the human condition we see that the model is based on the human brain in that there is the known realm (the conscious) and the unknown or subconscious realm.  For Don there are infinite number of known and unknown realms.  The known vs. the unknown are simply opposites in lifestyles, time periods, or settings.  Therefore the 'known' could mean when Don is sober, and the 'unknown' could be when Don is drinking.  Or perhaps it's home life vs. work life.  Married vs. Divorced. Fidelity vs. cheating.  Dick Whitman vs. Don Draper.  Again it shows that these journey's aren't acutely defined.

While the journey's are abstract cycles, Don takes an epic journey that extends over the first 5 seasons of Mad Men.  I will do my best to illustrate it below.

Call to adventure: Don's call to adventure occurs in the very beginning when he pitches to Lucky Strike after new Tobacco legislation and their ad campaign needs to get around it.  This could be a hero's journey in itself in the meeting when Pete tries to pitch a terrible idea and Don saves the day.  However he proves his worth to Lucky Strike, Sterling Cooper, and the viewers ensuring all of us, he can be our hero.

Supernatural aid: Don is gifted with natural talent and confidence.  Enough said.

Helper: While any hero has many helpers, Peggy is clearly Don's favorite. Other helpers are Pete, Lane, Roger, Bert, Sally, Betty (maybe), and Joan.

Mentor: Roger could be seen as a mentor to Don, but also Bert Cooper helps Don significantly in many ways.  Bert gives Don more career advice, like the episode when he told Don he could be one of the "chosen few".  But Don appreciates Roger because he's the type of guy that Don wants to be when he's that age; an important business man who never really slowed down living the life of luxury.  Anna is probably his biggest mentor because she is the only person in the world who really knew him, as Don once said.

While these all could be considered Don's mentors, Don is definitely Peggy's mentor.  This model doesn't necessarily apply to only men.  Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz is one of the best examples of a character on the Hero's Journey.  Peggy is on a journey of her own.  Author Maureen Murdock wrote a book based on Joseph Campbell's teachings called the Heroine's Journey, which presents a different model for Women.
However, Campbell's archetypal journey can transcend the gender line.

Challenges and Temptations: (The entire show)  Each episode produces a daily challenge in Don's work or personal life.  We see Don's transformation from a cheating husband with Betty to a loyal man to Megan  (at least for a while).  Hero's tend to fail challenges and fall into temptations along their journey but hopefully they learn from their mistakes over time.  

Abyss:  It's quite clear that in Season 4, Don's life takes a turn for the worst and he goes to a very dark place.  He begins to drink too early and often in the day.  His falls to temptation finally catch up with him and ruins his marriage and forced him into a divorce.  He sleeps with his secretary and jeopardizes her job.  He slides deeper and deeper into his abyss until he hits rock bottom in the episode he keeps Peggy at work late on a Friday when her boyfriend Mark planned a surprise dinner for her.  Peggy breaks up with her boyfriend over the phone before being yelled at by Don.  This is the same night of the famous Sonny Liston vs. Muhammed Ali fight when Don bet  $100 on Liston; Ali knocked him out and made the cover of ESPN 50 years later.  Even after listening to the terrible fight in a bar, Don tells Peggy "Let's go someplace darker."  At the end of Don and Peggy's late night bender, Don receives word that his beloved Anna finally died of cancer.  Don cries in his office.

Rebirth: Don's rebirth happens when he writes the letter to himself that begins "They say as soon as you have to cut back on your drinking, you have a drinking problem."

Transformation/Atonement: He begins to acknowledge how his excessive living has affected him, and he takes steps to make it better.  He tells Megan to stop him at 3 drinks so he doesn't over do it. Moreover, he goes through the same situations he used to go through with a new perspective.  He goes to a whore house and stays outside while Pete and some others have their fun.  In the cab ride home Pete criticizes Don for being no fun and Don tells him that if he had "met Megan first, I would have known not to throw it all away."

Return: The Season 5 finale Don acts as a loving husband to Megan and allows her to be the girl on a client's commercial shoot.  Wearing all black he walks straight off of the shoot to a bar and orders an Old Fashioned, a drink that he hasn't had since before his first divorce.  The season ends in a delightfully dark Don Draper smile, to a lady of the night.  Despite his previous journeys, he's still Don Draper.

Don's journey is one of many journeys in the show.  There are significant and note worthy journeys for many other characters; Pete, Peggy, Roger, Sally, Betty, Ken Cosgrove, Sal.  This model is EVERYWHERE and is applicable to many different characters many different times.