The fine-looking gentleman in question
Last night I finally caught a full episode of Mad Men and loved it. I had seen parts of episodes, and totally love the look of the program: the furniture, the clothes, the men’s hats. And then there’s the Mad Man, Don Draper…Katie Baker explains part of the appeal:
Why the Ladies Love Jon Hamm of ‘Mad Men’
Why are we so wild for Draper? By any measure, the character’s a cad. He constantly cheats on his wife. He skips town for weeks and won’t write or call. He doesn’t talk much, and anesthetizes any feelings with copious amounts of booze. He’s an enigma, a locked box of a man who resists, maddeningly, easy explanation. And yet he excites an attraction among women—particularly ones my age, women in their late ’20s and ’30s who were born after the era that Mad Men portrays—that seems unmatched by any leading man on television today, with the possible exception of Lost‘s con artist, Saywer (another strapping scoundrel with a deeply troubled soul). We describe our obsession in words that, like the show itself, are somewhat retro. “He is a straight-up man. He makes me feel like a woman via the TV.” “He’s a throwback to a time when men were men. “It’s the thickness of his body.” “Shoulders to cry on and a jaw that causes women to swoon.”
A man’s man. A virile man. A masculine man. Strong terms. And ones that would make our postmodern gender-studies professors blush. After all, we’re the generation of women who grew up beating the boys in math class, reading Judith Butler (by choice or by force), celebrating “Grrl” power. Traditional male-female roles were going out the window while we were still toddlers. And maybe that’s why we feel a little guilty when we stop to admit to ourselves why Draper excites us. Because we’re not supposed to be using those terms anymore to describe our desires. Those words threaten a backsliding—they hint at some deep, unspoken turbulence; that, as if by saying we want a “real man,” we threaten to erase all the gains our mothers made in terms of equality in the workplace and the home. After all, we don’t believe in that evolutionary “me Tarzan, you Jane” nonsense anymore. We’re supposed to want men who are sensitive and respectful; men who emote and help around the house, and talk openly about their feelings. And we do want these things. Don’t we? So then why are we fantasizing about Draper rather than Jim from The Office?
Simple: Because the fictional Draper’s a real man, and Jim’s a wuss. As Karol put it,
Women like the men who take care of them. Whether it’s put food on the table or beat back the saber-tooth tiger. We’re programmed to crave the man who behaves…like a man.
Indeed.
And a question for you, Is Don Draper the new Jack Bauer?
Here’s the prior season finale:
UPDATE
Samizdata’s Jonathan Pearce is impressed enough he wants Jon Hamm for the next 007. Mmm…
Are you starting to realize the damage feminism has done yet?
Men used to be like this by default until feminist social engineering turned them into the feminized/pussified messes that they are today. Sadly, American Women are grossly masculine and unattractive as well.
Using the Feminist Family Court system to kick Dad out of the house prevented him from teaching his sons how to be Men. A task Mom can’t do.
Enjoy the results. At least the next two generations are totally gone due to feminist social engineering.
This is like arguing the merits of Jessica Rabbit and Wilma Flinstone! Neither realistic or productive. The American Male is doing fine and is no more or less reliable than two hundred years ago. The scriptwriters for such shows are at an arm’s length fascinated on what they think was the norm in the 50’s but forget that most of these guys grew up utterly deprived during the Depression and saw unspeakable horrors in World War II. And yet all the things they complain about in their fathers and grandfathers is somehow thrilling as long as they don’t actually have to live near them.
As far as women liking the men who take care of them: women wanted to work, now they work and this has resulted in, among other things, a much higher standard of living for families. Two cars, big house, gadgets galore, etc. I doubt that many women would want to give up the material possessions and go back to sitting around the house with one income and less stuff.
Of course, there’s always the gold digger strategy, or … Afghanistan.
> Samizdata’s Jonathan Pearce is impressed enough he wants Jon Hamm for the next 007. Mmm…
Yeah, he could do the job, though I hardly think we’ve used up Daniel Craig.
I suspect I’m going to write a long essay about the inherently masochistic tendencies of women, though, that they don’t automatically see Draper for the complete shitheel he is, and, despite his being a blatant shit, still choose to reward him for these shitheel qualities in the most important way possible.
If you want to reinforce a behavior in men, by all means — reward it by sexuality.
There truly is something demented in the female mind that seems to seek out self-infliction of pain and misery. I’m sure there are exceptions, even large numbers of them, but it seems a truism that women as a group have a majority of outright masochists among them.
… and yes, this does match up inordinately well with the equally strong inherent sadistic streak in males.
I’m not making a value judgment, as much as pointing out a deep-rooted problem in the human psyche and in gender relations as a whole, something neither feminism nor any other group have approached very openly or well.