We're Nearing the End of an Era
You've heard it before and you'll hear it again: we are in a Golden Age of television. Somehow TV show developers managed to figure it out, after decades of fumbling with formulas. The writing is snappier, the production values higher, and there's just MORE good stories being told on TV now.
"Mad Men" was arguably one of the first and best remembered shows of the current Renaissance. It premiered in 2007 on a network nobody associated with good television at the time (AMC? What's that?) and hit the country by STORM. People ate this show up, the ratings steadily climbing each season, only starting to flag during its final round of episodes. The end is in sight for this giant of entertainment and it's tough to imagine what could replace its stunning production values, its critical eye on the past and the present and its uber-talented cast.
Mega-hits come and go, though. In the end, will Mad Men have a lasting legacy beyond being a pretty-looking show with consistently on-point advertising team (both onscreen and off)? Only time will tell. For now, we raise a glass of scotch to Donald Draper and company and drink to their last hurrah.
"Mad Men" was arguably one of the first and best remembered shows of the current Renaissance. It premiered in 2007 on a network nobody associated with good television at the time (AMC? What's that?) and hit the country by STORM. People ate this show up, the ratings steadily climbing each season, only starting to flag during its final round of episodes. The end is in sight for this giant of entertainment and it's tough to imagine what could replace its stunning production values, its critical eye on the past and the present and its uber-talented cast.
Mega-hits come and go, though. In the end, will Mad Men have a lasting legacy beyond being a pretty-looking show with consistently on-point advertising team (both onscreen and off)? Only time will tell. For now, we raise a glass of scotch to Donald Draper and company and drink to their last hurrah.
"Drunk Men": The Rules
You could honestly drink anything for this show, the characters drink a lot and the drinks themselves are varied. Don's drink of choice is often an Old Fashioned, but we went with a round of Manhattans to start followed by whiskey sodas.
Don't leave out the cherry, the cherry is actually very important.
Easy Mode
1. Title Drops: Drink every time they say the full title, "Mad Men".
2. Drink when they drink. Bottoms up.
3. Drink for daddy issues. Aaaaand you're already sloshed. Time to go home.
4. Drink when someone smokes...well, anything.
5. Drink when you see people watching television.
6. Drink when someone makes a telephone call.
Medium Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
1. Drink for misogyny. By today's standards.
2. Drink for racism. Again, by today's standards.
3. Drink for homophobia. AGAIN by today's standards.
4. Drink when someone talks about things "men do" or "women do". Or things they DON'T do.
5. Drink when a scene takes place in an elevator.
Hard Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
1. Title drops: Drink whenever someone says the word "men".
2. Drink when someone references death or suicide.
3. Drink when someone kisses a person they aren't married to.
4. Drink when someone says the name of a brand or an account their company holds.
5. Drink when someone drops the name of an ad agency.
1. Title Drops: Drink every time they say the full title, "Mad Men".
2. Drink when they drink. Bottoms up.
3. Drink for daddy issues. Aaaaand you're already sloshed. Time to go home.
4. Drink when someone smokes...well, anything.
5. Drink when you see people watching television.
6. Drink when someone makes a telephone call.
Medium Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
1. Drink for misogyny. By today's standards.
2. Drink for racism. Again, by today's standards.
3. Drink for homophobia. AGAIN by today's standards.
4. Drink when someone talks about things "men do" or "women do". Or things they DON'T do.
5. Drink when a scene takes place in an elevator.
Hard Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
1. Title drops: Drink whenever someone says the word "men".
2. Drink when someone references death or suicide.
3. Drink when someone kisses a person they aren't married to.
4. Drink when someone says the name of a brand or an account their company holds.
5. Drink when someone drops the name of an ad agency.
One ridiculous season involved an agency with SIX different names in it.
The Players
The players for this game are...
Krissy Pappau: Has no idea how to become a copy writer (Medium)
Dame Poppy Middleton: Drinks everything from a martini glass (Easy)
Bride of Buggerlas: Jealous of everything everyone is wearing (Easy)
Big Moose: Agrees with Pete - Kennedy is the name of a product (Hard)
Dijan de Nero: Thinks Don is a crappy account manager (Hard)
Shirley Whiskas: Dressed up for the test game (Hard)
Krissy Pappau: Has no idea how to become a copy writer (Medium)
Dame Poppy Middleton: Drinks everything from a martini glass (Easy)
Bride of Buggerlas: Jealous of everything everyone is wearing (Easy)
Big Moose: Agrees with Pete - Kennedy is the name of a product (Hard)
Dijan de Nero: Thinks Don is a crappy account manager (Hard)
Shirley Whiskas: Dressed up for the test game (Hard)
Standards
Part of the reason "Mad Men" won its critical acclaim was its unflinching reexamination of social attitudes in the 1960's. It was a time of transition, and the show does a great job of communicating that by writing characters from both sides of the country's tumultuous discourse. There's characters who are pro-war and anti-war, black characters and racist old white men, homosexuals and people who would rather talk about ANYTHING else than same-sex boning. It's a fun time, especially since our main group of characters is eager to put aside their personal beliefs, no matter what they may be, as long as doing so will make them rich.
Except that one time Roger Sterling nearly fucked things up with Honda because he lost friends in the war.
That cluster of rules in the middle of Medium Mode? They're what make this game, and they're what make this show, especially if you use them to examine the show's views about gender, race, sexuality etc. I allowed my friends during this test run to drink whenever they saw something they personally considered offensive rather than all arrive at a concensus moment to moment, because a lot of the time what's "offensive" varies from person to person in different contexts. We could generally all agree on certain things that were horrendous, though - the moments the SHOW wanted us to think were horrendous.
Especially in its earlier seasons, "Mad Men" likes to poke at how "ignorant" people in the 60's were, and that kind of on-the-nose commentary is what turned me off to it for a long time. They ease off that kind of thing midway through, but everyone remembers that scene where the Drapers go on a picnic and leave all their crap on this beautiful mountainside after they're done. That kind of thing is cool in small doses, but where "Mad Men" shines is when its characters are casual about their behavior because that's just the way things are, and the show just lets them SAY so. For example, in an early episode Betty's brother calls one of his maids "colored". That was a totally acceptable way to refer to black people for a long time, but white people don't use that word anymore, except for Benedict Cumberbatch that one time, except it was taken out of context and even David Oyelowo was like "chill, people", except REALLY, Benedict Cumberbatch?
Especially in its earlier seasons, "Mad Men" likes to poke at how "ignorant" people in the 60's were, and that kind of on-the-nose commentary is what turned me off to it for a long time. They ease off that kind of thing midway through, but everyone remembers that scene where the Drapers go on a picnic and leave all their crap on this beautiful mountainside after they're done. That kind of thing is cool in small doses, but where "Mad Men" shines is when its characters are casual about their behavior because that's just the way things are, and the show just lets them SAY so. For example, in an early episode Betty's brother calls one of his maids "colored". That was a totally acceptable way to refer to black people for a long time, but white people don't use that word anymore, except for Benedict Cumberbatch that one time, except it was taken out of context and even David Oyelowo was like "chill, people", except REALLY, Benedict Cumberbatch?
And the internet did not make a big deal about it at all, that's what's interesting to me.
So like, yeah, that's obviously a moment where we drink. And the part where Roger Sterling rides a woman like a horse around his office ("What the fuck is happening over here?" said Big Moose), that gets a drink too. But sometimes the writers are so busy criticizing the people of decades past that they fail to notice when they fall into the very tropes they're lampooning. What then?
A cartoon is resurfacing on my corner of the internet, originally published on Everyday Feminism, about the difference between a woman being objectified and sexually empowered; it argues that a woman is only empowered when she herself has power in the given situation, and if things are otherwise that results in objectification. Furthermore, the author argues that because fictional characters are created by an artist at the other end of a pen, camera, paintbrush or what have you, that they lack the ability to give consent regarding how they are portrayed. Therefore, portraying agency and "sexual empowerment" is inherently more difficult, if not impossible; if a character cannot consent to the situations they find themselves in or their modes of behavior within the world they inhabit, they have far less power and it is up to the writer to make up for that deficiency.
Applying this mode of thought to "Mad Men", things can get a little sketchy. The show has a great cast that includes a number of active, interesting and powerful female characters. But then you get scenes like Roger Sterling riding a woman round his office like a horse. And while most of the time these scenes are centered around showing that what the men are doing is wrong, they're still using women as tools to do it. So it falls in kind of a grey area.
A cartoon is resurfacing on my corner of the internet, originally published on Everyday Feminism, about the difference between a woman being objectified and sexually empowered; it argues that a woman is only empowered when she herself has power in the given situation, and if things are otherwise that results in objectification. Furthermore, the author argues that because fictional characters are created by an artist at the other end of a pen, camera, paintbrush or what have you, that they lack the ability to give consent regarding how they are portrayed. Therefore, portraying agency and "sexual empowerment" is inherently more difficult, if not impossible; if a character cannot consent to the situations they find themselves in or their modes of behavior within the world they inhabit, they have far less power and it is up to the writer to make up for that deficiency.
Applying this mode of thought to "Mad Men", things can get a little sketchy. The show has a great cast that includes a number of active, interesting and powerful female characters. But then you get scenes like Roger Sterling riding a woman round his office like a horse. And while most of the time these scenes are centered around showing that what the men are doing is wrong, they're still using women as tools to do it. So it falls in kind of a grey area.
"I drink every day for misogyny." -Dame Poppy Middleton
All this to say, while the show is usually tongue-in-cheek about their commentary, they don't always tend to their own garden. Like in "The Jet Set" where the show introduces a gay European character who stays around long enough to give Peggy a makeover before going away forever.
Although this episode results in Peggy's FABULOUS new haircut, so it evens out, I guess.
Okay, so it's got a wavering sense of social commentary. Check. What else draws in viewers like flies to honey?
Not gonna lie, probably the attractive main cast.
Not gonna lie, probably the attractive main cast.
Sad Men
"So, can we just have a giant orgy and invite all the guys from Mad Men?" said Shirley Whiskas as Don Draper sauntered around on the screen in front of us.
"Can Joan come too?" Dijan de Nero replied.
"Can Joan come too?" Dijan de Nero replied.
Of course she can.
Before "Game of Thrones" debuted with its excellent use of sexposition, "Mad Men" provided viewers with plenty of scandelous affairs, many of which were brought to us courtousy of resident troubled soul, Donald Draper. Thousands of words have been spent analyzing Don's character and his role as the bastion of exestential dread that permeates the show. Draper is notable among a plethora of brooding male anti-heroes of the time for being at once a dynamic, charasmatic lion of a man and the most pathetic, self-hating scrap of humanity. He is a true narcissist, a fantastic lover while being a terrible partner, and unable to compromise with anyone, especially himself.
He's wonderful.
Don Draper is one of those characters you can't take your eyes off of, and because of the range of influence he has over everyone he knows, his supporting cast is entertaining by extension. Most main characters are motivated by Don's mere existance. Peggy became, as Bride of Buggerlas puts it, the "secret protagonist" of the show precisely because she was molded by Don. Pete is galvanized by his inferiority complex, knowing that no matter how good a salesman he is and how rich he gets, Don will always be more respected. Betty blames the loss of her youth on Don, Sally the loss of her innocence, it's the Don Show all the time. Everyone on "Mad Men" knows it. They try their best not to care. Sometimes they care too much.
This hero-worship and hero-denial is complicated by the fact that at any given moment, Don is fucking up his life forever. He is a classic embodiment of male insecurity. Part of this ties into the fact that because "Don Draper" is an identity he took off a dead man in the war he never feels secure in anything he's gained in his life, but part of it seems to lie in his inherent discomfort living the life expected of a white American man. He has no identity besides his job, his house and his family, and that thought terrifies him.
The audience learns the most from Don when the show focuses on his romances. Both Moose and Bride of Buggerlas are reletive newbies to the show, and they both picked up without much help that Don a) is attracted to strong, take-charge women and b) only feels comfortable opening up to people who are transients in his life. When Don meets a woman he is comfortable marrying, he subconsciously drives her under his heel, attempts to turn an independent person into the image of an ideal wife while seeking emotional support from strangers who want nothing from him. It's fucked up, on a deeply relatable level.
As a self-sabatour myself, I cringe whenever I watch Don Draper run towards something terrible for him that he believes will make him better. I am invested in Don rising above whatever is tormenting him, because if he goes down, so does everyone else on the show...or perhaps I only believe that because he does. The more terrifying result of Don failing, as evidenced by the later seasons, is probably that nobody will be affected by it at all.
He's wonderful.
Don Draper is one of those characters you can't take your eyes off of, and because of the range of influence he has over everyone he knows, his supporting cast is entertaining by extension. Most main characters are motivated by Don's mere existance. Peggy became, as Bride of Buggerlas puts it, the "secret protagonist" of the show precisely because she was molded by Don. Pete is galvanized by his inferiority complex, knowing that no matter how good a salesman he is and how rich he gets, Don will always be more respected. Betty blames the loss of her youth on Don, Sally the loss of her innocence, it's the Don Show all the time. Everyone on "Mad Men" knows it. They try their best not to care. Sometimes they care too much.
This hero-worship and hero-denial is complicated by the fact that at any given moment, Don is fucking up his life forever. He is a classic embodiment of male insecurity. Part of this ties into the fact that because "Don Draper" is an identity he took off a dead man in the war he never feels secure in anything he's gained in his life, but part of it seems to lie in his inherent discomfort living the life expected of a white American man. He has no identity besides his job, his house and his family, and that thought terrifies him.
The audience learns the most from Don when the show focuses on his romances. Both Moose and Bride of Buggerlas are reletive newbies to the show, and they both picked up without much help that Don a) is attracted to strong, take-charge women and b) only feels comfortable opening up to people who are transients in his life. When Don meets a woman he is comfortable marrying, he subconsciously drives her under his heel, attempts to turn an independent person into the image of an ideal wife while seeking emotional support from strangers who want nothing from him. It's fucked up, on a deeply relatable level.
As a self-sabatour myself, I cringe whenever I watch Don Draper run towards something terrible for him that he believes will make him better. I am invested in Don rising above whatever is tormenting him, because if he goes down, so does everyone else on the show...or perhaps I only believe that because he does. The more terrifying result of Don failing, as evidenced by the later seasons, is probably that nobody will be affected by it at all.
"He's an asshole and a sexist and a dick...but I kinda wanna fuck that guy." -Shirley Whiskas
Don is the show's best example of what the show does well. It takes archetypes, breaks them down and exposes the audience to their soft, ugly insides, forcing them to reconcile their nostalgia for the era with how humans truly are.
The Big Picture on the Small Screen
For whatever reason, Shirley Whiskas is attracted to Roger Sterling. I get the silver fox thing, and John Slattery is a hell of an actor, but I also find Roger to be a dispicable human being and that disqualifies him from sexy time in my book. But there was a moment in the first episode we watched - "The Long Weekend" - where the show made us all care about him.
This is the "Roger rides a woman like a horse" episode I've been referencing so much. Roger and Don pick up a pair of twins at a casting call and invite them to drinks in Roger's office, where some incredibly awkward sexual harrasment takes place. In the middle of fucking one of the twins, Roger has a stroke and they have to take him to the hospital. Don has a cool moment where he slaps Roger in the face after he calls out the twin's name on the stretcher, reminding him "your wife's name is Mona".
This is the "Roger rides a woman like a horse" episode I've been referencing so much. Roger and Don pick up a pair of twins at a casting call and invite them to drinks in Roger's office, where some incredibly awkward sexual harrasment takes place. In the middle of fucking one of the twins, Roger has a stroke and they have to take him to the hospital. Don has a cool moment where he slaps Roger in the face after he calls out the twin's name on the stretcher, reminding him "your wife's name is Mona".
It's so cute when Don thinks he has the moral high ground.
Then in the hospital, Mona comes to visit Roger in the hospital, and he starts to cry like a child. He stretches out his arms to her and she goes and accepts them, and for a moment we see Roger for the scared, sad man that he is with the woman he has chosen to make his wife. And in that moment we all forgave Roger a bit because we saw a real human being.
I can't stress this enough, "Mad Men" proves that television can be a popular commodity and also art. It sells the audience an idea, and then five seconds later it takes that idea away and shows us truth. And every single character on that show is made in service of that truth, that no matter how much humans achieve, no matter how great they feel in the moment, they are all scared and alone in the deepest parts of their souls because the scariest thing a human can understand is that they mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.
And at the same time the show pays attention to human tragedies, and celebrates human triumphs. We sent people to the moon. We mourned great men as they were gunned down in their prime. We cowered in the face of fire and riots, or we rioted ourselves. "Mad Men" reminds us of the minutae and the whole, and manages to make it entertaining. A truly incredible feat that future shows will have a hard time replicating.
I can't stress this enough, "Mad Men" proves that television can be a popular commodity and also art. It sells the audience an idea, and then five seconds later it takes that idea away and shows us truth. And every single character on that show is made in service of that truth, that no matter how much humans achieve, no matter how great they feel in the moment, they are all scared and alone in the deepest parts of their souls because the scariest thing a human can understand is that they mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.
And at the same time the show pays attention to human tragedies, and celebrates human triumphs. We sent people to the moon. We mourned great men as they were gunned down in their prime. We cowered in the face of fire and riots, or we rioted ourselves. "Mad Men" reminds us of the minutae and the whole, and manages to make it entertaining. A truly incredible feat that future shows will have a hard time replicating.
Hopefully it won't end with Don falling out a window, because that would be fucking depressing.
The Results
This game doesn't need much tweaking. Especially when you're choosing to drink straight liquor, medium mode will get you where you need to go in one or two episodes. But if you want add some accounts to your already full roster, here are a couple other rules to consider.
Drink when someone says "Do I know you?"
Or a variation thereof. It's usually a pick-up line, and it happened at least once in each episode I watched as practice.
Drink when someone gets fed up with Don.
Or anybody really, but Don's the usual suspect.
Drink for ridiculous clothing or facial hair.
When Roger walked on with that ridiculous moustache at the start of the recent string of episodes, I nearly died. Some fashion statements are meant to stay buried.
Drink when someone says "Do I know you?"
Or a variation thereof. It's usually a pick-up line, and it happened at least once in each episode I watched as practice.
Drink when someone gets fed up with Don.
Or anybody really, but Don's the usual suspect.
Drink for ridiculous clothing or facial hair.
When Roger walked on with that ridiculous moustache at the start of the recent string of episodes, I nearly died. Some fashion statements are meant to stay buried.
"I love that this is the office where everyone wears turtlenecks!" -Bride of Buggerlas
Woof. "Mad Men" can get pretty heavy. I feel like watching something that's the opposite of "Mad Men", something that tries to be really deep and thoughtful while actually being dumb and silly. Maybe like...
B-E-A-Uuuuutiful.
Like what you see? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, at For Your Inebriation and @KrissyPappau respectively. You'll get weekly updates, behind the scenes drunk talk, and other chatter!
For Your Inebriation is written by Krissy Pappau (Hollis Beck). All "Mad Men" images are owned by AMC, Lionsgate Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures.
For Your Inebriation is written by Krissy Pappau (Hollis Beck). All "Mad Men" images are owned by AMC, Lionsgate Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures.
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