Just Watch.

Mad Men Season 4, Episode 2: Christmas Comes But Once A Year

There's something a little lovely about Christmas in August, isn't there?

I've debated pretty strenuously about doing Mad Men posts. First of all, I think other people do it so much better than I ever could; Project Rungay and James Wolcott are my go-to sources. (By the way I really recommend Wolcott's novel The Catsitters; it's chick lit at it's best -- charming, witty, sweet -- but also inventive and told through the prism of a believable, likable nice guy.) Also, the show has a kind of dreamlike; trancelike effect on me; I often watch it and have very little recollection of what I've just seen. Similarly, Mad Men is one of the few shows that genuinely confound me, things happen and I think "Oooh that's interestng! Is this new development good or bad?" (This being Mad Men, it's usually bad.) I don't think you need to read that shit.

But the fact is that Mad Men is one of the rare shows that challenges its viewers, and I have a responsibility to answer that challenge. Let's face it, this blog has never had a large or vocal readership; it's always been more about me working through my viewing experiences and honing my critical eye. And I think I owe it to myself as a critic and soon to be scholar to engage with one of the most compelling and intriguing shows on TV right now. And if it devolves into navel gazing and stating the obvious I trust you'll tell me and I'll stop and we'll never speak of this again. Alright?

The format will be pretty loose; I'll basically elaborate on the notes I took while watching.

So I missed an episode, which I did take notes on but was too lazy to write up. Just to recap: a promising start, I thought -- lots of avenues to explore. One certainly stuck out though. Sunday I saw my father after a longer than usual absence and the first thing I asked him what he thought of the premiere. "Oh Bets!" he exclaimed melodramatically. "She really messed up there. Don was bad, but..." Last season, when Betty decided not to sleep with Henry Francis before they were married, someone I love discussing the show with predicted dire things, citing that old Sex and the City chestnut "If you're buying the car, you take it for a test drive." I don't know if we can take Henry's "I'm tired" (or was it "I'm full?") as indicative of anything, but little things do tend to have portent on this show, you know?

Anyway, finally, onto last Sunday's episode.

The Francis-Draper clan shops for Christmas trees. Enter Glen Bishop. Uh oh. Divorce kid talk with Sally. Betty has remarried right away. "My mom said that would happen," says Glen. Big laughs with this viewing audience.

Modern Times

Charlie Chaplin, 1936

So this did make me laugh quite a bit, just not as much as a lot of the rest of the audience. And I hate admitting to that because it makes me sound like such a snob, like I think I'm more sophisticated than most folks, when in fact it's just a simple characteristic that I often wish I could change. So I'm not going to get all snooty and tell you about how the only thing that really makes me laugh is some obscure Lithuanian TV show or something. (Although I have been meaning to tell you about something kind of obscure that did really make me laugh, although even then not as much as others in the audience. And I was such a mess I never got round to doing any posts on British comedy, perhaps I should pick that up.)

Jeez! That's enough rambling and wallowing in my own emotions and neuroses for one post. Modern Times: famous for that scene where the Tramp goes through the giant cogs, which thematically and visually expresses the film's anticapitalist stance. No soapboxes here, and the message proves more powerful for it. It's interesting to think about how (beyond "well, obviously') the film would have been received during the Great Depression, but it has resonance during our own cultural moment, doesn't it?

So if Chaplin had only achieved that stuck in the cogs moment, this film would still be a classic. But there's more to it than that. The Tramp's job on the assembly line is tightening bolts; when he emerges from the cogs totally loopy, he prances about balletically, tweaking everything in sight. Comedy, as I've said, isn't just about pratfalls, it's also about elegance. The delicacy of his movements there creates a tension with the silliness of his actions. Tension: another key of comedy. The Tramp runs outside and we cut to a shot of a zaftig matron bustling along; buttons cover her nipples. He goes beserk and chases her. It's about as crude as Chaplin ever gets, and wonderfully effective because we see it coming once we see those buttons. 

Tension, I think, plays an important role in making this one of Chaplin's most enjoyable films. There is of course tension coming from the fact that the issues -- the absurdity of capital and labor, on again off again, the difficulty of finding work -- have a serious side. But it's not that straightforward. In the Bright Lights piece I quoted in the City Lights post, Alan Vanneman conceives of the Tramp as a kind of flaneur who simply can't be bothered to work because it would interfere in the enjoyment of life's pleasures. We see that aspect here too; he gussies up his prison cell and tries to go back to jail so he doesn't have to work. So there's this "Let me work!"/"I don't wanna work!" dichotomy that's extremely relatable and it's nice to see it existed before the extended adolescence brought on by the 60s.