Mad Men’s “Public Relations”: The Rebranding of Don Draper

Last night’s Mad Men episode, “Public Relations,” which kicked off the show’s fourth season, starts with a question: “Who is Don Draper?” Isn’t that what the show’s been exploring for the past three seasons? Mad Men has always been about identity, especially from a marketing/advertising perspective, as characters struggle to shape and manipulate the way they are perceived: what they want people to know, what they want to hide. So what’s going to make this season different?

The last three seasons we learned who Don Draper was — his past as Dick Whitman, how he became Don Draper, and what that identity meant to him. But at the end of last season, Don Draper’s life has completely overturned: his wife is divorcing him for another man, and he’s about to start a new advertising company. Season 4, then, would appear to be about re-creation, as Don and those connected to him both personally and professionally are in the process of redefining themselves and how they want to be perceived. And just as before, those new identities will be forged at least in part with half-truths and lies.

In response to the question, coming from an reporter writing a profile for Advertising Age, Don stalls — he doesn’t know how to answer, or he doesn’t have an answer. So he belittles the question, and then turns to what has been up to this point his weapon of choice: that Don Draper Mystique. “I’m from the Midwest,” he says, “We were taught that it’s not polite to talk about yourself.” Ah, there’s the Don Draper we know.

But it backfires. That charm and air of mystery that once drew everyone to him is now a liability for a new firm relying on the Advertising Age profile to drum up new business. Don’s coyness with the reporter doesn’t translate at all well on the page; it comes across as arrogant. Worse yet, Don’s failure to mention jai alai (or any client) ruffles the sensitive feathers of “Ho-Ho” (nickname of Horace, who brought his jai alai pipe dream to Sterling Cooper last season), who pulls his business and his millions from the firm. And Don’s standard MO with clients — bullying them into accepting his ideas — fails to work with Jantzen.

Jantzen is keen on their identity as a wholesome, family company and want to maintain that in marketing their two-piece bathing suit (it’s not a bikini! Bikinis are too risque!). I found it interesting that right away women’s bodies are again at the forefront of Mad Men, with discussions of how they should be covered up and how effectively they can be used to sell products. I also caught an echo of a Season 2 moment (in “Maidenform”) in which Don comes downstairs to find Betty in a small but not indecent (and actually quite adorable) bikini that she’d picked up at the country club auction. “It’s desperate,” he tells her, and he doesn’t want men ogling his wife. It seems as though Don’s pitch to Jantzen, of a woman with a censorship bar across her chest (“So good we can’t show you the second floor?” How very meta), is something that Jantzen would find equally desperate.

By the end of the episode Don realizes that he needs to retool his public image — hence the second interview with the Wall Street Journal. That brief glimpse we get of Don at the end shows him turning on the charm in a much different way. He’s unusually loquacious, happily swirling the ice around in his whiskey as he sits back in his chair and recounts the story of how he started his own company.

Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, despite carrying over established clients, is still new and still struggling to find a foothold among New York’s advertising giants. It’s a modern office in the Time-Life Building, minimally decorated, all glass and steel with pops of color here and there — a far cry from the heavy wooden offices on Madison Avenue. The office as a whole is attempting to present itself as bigger and more successful than it is, hence the references to the fictional second floor and a willingness to accept a prospective client’s assessment that their lack of a conference table suggests open conversation. But the bottom line is still cash flow, so when Peggy and Pete realize that they’re about to lose the Sugerberry Ham business, they concoct a media stunt — two actresses pretending to fight over a ham — to hold onto it.

The stunt produces the desired end, but backfires because of the variables: one actress files assault charges against the other and Peggy is forced to come to Don for bail and hush money. So Don’s not the only one who needs a crash course in public relations. (You know who would be sublime at public relations? Joan.)

This snafu leads to what for me is the most critical scene of the episode: Don yelling at Peggy. Again. Despite her saying at the end of last season that she didn’t want to make a career of being there for Don to kick around when he fails, he continues to take out his frustrations on her. The difference is that now she fights back. When he tells her, “You need to think a little bit more about the image of the agency,” she calls him out: “Nobody knows about the ham stunt, so our image remains pretty much where you left it.” Well done, Pegs. And when she leaves, telling him, “We are all here because of you,” I see that less as a capitulation to the great Don Draper genius, and more of a reminder that everyone there put their own lives and careers at risk in following him, so please do not screw this up.

Don’s personal life needs some attending to as well. The married Don had no trouble at all finding women to sleep with, but the loss of this part of his identity has perhaps created some sort of crisis of confidence in him. It was shocking to see him with a prostitute, let alone a prostitute he pays specifically to slap him during sex. That Don’s mother was a prostitute adds another layer of ooky. Is something he did before marrying Betty as well? Is it because he’s finding it more difficult to find women only interested in a sexual relationship? I wasn’t all that impressed with the date Jane set Don up on, but I did appreciate the way she refused his advances at the end: “I know that trick.” Don Draper’s 1961 Guide to Women needs a rewrite.

Meanwhile, as I predicted, Betty and Henry’s married life isn’t all champagne and caviar. They’re still living in Don’s house in Ossining, while he continues to pay the mortgage and taxes on it. Why would Henry, who told Betty last season that he didn’t want her to rely on Don for anything, agree to remain in another man’s house? Like Henry, I don’t buy Betty’s excuse that the children have been through enough change. That hasn’t been a concern for her in the past — remember when Sally was afraid of baby Gene, thinking it was her grandfather come back to life, and Betty snapped, “She’s a child, she’ll get over it.” And the way she shoved a heaping fork of sweet potatoes into Sally’s mouth, as though she’s forcing Sally to accept this new life, her new stepfather — Henry’s mother might not be a better parent, but she correctly sees that Betty’s kids are terrified of her. My heart broke a little when Bobby stepped in to break the tension and smooth everything over.

And Henry seems to want to hold on to what little courtship they had rather than dealing with the actual marriage. He opts out of sex after Thanksgiving but grabs Betty the next night in the car, as though he were trying to recreate their first stolen moments.

Other items of notice:

* Peggy and her new coworker play around with Stan Freberg’s “John and Marsha,” which was a huge hit in 1951. I’m not sure why they’re playing around with a 13-year-old thing, but I do like the way it establishes that they have a good, friendly working relationship.

* In the scene where Peggy comes in with a Sugarberry ham for Don, I couldn’t help but think of the uproariously and delightfully goofy “Jon Hamm’s John Ham” SNL sketch, and I would like to think that the writers did this deliberately. (Sidenote: ham at Thanksgiving? Is that a thing?)

* “It’s temporary.” “Believe me, Henry, everyone thinks this is temporary.” Zing!

* Don’s Glo-Coat commercial is so deliciously over the top (especially for a floor wax commercial), and it reminded me of a moment last season where Don tells Paul that his commercial idea for Aqua Net has too much story.

* Historical marker: Don’s blind date refers to the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, which took place in the summer of 1964. She mentions Andrew Goodman by name.

* Joan has her own office now, which I like. I trust that future episodes will bring us more of Joan, and more of Lane Pryce as well. I grew quite fond of him last season.

What did you think?

Reprinted from Conducive Chronicle

Posted by Michelle Wiener on Aug 4 2010. Filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry