*clicks into thread excited to talk about Mad Men again*

*sees misogynistic post about Peggy*

*loses enthusiasm*

The Dos Passos mention should make up for it.

You might be a little fragile for this world.

No kidding. I don't even feel like I was being that hard on her.

I didn't care for season six at all because it was pretty much nothing but Don wandering about, sabotaging himself. I didn't care for the year that Roger spent out there walking the wilderness and trying to escape who he is and what he enjoys. Pete's self-loathing is part of who he is and it's the most grating thing about him.

I don't like Peggy because she's pretty much spent the last 5 seasons being pissed off at everything. She shits on her co-worker for just trying to be friendly (dude's happily married; he isn't even putting a move on her) and then after enjoying herself, goes right back to being angry at the world, including Stan, and running away from the fact that she had a great time.

Like I said, she's just a militantly unhappy person and has been for a long while. If I call her an uptight, militantly unhappy asshole, will that make you feel better, Reaper? Because apart from very brief dalliances with enjoying herself, that's who she is. And whenever she finds herself in a positive place, she almost scolds herself for it before reverting back to angry Peggy.

Well, not really, because "uptight" and "militant" are just as much dog-whistle terms as "shrew" is.

Also, I don't think this show has ever been concerned with asking us to "like" anybody. You see Peggy as [apparently well-meaning use of every term ever used to diminish a woman with ambition], while I see her as a generally awesome person who I want to root for but who gets in her own way...but that difference isn't as important as the causes/pressures that lead her to be who she is. I think those things are the same, even if we have differing views on how likable she is.

Speaking of misogyny: the scene with Peggy and Joan meeting with the guys was ridiculously over the top and heavy handed.

It felt like a scene that would happen a few seasons back rather than now. Season premiers tend to do some re-establishing of things for the sake of viewers who are tuning in for the first time, and that's what that scene felt like to me.

I read that Wiener had to caricaturize it because it needed to pop against the already misogynistic atmosphere of the show.

I use militant in any number of settings. It's my extreme form of 'obstinate'. Militantly ignorant is probably my favorite usage of same. By all means, look it up - your desire to lug a cross on your back is not going to be a concern of mine in my word usage.

And is Peggy not uptight?

Peggy is an obstinately unhappy, restive asshole. Am I getting closer to verbiage that you find acceptable given Peggy's anatomy?

Jesus.

That scene should not be divorced from Cosgrove's assessment of their firm as a hellhole of Black Irish assholes.

I have a lot of empathy with Peggy, but it's hard to overlook that she is the most stringently classist in the separation of art and copy from creative. It might be a function of her being most interactive with the art and copy crew and a supervisor of sorts, but it's pretty blatant.

She's alway putting them in their place with her 'don't you have some mock-ups due on my desk' and 'stop goofing around [/South Park] and get back to work.'

Man, I can't know what your personal vocab tendencies are. There's a specific rhetorical context for the words you used concerning women. My point is simply that, to use an analog here, that those words all together paint a pretty easy-to-read picture, and that you'd be better off knowing that just in case that's not the picture you were trying to present.

Like, if someone describes a black male character as "well-spoken, agile, flying in the face of authority" then I'd raise an eyebrow at "well-spoken" but conclude that it wasn't used in the way that it has historically been used in the context of describing certain African-Americans. But if someone describes a black male character as "well-spoken, uppity, & athletic like a monkey" -- even if complimentary -- that will raise all of the red flags. There's little chance of me reading dog whistle terms like that all in a row and concluding it was coincidental.

Which has always read to me like her feeling she has to be a hardass at the workplace in order to garner any respect. As if she's not afforded the ability to be "the nice boss" or "the caring boss." The player's coach isn't an option for her, or at least she doesn't think so. This show continually reinforces the idea that climbing the ladder, as a woman, tend to harden you because of all the sexist shit you have to endure.

My main issue with both Peggy and Joan (and I'm playing off memory here because I haven't gone back and rewatched all the seasons) is that they both showed a remarkable lack of loyalty toward Don. That being said, I'm not sure that Don is really worthy of that much loyalty, and I think it's also meant to emphasize that a woman has to be double Machiavellian to succeed in this world... but that just made me dislike both of them at certain points in the series.

That being said, I generally like both of the characters now. I just remember being pissed at them a couple of times.

I wonder what McCann thinks of their portrayal?