yakalskovich | Moment of 1960s culture shock

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Moment of 1960s culture shock

So, I have been mainlining 'Mad Men' lately, as I already mentioned before, originally entirely out of the wish to look at Christina Hendricks more.

And of course, I have been expecting the usual sexism, racism, misogyny, chauvinism, blatant consumerism etc. and took notice of it when it cropped up, like an anthropologist taking notice of customs she'd read about in books by anthropologists that visited the same tribe before her. The abominable treatment of Rachel Menken in the first episode -- check. Don Draper checking up on the progress of his wife's psychotherapy by phone, with the doctor matter-of-factly telling the husband the wife's innermost thoughts because he is of course entitled -- check. Savaltore Romano being so deep in the closet he even marries some unsuspecting if charming young woman -- check. The bearded beatnik type's having a black girlfriend being of some kind of shock value, and all other black people just being waiters, liftboys, servants etc. -- check. Big huge gas-guzzling monster cars - check. Drinking and smoking at any time and place, even around kids and during pregnancy -- check.

But today, culture shock got me. Bad. I was all 'OMG FFS they can't possibly do this!!11!!!1!! for the first time since starting to watch the series -- and I am on episode 2-07, 'The Gold Violin'. What happened was this:

Don and Betty Draper took their new Caddy for a spin with the kids, and they had a picnic in this idyllic spot. And when they were done, Don pitched his beer can into the general greenery, and Betty just shook out the blanket they'd all sat on, they packed their cooler and the blanket in the car, kids scrambled in (this thing is the size of the Titanic, more or less) and swanned off.

Leaving all sort of wrappers and plastic and stuff (the white bits in this picture) just lying under that ancient tree in that majorly idyllic spot. That shocked me. It really did. I mean, were these people pigs or what? Didn't they even realise if they ever wanted to have another picnic in the same idyllic spot, they' find their own corroded and disgusting refuse? Let alone anybody else?

I guess that was how people did it in the Sixties. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been an entire British children's TV series a bit later that lived entirely on 'Don't litter!' plus some brilliant musical spoofs.

Especially as

essayel and I had talked about the five, seven and nine ways of sorting our rubbish in effect in the different places where we live, the traditional Bavarian beer bottle returning system, and the fact that her county council aims to completely abolish any leftover rubbish by 2015, this stark contrast of that upper middle class family (and I am not blaming America! I am sure people did the same in Gevelsberg, Abergavenny or wherever at that time -- she was around as a toddler, I wasn't yet, but my mum and grandma were and did take drives and have picnics) just dumping their stuff in the very place they'd enjoyed moments before, and driving off, really shocked me badly.

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I had the same reaction, exactly.

I was actually under the impression that the American concept of littering is very common in the so-called 2nd world even today. My visits to the Czech Republic, living next door to a largely Croatian-inhabited apartment building, and experiences teaching English to Bosnians all colluded in this impression: these people all keep their houses impecably clean, but the common areas were *disgusting*... diapers, trash, dog shit, other animal, possibly even human shit, etc strewn around, with the general assumption that someone else -- the State, I guess -- would clean it up.

I know you've traveled around Europe extensively; what's your impression? Have I just had bad experiences?

I have been in Prague, and Ljubljana, and to Lake Balaton in Hungary; things weren't especially dirty there. In Italy or France, neither. I guess you get really nasty areas in any city where there is exactly that mixture lying around in the public areas, and Berlin in particular is famous for people dumping all sorts of rubbish on the streets, trusting that somebody from somewhere will eventually remove it.

I was in Prague twice, both times in 2000. The 2nd time, during "tourist season" (summer), it was much cleaner than the 1st time, which was the previous Feburary. There wasn't enough time between my visits to represent a cultural shift.

After I had a near-miss with a particularly vile pile of... something during my first visit, and squawked loudly about the health of the dog who created it, my ex-BF who was living there, noted that it wasn't necessarily from a dog, and that he regularly witnessed people popping a squat on the sidewalks. I was not so lucky as to witness that, although public urination was a common thing to see all over the city. Old Town and the castle district was not so bad, but any less-touristy area like near the suicide bridge where I was staying, and near some Soviet-era rocket sculpture, and just some general neighborhoods, it was vile.

His opinion was that the people really just weren't fully up to the level of taking care of stuff like that on their own; he likened it to the assigned seating in movies (something that it starting to happen in the US now, oddly), and said that people just expect the State to take care of them and to tell them where to sit.

He also felt that with the amount of coal burned, the city was just so filthy and depressing during the winter that a malaise hung over the place, and that people didn't really care so much. By contrast, in the summer, people were more upbeat and thus cared more. Cleaning up after the dogs, however, was still a non-starter.

My main US city is New Orleans, which is probably the dirtiest city in the US, and is also considered to be the "most European" in flavor. After my trips overseas, I began to wonder about a connection.

I don't think you'd see this as much in France or Italy; it seems to be a thing related to former Soviet bloc countries. And there's certainly littering even here in Salt Lake, which is about as clean a city as I've ever seen. Nevertheless, I so think there's a subconscious thoughtlessness about what we deserve and who will take care of us in both the Mad Men model and the 2nd World model. I think they come from very different places, but the end result is similar.

That's probably why Berlin, too. East Berlin was of course former Soviet bloc, and West Berlin was on an eternal drip of state subsidies to keep it viable in its island position. People in both were assigned stuff for decades.

That theory might be quite right.

Hmm, another thought on the matter:

Prior to WWII in the US and likely even later in Europe, we did not have such a disposable culture. Litteirng happened but with both a smaller popualtion and less caustic litter, it was a smaller issue. I think.

For instance, as a child growing up with grandparents who were very much of the pre-War mindset, when we went fishing, we took lunch. Lunch was ALWAYS wrapped in cloth, drinks in mason jars, etc., and packed in a reusable tub. There was little to no garbage produced. IF you broke a jar, it might be discarded with no thought of litering, but generally, you took all your packaging home with you. Not because the failure to do so was littering, but because it was wasteful.

Don Draper et al lived in the Brave New Disposable Plastic World of All New, All the Time! But even so, less of that litter was of the utterly non-degradable type than we would see later.

Even though now we're a lot more aware of littering, I suspect we're actually producing more trash per capita, and worse kinds. A glass bottle is annoying but will *eventually* break down to silica although that might take thousands of years; a plastic bottle will do no such thing, ever, and it's just as bad, maybe even worse, once it has broken down. I suspect the 1970s was probably the worst era for this. At least by the 80s, we had started using trash cans properly.

I think my greatest sadness is the individual ketchup packet, although the small, unrecyclable components found inside toys and electronics and blister packages are close behind.

essayel speculated (in the IM convo that partially inspired this entry) that in a few years, people would start mining the landfills for plastics to recycle or burn for fuel. The idea does make sense. However, the plastics littered around will stay in the ground forever.

Who knows what far away future generations will think about it. I wrote a short story about that once...

I was born in 1956 so was compos mentis all through the sixties. I've only watched a couple of short clips of Mad Men, to find out who Christine Hendricks was, and some of the things said in it are cringeworthy but I remember hearing similar. For instance "don't worry, the man who designed this made it simple enough for a woman to use". My mother STILL twitches nervously and says, "don't you think we ought to find a man to do it" if she sees me doing anything with electrics or power tools. So I suspect that the attitudes are pretty much spot on, though exaggerated for effect as everything is on TV.

The littering now - I think that depends on where you live. In town there were street cleaners who, notionally, cleared up after you so townsfolk picnicing in the country wouldn't even consider picking up after themselves. But I was brought up in deepest rural Herefordshire and there you did not litter! YOU were responsible for your mess and if you left rubbish and particularly glass bottles farmer's stock and machinery could be damaged. There was no anonymity either. You'd be spotted and if you left trash someone would wave at you from a couple of fields across and send you back for it, or if they couldn't catch you they'd have a 'word' with your parents next time they saw them.

As for the townies, in the early 60s there was a very scary public information film played on TV and in cinemas about keeping the 'countryside code' that was hoped might raise their awareness of the damage that could be done by leaving rubbish, gates open, trampling crops etc. Who knows? It might have helped a bit.

I can't find that one but here's the one from 1971

The modern version is a lot more jokey and not nearly as effective I think.

I was prepared for the rest of the cringeworthy stuff, but not the littering. But apparently, I wasn't the only one take by surprise that much.

I like the 1971 animation thinggy; one half-hopes that things fall back horribly on Joe and Petunia, but they never do.

Eeeee! You're watching it!

Consensus among US fans was that this was exaggerated behavior, even for the early 60s. Not to say that it *couldn't* happen, but I thought it was Matt Weinberg being, I dunno, metaphorical or something. It's supposed to be shocking.

I'm watching it, originally just because of Christina Hendricks, but I have really fallen for the entire concept and mood for the thing.

There are clandestine hopes that arte (the French-German culture channel, publicly funded) will pick it up after all.

And your meta explanation does make sense. Thanks!

Weiner, of course. I don't know where I got Weinberg.

Season 4 starts in July (25, I think) in the US, and we are all very excited. Not long after the World Cup, too, so great timing!

Eurgh, yes, we get football orcs again this summer...

And I'm looking forward to the fourth season. By then, I will most likely have caught up until the end of season three. I have the next episode open two tabs away from this entry, and will finish it before going to sleep tonight.

Deplorable, though, that rumours have it there won't be more than six seasons. I was hoping they'd do the entire sixties and end with the first man on the moon. I remember that! It would have been cool.-

Matt's slippery, though. He's really into misdirecting the fans. At this point, given how often he's led us down the garden path, I'm not making assumptions about anything, except that he knows what he's doing.

Well, he might once more put in larger gaps between seasons, or cover more than a year in a season, in order to reach the end of the sixties at the end of the sixth season. But it would be a pity.

Some interesting thoughts and commentary on the episode here: http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2008/09/mad-men-gold-violin-for-man-who-has.html

Thanks!

Mad Men seems to bring out the best in a lot of online television critics. Alan Sepinwall is one of the best sources for discussions of that show.

The real go-to place, however, is Basket of Kisses, www.lippsisters.com. They had an extremely bizarre incident with their regular AND backup servers (long story short--the guy who had them in his house was arrested for murder), but they're back up now and gearing up for season 4. Roberta and Deborah Lipp aren't officially affiliated with Mad Men or AMC, but the site is so good that it's considered the best, not only by fans, but by the cast and crew of Mad Men itself.

I need a Mad Men icon, but not now.-

Thanks for the links! **bookmarks**

Well, perhaps you can answer my question that I've been sort of asking myself in the back of my head for quite a while: What on God's green earth is that long thin metal thing Joan is always wearing on a long chain around her neck?

Apparently it's a pen, though I've never seen anything like that in RL.

It's so strange, watching the pilot and realizing that Joan's NOT wearing her pen on a chain. It's her trademark at Sterling Cooper.

A stylised pen, or a real pen to be used?

Sorry, just terribly curious just now.

http://www.amazon.com/1960s-Vintage-Inspired-Gold-Necklace/dp/B001I4RSQ6

Comments say it can be used as a pen, too, so I guess it really works.

Official AMC blog discussion about The Pen: http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/talk/2008/09/joan-holloway-4.php

BTW, spoilers beyond where you've seen after the 2008 comments, so beware of 2009.

I read the episode descriptions in Wikipedia, I know what's going to happen, and that's not the important thing about it all, or why I watch it, anyway. I don't worry about spoilers.-

And thanks for the extensive links. It's fun how those Amazon sellers all but use the 'as worn by Joan on 'Mad Men'' argument for their product.

And I can understand how 'Mad Men' inspires fashion, too. I really like that purple thing with the magenta collar or bib that Joan sometimes wears. The colours are so wonderfully bold.-

Ah, thanks. I just never know how people will react about spoilers. I'm absolutely stupid about them myself, and it rarely occurs to me that other people might not want to read ahead the way I do. Nice to find someone else who feels that way. : )

Christina looks marvelous in those deep jewel tones, blue and green and red, doesn't she?

Absolutely! That bright red she wore for the lipstick trial session in season 1 (when all the men were ogling from behind the one-way mirror) was remarkable.

This one:

What I love is how she's so obviously playing to the camera. She KNOWS they're there.

And then the guys all stand up and salute (a metaphor?). *snerk*

She knows, and she doesn't mind, and she plays them like puppets on strings...

That little doctor she's engaged to is so totally no match for her.

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Moment of 1960s culture shock

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