Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is the man with no talents. The ironic thing about him is that if you pull back far enough and look at his entire arc across Mad Men, you realise that he could have thrived in the exact same way in any time or place; initially, he seems like an embarrassing fool fumbling at doing what comes to Don Draper (Jon Hamm) completely naturally. His initial attitude is an almost robot-like replication of behaviours but neither fully understanding the context of those behaviours nor the intelligence and experience to pull them off (I often think of his early line, “The president is a product. Don’t forget that,” and cringe). It’s through sheer bloody-mindedness that he manages to build a real career, learning from his experiences and eventually molding himself to the industry.
What initially looked like lack of talent was in fact the vacuuming up of behaviours and experiences; the thing about having a black-and-white understanding of the world in which Tab A fits into Slot B is that, coupled with sufficient curiosity, one builds up quite the system of tabs for any conceivable slot. One could picture Peter Campbell landing in Greenwich Village with aspirations of becoming a folk singer and, while not becoming Bob Dylan, probably becoming Donavon; one could picture him landing in California in the 1840’s, not becoming Samuel Brannan but perhaps owning a popular corner store.
Accepting this is, of course, the central nature of Pete’s character arc. All he really wants is to be liked by the people around him; he believes the only person worth being is the guy at the top, which just happens to be Don, and assumes connection between the behaviours Don exhibits and the emotional context he sits in. Which, of course, is what makes Mad Men one of the most American shows of all time. If America is special and different in any one way, it’s taking the Western idea of individualism far further than the rest of us ever wanted to, right down to her conception of the self-made man.
The thing about the self-made man – a man in control of himself and his environment, both hypercompetent and entirely driven by rationality – is that, as Tony Soprano pointed out, there can only really be one of them, to which the rest are subservient. There are a lot of cracks in the American psyche, and one of them is the rejection of the divine right of kings in all practical senses but an apparent deep belief in it when you swap ‘king’ for ‘businessman’. Don shows the problems with that myth from the inside; the all-encompassing loneliness and inability to process emotions in a healthy way.
Pete shows the problems from the outside, where the Top is a space you’ll never, ever have access to. You’ll always be at least a little on the outside, a little less capable than someone else, a little less interesting. The constant seething resentment at seeing someone else live out your impossible dream. And then, one of the other cracks in the American psyche is that this ideal is limited and goes against the very nature of human beings; regardless of one’s personal experiences or even desires, the fact is that people as a rule want to take care of each other and want to connect to each other, even if we all express that a little differently. A system that depends entirely on one genius is not a very good system; perhaps the same can be said of philosophies.
Pete begins to thrive when he lets go of this ideal and accepts that he’s a mediocre man who is, within certain contexts, well-liked. It’s funny to say that Americans yearn for kings and social castes and rigid social rules and other very anti-American concepts, but I think it’s more accurate to say that Americans want what most people want and have always wanted – the sense that people around them love them and that they contribute something meaningful to the world. One does not need to be a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist to do this.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Conversation
Pete does have one talent, which is to notice trends and not dismiss them as fads or irrelevant to what he does. Most significantly, this means he is genuinely interested in selling TVs to an African-American demographic and is shocked that the company in question knows about this tendency already and doesn’t care.
Came here to say this. And I think this is one thing Mad Men does well, which is to say that very few people are talent-less, even if very few are Don Drapers.
What did we watch?
Red vs Blue, Season Two, Episode Eleven
“I thought the Blues were supposed to attack us?”
“Dirty frontstabbers.”
“Without sound, it just looks like a bunch of helmets bobbing up and down!”
“Is that how they talk? They look ridiculous.”
Tucker enjoying being a parent is a great character turn.
“Simmons, as with all our battle plans, I need you to punch Grif in the back of the head.”
“On to victory!”
“Technially, it’s a stalemate.”
“On to equilibrium, then?”
“I can’t believe I donated organs for this fucking war.”
“Andy, we’re going into battle unmanned, low on ammo, and with no support. What use could we possibly have for a bomb?”
Really great sequence where Church secretly gets Caboose on the radio when the team gets ambushed by Wyoming, and makes himself look like a fool trying to awkwardly explain himself to Caboose while everyone can hear him.
There’s a great sequence where Tucker gets caught in a little Groundhog Day, because it turns out that’s Wyoming’s ability. This show is always at its best when it’s doing some clever structural or plotting trick, as opposed to trying to tell a real story.
Grand Hotel, Best Picture Winner 1932
Sentimentality; evil gets punished, good gets rewarded, and those who do both get both. I was fairly indifferent to this film until the end, where it suddenly turns somewhere I wasn’t expecting; I was enjoying a few performances and scenes, but once the weight of responsibility hit it, it was so much more enjoyable. It’s interesting to me, though, that the few (for lack of a better word) normie themes are punishing lawbreakers and always needing more money.
Grand Hotel is the earliest best picture I’ve seen and I had a similar reaction, it grew on me a little as it went on but then the ending really won me over.
Gran Torino — Classic Clint! Rewatch of a house favorite, some whiskey may have been involved. Clint is so funny in this, grouchy as shit and uh quite a bit racist, but 1. he calls his son “ofay,” which rules, and 2. there is a fair amount of the movie giving him a hard time right back, the Hmong grandma who is even grouchier than he is owns his ass. And give and take is one of the main themes of the movie, Clint tolerates young Sue pretty much from the start because she gives him shit back and this is how he relates to people, he will get slurred and slur back (with John Caroll Lynch in particular). Is this healthy? Perhaps not, but it’s a way to connect and Clint has damn few of those. And what the movie comes down to is what is worth passing on in this regard and what is best ended. There are some missteps, in particular how Sue gets written out, but this is top tier Clint for me.
Stagecoach — why is this in the Criterion stunts collection *gets to end of the movie* oh SHIT that’s why. But beyond that amazing sequence, the Road Warrior with horses, this is just a damn classic, you can see Elmore Leonard (or at least his Western phase) being born in the simple story complicated by characters pinging off each other and situations going from bad to worse. So many great faces too — Andy Devine! John Carradine! Thomas Mitchell, Uncle Billy himself, as a drunk doctor who is the damn man! Claire Trevor as a sex worker with a heart of gold but more important recognized dignity! And of course the Duke himself, who is a star without being a cliche here. Wayne is above all decent and his interactions with Trevor really sing. Not that this is news to anyone paying attention for the last 90 years, but oh well, it’s always a first time for someone.
Street Kings — The stupidest version of The Shield possible. David Ayer is a moron and James Ellroy needed to cook this script a lot fucking longer. What a waste of everyone’s time, including my own. David Ayer is, I cannot emphasize this enough, a moron.
Soundless glimpses of Juror #2 on the screen of the person in the row in front of me on a plane — several orders of magnitude more entertaining and competent than anything David Ayer has ever done.
Ayer is the definition of an unpretentious fraud.
STAGECOACH’s reputation has slipped among cinephiles, proportionately with the rise of THE SEARCHERS in the American film canon, and I think that seems rather unfair. I think the former is very precise in how it uses archetypes to show the fissures of an emerging transformation in the white frontier social order, and as you say, it’s damn entertaining is seeing how these forces of society, those both rising and falling in power, play off each other through multi-dimensional characterization and, among the loosing side, a degree of self respect and decency. For my money it’s also the most dynamically realized of Ford’s Westerns both in terms of photography, montage and pacing.
STREET KINGS is pretty bad, but it isn’t the most catastrophic Ellroy linked project out there. It’s kind of fascinating that in this age of prestige streaming limited series TV that Ellroy’s novels haven’t been snapped up for long form adaptation. Hell, PERFIDIA seems to have been structured with that in mind. (BTW, if you haven’t heard, his latest Freddie Otash saga is coming out in early June.)
American Tabloid really would kill in adaptation, it doesn’t seem like anyone can crack it.
Stagecoach’s archetypes are great, it’s hilarious how much the banker sucks immediately and his ranting about how business is both supremely important and undervalued (all while robbing his customers) is very pointedly bullshit. The final action of letting the Kid slide is a cliche but damn well earned.
It occurred to me Street Kings is riffing off the Bud/Dudley relationship in LA Confidential — guy does bad shit for an evil boss and realizes shit was badder than he realized — but while that works in 50s LA it is ludicrous here, Reeves has to be the dumbest motherfucker alive to be this in the dark (and Bud always had his own agenda to distract him anyway). The Nite Owl Massacre is a genuine mystery even when it’s clearly not all it appears, the shooting here is so obviously a specific thing that it makes the movie building an entire plot around it insulting.
Stagecoach rules although I struggle with the classic Hollywood horse action, that classic “whoa how did they get all of that realistic-looking peril? *checks wikipedia* oh no” experience.
Went to the African American Museum on a date and saw Ruth Carter’s costumes for Black Panther, Sinners, Malcolm X, and Dolemite Is My Name among many others. Her work on the Wakanda costumes especially is extremely intricate – the bead work up close is great – and the Oscars were correct to give her a win.
The Pitt, S2E09 – Garcia is the asshole of the week, blowing off the much-younger Santos re: seeing fireworks (keeping it casual with your much younger subordinate!) and scolding Javadi as a “nepo baby” which isn’t wrong exactly but seems harsh to call an extremely talented doctor who’s just turning 21. The furry character was actually treated well and not as a joke, though the docs doing double takes at the empty fox costume was funny in a very human way.
Didn’t watch much otherwise as I’m sick and my attention span is sort of shot.
Absolute Power – A master thief picks the worst night to break into a rich old guy’s vault. Turns out that while he’s in the vault, the old guy’s young wife and the President of the United States show up for an assignation, but before long the woman is dead, a cover up has started, and our thief saw it all because there’s a two way mirror! What is a thief to do? From this rather absurd plot, Clint Eastwood (as director and as actor), along with William Goldman doing the script and a stellar cast, created a really good thriller that is low on action and high on storytelling and character play. Standouts include Ed Harris as the local cop investigating the murder without having any idea about the cover-up, Scott Glenn as his opposite number in the Secret Service, and EG Marshall as the old billionaire. But be warned that this is sort of a bizarro mirror to the Clinton administration, with a scheming female chief of staff in a pantsuit. (Sometimes it is hard to watch an Eastwood film and not see his politics.) But there is nothing of Clinton in Hackman’s President, in part perhaps because he is repeating almost note for note his performance as a Secretary of Defense who dealt with the same thing in No Way Out.
The Practice, “Silent Partners” – Eugene and Ellenor defend a plastic surgeon accused of murdering his young lover, a case with some reasonable doubt but a client who makes a terrible witness for himself. Meanwhile, against her better judgement Lindsay defends a probable murderer whose rights were trampled on, and who claims he’s the real killer in the other case. But even though it is actually legal in Massachusetts for a lawyer to flip on a client in a murder case, Lindsay follows custom and keeps quiet. Interesting but only up to a point. Plus Jamie has to deal with a judge asking her on a date under threat of rescinding an earlier verdict.
Frasier, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” – Niles says he has a new appreciation for life after his heart surgery, but for all his endless talk, he is actually scared to start doing things his doctor says he can. Meanwhile, we learn Frasier made a deal with God: if Niles gets better, Frasier will stop squabbling with him. The former is just some nice character beats (and at the end an excuse to see Daphne in a “naughty nurse” outfit to seduce Niles). The latter just seems a bit weird since there is really nothing about Frasier that feels like a man of faith. It’s funny to see him trying to negotiate with God to get out of the deal, but seems out of character.
Absolute Power is most interesting it seems for Goldman’s anecdotes about writing it and getting to watch Eastwood at work in his second screenwriting book.
Non-Classic Clint! I think Absolute Power is pretty low-tier, the 90s craft is fine and the explicit Clinton-bashing is fun but it’s really by-the-numbers stuff and all the shit with Clint’s daughter is hokey nonsense, especially considering it reads as cheap forgiveness for Clint’s own absent parenting. And the resolution of relying on a wholesome billionaire to stop a corrupt president is pretty terrible. As always, I blame my nemesis William Goldman.
Under the Skin (1997) – yeah not THAT Under the Skin. This one is Samantha Morton’s movie debut, and she plays a young woman who goes off the rails after the death of her mother and seeks a way to replace that missing love with… less effective, messier love. It’s pretty standard gritty indie movie fare but there’s some nice 90s British period detail and Morton is very good in the lead. The director married a politician and never worked again, shrug?
Live Music – drove my girlfriend’s band up to York for an international women’s day gig, they did their usual mad two-drummer thing with excellent support from Small Gauge (jangly post-punk with some early-REM bits at times), Ladies Nite (full on early-80s-style synthpop, great fun) a local teenager that was on the bill to Engage The Youth but whose music I honestly couldn’t really stand, and Weather Balloons, who did interesting kinda noisy electronic folk. Excellent stuff and I got to stay over with the promoter and drink their wine and eat their breakfast, maybe I’ll pack it all in to become a driver.
Broadchurch, episodes 3 and 4 – still enjoying this, the town is slowly revealing its secrets and many people have dark things to hide. Like a lot of murder-mystery kinda things it feels like it’s treading a fine line between compelling and trashy, so far so good.
Woo live music! I only watched the first Broadchurch season and really enjoyed it – cried quite a bit – and apparently I was fine leaving it after Season One. Tennant especially gets a chance to play a subtler, sadder character and in his native accent. (Yes, I needed subtitles.)
It does seem like the kind of story that’s best suited to a single season, but I guess I’ll see how I feel at the end of this one. Tennant is good, the prickly outsider detective is obviously a massive cliche at this point (Twin Peaks still stands out massively for having an eccentric outsider detective that everyone immediately loves) but he’s doing some good work and the fourth episode gave a little more depth to his character. There’s also some solid Ace in the Hole-style “look at the circus that assembles around a tragedy” stuff.
As I remember, the character works in part because he’s a pure professional (albeit a bit of a prick) esp paired with Colman.
Wooooo live music! Woooo your inexplicable metamorphosis into Henry Rollins re van driving!
What did we play?
Hollow Knight on Nintendo Switch
Travelled around some more and found out that some of the earlier map sections have gotten infected, and I got the terrible feeling that it will be my fault somehow. Specifically fearing that some of the people I’ve met so far are going to die horribly. Made it to Crystal Peak, which was some excellent crystal stage gimmicks and mechanics and beautiful aesthetics. Also, I learned how to fly in a straight dash, which opened up some rooms that I’d marked ages ago. Got a new charge attack, beat a few minibosses, including the doppelganger Broken Vessel. Tried the Lost Kin around 30 times before opting to come back when I’m more powered up. Got the double jump and went to a spot I’d marked to try it on, opening the rest of the Hive. It’s a great stage section with cool gimmicks and tough enemies. There’s a section right before the Hive Knight boss that was a lot of trouble to go through every time I had to return to the boss, but I managed with a little bit of patience and precision. Finally, made it to the second fight with Hornet. Glad I found the secret save bench right next to it, and I again beat her with a little of patience. Got the King’s Brand from her, then she saved me from a crumbling cave. The Brand is the first item that only seems to open doors and doesn’t give me an actual new ability, so I’m curious to see how it interacts with the map, and how to even find where to go next. Also hoping I don’t just infect everything I touch from here on.
Ooh, wow, lots of progress! I have a couple of interesting points, but I think they may be spoilers, so I’ll put them where you can see those.
MIO: Memories in Orbit
Pretty new Metroidvania game that has been a lot of fun so far. Good balance of everything that makes the genre fun – the platforming reminds me of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, and the setting reminds me of Nine Sols. The artwork is gorgeous, though it also causes perhaps my biggest complaint, when I can’t tell what is in the foreground vs. the background. I think I’m getting close to the end. The story seems pretty cool and combat is workable, none of the insane difficulty of Nine Sols, but also pretty limited in terms of your weaponry. Still, it’s doable, and I’ve had a lot of fun. I would recommend this.
Year of the Month update!
This March, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, TV, etc. from 1980.
Mar. 2nd Tristan J Nankervis: Raging Bull
Mar. 5th: Cori Domschot: The Music Man
Mar. 16th: Tristan J Nankervis: 9 to 5
Mar. 19th: John Bruni: Gaucho
Mar. 23rd: Bridgett Taylor: Magnum PI
And next month, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1949.
April. 9th: Cori Domschot: I Was a Male War Bride
Apr. 16th: Cori Domschot: On the Town
I’m gonna put Underwater Moonlight on my calendar, although I have a lot to catch up on first.