{"id":2174,"date":"2010-08-03T11:00:36","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T16:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/?p=2174"},"modified":"2010-08-03T12:15:06","modified_gmt":"2010-08-03T17:15:06","slug":"we-are-dons-draper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/08\/we-are-dons-draper\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are Don’s Draper"},"content":{"rendered":"

I watch Mad Men<\/a><\/em> religiously. Of all the plot points, the least should be the main one, the secret identity of its lead, Don Draper. Most of the other characters don’t know, but the audience got the gist from the get-go.<\/p>\n

It became a non-issue for me after reflecting on the opening scene of the first episode of the fourth season, July 25: It’s referred to with a wink, when a reporter asks him, “Who is Don Draper?” Most of us have similar transformations of identity, which while often more dramatic than Don’s, don’t have the arc of story for TV, books or movies. Maybe it’s because the changes are in how we redefine happiness and success, not the name on the driver’s license.<\/p>\n

Yes, I’m another fan of the cable AMC series, though a latecomer, drifting in toward the end of the second season, then becoming hooked. We’ve rented DVDs of Seasons 1 and 2 to catch up.<\/p>\n

Bert Cooper, the Cooper of the 1960s-era\u00a0Sterling Cooper ad agency in Manhattan, is right when he said three years ago, in the penultimate episode of Season 1, that Don’s hidden identity, if he has one, doesn’t matter. The boss might know the truth. Sneaky Pete Campbell knows it but can’t get it confirmed.<\/p>\n

Don’s old self doesn’t matter, because those of us who grow up have changed costumes at least once — we’re all drapers.<\/p>\n

The audience learned Don’s identity in the first season. It constitutes plot because if his identity is blown, the life he built as creative director at what now is Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce collapses. Don was a Depression orphan named Dick Whitman. Dick’s mother, a prostitute, died in childbirth, his father a john. His guardians were hicks. In Korea, the real Lt. Don Draper is blown up in an accident just after a sniper attack, and the injured Pvt. Whitman has enough wits to trade dog tags. He barely met Draper, but his life can’t be any worse than what Whitman faces should he return home.<\/p>\n

The real Don Draper had he survived might have made a dandy car salesman, moving on to copywriter then a Madison Avenue man (Mad Man). Dick Whitman might have had the same post-service career track, under his own identity.<\/p>\n

A new man rose from that war, whatever his name.<\/p>\n

The show has plenty of flashbacks, showing the child Dick, the young car salesman Don, but none in between. Was he a high school hotshot or the continuation of the timid boy? Maybe we’ll be shown, but it doesn’t matter. The big transformation happens at the end of adolescence, with others further on. [Don’s now ex-wife Betty has yet to leave her teen years. Same with Pete. We have watched the transformation of secretary-to-copywriter Peggy Olson; her momma and Brooklyn parish priest might not recognize her .]<\/p>\n

It doesn’t take a war. We all change. The bits in truth stay about the same; it’s what we see that changes. Young Whitman must’ve had innate salesmanship and creativity. He certainly honed survival instincts from the youngest age, given the abusive family that took him in.<\/p>\n

A poor kid can do great. A kid raised well-off can squander advantages. There’s plenty of examples of each. Still, the formerly poor kid may be miserable, not seeing his successes. Which may not make him a failure. The middle-class loser just might be happy, so not a loser.<\/p>\n

In that early episode, titled “Nixon-Kennedy,” set around Election Day 1960, Cooper blows off Campbell, who had been trying to out Draper, saying:<\/p>\n

This country was built and run by men with worse stories. … The Japanese have a saying: a man is whatever room he is in, and right now Donald Draper is in this room.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We are the clothes we wear. The imaginary hat you don heading out for the day — choose your metaphor — carries you through circumstances you couldn’t have imagined last year or back in school.<\/p>\n

Some change names. In Facebook I see folks from way back have moved from Donnie to Don, Betty to Elizabeth, Richard to Rich, Edward to Ed — it doesn’t always move toward a more formal version. Last names sometimes change. William Faulkner was Falkner. Jon Stewart was Liebowitz.<\/p>\n

Names don’t have to change for this transformation. They often don’t. Personalities don’t change much, though we wish they might and sometimes we think they do, when it’s just different facets of the self being used in a given year.<\/p>\n

What I think happens is our definitions change — specifically what we need to be happy, and how we define success — when we finally have enough freedom to do something about it. Happiness isn’t necessarily situational, but success tends to be specific. Success is measurable and material, often with immediacy. Happiness has contentment and occasional ecstasy, so hard to measure at times it’s seen clearest in hindsight. We tend to adopt other people’s definitions of success, in home, work and avocation. Happiness may or may not “come from within,” as is said, but each of us does end up defining what makes it happen for us.<\/p>\n

If that first transformation from childhood is figuring out how to move toward success, then a second transformation can come where we learn to enjoy happiness in its moments. I suspect the second metamorphosis more often is a further refining of measures of success.<\/p>\n

Antihero Don Draper aims to be a success with family and with work. It would complicate a TV series, but it’s not juggling until there’s at least three — two in the air and one in hand. That ham needs a hobby. Works for me.<\/p>\n

But what do I know? While I believe I’ve had between two and 11 transformations, my old classmates voted me “Least Changed” at my 20th high school reunion — true, no drapery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I watch Mad Men religiously. Of all the plot points, the least should be the main one, the secret identity of its lead, Don Draper. Most of the other characters don’t know, but the audience got the gist from the get-go. 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