TOPAZ HORIZON

I knoooooow. I've been neglecting ze blog. Forgive me, my dearest readers. I hate to admit it but "superwoman" me ain't super at all. I'm having a very hard time juggling the needs of a new baby and a toddler, on top of managing my house, and my work as editor and writer! Stress Drilon araw-araw!

But I'm happy. Yes oh yes!

Don Draper and Joan Holloway. Two of the sexiest people on TV (and in the world)!

Anyway, does anyone here watch Mad Men? I never get to talk to anyone about Mad Men. It seems like no one I know watches Mad Men. I seldom get to feature the show in the Hollywood magazine I edit either. So I only have the hubby to talk to when it comes to all things Mad Men.

Such a shame since the past couple of episodes have been astounding and outstanding. But I'm not going to do a review today; I'm going to explore the decision that Joan made two episodes ago and how it's affecting my marriage (hala lagot!).

Joan, played by the lusciously curvaceous Christina Hendricks (who deserves an Emmy dammit!), got an indecent proposal. The ad agency needs Jaguar to hire them and the creatives, pushed by Don, are busy coming up with a fantastic campaign. But the head of the dealership association tells Pete that the deal would be made much sweeter and surer if he gets to spend a night with Joan. Yuck.

Pete and the agency's partners are shocked and then aren't shocked (pfft, men!). Don walks out but the others tell Pete to offer Joan $50,000. Joan is mightily offended, even though she admits that the money--four times her annual salary--is huge. Lane comes in later and tells her to not settle for the money; she should ask for a partnership plus 5% of the firm. Now, she's going through a divorce and is raising a baby boy all on her own. This is the 60s. A broken marriage was a shameful thing. What's a single mother to do?

She slept with him, of course.

Did he have to be so icky?

You have to watch the episode to see that it isn't as sleazy as it sounds. And to see the utterly magnificent acting of Joan as she plays the role of desperate mother, resolute seductress and ambitious career woman.

Now how is this affecting Vince and me? Well, Vince labels what Joan did as prostitution. That's very Vince--he calls a spade a spade, everything is black and white for him. That's what makes him a good man. I, on the other hand, am a believer in context. Shades of gray, if you will. So in my mind, unpalatable and despicable as the deed was, I saw it as something that Joan needed to do to secure the future of her son. Vince, of course, is beyond shocked when I said that. He exclaimed in dismay, "Thank God we don't have daughters!"

Well, thank goodness I wasn't alive in the 60s! What Joan did really didn't strike me as prostitution. For me it was a desperate act of a mother. Matthew Weiner, Mad Men's creator, says:

"Honestly, I think that if I had not mentioned the word 'prostitution' in the episode, I don't even know if the audience would have really realized that that's what it was. It's more complicated than trading sex for money because it's really about this woman getting into a position of power." 

And getting into a state where she won't need a man to provide for her and her son. When you're a mother, all your choices are defined by your children. Even Christina Hendricks says:

"The question is, what would you do to protect your family? Joan is raising her son all on her own. She has no help from anybody. So is it noble? Is it slutty? I don't know."

Ya. I don't know either. I do know that I'm a mother. I understood. I think I'll never do what Joan did but I won't judge her or women who had to make choices like that. So Vince said, "We have to let our children know that they will always have us, that they can always come home, so that they'll never have to do anything desperate."

And this is when I pray to God desperately that we stay alive and healthy, leading abundant lives, so that our sons will always have enough. Maybe sometimes even plenty. So that, as their father fervently hopes, they'll never have to do anything desperate.

*images from The Hollywood Reporter