Mad Men Meme

[sunclouds33]

I did this meme for Mad Men for 12_12_12. I had too many characters in my answer to be contained in a less than four comments. I'm just writing a separate entry- which I generally like doing on these memes anyway. Feel free to ask more fandoms. So far I've done the Buffyverse, Harry Potter, The Good Wife, and Mad Men

Comments

[sunclouds33]

Yes, it's part of why Joan is complicated. Because I agree that Joan really commits herself to the consequences of her choices, but I also agree (and proposed) that she's adaptable and occupies a lot of different and varying roles. Even though it's painful and really not necessary, Joan commits to holding her nose and marrying Dr. Rapist, being a shopgirl instead of asking for her old job back at SC even as Roger calls to chat a lot, refusing Roger's child support money, wanting Herb/Jaguar to remain clients and thus, constant reminders of her humiliations, sticking with Cutler even though she was isolated in that position and Cutler didn't give a shit about her anti-Harry Crane as partner vote. I don't know that she's punishing herself in these actions- but she trying to fulfill A Code that a respectable woman accepts the consequences of her actions and never flip-flops on a stated position, even when there's an exit point or even when there's little value or goodness in what she's doing other than commitment and bearing the consequences of her choices. In this, she's the opposite of Don who constantly tries to exit and run away from anything ranging from a genuinely awful situation to anything that's so much as mildly irritating/boring him, with little regard to the consequences of that.

But yeah, at the same time, Joan's a Committer but she's also a woman who tries to play a number of roles. To some extent, her final storyline bore that pattern out but showed growth. Joan committed to the unfair reality of her situation in just taking McCann's gambit to welsh out of the purchase price of her shares because they harassed her enough on the job. She did not lead a feminist charge or sue for her money. However, she also went to evolve into another role- from Company Gal/Vice President to CEO of Her Own Business.