I had planned to write about something fun and light before getting to the JFK Assassination episode in a few weeks but, as shown so much on Mad Men, history is made daily.
Today is July 14th, 2024, the day after an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. I’ll remember where I was when I heard the news just as I’ll never forget that I decided to process my feelings through this post.
The first episode of Mad Men I watched was the JFK Assassination episode. I didn’t know these characters but was fascinated by reliving and understanding history. Mad Men was a time machine before it was anything else to me.
A gunshot can connect and divide us and in the wake of yesterday, I can only think about how we almost entered a different world.
Had Trump’s life been taken, today would already be unrecognizable from the reality we know. An assassin’s bullet doesn’t just kill or wound one individual, it rips through the course of history. It’s common to speculate that, had JFK not been killed, American escalation in Vietnam would have ceased.
Had Dr. King not been shot in Memphis, he could have lived into the 21st century as a healing presence.
Had RFK not been killed during his presidential campaign in 1968, we may have never known the word “Watergate.”
These are the four major assassinations in Mad Men, with Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder by Jack Ruby being the last to be mentioned here. Betty speaks for everyone when she can only scream in horror as Oswald falls. In an instant, America is unrecognizable from the “comfortable” past Betty forever yearns for.
The national identity has changed. Americans fearfully sit by TVs, connected through bullets. A common recollection I’ve heard from 9/11 is that people felt “This kind of thing doesn’t happen in America.”
Believing this shouldn’t have happened isn’t how you process the unexpected. It did happen and the only question becomes “How do you move forward?”
How does a man like Don Draper move forward when the entire country stops?
During the assassinations seen on the show, Don seems bothered that history is happening and intruding into his life. He hates death and recognizes the horrible hold it has on everyone but does not stop to mourn. On any opportunity to turn the TV off, he takes it.
Don believes in honoring the peace that comes with death and we see him react violently when a preacher says that JFK and Dr. King were not true believers in God. Don’s world has to keep spinning, even if he doesn’t look forward to tomorrow, and attacking the dead slows that turn.
For him, remembering the dead slows that turn too.
You see who a person is when all eyes are on one place. Cowardice, selfishness, grace, humility, love, and hate… they all come out. We process the unthinkable through humor and connection but for some, this has to be about them.
Why is my life being disrupted? How many more “unprecedented events” are left in my life?
The belief that “this shouldn’t happen” morphs into “why is this happening to me?” Pete speaks out against Harry Crane following the deaths of JFK and Dr. King when Harry wants to get back to business as usual.
We see the usually detestable Pete Campbell at his best during these moments, taking a stand not to go to the Sterling family wedding following JFK’s death and calling Dr. King a great man.
In contrast, Duck Phillips turns off the TV before Peggy can learn the news of JFK. He does this so that they can have sex unbothered.
Again, the thought is “Why is my life being disrupted?”
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