Sipping on a small glass of scotch, feet thrown over the desk, Don Draper’s melancholy yet confident demeanor has our eyes glued to the television screen. I’m not saying that Draper is the worst character in the world, but he certainly isn’t up for the humanitarian award. Despite his lying and cheating ways, 2.5 million people tuned in to watch him destroy the lives of every fellow employee at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce because it’s entertaining.
Each character in Mad Men has their own manipulative agenda, which makes them complex and interesting. Their personal plot lines, along with their dark personalities, keep the audience thirsty. Regardless of how much the viewers despise how selfish Pete Campbell is or how dull Betty Draper-Francis can be, first-time viewers become avid watchers because the characters are captivating.
People want to be entertained.
Learning from media, like movies and television, is a secondary product of being entertained. Content shouldn’t preach lessons to its audience, but it should be able to give the viewer information they would not have known previously. For Bitchtopia, it means doing our best to shed light on feminist issues and empowering those which are normally oppressed. We’re not going to tell you how to feel about the world, but more-so give our readers an opinion that hasn’t been largely voiced.
Don Draper has shown us what it takes to be a truly awful person. Each scheme he plays out gives us new examples of what bad people do. Draper doesn’t need to tell us he’s a bad person, we see it in the way he treats women. We see it in his lack of respect for the people in his life. While we are watching Mad Men, we are blissfully unaware of how we are gifted this knowledge over cable. All we know is that it’s an incredible show, and most of the viewers agree that Draper is a grade-A jerk. Yeah, we’ll be tuning in for the final season on April 13th.
