19 Apr Loving Don Draper, Why Some Do
It could come down to an easy way to climb the social ladder – without taking a single step. Maddie Crum writes in the Huff Post about “The Real Reason Why You Love Don Draper, According to Science.”
What will become of Don Draper? As the final season of “Mad Men” continues, the debate surrounding our crestfallen hero’s fate grows more tense, and contentious, with each episode.
Will Don get a happy ending via self-acceptance? Or will he fizzle out, along with all that he represents: the self-made man made real and successful by representing, and deeply identifying with, the brands he touts? Throughout the show, he’s been a divisive character, lauded by some for his frankness, but disparaged by others for his selfish behavior. Still, Don drives the conversation around the show. Is it merely his bad boy charm that we find alluring — or is it something more?
In Season 7’s Part 1 finale, his ex-wife Betty said she was “starting to think of him as an old, bad boyfriend. Someone a teenage anthropologist would marry.” Senior partner Jim Cutler was no more forgiving: In his attempts to fire Don, he called him “a bully,” “a drunk” and “a football player in a suit.” Still, he managed to evade both personal and professional failures once again, and audiences seemed pleased.
If you’re among those rooting for Draper — charmed by his crisp ties and blunt manner in spite of his predictable prickishness — your allegiance may not represent a warped masochistic tendency. It may, in fact, be rooted in brain science, and the psychology of what we determine to be “cool.”
In Cool: How the Brain’s Hidden Quest for Cool Drives Our Economy and Shapes Our World, authors Steven Quartz and Anette Asp discuss how our personal values and identities are tied up in our consumption habits…
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