BEWARE: Here lie spoilers. For Mad Men. Venture at your own risk.
So I've talked about Mad Men before in this blog. And I've talked about Ginzo. I don't know if you know that Mad Men is my favourite on going tv show. I don't want to debate the merits or demerits of the show (not that this is a conversation), its just infiltrated my life over the years. I have imaginary parallel lives of characters running in my head. It's become part of my vocabulary and my way of seeing the world. I don't know if the people creating it really know what new meanings it creates in millions of people across the world. Ideas are funny like that, they have a way of running wild and going wherever they please.
That being said, this is about Ginzo. You can see from the fact that I call him Ginzo and refer to him as my love in previous posts, that I love Ginzo, I feel deeply connected with and concerned for him. And this week on Mad Men, they did something to him. Maybe its my fault for lamenting that he doesn't have a bigger storyline. Sometimes maybe the most interesting ones are better left to the sidelines.
Everyone saw it coming. He was that character. He was the 'eccentric', there was obviously something off about him, he probably did have a mental illness. Was he going to be sent off to 'Nam because he was one of the most 'moral' characters, and seemingly sensitive? Was he going to be the next Don, could he really be the threat that Don saw him to be? Would we discover something more about his family? Would his guilt over being a 'hippy who takes cheques from Dow Chemical and General Motors' eventually make him quit and do something else?
But what do we get, a few measly hints to paranoia, anxiety and a big episode where he loses his shit in the most abrupt way. He's a fucking holocaust survivor orphan who is fucking brilliant at his job and also has some really interesting daddy issues/initmacy issues/sexuality questions and you just have him chopping off his nipple (Van Gogh style) for Peggy (100% love for her reaction as he is lead away and Stan for going with him to the hospital) and being dragged away strapped to a stretcher? And not even for Peggy, because obviously he's not attracted to her, it's just his fucked up brain's attempt to be normal. Also, I'm not 100% convinced about his hinted homosexual tendencies, (I mean, who wouldn't get excited looking at Stan's shoulders? Or his ass, or his beard. Funnily enough, I never thought Stan was hot before he gained that weight and grew a beard, now I just want to grab his ass all the time. I still ship him and Peggy, let the world know) I think it was part of his delusion thing. He's also not the kind to be a homophobe.
Yes, I get the whole oversold 'the future is coming...and it's bad' thing, yes, people are becoming obsolete/stupid before technology heavy handed symbolism with the 'THINK' sign on the agency's new computer. But could you not give the man a real fucking story before his inevitable breakdown. As someone who gives us amazing one liners, really holds it together and only gives us hints of something amazing, complicated and insane boiling under the surface, he deserved better.
I have people in my family who have had some form of paranoid schizophrenia, it build up. It starts with weird quirks and voices and thinking the Japanese are coming to get you through the water pipes and it turns into violence and it fades sometimes and sometimes you get medicated, other people aren't that lucky.
So Ginzo may be locked away for a while, he may be so drugged up that he loses his mind (his real, sharp, funny, perceptive mind) even further. And he just got nominated for a Clio. Fuck the world.
Anyway, here is a good reddit thread that has covers my many emotions over this issue.
When I got on the metro today, I was physically excited to go home and watch the episode, it's something to look forward to on a Monday, I get to see my favourite characters again. Guess I'm not going to see Ginzo around anytime soon. Here's a little pros and cons list I wrote last year in honour of him. Yeah, I am like one step away from actually writing fanfic.
Here's my ode to Ginzo.
Reasons I'm in love with Michael Ginsberg (written last season)
So I've talked about Mad Men before in this blog. And I've talked about Ginzo. I don't know if you know that Mad Men is my favourite on going tv show. I don't want to debate the merits or demerits of the show (not that this is a conversation), its just infiltrated my life over the years. I have imaginary parallel lives of characters running in my head. It's become part of my vocabulary and my way of seeing the world. I don't know if the people creating it really know what new meanings it creates in millions of people across the world. Ideas are funny like that, they have a way of running wild and going wherever they please.
That being said, this is about Ginzo. You can see from the fact that I call him Ginzo and refer to him as my love in previous posts, that I love Ginzo, I feel deeply connected with and concerned for him. And this week on Mad Men, they did something to him. Maybe its my fault for lamenting that he doesn't have a bigger storyline. Sometimes maybe the most interesting ones are better left to the sidelines.
Everyone saw it coming. He was that character. He was the 'eccentric', there was obviously something off about him, he probably did have a mental illness. Was he going to be sent off to 'Nam because he was one of the most 'moral' characters, and seemingly sensitive? Was he going to be the next Don, could he really be the threat that Don saw him to be? Would we discover something more about his family? Would his guilt over being a 'hippy who takes cheques from Dow Chemical and General Motors' eventually make him quit and do something else?
But what do we get, a few measly hints to paranoia, anxiety and a big episode where he loses his shit in the most abrupt way. He's a fucking holocaust survivor orphan who is fucking brilliant at his job and also has some really interesting daddy issues/initmacy issues/sexuality questions and you just have him chopping off his nipple (Van Gogh style) for Peggy (100% love for her reaction as he is lead away and Stan for going with him to the hospital) and being dragged away strapped to a stretcher? And not even for Peggy, because obviously he's not attracted to her, it's just his fucked up brain's attempt to be normal. Also, I'm not 100% convinced about his hinted homosexual tendencies, (I mean, who wouldn't get excited looking at Stan's shoulders? Or his ass, or his beard. Funnily enough, I never thought Stan was hot before he gained that weight and grew a beard, now I just want to grab his ass all the time. I still ship him and Peggy, let the world know) I think it was part of his delusion thing. He's also not the kind to be a homophobe.
Yes, I get the whole oversold 'the future is coming...and it's bad' thing, yes, people are becoming obsolete/stupid before technology heavy handed symbolism with the 'THINK' sign on the agency's new computer. But could you not give the man a real fucking story before his inevitable breakdown. As someone who gives us amazing one liners, really holds it together and only gives us hints of something amazing, complicated and insane boiling under the surface, he deserved better.
I have people in my family who have had some form of paranoid schizophrenia, it build up. It starts with weird quirks and voices and thinking the Japanese are coming to get you through the water pipes and it turns into violence and it fades sometimes and sometimes you get medicated, other people aren't that lucky.
So Ginzo may be locked away for a while, he may be so drugged up that he loses his mind (his real, sharp, funny, perceptive mind) even further. And he just got nominated for a Clio. Fuck the world.
Anyway, here is a good reddit thread that has covers my many emotions over this issue.
When I got on the metro today, I was physically excited to go home and watch the episode, it's something to look forward to on a Monday, I get to see my favourite characters again. Guess I'm not going to see Ginzo around anytime soon. Here's a little pros and cons list I wrote last year in honour of him. Yeah, I am like one step away from actually writing fanfic.
Here's my ode to Ginzo.
Reasons I'm in love with Michael Ginsberg (written last season)
- He's beautiful, even with the ill advised facial hair
-
He's nervous, neurotic and has anxiety issues but still gets shit done.
He knows that he's the shit at work but worries about ethical issues.
- He's not afraid to mouth off at 'authority figures', or be self
righteous and yell at people. He stands up for what he believes in?
Though he still works for an agency who serves Dow and GM (Cutler was
right about that). And he's dramatic about it too 'Now I am become
death, destroyer of worlds'
- He's lived through some real shit even if he might not remember it all.
- He thinks he's an alien.
- He takes care of his dad.
- He's a sass. And he has no filter.
- He has no friends and no interests and talks back to the radio.
-
He loves Stan. Does he love Peggy? Best work family ever. And now they
have two fucked up 'father figures' who are in competition with each
other (Don+Ted)
- He's 'never had sex, not even once' and he's anxious about it.
- 'You're a sexy girl and you smell great, you don't need to be set up'.
- Doesn't know that he's hot.
- Has 'bad' taste in clothes. But still forgivable.
- Seems to be sober but isn't a buzzkill?
- 'I insulted you because I'm honest and I apologized because I'm brave'
Things I could do without
- What's with that
creepy stalker/rape fantasy-ish ad that he wrote?? Was he doing it as a
way of holding up a mirror to the client, what just giving them what
they want, was he making a comment? It seems kind of ambiguous. Also the
Jaguar pitch 'finally something beautiful you can truly own', though
genius, the idea is still kind of sexist. Also when he first met Peggy
he thought she was a secretary and acted nutso.
EDIT: Here's some more stuff I wrote today.
This is probably in bad taste, but this is what I woke up singing today. Sorry Ginzo.
EDIT: Here's some more stuff I wrote today.
This is probably in bad taste, but this is what I woke up singing today. Sorry Ginzo.
I was reading Marshall McLuhan today
(I was thrown off by the title which is Medium is the Massage, which sounds like a pulpy book
about a psychic moonlighting as a prostitute at a Thai spa, but he had an idea behind it, something about stimulus and the mass-age, geddit?) which now seems weirdly
prophetic about everything that Ginzo was ranting about. Maybe he read it too?
Maybe it fed his delusions, along with 2001 A Space Odyssey. The part about the
unforgiving, unforgetting machine must have struck close to home for him. It
definitely does for all of us. We're all a product of it, including me who is not on Facebook with my sophmoric observations 'dude he's like totally talking about us man'
There's a line there that says 'the
stars are so big, the earth is so small, stay as you are' which reminds me of
when Ginzo said the only communication he got from his home planet was 'stay where
you are'.
Another eerie line 'we hear sounds
from everywhere, without ever having to focus' which reminds me of how he said
he could 'turn off the transmissions to do harm', constantly telling he was
part of the problem. How many things do we overlook everyday with our
headphones on?
Last lines - 'I hardly know sir...I know who
I was when I got up this morning, but I think i must have changed several times
since then'
My favourite image (only because of Nico but the rest of the graphics are great)
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