Ascent of the A-Word by Geoffrey Nunberg

Author:Geoffrey Nunberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2012-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

And the rotter of sophisticated mid-century show tunes survives musically only in retro country songs like Carrie Underwood’s “Cowboy Casanova”:He’s like a curse; he’s like a drug,

You get addicted to his love . . .

He’s a good time cowboy Casanova,

Leaning up against the record machine.

That’s a fine tribute to a bygone genre of heel songs like Porter Wagoner’s 1967 “You Can’t Make a Heel Toe the Mark.” But by now the notion of the heel is as outmoded as that of a Casanova, not to mention record machines. And the type can’t be resuscitated, even in period dress. In the series’ first season, Mad Men’s Don Draper treats women with the self-considering callousness that would have made him a classic heel if he appeared in a John O’Hara story. But the show’s meticulous reconstructions of 1950’s clothing and furniture can’t evoke the attitudes of the era. Draper is no Pal Joey; the show gives us far too much of his anguished inner life to qualify him as a heel. In his relationships with women, he’s just a twenty-first century asshole in narrow lapels and a skinny tie.

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