Mad Men Rewatch: Joan Halloway
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
I’m surprised that someone as beautiful and smart as Joan is single in her thirties in season one. She clearly knows how the game is played, women use their looks to hook and marry the highest value man they can.
Yet we know Joan has a lot of admirers and even had long term affairs with men like Roger. But she is not able to lock him down with marriage the way Jane later does and Megan does with Don. Even if it doesn’t end well for them, via marriage these women elevate their social status and gain access to wealth. Meanwhile we see Joan being used for her beauty and she’s single into her 30s until she settles for that horrible failed doctor. It doesn’t make sense for someone as smart and beautiful as Joan to not be able to work the system to make an advantageous match for herself. |
Anonymous
| I see it as a plot device, because if she were married she likely wouldn’t be working there so wouldn’t even be on the show. |
Anonymous
| I think part of her wasn't super into being married. Like if she were living in 2026 she'd be single or a serial monogamous. Even if subconsciously, she wasn't putting out marriage vibes. |
Anonymous
|
Agree on 1) plot device and 2) not wanting to settle into married life.
With what she saw and knew about married men with whom she worked, I don’t blame her. She liked city life. And she was the queen of her kingdom at SCDP. Bummer she married a dud. |
Anonymous
|
She had an on and off relationship with her married boss.
A woman wasting her youth on a guy who won't commit is a tale as old as time. Even Burt says this to her in the elevator on NYE. |
Anonymous
| I thought it was class commentary. Joan is beautiful so she can be the mistress of a guy like Roger, but she doesn't have the background that Betty had so no man like that is going to wife her up (at least not until he's older/stupider, which is what Roger eventually does). So she had to work her way up and out before she could snag a doctor. A doctor who, though deeply flawed, was also a striver. Even though it didn't work out, obviously. |
Anonymous
Oh this is an excellent take. |
Anonymous
I lean this way. One of the themes of the show is the way NYC in the 60s, and the advertising industry at that time, had a very seductive power over people. There is so much happening in the city, there is freedom and looseness that you can't find elsewhere. I think Joan may have subconsciously sabotaged her marriage prospects because she wants to stay longer in that world. Joan also really, really likes her job and the power it affords her and the respect she commands at work, and getting married and having a baby promises to end that. I think this is why she continues her affair with Roger even when it's clear he won't leave his wife, and keeps up her single girl life with her roommate. I think Joan is then shaken by Peggy's rise to copywriter at work, because it highlights the limitations of Joan's own career path at Sterling Cooper. She'd viewed Peggy as a young protege she could sculpt in her own image, and then Peggy winds up *above* Joan in the hierarchy after only a few months. That's what pushes Joan to lock down a man. Sadly, it's Greg. Ugh. |
Anonymous
| I like the class commentary. It’s clear Joan is working class even though exceptionally beautiful and intelligent. Roger likes sleeping with her but never seriously offers her marriage or stability. He does marry Jane though, even though she is a secretary and Don marries Megan. Is it implied that Megan and Jane are higher social class? |
Anonymous
Yes, this was how it was framed in the show. |
Anonymous
| She came from a poor background and had higher aspirations so was holding out for a more lucrative marriage as long as possible.. |
Anonymous
I don't think you can think about class as this cleanly delineated on Mad Men. It's NY in the 1960s, not the 1860s. Class structures have already been upended a few times. There is the question of being "from money" but then there are also differences between "old money" and new money. You also have multiple self-made characters who are given a lot of respect (including Don). Megan's family does not seem to have much money, but Megan's dad is an academic and Megan appears to be well educated. She's also bilingual. This wouldn't impress someone like Pete's mother, who is old money and would view Megan as little better than a prostitute given that she had to work for a living before "marrying up." But it does impress Don and people like Ken and Peggy, who are middle class and not well traveled. Jane strikes me as a classic gold digger, what Joan would be if she weren't so interesting. She's not from a wealthy background and doesn't seem to have a college degree. She's a bad secretary. But she's stunning, and she (and likely her family) were betting that a year or two as a secretary in some kind of NY firm (could have been a bank, a law firm, advertising, whatever) would land her a wealthy husband. She also sets her sights high from the start -- she doesn't mess around with the more junior men in the office. She knows exactly what she's doing but she's not from a wealthy family. She's looking to move up via marriage. |
Anonymous
| Look at what she became towards the end of the series (spoiler alert!) She is a boss babe who doesn't want to be married. She wants to call the shots. |
Anonymous
That is her character arc though. In the first few reasons she clearly aspired to marry rich and failed miserably ending up with a loser rapist who is a failed surgeon. |
Anonymous
She has always been like this. Look at the way she runs the office starting with the first episode |