Mad Men: The Lone Black Face

Written by Delaney Reese on August 25, 2009

I confess.

There are times watching Mad Men when I cringe. It’s a visceral embarrassment. This shame wells up from inside me—the kind that you used to get when your mom was called to school to meet with the principal, because you pulled some girl’s pigtails or used a cuss word.

I’m convinced that this humiliation is purposeful—indicative of Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner’s genius.

Let me describe the viewing circumstance when this occurs, because if you’re a fan of the AMC episodic drama returning to the airwaves in time to save us from the omnipresent hackneyed summer fare, you’ve probably felt it, too.

Usually, it’s when Don Draper and his merry band of white, aloof and often bumbling advertising execs enter or exit an elevator. There, inside the box surrounded in a sea of white faces, is the lone black character for that episode: maid, bellhop, busboy, lift operator or delivery man. Draper and crew continue to gab about the trivialities of their ultimately trite occupation, and this solitary figure simply listens or nods or says, “Hello, sir.”

An imperceptible wall exists between the white and black characters. It’s as though the Caucasians see right through the African American character like they were made of cellophane. As the scene comes to a close, this character, with a quiet and very aware dignity, goes about their business as though they were never ever there, Ralph Ellison-style.

For fans, it goes without saying that Mad Men has touched upon the civil unrest brewing during the early ’60s. Draper underling Paul dabbles in an uncomfortable interracial romance that reveals his cowardice in the face of his lover’s courageous activism, and a poignant moment shared by Betty, Draper’s wife, and her former nanny, concerning Betty’s dying father, focused the normally blurred line of love and loyalty that bonded them, despite race and class. (A similar situation now occurs between the Beverly Hills rich, their often illegal alien maids and the children they are charged with raising.)

In these awkward moments—the moments when that black face disappears into the back of the scene—the moments when those stoic, dignified yet suffering figures suffer more—Weiner makes one of his greatest statements about American history, and the way we have overcome that history. Personal and heartfelt, Weiner underlines past sins by forcing us to identify with those “invisible men” and women—showing us the subtle but all too painful hand of racism.

Despite this artistic and socially revealing triumph, much ado has been made recently—mostly in the blogosphere—that Mad Men has a dearth of African American roles, and that the roles that it does have for this specific minority are mostly servile in nature.

The answer to these cries is yes. Yes, there are few black characters to be found in Mad Men, and yes, the roles offered on that show for blacks are little more than extras who—I hate to say it—color the scenes.

Yet, this is a reflection of Mad Men’s times—a mirror up to the face our former selves. And, we are better for it.

Should Weiner’s vision last longer than eight years, the fabric of this show will change radically allowing a greater diversity of roles. Until then, leave Mad Men alone to entertain, educate and titillate us with its dramatic excellence. Force it to change artificially, to shirk our “cowardice” about race of which our lion-suited Attorney General accuses us, and kill a masterpiece.

Besides, if art begins to fall under affirmative action guidelines, Tyler Perry’s Meet the Brown’s—doing more harm to African American entertainment than Stepin Fetchit ever did—might have to become Meet the Whites.