'Mad Men': Three Women on a Elevator, Going Who Knows Where

Last Sunday's episode of AMC's 60's satire, "Mad Men," pushed some of my buttons -- in a good way. See, I don't usually like elevators. They're cramped, the music's terrible and everybody's staring at the door. An elevator without any buttons is what I imagine purgatory to be like -- waiting for a Bing! Top Floor that's never going to come. Tell me that doesn't sound only slightly better than Hell.
But in the final scene of of last week's "The Beautiful Girls" episode, elevators took on a new, if not still slightly scary, meaning. For the newly modern women of Sterling Cooper Draper Price, too many elevators can lead to any number of places -- success, heartbreak, disappointment, even death.
A red-lipped Joan is the first to push the button. She's the newly married office manager, who just the night before had her wedding ring stolen while walking from dinner with a man who wasn't her husband. Joan wants to start a family despite having two previous "procedures." Then in walks Dr. Faye Miller carrying a purse plus her briefcase. The market research consultant should be way too smart to fall for the office Don Juan, Don Draper, but they've been having two-martini lunches without the martinis. Faye, who's "made her choice" about children, just had a horrible first meeting with Don's daughter.
At the last minute, Peggy comes running with her pocketbook in one hand and her portfolio in the other. "Could you hold that?" she asks, already knowing the answer. Peggy was "given a second chance," according to Don, when she gave the baby she didn't realize she was carrying up for adoption two seasons ago. Now she's dating and spending a lot of time with the lesbian who works a few floors down. The double doors start to close as the former secretary-cum-copy queen settles in between Joan and Faye. All three women stare straight ahead as the camera zooms in on their faces. Joan looks resolute. Peggy self-satisfied. Faye uncertain.
In just a few seconds of cinematic genius, the doors close with the last woman standing being Peggy, who during the meat of the episode makes mention of a women's revolution without knowing the words for it. "But I have to say most of the things Negros can't do I can't do either, and nobody seems to care. Half of the meetings take place over golf, tennis and a bunch of clubs where I'm not allowed to be a member or even enter."
"Alright, Peggy, we'll have a civil rights march for women," jokes her male companion on the bar stool beside her. "I'm just saying they're not shooting women to keep 'em from voting." He's right, and so is Peggy (but not about Negros simply fighting their way into Sterling Cooper like she did. It's a bit more complicated than that, but I can understand how, as a success story, Peggy can truly believe in the easy pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps approach).
As the doors close -- literally -- on three of this season's female stars, we see three women who are fundamentally different but also exactly the same. Each one just wants to know whether she's made the right choice. But on the cusp of the female revolution and in an age when their choices can lead them beyond even the 30th floor, these three women seem less sure of themselves. And perhaps even more trapped than before.

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