Fiorello!
Why was this famous Broadway show portrayed as such a burden to sit through (although Betty did think the tunes in it were pretty)? The show was a critical and popular success and even won a Pulitzer Prize.
shareIn the trivia section for this episode:
Don and Betty attend a performance of the Broadway musical "Fiorello!" and run into Jim Hobart (head of the rival ad agency McCann Erickson) and his wife. Before Betty meets Don in the lobby, Don and the Hobarts all insult the musical, but then Betty approaches and obliviously praises it ("I like this show. Very gay songs"), which makes her seem unsophisticated and naive in front of the other three. Ironically, though, Betty actually has the more sophisticated and informed opinion of "Fiorello!," which turned out to be not only a critical and commercial hit but was also one of the very few musicals ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama (as of 2016, there have still been only nine musicals that have ever won Pulitzers since the Drama prize was first given in 1918).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1097298/trivia?ref_=tt_ql_2
I think this exchange helps with the further development of Betty's character. It shows a way that Betty had a genuine--and correct--reaction to something but was nonetheless made to look inferior for expressing her opinion. It also shows a way that she is more cultured than Don and many in his business, even though they are in many ways the arbiters and architects of current popular culture.
It also shows that people who don't know much about art or culture often resort to insulting everything rather than expressing a nuanced and considered opinion. And musicals have always been an easy target of that kind of cynicism, no matter how good they are, especially among men (because musical theater is thought of, derogatorily, as a domain of women and gay men and therefore not sufficiently "masculine" for men like Hobart and Draper). share
Very interesting... Thanks for the insight!
shareAll true, but this is an old trope in comic strips and films. I'm thinking of Jiggs and Maggie here, as well as Blondie, but it is common in sitcoms as well.
The wife is always trying to rope her husband into attending the opera, a musical, or some other cultural event, while the guy would rather head to the nearest bar.