iPhone: Checkerboard Chic, originally uploaded by Dyna Moe.
If you watch “Mad Men” then you know about Sheila, the cashier from New Jersey who was Pretentious Paul Kinsey’s girlfriend this season on Mad Men. Now that the season is over, I thought about their short-lived relationship. If you didn’t watch the show, then you may find all this boring, but bare with me.
The interesting thing about the relationship was not just that it was both an interracial and interclass relationship. Paul worked as a creative in advertising agency and Sheila probably made even less than whatever minimum wage was in 1962. They went to Mississippi together to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, but Sheila broke up him with not longer after. [Smart girl] Even though it is 2008, it is still rare that people date both outside of their race and social class. I have dated men who were both, and it can work as long don’t solely identify yourself by your race, ethnicity or how much money you make. I may be rambling on about a show that is fictionally set at a time before I was even born, but it just seems that things have not changed that much in 46 years. It is comforting and disturbing at the same time. Are we ready for change? I really hope so.
My husband (Rob Blatt, who was with you at the breakfast he went to this morning… wish I had gone!) is white and Jewish, and I’m bi-racial (black and white). It works because neither of us really care about the difference. It raised a few eyebrows in his family, though.
Hopefully next week we will elect our first black president, and that will spark even more change in the world.
I find it amazing how many fans such as yourself were so thrilled that Sheila had finally dumped Paul without even noticing or commenting that Weiner had NEVER BOTHERED to show the details of what led to their breakup. In fact, Weiner had never really confirmed whether Paul was simply using Sheila or that a part of him genuinely liked her.
But so many fans were so happy over the end of that relationship that they never questioned how this storyline was handled. I’m curious. Was it because many fans didn’t want to see an interracial relationship on “MAD MEN”? And were willing to use Paul’s pretentiousness as an excuse to hide their own racism?