Surreal eroticism, or Belle de Jour a la Mad Men

     On the surface, Luis Buñuel's film Belle de jour (1968) and the AMC series Mad Men (2007-2015) don't have a lot in common. One is an independent French feature film produced almost fifty years ago, and the other is an American TV series produced today for a big audience. One could argue that Mad Men with its cohesive dramatic arc and high production value amount to a "mega-movie" (Vincent Canby), and gives a detailed view of New Yorker upper-middle class life in the 1960s. In fact, both films feature higher classes in an increasingly anti-bourgeois decade. The set, the costumes and the attention paid to historical details of popular culture is insurmountable, and one could watch both productions simply for the pleasure a bygone splendid consumer culture. In Belle de Jour and Mad Men female desire initially expresses itself through fantasy fabrications (think of Betty and washing machine).

     Suffice it to say, while the Bunuel's movie features Severine's domestic plight, Matthew Weiner's series focuses on Betty's husband Don Draper and his conquests in the corporate Ad-world of Madison Ave. As a prototype male chauvinist, he has numerous affairs in the city while keeping his family 'safe' in Winchester County. While Severine's husband, the medical doctor Pierre Serizy, is too busy with his professional advance to tap into the erotic potential of his wife. Accordingly, both women are left to their own devices, and as Mad Men progresses Betty has a full fledged affair herself.

                                         

     Although Severine's daytime activities seem initially more outlandish than Betty's slow loss of marital ideals, one wonders if Mad Men does not convey more contemporary values than it appears on first sight. While in Mad Men Betty's affair is an attempt to break even with Don, her 'revenge' will help her husband to come to sense in the next season. For the surrealist Buñuel, eroticism has little to do with actual sex, and therefore Severine's erotic fantasies tap into an unconscious realm. An emotional sphere which profoundly stirs and moves human beings.