Don Draper, Jon Hamm and unspoken lessons in toxic masculinity

Author’s note: contains a few Mad Men season 1 spoilers.

After eight years of watching his ups and downs amid the societal tumult of the 1960’s, on Sunday we finally said goodbye to Don Draper, the philandering yet forlorn ad executive at the center of the hit television drama Mad Men. The role catapulted Jon Hamm from unknown to A-list, but he’s recently contrasted the stoic, regressive Draper persona with earnest appearances in progressive PSA’s about early voting, gun control and campus sexual assault. One might be tempted to assume that a Venn diagram of Jon Hamm and Dick Whitman (Draper’s real name) would have fairly minimal overlap.

The actor and his character do ostensibly share tragic upbringings. Hamm was ten when his mother died of cancer; by 20, he had lost his father and the grandmother who helped raise him. Whitman was born to a prostitute who died in childbirth, and he was 10 when his alcoholic father was killed by a horse.

Such painful beginnings, however, would seem to be where the similarities end. Whitman’s path into adulthood is marked by treachery and selfishness well beyond his womanizing, whereas Hamm has demonstrated considerable goodwill and graciousness despite his early hardships. Wishing to serve as a positive male role model for kids lacking them, Hamm worked his way through college at a day-care center and, upon graduating, returned to his high school alma mater to teach theater. He’s been in a relationship with the same woman for 18 years.

Whitman, by contrast, no sooner accidentally kills his commanding officer during combat than snatches his dog tags in order to capitalize on his completed tour, thus becoming “Don Draper” and escaping the Korean War. When he is recognized years later by Adam, his younger half-brother, Whitman coldly refuses to have any further relationship or contact with him, and Adam ultimately commits suicide. In the following season, while threatening a woman with whom he’s had an affair, Whitman viciously sexually assaults her. Later in the series, he reveals a disturbing desire to wield absolute control over his sexual partners.

Compared to the ugliness he has portrayed, Hamm has seemed a relative model of virtue—at least until last month, when reports surfaced of the horrific physical abuse he and fellow fraternity members allegedly inflicted upon a pledging student at the University of Texas in the fall of 1990. Because the victim could not remember Hamm’s nicknames, he was beaten, set on fire and dragged on the ground by his crotch with the claw of a hammer. He suffered a fractured spine and kidney damage, allegedly from one of Hamm’s punches. Though arrested, Hamm received deferred adjudication and ultimately served two years’ probation instead of the short jail sentence three of his co-assailants were given.

A month has passed since this revelation, and despite his willingness to wade into national politics, Hamm has yet to comment on the incident. It’s truly a shame if he never does, less so for any personal catharsis it could have offered him than for the insights he could have offered us.

After all, who better than the man who played Don Draper, the seductive paragon of antiquated male arrogance, to convey how dangerous such entitled attitudes really are? Who better than Hamm, a former fraternity member, to explain what can go so wrong in those hyper-masculine environments empirically proven to make men more sexually coercive? Who better to describe how members’ subjugating mentalities can fester and enable such monstrous brutality? Who better to suggest how fraternities could reform to reduce hazing, sexual assault, and all other sex- or gender-based interpersonal violence?

If Hamm was sincere in proclaiming “it’s on us,” then his repugnant past behavior presents a unique opportunity to articulate the most harmful pitfalls and potential transformation of modern masculinity. It would obviously be far easier to maintain silence and thus emulate Draper, who was always comfortable pitching slogans but loathe to discuss his past. However, just as Dick Whitman finally begins to find peace through introspection and dialogue in the series finale, it’s not too late for Hamm to own his mistakes and chart a decidedly more open and reflective course.

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