The Other Under Male Dominance

Mad Man is a U.S. TV drama produced by American Movie Classic Company since 2007. It is a period drama about how upper-class men pursuing their American dreams in business competition of advertising industry. The drama has won the Best Drama in Emmy Awards for four years in a row since 2008, and the Best Drama in Golden Global three times since 2007. What’s more, it ranked sixth of “the 60 greatest TV of all time” listed by TV Guide magazine in 2013, which showed its high quality with a good reputation. Seemingly, it is a story of men; however, the three leading female characters are so vivid with their unique charms, showing us their struggling in 1960 s when feminist consciousness was widely spread. Being trapped by male dominance, these women struggled powerlessly, failing to get rid of their status as the other.Gender inequality has always been a key issue of human society that woman is regarded as the vassal, being excluded from discourse power under male-dominated society. Most women failed to control their life, leaving themselves in passive and subordinate situation. The French feminist Simone de Beauvoir once proposed the theory of “the Other” in feminism in her book The Second Sex to interpret the definition of woman by man and to explore the root cause of their destiny and status. Based on Beauvoir’s theory, this thesis analyzes the female images from Mad Man to prove that woman is the other manipulated, objectified, and defined by man under male dominance. There are three parts of the main body: the first part deals with the image of housewife Betty as the marginalized and oppressed other, to interpret that woman descends to being the manipulated other since her submission; the second part is about the image of office lady Joan as the other under male gaze and the other being “traded”, to demonstrate that woman becomes the objectified other as she compromises; and the third part analyzes the independent woman Peggy as the excluded and unrecognized other, to testify that woman has always been the other defined by man though she is attempting to revolt against male dominance.Based on the analyses of three female images, the research of this theses aims to explore the situation of woman being manipulated, objectified, defined by man from the perspective of “the Other” in feminism. Hopefully, this thesis could raise the further consideration for any relative studies in the future about how woman, being regarded as the other, face the challenge of patriarchy and how to seek for their subjective identities.