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Warning: contains spoilers for Mad Men season four.
Everything about Ida Blankenship is a punchline. From the spilt Scrabble tiles clatter of her name, to her gravelly voice and chewed-on Brooklyn vowels, to the old lady wig and post-cataract lenses used to age up and disguise the glamour of actor Randee Heller, the Mad Men character exists purely as a gag. A relatively rare one, in a show mostly fixated on existential emptiness.
The point of Miss Blankenship when she finally appears as comic relief in season four is that she’s not sexually desirable. Ad company office manager Joan billets her at Don Draper’s desk after he’s used up and discarded another in a long line of nubile young secretaries. The braying old woman’s a failsafe; she’s the bromide in Don’s coffee.
Miss Blankenship’s lack of allure is exactly what makes her reputation...
Everything about Ida Blankenship is a punchline. From the spilt Scrabble tiles clatter of her name, to her gravelly voice and chewed-on Brooklyn vowels, to the old lady wig and post-cataract lenses used to age up and disguise the glamour of actor Randee Heller, the Mad Men character exists purely as a gag. A relatively rare one, in a show mostly fixated on existential emptiness.
The point of Miss Blankenship when she finally appears as comic relief in season four is that she’s not sexually desirable. Ad company office manager Joan billets her at Don Draper’s desk after he’s used up and discarded another in a long line of nubile young secretaries. The braying old woman’s a failsafe; she’s the bromide in Don’s coffee.
Miss Blankenship’s lack of allure is exactly what makes her reputation...
- 8/21/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
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