Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Mad Men changed the game when it debuted 10 years ago today. Not only did it practically invent the prestige drama format, it pushed the boundaries of what could be aired on a basic cable network. During it’s seven-season run, creator Matthew Weiner’s period drama about the world of advertising in the 1960s got away with dropping certain four-letter words and showing certain sexytime acts. Mad Men dared to do things that other cable dramas never dared do.
In retrospect, Mad Men also did something that even a streaming service drama like House of Cards has been reluctant to do: show two men getting it on. Despite having a bisexual lead character in Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood, Netflix’s House of Cards has time and time again resisted showing him engaged in any prolonged same-sex canoodling. Mad Men did not have that problem, and it never even had a gay character as prominent as Frank Underwood. In fact, Mad Men aired a gay hookup scene that is, without a doubt, steamier and more explicit than House of Cards’ dude-on-dude action. Yes, a scene from a 2009 basic cable drama is sexier than a scene from a 2017 streaming service (a.k.a. no censors) drama. Let’s compare.
I’ll start with the 2017 House of Cards episode “Chapter 61.” In it, President Underwood hooks up with his personal trailer Eric (Malcolm Madera) inside of a dark White House stairwell. The scene starts with Eric approaching Frank from behind, wrapping his arm around the president and kissing his neck.
Frank brushes this off, and Eric first thinks he’s misjudged his high status client. Nope! Power-hungry Frank Underwood wants control of this situation, so he backs his personal trainer up to the stairwell and grabs him by the throat.
There’s a lot of will he/won’t he strangle Eric tension, a real worry considering that the president has indeed murdered people during the previous four seasons. Frank does not opt to kill Eric; he opts to take his hand off Eric’s throat and go… south of the border.
After a little bit of offscreen touching (the camera stays on Eric’s profile), the two lean in for a kiss…
… that lasts exactly that one frame. This one, shadow-drenched frame is the only onscreen guy-on-guy kiss in the show’s history. You can’t even see lips. The shot immediately cuts to further away and an obstructed angle.
Hot? Not.
That’s what House of Cards, a prestige drama unleashed on a no-holds-barred streaming service comes up with. It’s all atmosphere, no steam.
Now let’s travel back to 1963 (by way of 2009’s Mad Men episode “Out of Town”) In the episode, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Sal Romano (Bryan Batt) travel to Baltimore for business. That business includes, of course, hotel hookups with strangers. While Don gets busy with a flight attendant, Sal returns to his hotel room after a night of drinking only to find that his air conditioner is busted. He calls for help, and a bellboy only makes things hotter for Sal. The scene starts off with a face-to-face approach…
…and then kiss!
A comparatively well-lit, full-blown kiss. And then…
More kissing! From a different angle, one that gives you double the kissing thanks to that mirror! The bellboy pulls away from Sal to unbutton his vest, only to reveal one of Mad Men’s classic visual metaphors.
From there, we get…well, more kissing.
AND MORE KISSING.
Director Phil Abraham knows that the best way to film a kiss is from all angles. And come on, Sal went two whole seasons with zilch in the way of action. It’s about time! No wonder his pen didn’t survive this hookup.
Like in the House of Cards scene, hands start to travel in the Mad Men hookup.
Then bodies travel, from an upright standing position to the hotel bed.
The bellboy jams his hand down Sal’s boxer shorts, and we see the boxer shorts, and then, well…
And, because that is not enough, more kissing. Why not?
A fire alarm rings out, cutting the scene short as Sal and the bellboy scramble to get their clothes on. But before that, they gave us exactly what House of Cards didn’t: a well-lit, same-sex hookup scene where not only can you fully make out the faces of the participants, but you actually see them kiss and get handsy with each other–a lot.
Mad Men did this in 2009, on AMC, with one of it’s dozens of supporting characters. House of Cards probably thinks it did this with a scene in 2017, on Netflix, with its lead character. But when you look at the two scenes side-by-side, you see what the White House drama is missing. Mad Men had it. Mad Men had it years ago.
