May 15, 2008
Sal knows what he wants
Posted by Deborah Lipp under Character Talk, Season 1 Episodes | Tags: The Hobo Code, Nixon vs. Kennedy, Salvatore Romano |In The Hobo Code, Salvatore says “I know what I want.” In Nixon vs. Kennedy, we get to see what he wants.
They’re reading Paul’s play, and the scene ends with Salvatore’s character kissing Joan’s character. They kiss, the audience responds, and—probably because of the audience response—Sal gives it all he’s got, dipping her back and making quite a show of it. The office goes wild, whooping and cheering, and the camera gives us a close-up of Sal’s reaction; beaming, joyful, fulfilled. This is what he wants, this praise for being “a man,” for being, well, heterosexual, for doing it right. It is the only moment when we see Salvatore really happy.
May 15, 2008 at 10:05 am
It’s what he thinks he wants. I saw that reaction as well (missed it the first time, because Joan’s was so potent to me). To me it is a distinctly childlike radiance—he won the spelling bee, and he’s the school hero.
But he knows another truth. He knows how that kiss felt, and he knows the touch he wants. He knows he is unfulfilled, and maybe he still believes that the right woman might come along and turn his crank. He got what he wanted in that moment, but he’s going home a very, very different kind of alone than the rest of the folks.
May 15, 2008 at 10:16 am
Absolutely. It only turns his crank because everyone was watching; he wants to perform heterosexuality, he doesn’t really want to do it.
May 15, 2008 at 10:28 am
Well yeah. Girls. eww.
May 15, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Just got the production script yesterday - will distribute shortly.
May 15, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Sal would be very happy today. California lifts the ban on gay marriage!!
May 15, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Yep, Sal was kissing Joan, the arguably most desirable woman at Sterling Coop. What could be more het? If he hadn’t committed to it, that would have been suspicious.
But in his heart he’s still strickly dickly.
May 15, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Clearly, that’s a scene that provokes multiple interpretations. I guess that’s good acting and good writing: different people can read different things into it. Or even better, have a different possible interpretation every time they view it. I guess that’s why we like the show - it’s not all spelled out for us with huge sign posts like we’re idiots.
My initial take upon viewing was that Sal was being wistful for the freedom to be that openly passionate with a man. I didn’t really buy into the kiss - he seemed so distant in that he never left the actor/performance mode. I think if one of the straight guys in the office were doing it, the “acting” would have stopped altogether while they just dove lustily into the kiss - overjoyed like a schoolboy for the opportunity to press some flesh with Joan.
May 15, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I love your interpretation, OG — that it was a longing to be open in public and have people be accepting instead of having it be possibly the end of the world as he knows it.
Did anybody see, I think it was Primetime Live, where they had two women and then two men making out in public? No surprise that the 2 women had an easier time of it.
May 16, 2008 at 2:26 am
I remember some people being disappointed at the direction of Sal’s character. They’d originally envisioned him as a sexually active gay man with a secret life, and thought they would see the gay nightlife of that time.
I like that idea well enough, and it could have worked. Bryan Batt plays the character with a little bit of smirk that could indicate that he had another existence.
But after thinking about it, I find the current direction to be interesting. I’m not sure he’s self-hating — it seems, and I could be off on this, he had a choice to deny his sexuality in order to gain other things.
For modern day audiences, that’s an incredibly sad choice. Most people don’t think it’s fair for people to deny their romantic and sexual needs. And that’s what makes this more compelling than Sal having the best of both worlds
In the best of both worlds scenario, there could be a storyline about him being discovered, but the denial story line still has that possibility, as well as an opportunity to have Sal change his mind.
Then there is the whole gaydar issue. We watch and know almost instantly that Sal is a gay man, but the characters on the show either don’t know it, don’t want to know it, or choose not to acknowledge it.
I think some of it was that gay =d bad, and if you know someone and like them, it’s hard to think of them as bad. Perhaps some of it was innocence, too, or not wanting to look at others in that way.
Not that this isn’t still present in society, as there are a whole lot of Clay Aiken fans who don’t even want people to imply he’s gay, and it seems to be a combination of this ruining their own romantic fantasies and associating the allegation with a great insult.
Hmmm, Sal makes a lot of “straight” comments, and the people around him don’t seem to look at him like “who are you kidding,” but neither do they seem to act like he is one of them — a member of the fraternity of skirt chasing men.
Joan is interesting in this regard. She clearly understood what Carol was saying, but chose to not address it. There was no deliberate cruelty there, and it’s very clear she cares about her roommate, but she still chose to not address something that must have been hard for Carol to say.
Peggy came to the conclusion, and I believe she was right, that Joan wanted to help Peggy. Her stance toward Peggy gaining weight seemed cruel, and her opinion that catching a man was the goal of all right thinking is appallingly out-dated by our standards, but there was no malice. Just an effort to get Peggy (and Carol) on track.
May 16, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Don’t forget, Sal could have been arrested or put in a mental institution if he acted on his desires.
May 16, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Hullaballo…you made a great point! The “legalities” of Sal’s situation were stunning to me! With this recent California ruling and the like, it’s easy to forget that Mad Men was set before Stonewall and before psychologists/psychiatrists no longer considered homosexuality as a mental disease.
Above all that, Bryan Batt is so wonderful in the part. I have been wondering if he, Sal, will get involved with the switch board operator, just as a “front?” Hmmm….
May 16, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I don’t believe Sal will get a beard. He is happy to “perform” straight, which is why this moment was so perfect, but he turns down too many opportunities. Look, he preened in front of the other Art Dept. guys when Lois (the switchboard operator) flirted, but he turned down her invitation to go out with the sales guy….and then couldn’t follow through.
You know what else? Sal, like Peggy, is “small town” Brooklyn. Betcha anything that Italian mama of his is in Bay Ridge or Canarsie.
May 16, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Totally. Sal’s being closeted goes way deeper than a career move!
And it is possible, more than possible, that he doesn’t fully understand what his feelings mean about him. Remember that, while some understood ‘homosexual’, it was also long before the concept of ’sexual preference’, let alone ’sexual orientation’. I don’t think he’s saying to himself, I’m gay and I don’t want to be. I don’t think that the thoughts are that fully developed.
Sal knows what he wants, but he doesn’t understand the internal mechanics of that want.