As a white male I am acutely aware of the lottery I have won during birth. I try my best to understand the difficulties women go through and the difficulties other races go through. Don Draper is the epitome of white male dominance. An executive in a time in which women and people of colour are treated like second class citizens. They get better treatment now but it still isn't perfect.
He treats women like objects and gets away with it. The behaviour is disgusting but the appeal still exists. When I was 19 I started watching Mad Men and with great excitement I found a fictional character that embodied everything that was great about life, he did whatever he wanted, he drank scotch at work, he wore cool suits and he was creative and in charge. Then the pilot ended and he was cheating on his wife.
Discovering things about people is hard, sometimes you don't agree with their motives but I chose to ignore the adultery and focus on the things I liked about Don. Now, many years later I feel less connected to him, I am in a committed long term relationship and to think that the things he does in the show would ever be repeated by me is ludicrous.
Don embodies mens culture and has influenced style and in some cases attitude. I take on Don Draper's attitude when it comes to success and it makes me feel more successful. I do what I want more frequently than before whilst still maintaining control. The point I am trying to make is that even if a character does bad things, or even if a real person does bad things, you can still find positives in them and emulate and learn from the positives rather than focusing on the negatives.
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