Joan Harris
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| Joan Harris | |||||||||||
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| Mad Men character | |||||||||||
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| Portrayed by | Christina Hendricks | ||||||||||
| First appearance | "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (1.01) | ||||||||||
| Created by | Matthew Weiner | ||||||||||
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Joan P. Harris (née Holloway) is a fictional character on AMC's television series Mad Men. She is portrayed by Christina Hendricks.
Fictional character biography
Joan was born on February 24, 1931.[1]
From Season One through Season Three, Joan is the office manager of the advertising agency Sterling Cooper. Her primary responsibilities are to manage the secretarial and steno pool and attend to the needs of the executives. She is also seen during meetings with the heads of departments, taking notes and reminding the male staff of their duties to their clients (such as keeping in touch with clients and keeping track of expenses).
Joan had an affair with her boss Roger Sterling (John Slattery), but it ends after Sterling suffers a heart attack. After Marilyn Monroe's death, Roger walks into his office to find Joan lying on his couch and dabbing her eyes. Realizing that Joan is upset over the similarities she sees between her life and Marilyn Monroe's, Roger comforts Joan by telling her that she will not end up alone and in despair like Monroe.
Joan had also had an intimate relationship with Sterling Cooper copywriter Paul Kinsey before the series began. Her roommate, Carol, whom Joan knows from college, has expressed romantic interest in Joan, too, although Joan ignored her romantic overtures.
In the second season, Joan gets engaged to Greg Harris (played by actor Samuel Page), a doctor at St. Luke's Hospital. As the season goes on, Joan is clearly torn between wanting to be a well-off, married woman (implied to be the pinnacle of Joan's ambitions) and fearing that she will become a bored, lonely housewife. Her feelings are exacerbated when she is briefly given additional responsibilities at Sterling Cooper reading scripts to determine ad placement, until Harry Crane hires a young, somewhat clueless man to take over the ad placement job, to her surprise.
Towards the end of the season, problems between Joan and her fiance, Greg, are revealed. In the episode "The Mountain King", Greg picks Joan up at Sterling Cooper for a dinner date. Greg meets Roger Sterling for the first time and immediately becomes suspicious that Roger seems to know Joan's likes and dislikes. Joan has not told Greg she'd had an affair with Roger, instead just saying that she has worked there for nine years (implying that she has been with the agency since 1953). He then follows Joan as she goes into Don Draper's office to lock up, forces her to the floor, and rapes her.
In the interim between Seasons Two and Three, Joan and Greg have married; a highlight of the third season's third episode is a furious Joan's coolly-accomplished rendition, in American-accented French,[2] of "C'est Magnifique", accompanying herself on the accordion for her dinner guests, at Greg's insistence.
Joan leaves Sterling Cooper to become a housewife in Season Three, but is later seen by Pete Campbell working at Bonwit Teller due to Greg's failure to receive a promotion at the hospital where he works. Joan mentions to Pete that Greg is considering going into psychiatry.
When Greg fails to land a job as a psychiatrist, in spite of Joan's having helped her husband practice for the interview, the couple have a heated argument, with Joan's smashing a vase over Greg's head. Joan later places a call to Roger Sterling's office after hours, asking him to help her find another office manager job. Greg ultimately decides to obtain an officer's commission in the Army (where he will serve as a military surgeon), informing Joan that he can now provide for her, and she will no longer have to work. Despite this, in the season finale, when Don, Roger, Bert, and Lane need help with the clandestine launch of the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, Roger calls Joan to help them find accounting materials and client records. When the new company sets up shop at The Pierre hotel, Joan takes the position of office manager.
In the fourth season, Joan and Greg are shown trying to conceive; however, their marriage is strained by Greg's having to attend basic training and subsequently being sent to Vietnam. In his absence, Joan and Roger briefly rekindle their affair, after being mugged one night while walking home from a friendly dinner. Their night of passion leaves Joan pregnant, and she and Roger furtively discuss the matter over a hasty lunch. Initially, she states she will "take care of it", and is later shown sitting in the waiting room of an abortion clinic and riding the bus home later that same night. Some months later, however, in the season finale, she is seen speaking with Greg over the phone about her pregnancy, having informed him that the child is his, and promising to send him a new picture of herself. In the same episode, she receives a title-only promotion to Director of Agency Operations, in recognition of her role in keeping SCDP afloat amid its recent financial troubles.
In the fifth season premiere, Greg is still in Vietnam, and Joan has given birth to a boy named Kevin and is finishing her maternity leave from SCDP, making plans for returning to work. Her mother, Gail, with whom she has a somewhat tense relationship, but whose help she nonetheless needs, is staying with her to help with the baby. In episode four ("Mystery Date"), Greg returns home from Vietnam, but informs Joan that he is being ordered to go back. When it becomes clear that Greg is returning not because he has no choice, but rather because he voluntarily reenlisted, Joan becomes enraged and throws him out of their home, saying that she's glad the Army makes him feel like a man, because she's tired of trying to do it. He protests that he is "a good man", but Joan tells him he has never been a good man, even before they were married, "and you know what I'm talking about" (alluding to when he raped her on Don Draper's office floor). He issues an ultimatum before leaving, saying their relationship will be over. Joan agrees and Greg promptly leaves home.
Personality
Embodying the role of femme fatale,[3] Holloway is a "bold" and "sassy" character.[4][5] Creating the character, Mad Men's creator Matthew Weiner tried to make the character appear not as a television stereotype but an unpredictable and complicated woman.[6] The Boston Globe has said that Holloway occupies "a sort of middle ground between the show's main female characters, who represent opposing paths for women of their day"; as Betty Draper (January Jones) gave up a modeling career to become a housewife and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) tries to become a copywriter in "a world where men routinely call women 'girls', and sometimes literally chase them through the office".[7] Holloway is considered the queen bee of the office secretarial pool.[8][9] As shown in the third season finale, her role at Sterling Cooper (and later Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce) is made clear. The office is essentially unable to operate without her, as no one else knows how the office is organized.
In an interview with USA Today portrayer Christina Hendricks explained that people think her character is "hot" because "She's got fire to her. She snaps back. And men love her because she's in touch with her sexuality and femininity. The men in the office can play with her a little bit. They can tease her, and she's not going to be in the bathroom crying later."[10] In the season two episode "Maidenform" each secretary is categorized as either a Marilyn Monroe or a Jackie Kennedy as a campaign for Playtex, when asked what kind of woman Holloway is, Kinsey answers "Well, Marilyn's really a Joan, not the other way around".[11]
Creation and development
Weiner was influenced by books of Helen Gurley Brown when he wrote the part of Joan.[12] He originally envisioned Holloway as a "smaller", "mousier" and more "sharp-tongued" character, but he changed his mind when Hendricks was cast.[13] Initially, Holloway was set to be a guest role only.[13] However, the role was extended to regular status because of Hendricks' "on-screen magnetism".[13]
Hendricks first read for the part of Midge Daniels, a recurring character in the first season, and was asked to return and audition for the role of Holloway.[12] She had only received a small part of the script and when she read the scene from the pilot in which Peggy Olson visits a gynecologist, Hendricks thought it was "messed up" because she did not yet know the show took place during the 1960s.[12]
References
- ^ Writ: Weiner, Matthew; Albert, Lisa (August 3, 2008). "Flight 1". Mad Men. Season 2. Episode 2. AMC.
{{cite episode}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|episodelink=(help); Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help) - ^ The joke is that the atmospheric "French" song about "magnificent" true love is Cole Porter's, from Can-Can (1953).
- ^ Ripley, Tim (July 25, 2008). "See Mad Men Already". Daily Democrat. Woodland, California.
- ^ "Where style matches substance". The Age. April 16, 2009. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
- ^ Penner, Steve (August 22, 2008). "Does Mad Men make you mad?". Portsmouth Herald News. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
- ^ Ryan, Maureen (August 6, 2008). "'Mad Men' Calvacade of Stars, Part 5: Christina Hendricks on Joan Holloway". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
- ^ Weiss, Joanna (September 21, 2008). "What the women of 'Mad Men' can teach us about Sarah Palin". The Boston Globe. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
- ^ Prato, Alison (October 12, 2008). "Some Like it Hot: Christina Hendricks". New York Post. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
- ^ Salem, Rob (July 27, 2008). "Don't be mad, baby". Toronto Star. Toronto, Ontario. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
- ^ Carter, Kelley L. (October 23, 2008). "The women of Mad Men evolve". USA Today. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
- ^ Writ: Weiner, Matthew (August 31, 2008). "Maidenform". Mad Men. Season 2. Episode 6. AMC.
{{cite episode}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|episodelink=(help); Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help) - ^ a b c Wieselman, Jarett (July 24, 2008). "Mad about Christina Hendricks". New York Post. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
- ^ a b c Elsworth, Catherine (January 19, 2009). "Christina Hendricks: a fine figure of a woman". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
External links
- Template:IMDb character
- Joan Holloway official AMC biography
