Why is it that the combination of birthday celebrations and long time catch ups with girl friends ends up involving insanely copious amounts of alcohol?As I discovered on Friday morning, your hangover is likely to be so much worse when you were drinking the night before for an extended period of time rather than when you actually went out to a club and just downed numerous tequila shots in a row. The hangover from drinking slowly over a long dinner party is so much worse because it's a surprise- you never actually got drunk, you just got through many many bottles of wine and bucks fizz over a long period of time.
So whilst I was wallowing in misery at my self inflicted headache of doom yesterday I proceeded to finish off the season two box set of Mad Men. I could leave a review of the series to a post of its own as the show is so fantastic on all levels, but one particular thing in this series stood out at me. In one episode the women in the office are shown to have a highly emotional reaction to the death of Marilyn Monroe (a reaction made more poignant by the declaration in a previous episode that every woman was either a Marilyn or a Jackie-O). I found it interesting that whilst the women were shocked and heartbroken, the men were largely unresponsive or critical; claiming that Marilyn was a movie star who 'had everything' and wasted it all. Evidently the issues of depression, alcoholism and drug addiction are darker aspects of life which the men chose to ignore, perhaps due to their own excessive consumption of cigarettes and alcohol.
The whole scenario of success, suicide and male/female interactions brought to mind an astoundingly perceptive and entertaining novel which I read whilst travelling in Europe a few summers ago: 'The Valley of the Dolls' by Jacqueline Susann. Originally published in 1966 (the decade in which Mad Men is set) the novel covers the lives of three young women in New York who become involved in the entertainment industry and aspire to reach the heights of fame and fortune. The relentless ambition of the girls destroys their friendship, marital relationships and eventually their health. Whilst sections of the novel are romantic, others fascinating and some comical there are exceptionally well written moments of soul destroying self criticism, doubt and despair as the women struggle to retain the beauty of their youth and the heights of their success through drugs, alcohol, surgery and scandal. The candidness of the narrative makes you really wonder about how women succeed (or fail) in the world of showbusiness- particularly in our modern era when the intrusive paparazzi and the rise of the Disney child-star means that women are subjected to extreme pressure and a frightening lack of privacy. You only have to look at the images of Lindsay Lohan breaking down in court as she hears her sentence of 90 days in prison. Her nail art may read 'Fuck U' in an attempt to appear rebellious and resilient, but really she is no more than a frail child.
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