Jon Hamm’s Male Victimization Disturbs
Wealthy, white and wounded doesn’t steal my heart
STREAMING/DARK COMEDY
Jon Hamm’s Male Victimization Disturbs
Wealthy, white and wounded doesn’t steal my heart
Jon Hamm in Your Friends and Neighbors promotion. Credit Apple TV+
Jon Hamm is an award-winning actor, who excels in comedy, voiceover and dramatic work. With his suave good looks, he rules the stage in many roles he undertakes. But his current role as the lead in *Your Friends & Neighbors* on Apple TV+ is making me puke.
Hamm is best noted for his role as advertising executive Don Draper, in Mad Man. In this period piece series set in 1960, he plays a creative thinker who creates astounding ads for his clients, usually while drunk or hungover. The authenticity of Mad Men made the show an incredible hit when it aired in 2007 and it was on seven seasons. It was fun to look back at history and see how far women had come in the workplace.
Don Draper is a womanizer who has a girl on the side while he ignores his wife and kids. Draper’s behavior was not unusual for men of the time. Men were the breadwinners, women stayed home, cleaned the house in heels and always looked beautiful when their husbands came home. If they came home. Eventually, Don Draper pays for his adultery and wanton ways. The show ends in 1970, right as the women’s liberation movement was gearing up.
Hamm has also played the cringy Sheriff Roy Tillman in the dark comedy Fargo season 5. The hair and makeup aged him to mask his handsome face and make him pudgy and overweight. He walks agedly with a slight limp. He is a “good ol’ boy” who likes his women abused, silent and obedient. While Tillman isn’t a likeable character, Ham was excellent in the role. Maybe too excellent.
The People Magazine “Sexiest Man Alive” keeps appearing in male-oriented shows. He was a tough man’s-man in Top Gun: Maverick. In a very similar role, he was the tough-guy CEO oil man Monty Miller in the Paramount+ series *Landman*.
He has also been on The Morning Show, where he plays a handsome millionaire tech guru who wants to buy the broadcast network. Jennifer Anniston’s character falls hard for his rugged good looks and brains. Long before this, he was a love interest for Tina Fey’s character on *30 Rock. He’s been on [Parks and Recreation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parks_and_Recreation), and other dark comedies [Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbreakable_Kimmy_Schmidt), and [Curb Your Enthusiasm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curb_Your_Enthusiasm).*
Despite his chauvinistic male characters, I always enjoyed this Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor, because he is Jon Hamm and he is gorgeous. Until now.
Not only are the characters and plot formulatic and uninventive, the show is just not funny. The bipolar sister, the unreachable son, the daughter who is exploring her sexuality. The annoying new man in her bed in the house Coop bought and paid for. I’ve seen this plot a hundred times in films and series.
Maybe it’s just the timing of the show, and maybe I am being too sensitive to the anti-women culture in society right now. As women are losing all the headway we made since the 1970s women’s liberation movement. As women lose their rights to their own bodies and young girls are being molested and used as collateral in a far-reaching scheme to power.
But I digress.
It’s in this backdrop Hamm’s new character in *Your Friends & Neighbors* rubs against the grain. Much like Don Draper, he plays a wealthy financier named Andrew “Coop” Cooper. The first episode tells the story, how Coop fell in love, bought the house, had the kid, bought a bigger house, got promoted, had another kid, bought a bigger house and was living the American dream. Till his horrid wife Mel Cooper, played by Amanda Peet, has an affair with a professional athlete friend of his.
Coop then is “forced” into having an affair with a young staffer. When he is discovered, he is fired. His non-compete pushes him out of the workforce. He loses his house and savings in the divorce. And he doesn’t fail to mention it’s all his wife’s fault.
Since the show is written in first person, we hear Coop’s spiral into victimization. He is completely innocent and didn’t deserve to be treated so badly by a nasty female. She took everything from him. She is a no-good, wonton woman. She constantly asks him for money for the kids education and toys. She has taken everything from him. Poor Coop.
Coop has lost so much, he starts stealing expensive items from his rich friends. He sneaks into their houses when they are on vacation and takes things, particularly watches. He deserves something for working so hard, right?
Cut the fucking shit. *Your Friends & Neighbors* lost me right there.
Right now women are fighting to keep the rights their grandmothers fought for. Remember when they weren’t allowed to be members at private clubs? Remember when they weren’t allowed to have credit cards or houses in their names? Remember when men told them how to vote, long after they fought for the right to make their own decisions? Remember when they were allowed to make decisions about their own bodies?
The time is right to remove shows like *Your Friends & Neighbors* from the playlist. We don’t need another woman-hating piece of chauvinistic bullshit disguised as a dark comedy. Sorry Apple TV+, this one should be canceled, not renewed for season 2.
© June 2025 A. Roe
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