Mad Men Draws a Path from the Past to the Present
Mad Men is a television anomaly. With its intentionally slow moving plots and morally ambiguous characters, the series hardly exhibits the ingredients for popular success. Then there’s the fact that it airs on AMC, a former lightweight cable channel better known for rebroadcasting popular motion pictures than quality original content. Since its premier in 2007, however, Mad Men has gained a loyal fanbase, been garnered with critical acclaim, racked up over fifty Emmy nominations and has emerged victorious as “Best Drama” numerous times.
What makes Mad Men so widely loved by fans and critics alike? Part of the appeal is that while its premise may seem simple enough on the surface—a 1960s Madison Avenue creative director suffers from identity issues—the show actually cuts a lot deeper as Mad Men is able to transform both an industry and an often idealized era into a colorful world of exotic intrigue.
Sterling Cooper, the New York advertising agency that serves as the center of Mad Men, is populated with an assortment of characters living on the edge of modern times. Through the eyes of the account managers, creative staff and even the secretaries, viewers have the rare opportunity of experiencing what is now considered the norm when it was still fresh and new. On the one hand, the era was a simpler time—when Reader’s Digest was the first to report that cigarettes cause cancer, Right Guard just introduced an aerosol deodorant for men and divorce was taboo. It was also a period, however, when men often cheated on their wives and both minorities and women were subservient in a world dominated by white males. There is also the emotional impact on Mad Men of seeing expectant mothers smoking and drunken businessmen taking a glass of vodka with them for the drive home, or even a family leaving the remnants of a picnic on the park grounds as litter.
But although the early part of the 1960s is often depicted as a time of innocence, a calm before the storm if you will, the seeds of upheaval were already “blowin’ in the wind” nonetheless. Mad Men not only incorporates the coming cultural shift into its storylines but the characters of the series personify them as well.
The main protagonist, Don Draper (Jon Hamm), is a perfect example. With his vintage movie star looks and neatly dressed facade, he appears on the surface as the ultimate “man in the grey flannel suit.” Add a former professional model as a wife and three children that he loves, and you have someone living the American Dream. But in reality Don Draper is as lost in the world as anyone, if not more so. In many ways he exemplifies the changing and uncertain times in which he lives by being portrayed as a man struggling to find his own identity.
Women’s rights are a direct descendent of the 1960s and Mad Men does not shy away from populating the series with a number of strong, independent women to go along with the assortment of traditional housewives and secretaries. While Don Draper’s many sexual affairs are often with such females—including bohemian artist Midge Daniels, department store heiress Rachel Menken and school teacher Suzanne Farrell—the series actually showcases the changing role of women through two of its main characters, Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss).
Holloway is the office manager of Sterling Cooper. With a finely-crafted, voluptuous physique, she often glides through the workplace with a commanding demeanor—there is no doubt that she is the one who makes the trains run on time. But she is also the object of sexual obsession for one of the firm’s partners and is the personification of Breakfast at Tiffany’s Holly Golightly during her off hours. In today’s day and age, Joan’s potential and intelligence would enable her to carve out a meaningful and successful career. On Mad Men, however, she simply shares the same goal as many other females of the era by looking to marry a rich husband.
Secretary Peggy Olson, meanwhile, attempts to be “one of the girls” but just can’t seem to fit in. She doesn’t appreciate the subsequent male attention that goes along with her job, is disappointed with her boss when she discovers he is having an affair, does not go crazy over trying out various shades of lipstick and is not that great of a flirt. In short, she’s a bit of a stick in the mud. But Peggy is also more of a woman for the new generation than the other females at Sterling Cooper and quickly rises to the position of copywriter, thus becoming a working professional in the process.
Mad Men often utilizes actual historical events to compliment its narrative. The 1960 Presidential Election between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, for instance, serves as a metaphor in regards to the rivalry between Don Draper and youthful account man Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) during the show’s first season. When Draper gives his take on the presidential match-up, he could just as well be referring to the differences between himself and Campbell.
“Kennedy,” he begins. “Nouveau riche, recent immigrant who bought his way into Harvard and now he’s well bred? Nixon’s from nothing. Self-made man, the Abe Lincoln of California who was vice president of the United States six years after getting out of the navy. Kennedy, I see a silver spoon. Nixon, I see myself.”
Despite Pete Campbell’s “silver spoon” upbringing, he is one of the few characters on the series who truly understands the changing winds that are in the air. “You know who else doesn’t wear a hat?” he asks in regards to Kennedy. “Elvis. That’s what we’re up against.” Campbell also sees a market for products in heavily African-American cities but is later chastised for raising the monetary potential to a client. Although he may be more culturally aware than the rest, however, that does not stop him from cheating on his wife or looking down on the black janitorial staff or even making disparaging comments towards the secretaries at Sterling Cooper.
Mad Men goes deeper than simply tying such real events into its storylines, however, by also offering realistic visions of what it was like to live through the troubling times of the 1960s. At the end of season two, for example, the fear and uncertainty of the Cuban Missile Crisis is on full display as the employees of Sterling Cooper are on the literal edge of nuclear annihilation. The following season, meanwhile, incorporates the assassination of John F. Kennedy with stunning accuracy as the characters sleepwalk their way through the days that followed the tragedy while remaining glued to the television for the tiniest bits of information. Even Marilyn Monroe’s suicide comes into play, demonstrating that the death of a celebrity had an impact on the average person long before Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Michael Jackson met their own tragic ends.
But the fact of the matter is, we all live history. For the characters of Mad Men, it has been the election of John F. Kennedy, the Cuban Missile Crisis and JFK’s assassination. For the rest of us, it was 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, the collapse of numerous financial institutions and the election of the first African-American president. It doesn’t matter what one’s political views are, all of those events define who we are just as much as anything else. We may not realize it at the time, but they impact and influence our lives today as much as they did for the Mad Men generation back then.
Just ask the employees of Sterling Cooper.
Anthony Letizia (August 9, 2010)
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