Televison Series Review - Mad Men

Anyone who likes to talk about the good old days should sit down and watch an episode of Mad Men, a new series on AMC. Set in the world of advertising in 1960, Mad Men depicts a world of our idealistic image of a simpler time which wraps around a truth about those times that we all seem to ignore when we play those games of Remember When...

Set in 1960, Mad Men is set in the Madison Avenue advertising world, a time before we all realized that our innocence was lost. The term Mad Men is one coined by the ad executives who worked on Madison Avenue to describe themselves, and it is indeed a man's world. On Madison Avenue, the men make all the rules and the rules seem to favor institutional racism, misogyny, womanizing, alcoholism and smoking. The interesting thing about the way this is all presented is that, as outrageous as some of the things we are looking at through our 21st century eyes, the characters are not at all affected by what we now see as bad behavior. It is the norm and there is barely a hint among most of the characters that the attitudes and behaviors are even remotely objectionable.

Take smoking for instance. In Mad Men everyone smokes. Doctors smoke while performing exams on patients. We are introduced to main character Dan Draper, a thirty-ish ad executive who has been assigned the job of selling Luck Strike cigarettes at a time when the dangers of smoking are just becoming apparent. A Readers Digest article citing the potential dangers of smoking are often cited and new government regulations now prohibit tobacco companies from making claims about the health benefits of smoking. Yes, back in the good old days people were told that smoking could actually be GOOD for you.

Anyway, Draper is a cynic so this should be a slam-dunk for him. In speaking about love Draper (played by Joe Hamm) says that love "... was invented by guys like me to sell nylons."

Mad Men is filled with this kind of cynical observations. Another ad man, Pete Campbell (played by Vincent Kartheriser) is on the phone with his fiancee and offers as proof that he loves her "Aren't I about to give up my whole life for you?". Give up his life, as if marriage is about to end life as he knows it. Campbell doesn't let his impending nuptials keep him from chasing after Draper's secretary, going to her apartment after his bachelor party and telling her that he wants to be with her, all the while never looking her in the eye and pointedly staring at the door jam. He does a lousy job of selling this, however the secretary has resigned herself to the notion that sleeping with the higher-ups is the best path to advancement and brings him into her apartment.

Mad Men isn't all misogyny and cynicism and points to the coming tide of changing attitudes. A sub-plot has Draper confronted by a female client who runs a family department store. She rejects the notion of promoting her store with coupons. When Draper points out that their research shows that "Housewives like coupons" the client quickly points out that she doesn't want housewives as customers. instead she says "I want people like you" as she would prefer to promote her department store as a high-end destination, where customers would EXPECT to pay more as they might at a store like Tiffany's or Chanel. When the woman argues with Draper and dares to stand up to him, he stands up and declares the meeting over, because he is not going to be talked down to by a woman.

Draper is later confronted by the same woman, whom he has been ordered to apologize to, and she astutely points out that Draper is a man out of place. Indeed Draper is a complex character who is filled with conflict. On the one hand he is the cynical, womanizing ad man, capable of pulling a promotional concept to sell cigarettes seemingly out of thin air. On the other hand he is a war veteran, possibly a war hero, who would seem to be suffering from some small amount of post-traumatic stress. What is the real Don Draper? I am anxious to find out.

I like Mad Men, I like it a lot. It has a great cast, smart writing and lots of visual style. Mad Men may also have the best soundtrack of any show on the tube. The real selling point of Mad Men is the intelligence of the writing. The audience is never talked down to, the banter is snappy without being cute and the characters are believable. Like I said, this is a smart show, and there aren't enough smart shows on television. That, in my mind, is reason enough to set a Tivo season pass for Mad Men.

Comments

Popular Posts