The Maddening Part of Mad Men

Sunday night marks the return of Mad Men, the AMC program that is now without dispute the best program on television. What's most interesting about this series is that even though each episode emphasizes different characters having different experiences and feeling different emotions, one prominent element of every episode is the same: Boy, things sure were different back then! And that's the fun: watching these smoking, drinking, red meat-and creamed corn-eating, philandering, cynical, sophisticated, destructive, trapped, but ultimately certain men and women come to the realization that there is something wrong with their lives. The payoff for the viewer, of course, is the safety and superiority we enjoy, the comfortable knowledge that we have largely solved so many of these conflicts about prejudice and sex roles and so on. Lucky for executive producer Matthew Weiner and company, the really terrifying question posed by the show never really intrudes on the fun: what are the things in our lives that are we so very confident about -- The stability of America? The viability of our planet? The widespread use of prescription medicine? The enthusiasm for blogging? -- that audiences in 2058 will see depicted on a TV show set in 2008, and will find similarly ridiculous, ignorant and tragic?

Comments

[3fingerbrown]

You don't have to wait till 2058 to find depictions of 2008 that are "similarly ridiculous, ignorant and tragic." We're doing a pretty good job right now of depicting 2008 as ridiculous, ignorant and tragic. And why not? We're living through America's most ridiculous, ignorant and tragic era since Reconstruction.

[cinemaven]

I've seen the show a few times and it brought back some memories I had completely buried. I started my first office job at 19 and immediately became a target for the office sleazebag. Every time I filed when he was around, I'd have to be quick to avoid him walking behind me and rubbing himself against me as I leaned into the files. He would also lean over my shoulder to try to look down my top.

When I finished training the mailboy (gr. 10 education and he could barely do a 1/4 of the job) I had to watch him be promoted ahead of me because "honey, if we lost our best girl, we couldn't do our jobs. Frank is so useless at filing, we might as well make him jr. buyer" *blink*

As part of my interview for my second job, I was asked if I would get pregnant within the next 5 years because they needed someone they could count on and they'd been "burned by women before"

Eventually, I became a negotiator for our union and helped write an equity package that saw my job rise 6 levels. Not long after that, I was hired by the HR dept. at a level higher than the buyer who mercilessly sexually harrassed me for 4 years. (of course sexual harrassment was called teasing back then even when a 60 yr. old man was grinding his crotch against your butt)

[sher2x4]

Let me say right off that I believe the selling of products through deceit, miss information
and more likely just plain lies is unforgivable.
I have absolutly no respect for the ad world.
As far as this program is concerned,
i am repulsed by the trailers i'm forced to watch
let alone actually watching the program.

The most daming thing about it all, is the fact that
the real difference between then and now
might only be the style of cloths, greasy hair etc.

If for one moment you actually believe that we've changed as a species,
and that the "good old days are gone"
You might consider scheduling an appointment
at your nearest electro shock treatment center.

[zann]

The most important thing that people pretended not to know was the full humanity of women and blacks. It was aways obvious, but if you were white, those sparkles of awareness were discouraged, and the opposite view reinforced. If you wander after your own revelations, you're scorned. It seems like people in advertising always knew it was a scam in service of money.

We're finally allowed to to notice that there's a limit to landfills and breathable air and lumber and oil. I imagine our grandchildren reading about our extreme wastefullness with shock and anger.

We're also not supposed to notice that global capitaists behave like little Greek Gods floating on clouds from country to country, wherever the fix is in, to bicker over spoils and indulge in earthly delights. This is the same breed as the Ceasars and Kings of old. We're not supposed to notice that they dominated our government, deindustrialized us, plundered our future through debt, reduced services and have made us in the image of a third world debtor nation. Maybe our grandchildren will be more oppressed and less aware than we are now.

[QueenCeleste]

With the show's acute attention to detail it is astonishing how the dialogue so often misses the mark. In one episode they talked about "playdates." I grew up in that era and there was never a mention of "playdates." In another a female character says something like "I am so over 1960." If you listen you will find many, many such anachronisms. Can't they find writers to comb the scripts for this? With their budget can't they watch old films and t.v. series and find how how people really spoke in that era? Maddening!

[JScott]

Ooops meant to write-Yup you can bet that almost ALL of the actors writers and other staff of the show were probably born AFTER the time period depicted

[JScott]

Yup you can bet that almost none of the actors writers and other staff of the show were probably born AFTER the time period depicted (except maybe Robert Morse-watch him in that other piece of the period [1960''s Los Angeles]-'The Loved One').
I was watching the marathon of the previous season, I might watch it but I find it only barely mildly interesting.

[Budokan]

Never seen it. Don't care to. I don't watch television. It's not called an idiot box just for laughs....

[liberalnfree]

It was named the idiot box in the 1950s. Since then television has grown up. Shows like Mad Men, the Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and even Battlestar Galactica are the great social commentators of our time. To be ignorant of them is like living in ancient Athens and never seeing a play by Sophocles, living in Russia in the 19th century and never reading Tolstoy, or living in 70's New York and never seeing a film by Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese. Great art is great art whatever medium it is in.

[LilyMaskew]

This program takes place when "The American Dream" was still alive. Before we realized how many people were left out of it because of their color or gender, or many just because they didn't have the right attitude or the right clothes.

[dawlishgal]

I worked at a major advertising agency during the time that this series attempts to depict. I was right out of college and idealistic, and a few things happened that seemed outrageous (winning a grocery chain as a new client by devising a campaign to "catch customers in the cradle" via animal decals on cribs, for one. (But everybody--except, apparently, the new client, knew it was a crock and would never work) But, by and large, the people who worked there seemed more socially responsible than many of the academics and medical researchers I worked with later who were more interested in grant money than in truth.

I quit and went to graduate school when I realized that our research was not being used at the right stage of the decision-making process...it was used almost totally to justify decisions that had already been made. It was especially heartbreaking because the research department there was as competent as any I have seen in government or education.

I am enjoying "Mad Men"....of course the language isn't right for the time, but I think it was tasteful of them not to have anybody say "Run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes it."

[donitacurioso]

I'm 51 and I love this show. I can remember what it was like back then, even though I was just a little kid in the early 60s. Mad Men is completely delicious.

[JScott]

I was just at the very very end of it, beginnings of the womens movement, just before the computerization of the office and before smoking was banned from the workplace.

[Torus34]

Sir;

To those with a modicrum of intelligence, those things which will seem 'ridiculous, ignorant and tragic' in 2058 are glaringly so now. The character of Archie Bunker pretty much played out the string on this theme.

[schicklett3]

Mad Men is my very favorite tv program. It is excellent!

[bokiluis]

StanTheManic,

How's the saying goes.....you will never fully understand where you are going, until you know where you came from. I respect your point about not wanting to "relax and watch" your livelihood.

But I am 54 (not 70), so I guess I am the target audience. (But oddly, not the key demo for Madison Ave.).

If you cannot find the entertainment value, that's a personal choice.

But shows like "Mad Men", especially if you are willing to dissect it parts, can be an interesting introduction to history......something the target 18-34 yr. old may not be aware of. It is like asking a kid today, who was Dr. King. Most have little clue.

I was born after the Holocaust. However, my fascination/obsession with history dictated that I learn more about this horrible injustice from man to man. (Sorta like the despicable sexism, racism, anti-semitism, xenophobia, homophobia that this show so cleverly weaves into its storyline....)

But that's just my 54/55yr. old humble opinion.

[bokiluis]

"Mad Men" is hands down my favorite television program in a long time. Manhattan fascinates me during this period. The city seemed so elegant, hip and progressive. It was anything but. Being a man of color, it will be interesting to watch how race is dealt with. (It is my understanding that Sterling Cooper will be hiring their first man of color). The sexism is shocking. It is even more shocking that it took until the 80s before legislation was finally enforced. The latent homosexuality of one of the staffers should be fascinating to watch as well.

It was a time that the Dick Cheneys, Bill O'Reillys, William Kristol, etc. yearn for. When the white male dominance from the 50s was about to be challenged. Thank heavens those days are far behind us.

I am captured by Weiner's attention to detail. How could HBO pass on this series? If television had more of this quality.....instead of our appetite for reality television....weekly ratings would be completely different!

That said, I await with baited breath for the first episode airing this weekend!

[robXdion]

If you've paid attention to the janitors, elevator operators and restroom attendants it's already apparent how race is being treated. Blacks were ignored dregs of society that didn't fit in the effete world whites created for themselves. And they didn't complain and point out the moral crisis as much (before 1954) so that's why so many whites yearn to go back.

[jennyjen]

I am 52 and I grew up in a suburb of Chicago. I knew one black woman and she was the maid for a family across the street. I was fortunate to be friends with one of the kids and I spent lots of time over there. There was one hispanic woman seen in our neighborhood walking to and from the bus stop to the house where she was also a maid. So don't blame the writers for their treatment of race on the show because that part is quite realistic unfortunately. I also expect the show to start dealing with this issue. The treatment of the Kennedy election was terrific. The world changed when he was elected and it will start to be reflected on the show.

I had an aunt who was widowed very young and became a career woman. To me she was the most interesting woman at every family get together and I would hang on her every word. She dressed fashionably and smoked and drank with the guys. But she was always pitied by the other women in the family - as if married life was so great for women at that time.

[JScott]

Yup and the hispanics, middle easterns and asians are non persons too on the series,
altho they might appear later if it lasts that long.....writers????/

[wildflowermaven]

I can't say why HBO passed on this series, but am glad they did. Those of us (me included) that can't afford the extra charge for HBO are happy to have a great series we can actually watch in real time.

[wildflowermaven]

Well, we have to make some assumptions, just to get through the day. I think the best part of MM is a peak into a world long gone, for me, my parents world, and look at both the good parts and the underlying not so good parts. Someone mentioned yesterday that MM is set in a time many consider the "good old days" but when you watch the show, you realize it was only good for white men. And how although things change--like smoking wherever, whenever, other more core things haven't, like the difficulty men and women have in relating, or in having to appear confident at work at all times to be viewed as valuable and good.

[StanTheManic]

I attempted to get into this show. After all, I've been in and out and on the peripheries of the advertising agency world for 27 years. My brother was anxious to know what I thought about the show.

Not much.

I guess if I were 70, I might be able to relate. I'm 50, so I can't.

As for pure entertainment, it doesn't do anything for me.

I could have written these same comments about the show thirtysomething. I guess I don't want to "relax and watch" -- my livelihood!

Oddly enough, the TV shows I seem to like best are about the people I hate the most in real life: cops, doctors and lawyers!!!

[NitaNitaBoNita]

Stan ... I'm guessing you're a guy.

Because I'm a woman precisely your age, and I can tell you that when I worked for a Major Madison Avenue Agency in the late 1970's-early 1980's, things hadn't changed that much with respect to women. I'm told that I was the first female in the Agency's proud 50+ year history to have been promoted from the secretarial pool to a creative position in the production department.

And while black and Hispanic men were among the department's MVP's, one was not, under any circumstances, permitted to be "too Jewish." (It was not appreciated when -- despite ample notice that I would do so -- I left a meeting early because Rosh Hashana was two hours away, and I needed an hour-and-a-half to get home.)

I can't say whether or note "Mad Men" provides an accurate picture of 1960 ... but it's uncomfortably close to 1979.