Mad Men: The Dawning of Those Who Think Young


When last we saw the enigmatic Don Draper, he was sitting on the bottom of his living room steps on Thanksgiving, 1960; his wife and children have gone to her Dad’s for the holiday. He didn’t want to go, since he’s not really participating in his marriage or his fatherhood. But he was affected by his own presentation for the Carousel—filled with photos capturing the sentimentality of his faux life—and thinks maybe he can engage with his façade self, only to find that Betty and kids are already gone. And so the hollow man is alone as season one ends, with Dylan consoling him “don’t think twice, it’s all right.”

When we next see him, it will be Valentine’s Day, 1962.

While we may not learn exactly what he has been doing in the year and a half, we know that Jon Hamm, his alter ego, has been busy garnering awards, along with Matt Weiner and the whole crew: three Golden Globe, a Peabody, and 16 Emmy nods, including outstanding actor, supporting actor, writing, directing, and series.

Clearly it’s a show filling a hunger of the tv-watching audience of 2008. What are we finding there?

Well, it’s one heck of a kaleidoscope of recent history. The past forty years have seen powerful societal revolutions. MM gives us a chance to see these revolutions–which some witnessed first hand, and others, including the brainchild Weiner, inherited–all recollected in tranquility (and saturated color). Yes, the series is the poetry of our summer.

For instance, TV viewers born in each decade from 1960 on know there was a feminist revolution, but for nonboomers, we never saw exactly what it was trying to correct. MM dramatizes what women faced in the workplace when they entered it after the war. That’s not to say that women don’t still face sexism, but most of us don’t encounter it to this degree: “It’s like watching a dog play the piano”; Mr. Rumsen on the thought of Peggy Olson writing copy.

Drugs are entering daily life—the beats are getting high, and it’s the beginning of the “us vs. them” with the police. Don’t trust anyone over 30 is on the horizon. Music is energizing the postwar crowd. When the Twist comes on at PJ’s in the party for Peggy, a primal scream of delight goes up that we can all relate to.

The overarching revolution that’s coming is not old versus young—it’s old order versus the new waves of energy of those who think young, challenging that order. And Matt Weiner is giving us a front row seat to the sea changes, layered with personal details of characters amid the revolutionary swells.

I am not a complete disciple of the Mad Men. I thought the storytelling itself was weak and disconnected; there were lots of strong, interesting moments that did not build together well in larger arcs.

James Wolcott’s early post also voiced the minority vote: that the series isn’t as good as people think it is, and we wish it were.

But it’s still the perfect summer fare, and the sixties are the place to be. Which may be why New York is experiencing a full revival of Hair at Shakespeare in the Park.

This Sunday night, July 27, at 10:00 p.m., Mad Men second season premieres. Tom Watson, editor extraordinaire and I will be your hosts for live blogging of the episodes. Tom leads off this Sunday. So turn on the lava lamp and join the fun. Can key parties be far off?

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July 25th, 2008
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Viewing 3 Comments

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    I can't help with anything in the way of truly insightful comments, as I haven't seen an episode. However, after all the raves last year, my parents watched a few episodes and were left wondering why there was such buzz about the show. They'd read reviews that mentioned how every detail was perfect even though plot might be lacking. Both parents came away not impressed with the plot, and even less impressed with the period details and settings. Both parents are 66 and from New York originally, FWIW.

    It's an interesting experiment in how we can remember the same era differently through separate lenses.
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    iI've always like the show a lot, but now that I hear that trishb's parents watched a few episodes and were not impressed, well I'll have to rethink my whole attitude.
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    Mad Men is, as The Sopranos was before it, a series that's overpraised (a rare worthwhile SNL skit was the one mocking the fawning over The Sopranos) and for many of the same reasons - novelty, or image over substance, in this case, a period piece of a period people can argue over. For those who think the misogyny is being exaggerated - I considered going into the ad game and, after reading Ogilvy on Advertising and a dozen other books, I "interviewed" a lady who worked in the field, all this well before "mentor" was a buzzword. She told me matter-of-factly that any female rep was expected to sleep with the clients and that this was simply understood - and I mean all comers, fat, pregnant-looking, smelly, all of them. One acquaintance, who was terrified of dying in a back-alley abortion, had a child to raise as a result. Pat Benatar, in a video interview, told of working in an office in which the women were required to wear skirts, no pants allowed, and the men had placed their desks under an open-design staircase. I'd like to see the script handled by someone who knows what delicious tension a mystery can produce, the kind that keeps you turning pages when you've got to get up and go to work in five hours - it's been so long since a series got this right. Hamm is an actor who can convey angst without looking constipated and he's largely being wasted (his delivery of his final line when leaving the beatnik apartment is a beautiful thing). They want to tease us, understood, but delicate timing is all important in a successful tease - otherwise, you've snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, as the writers are doing of late. The success of the show is making the cast, with one or two notable exceptions, more and more self-conscious, so that where we used to have snappy dialogue the likes of which haven't been heard since Loy and Powell, it now feels as though these people are waiting for a round of applause - the momentum is built and then squandered. The season opener had more than one may-as-well-hit-the-bathroom moments well before the ending bit. "When you hear the silk rustling in those seats, you've lost them."

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