On "Mad Men", We Are All Sally Draper

na | 01-29-2012 | OrangeHoof

[OrangeHoof]

I didn't start watching the television series "Mad Men" until this past September. I had heard things about it from Rush Limbaugh and others and decided to watch the first few episodes online to see if it was worth my time (and because ensemble series always require that you start at the beginning to understand the show). I eventually watched all four seasons on DVD and often went back and listened to the audio commentary to catch the director's perspective.

For those not familiar, the series is about a small advertising firm at the turn of the 1960s and centers around the character of Don Draper (played brilliantly by Jon Hamm). "Mad Men" seeks to show us the unvarnished life of that era, careful to rewind the social and ethical clock back to the way people thought and behaved then. To my mind, the smoking and drinking is excessive but so much of the rest of the show truly takes you back to how it was.

As a point of reference, I was born in 1957, in the middle of the "Baby Boom" as the middle child of five to a middle-class and upwardly mobile New York City bank executive. Don Draper looks a lot like how I remember my dad in the 1960s, adorned in coat and tie with a hat often atop his head, the neck and chin shaved but the five o'clock shadow showing up almost by noon. Don's voice is authoritative yet tender to his children yet he's somewhat distant as a parent, just the way my father often was. There's one major difference - I'm quite sure Dad was faithful to my mother or, if he wasn't, this was never shared with me even later in life.

Dad would come home each weeknight, have a martini and recline in his strat-o-lounger and watch tv. I suspect Don often did this too yet it doesn't survive the editing room. My mother was a full-time homemaker who cleaned the house and made the meals except when Dad could afford to have an African-American help with the "chores".

The racial divide was evident in the North as well as the South. Blacks often had menial jobs as maids and doormen even in the "tolerant" North. Ethnicity, as well as open racism were out in the open then. It was not cloaked in political correctness the way it is today.

While my gender and age are closer to Don and Betty's son Bobby (heck, I was "Bobby" when I was that age), the one who most represents the viewpoint of the children is the older daughter Sally. If you are old enough to know the real Sixties, it means you were probably young enough then to see the world of the Sixties as a child like Sally.

As Don and Betty fight and eventually divorce, Sally is us. She ran around the house inside a plastic bag from the dry cleaners. She flopped from front seat to back seat with no seat belts as Betty drives. She learned to steer the car at the encouragement of her sometimes-senile grandfather. She mixed Don's favorite liquor drink for him when he got home. All of this by the age of nine!

What today might be considered borderline child abuse (certainly child endangerment) was a fairly normal Sixties childhood for Bobby and Sally and, I suspect, most of the other kids in their suburban neighborhood. Nobody really saw any problem with the behavior and extremely few sought to lift a finger to object to any of it.

But, by Season Three, Sally is already rebelling. Her grandfather dies. Her parents are fighting. She decides to cut her own hair and consider make-up. She gets into a fight at school (where Don begins an affair with her teacher - and, yes, we had some hot elementary school teachers when I was a boy, easily singled out because they were referred to as "Miss (blank)", not "Mrs. (blank)."). She watches tv even as the content becomes less suitable for children. She starts hearing about "doing it" from other kids and even tries to do herself one day at a neighbor's house, leading her exasperated mother to send her to the school psychiatrist.

Sally is quick to point out her mother's hypocrisy as Betty indulges her own fantasies and takes up with husband number two. Betty gets angry because Sally is growing up to be a young Betty right in front of her and Betty doesn't like what she sees.

The children of the Sixties, whom I guess are the chief target audience of "Mad Men", were trying to understand and adjust to the changing mores and forces that would define that decade in the only way children know how - by imitating. While the series probably won't extend into the early 70s, one could easily picture Sally growing up to be a long-haired "free love" hippie chick, maybe one who poses in Playboy.

We can see the path Sally's life is taking because many of us saw this all too easily in our neighbors and family. While the exploits of Don, Betty, Peggy, Peter and the others take center stage in this drama, it is Sally who is perhaps the most poignant because Sally mirrors the experiences of most of those watching who remember how it really was and may possibly wonder if it was the proper direction for her generation to take.

[Chickensoup]

I started watching it from beginning to the end of season five. Have been enjoying the lives and the times. I have six on Netflix and will watch 7 when available. First Television I have watched in close to thirty years.

I was thinking of the Sopranos next then I will try Boardwalk Empire. Thanks for the tip.

I had not paid attention to the Mad Men threads on FR because I didn’t watch. Wanted to see how my favorite people reacted to the show.

[OrangeHoof]

If you watch Boardwalk Empire, you’ll enjoy it even more if you read the episode recaps of Anthony Venutolo of the Newark Star-Ledger afterwards because he researches and fills in the meanings of buzzwords and catchphrases of the time that are spoken haphazardly as well as points out real-life places and events that are mentioned on the show but not dwelt upon.

For example, the butler meets a mobster at an Atlantic City pub and this guy’s column will tell you that the pub still exists and here’s where you can find it today in Atlantic City and the social strata that hung out there back in the 1920s, etc. There’s a lot of really good background that makes the show seem more like The History Channel and less like a drama (which it still is).

Also, do a quick search on Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, the person that Nucky Thompson is based on. He “ran” Atlantic City for decades despite not being a mayor or governor. The screenwriters decided to make Thompson fictional because the show would have no drama if everything was already known. Plus, they could add plot twists that the real Nucky never encountered.

Being an HBO series, be prepared for more nudity, sex, gore, profanity and disturbing scenes than in Mad Men. But it is still an outstanding historical drama if you can overlook that.

[Chickensoup]

Thank you! I will check this all out!