Mad Men and the Paradox of the Past

I agree with Mr. Foster that Ms (Miss? ...heh) Simmons really and truly hates Don Draper. I would also observe that if Miss Simmons actually met a real Don Draper, perhaps over a bourbon in a smoky bar somewhere... she would (I bet) be invariably drawn to him.

While there are several destestable things wrong with him, the image he projects around a room is precisely the sort of “real man” self-confidence that newly “liberated” women have for so long claimed to despise, yet even in their outward dismissal still find inescapably attractive.

To start with, remember that even at the time, Madison Avenue was under the microscope in several ways. Even in the stage production of ‘Brigadoon’ in 1947-’48, the intensity of post-WWII New York was the focus of the play: an escape to quietude and peace in the rural Scottish countryside.

They did a smack up job in the movie version in 1954, making busy New York seem like a frenetic and stressful ant farm.

By the time MAD Magazine came around in 1952, Madison Avenue was one of their primary targets—easy for them, because their offices were on Madison Avenue. And the last gasp of the period was seen in the TV sitcom ‘Bewitched’ in 1964.

But importantly, Madison Avenue burned out on its own. Advertising shifted to a great extent to California, and was far more television oriented than print oriented.

Associating it with the cultural change in the US though is a stretch, because TV was very far behind the power curve. By the time mainstream TV was depicting the “love bead era” hippies, it was downright embarrassing. The hippies themselves had moved on to the “dirty, stinky hippie”, and were unpleasant and violent.

Perhaps the biggest pitch was not from them, but from the White House, with first lady Lady Bird Johnson’s joining the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign, with lots of advertising.

because it’s the generation that, through Weiner’s specific political prism, reflects a hypocritical façade, he’d like it to form a gangway for the liberation to come.

Yes, the Garden of Eden didn't exist and anyone who attempts to strive toward the good, to reclaim some of what is lost, anyone who holds objective standards is a hypocrite. This is why lefties are unhinged over Palin, why they hate Norman Rockwell and 50s sitcoms. Families aren't supposed to try to be honorable and decent. People are not supposed to admire those who pull it off. Families should be dysfunctional and people reduce to the level of cattle.

Amen. I like Mad Men, it’s just a show set in 1960s Manhatten.

Think you missed my tone. Their insights were good. I was just making an observation that by and large fit with their pieces. To wit, the comment that liberals view the show with a “self-satisfaction,” which means they are using it to prop up their worldview. Conservatives such as the authors instead view the show for what it is: A good show that holds up an interesting mirror reflecting the cultural divide.

And there was nothing wrong with the Rockford Files. LOL.

The collapse of America as a People started right around 1960 and has continued up to date. America is now approaching the state of being a mere demographic. Soon to come; a mere zoological struggle for survival as various groups seek the division of the wealth previously accumulated.

Oh, yeah, no hypocrisy and no facades in the decades that followed, none whatsoever! Does these people ever listen to what they are staying out loud? They are as self-aware as those people pitching stuff on the shopping channels.

I enjoy Mad Men. It is quite entertaining and a nostalgic look back at a more socially conservative era. But it is quite a stretch to uncover meaning or insight into what is essentially a Hollywood production doing what it was created to do-entertain.

MadMenize Yourself!

I have no patience for over-analyzing programs like this. Mad Men is great for simple reasons. I went to high school in the sixties, so the hairstyles and clothes bring back memories. Excruciating attention to detail is one of the show's attractions. I've found only a few mistakes, mostly having to do with the Catholic Mass.

I like that there is never any really graphic sex. In fact, although there is a lot of sex, the scenes are just part of the story, rather than being exploited for sensationalism.

Mad Men is like a time capsule. It takes you back to a time you once inhabited, not for nostalgia's sake, but to learn from the fresh perspective. For example, in the episode called, I think, "The Jet Set," Don and Pete Campbell fly to LA to court defense contractors. In one presentation given by one of the contractors, the brand new MIRV technology is illustrated with a slide show. The atmosphere in the room is crackling with the potential that is about to be unleashed in Silicon Valley at the dawn of the electronic age. It was California before it all went bad. All was fresh and new and full of promise. Then the 60's happened, and it all went to hell.

Good critique. Love their attention to detail.Although it was more of a cheesy potboiler,Godfather I had the same attention to detail.

My father also loves watching Mad Men because he was a wee kid and witnessed my grandfather don the suit and tie just like the show. He would say that was the way people acted during those times.

It's fiction. It's about made-up individuals who are interesting in themselves and shouldn't be reduced to stick figures representing this or that part of society.

In a way the people who find a pronounced liberal agenda in the show are right. You can see that in the commentaries and special features on the DVD, and indeed the show can be heavy-handed sometimes, but I don't really think it matters.

First of all, it was all so long ago. To take sides now would be like Draper's generation passionately arguing about what was going on in the 1910s. There are definitely serious questions involved, but they aren't our own.

Disagreements about the 1950s and 1960s could be heated in the 1970s and 1980s. But by now, it's all long past and what's gone -- good or bad -- isn't coming back. I wonder if casual, entertainment-oriented viewers aren't more sophisticated in their approach than people who try to make the series propaganda for one monolithic view of the past or another.

Secondly, even people who were around back then would agree that there were problems then. They remember the good things and the bad and recognize the duality of that era.

Third, for there to be drama there has to be conflict. AMC's first original series Remember WENN was a sweet nostalgic look back at 1940s radio. Everybody was nice. They felt sorry about the way the world was and commiserated with each other. There was nobody you could hate or disagree with. And nobody watched the show.

Fourth, it's an open question just what is the surface content and what is the hidden agenda. People assume that what they disagree with must be the buried, "real" meaning of the program, that Weiner's appeal to nostalgia is the shallow manifest content and a feminist agenda is the "real" meaning of the show. Listening to the DVD commentary supplies some justification for this.

But sometimes I wonder. Maybe love for the era and its style is what's "really" at the heart of the series, and the liberal or feminist stuff is what had to be thrown in to make the show nowadays.

In any case, would viewers really want a series that gave an anodyne, lifeless view of the era? Isn't Weiner's show something we can argue about and thus get more engaged in than something that ducked controversy?

Anyway, thanks for giving me an occasion to type all this up. I've been enjoying the show and pondering what it means for some time.