mad about Mad Men

its embarrassing to admit that I wanted nothing to do with the AMC TV series Mad Men at first glance. It idea of rehashing and glorifying 1960's Manhattan held no appeal for me. I decided that I would try and watch the show solely because one of the featured players was a relatively unknown actress named Christina Hendricks.

I had more or less fallen in love with Hendricks during her three episode arc on the failed Joss Whedon sci-fi western series Firefly. She was a conniving grifter buried in the gorgeous body of a voluptuous redhead. I am a true sucker for redheads in all forms of media and in my everyday life so the hook was not so hard to set. I was depressed to find that she had done very little mainstream work other than Firefly at the time, so when he image showed up in the promos for this period drama I became mildly interested. Turns out she can fill out the clothes of the period quite nicely.



So I randomly tuned in one night last year to what turned out to be episode 8 of 13 from the first season. The show moves a very deliberate pace, and because I was not up to speed with the subtlety of the characters involved I lost interest very quickly and dismissed the show.

Then the accolades at the end of season awards shows began to trickle in and I wondered what I had missed. The lead actor Jon Hamm defeated the favorite Hugh Laurie for the Golden Globe, and the show beat out Grey's for best drama. The SAG awards probably should have followed, but they became a ridiculous love-fest for the Sopranos.

So I queued up the first season in netflix and decided to take a closer look. The first episode "The Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" had me from the opening scene. Jon Hamm as Creative Director at Sterling Cooper (an advertising agency on Madison Avenue; ad men on Madison = Mad Men) is the epitome of all that is cool about the 1960's he's well put together, and well off, with the perfect life. He's unfaithful to his wife like so many men of his stature are in that era, but we learn throughout the series that he doesn't just troll the nightclubs for a nightly tryst; he seeks independent, complete women. These affairs contrast the vapid home life provided by his cookie-cutter housewife. As the layers are peeled back from Draper's character we find him to be anything but the man he projects.

Another character that piqued my interest was the brand new secretary Peggy Olson played by Elisabeth Moss. Olson, fresh from secretarial school, is assigned to Draper. She is wide-eyed and conservative. She's shown the ropes by the vampish office manager Joan Holloway (played by the aforementioned Hendricks) Holloway gives her tips on how to use her femininity to receive small perks around the office, and even recommends her a doctor. Olson also shows character progression, by proving to be more than a secretary, producing copy for two ad campaigns, leading to a promotion at the end of the season. She represents a remarkable duality of a woman who can think for herself, even though she has been raised to be subservient, but who makes the same mistakes of other women in her place despite her uniqueness.

The shows appeal lies in the 1960's cliches that reflect glaringly against today's ideals. Every character smokes cigarettes almost every chance they get, as the dangers of tobacco have yet to be fully realized. The workers at Sterling Cooper barely hide the bottles of liquor in their desks, and partake regularly throughout the workday. One almost believes that they rarely do any actual work. Yet many issues that are still pertinent today are addressed: closeted sexual orientation, marital infidelity, women empowerment in the workplace, escaping a family name, sexism, etc.

But ultimately the series is about our love affair with words, and our desire as a culture to be sold. Ad men make their living on that perfect catch phrase that lassoes the unsuspecting housewife into choosing one brand over the other. The breaking down of the advertising process is intoxicating, and no one seems to know the game better than Don Draper.

I was given chills by his pitch in the final episode of the first season, called "The Wheel." He was producing a campaign for Kodak's new slide projector, in which he must incorporate the new wheel mechanism they have introduced. He mocks the obvious choice other ad agencies would use ("Kodak has clearly re-invented the wheel"). He then delivers a breath-taking pitch while he showed slides of his own family vacation to the Kodak executives (I've broken the lines as it was delivered; with each break pausing for the changing of the slide:

"This device isn't a space ship,
its a time machine.
It goes backwards and forwards;
it takes us to a place where we ache to go again.
Its not called the wheel;
its called the Carosuel,
it lets us travel the way a child travels.
Round and around and back home again.
to a place where we know we are loved."



Its impossible to replicate Hamm's dynamite delivery, or to explain how the words are drowning in personal meaning, as their are several plot lines that hinge on these very words.

All I can say is the show is incredible and I can't wait to see more.