Confession time! I became an addict over the Labor Day holiday.
Before then, I'd heard of it, but hadn't a desire to try it. Friends of mine--more and more with every passing week, it seemed--sang its praises. I would consistently hear paeans as to how it was so fantastic, so worthwhile, and that I would be sure to love it.
And then, ultimately capitulating to peer pressure, I sampled. I refer to the tremendously popular drama Mad Men, run on the American Movie Classics channel, whose first season the library recently acquired on DVD. I took the DVDs home over the long break and have, as a result, become a full-on, ranting and raving, Mad Men lunatic.
The series revolves around the advertising firm Sterling Cooper in New York City; the year is 1960. The term "mad men" was coined to denote the Madison Avenue executives whose grand epoch of consumer-goods-pushing was achieved in the post-World War II years. The central character is Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the creative director for the company; his past is cloaked in secrecy and becomes a prominent secondary plotline. Don is a holdover from the 1950s: rugged and charming, a family man who drinks bourbon and smokes Lucky Strikes, and a veteran of the Korean War. His wife, Elizabeth (known as Betty and, less frequently, "Birdie"), is his archetypal consort: beautiful, housewifely, and devoted to their children (who sport the delectably nostalgic monikers Bobby and Sally). The luminous January Jones, with her strikingly Grace Kelly-esque loveliness, makes for a breathtaking Mrs. Draper.
There are myriad flies in this pastel ointment of halcyon family life, however: Don has a mistress, Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt), an illustrator whose fly-by-night lifestyle and Beat tendencies makes a pointed juxtaposition against the lives of Betty and most of the other women in the show. While Don is admired and respected by his colleagues and attended faithfully by his wife, he appears restive and disquieted, by both his current lifstyle as well as the demons of his umbrageous past.
The eponymous lords of the manor include Bertram "Bert" Cooper (Robert Morse, a living legend of Broadway as well as screen), the company founder, who spends most of his days holed up in a cavernous office decked out like a Tokyo tea house, offering decidedly offbeat tidbits of advice to his underlings. The other is Roger Sterling (John Slattery), who often behaves like an errant fraternity brother, drinking heavily while scoring nifty boardroom victories with well-heeled clients such as Kodak and Bethlehem Steel.
Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is a junior account manager whose runaway professional eagerness is matched only by his sheer personal unlikeability on every level. He courts Don's favor, desperate to make an ally, but Draper, whose savviness for reading people makes for a keen tool in his trade, sees Campbell for the self-loathing creep that he is. Peter becomes a newlywed very early in the series--wife Trudy (Alison Brie) is clearly more a power match (her parents are, like Pete's own, very wealthy) than a love connection. I particularly enjoy witnessing Pete getting neatly sliced down to size in various scenes involving Don.
And then there's Little Miss Peg. Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss, who was apparently the First Daughter on the West Wing, which I've never seen) arrives as a fresh-from-secretarial school tyro who proclaims her place of origin--Brooklyn--as a reason for her backwardness in the very first episode. But do not be misled by Peggy's primness, for she eventually gets into quite a steamy situation (and handles it with aplomb). Peggy represents all that will be changing for womanhood in the not-so-distant future: as things around Sterling Cooper go, female coworkers are subjected to cruelly misogynistic treatment in all forms. The execs openly leer at, comment on, and (at times) even physically accost the administrative staff; Peggy, all wide-eyed innocence, asks why she's being treated in this manner. Her answer comes from the seductively ruby-red lips of Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), the curvaceous, flirtatious office manager. Her approach? "Get it--male attention--while you can", and she certainly does, with her figure-hugging wardrobe and air of voluptuous competence winning nakedly lusty loyalty from the male staff.
Peggy, through a combination of dogged tenacity and sheer luck, eventually moves beyond the scope of typist, but not without significant burdens. She symbolizes new doors through which her generation and those to follow would be happy to pass.
Mad Men can, on many levels, certainly prove unnerving. Women are hardly the only marginalized group (although their unjust treatment is the most commonly seen). Jews were regarded as pariahs; when told a Jewish-owned department store is coming in to consult, Sterling alarmedly asks if there are any Jews on the staff (his idea is to have at least one Jewish person present in the meeting in order to make for a more welcoming ambiance), to which Draper replies, "Not on my watch!". *Ouch*
Poor Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt) is a ruthlessly closeted gay man who is more conspicuous for his Italian heritage than his barely-repressed flamboyance; homophobia is a well-established mindset. Besides extreme chauvenism, anti-Semitism, and anti-gay bias, there is also a strong streak of "white power" (African Americans are seen fleetingly, and then only as janitors, nightclub musicians, or elevator operators) present. Distressing as these images are, one must remember they mirror the zeitgeist of the age.
I would say glamorous is perhaps the best one-word adjective to summarize the rich visual pageantry this series has to offer: the incredible detail given to the sets, costumes, and music all make for a dizzying spectacle into what Manhattan life offered a certain class at a specific time in our national history. Characters are constantly boozing, downing snifters of brandy, whiskey, gin, and much else besides. Only Peggy and Pete seem to refrain from smoking; otherwise, every scene has men and women lighting up with flair. Even in a scene where a gynocologist is preparing to examine a patient, he asks for her to sit tight--while he sets his Parliament ablaze (!). Snappy crooner tunes ooze into various scenes and all the world's a cocktail and cigarette away from ultimate, urbane sophistication.
Mad Men blends incredible acting talent with potent plot points, a dyad I find despairingly rare on the TV dial nowadays. I invite the reader to dive into its maddening grip and take a dizzying backwards leap into our recaptured past.
Before then, I'd heard of it, but hadn't a desire to try it. Friends of mine--more and more with every passing week, it seemed--sang its praises. I would consistently hear paeans as to how it was so fantastic, so worthwhile, and that I would be sure to love it.
And then, ultimately capitulating to peer pressure, I sampled. I refer to the tremendously popular drama Mad Men, run on the American Movie Classics channel, whose first season the library recently acquired on DVD. I took the DVDs home over the long break and have, as a result, become a full-on, ranting and raving, Mad Men lunatic.
The series revolves around the advertising firm Sterling Cooper in New York City; the year is 1960. The term "mad men" was coined to denote the Madison Avenue executives whose grand epoch of consumer-goods-pushing was achieved in the post-World War II years. The central character is Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the creative director for the company; his past is cloaked in secrecy and becomes a prominent secondary plotline. Don is a holdover from the 1950s: rugged and charming, a family man who drinks bourbon and smokes Lucky Strikes, and a veteran of the Korean War. His wife, Elizabeth (known as Betty and, less frequently, "Birdie"), is his archetypal consort: beautiful, housewifely, and devoted to their children (who sport the delectably nostalgic monikers Bobby and Sally). The luminous January Jones, with her strikingly Grace Kelly-esque loveliness, makes for a breathtaking Mrs. Draper.
There are myriad flies in this pastel ointment of halcyon family life, however: Don has a mistress, Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt), an illustrator whose fly-by-night lifestyle and Beat tendencies makes a pointed juxtaposition against the lives of Betty and most of the other women in the show. While Don is admired and respected by his colleagues and attended faithfully by his wife, he appears restive and disquieted, by both his current lifstyle as well as the demons of his umbrageous past.
The eponymous lords of the manor include Bertram "Bert" Cooper (Robert Morse, a living legend of Broadway as well as screen), the company founder, who spends most of his days holed up in a cavernous office decked out like a Tokyo tea house, offering decidedly offbeat tidbits of advice to his underlings. The other is Roger Sterling (John Slattery), who often behaves like an errant fraternity brother, drinking heavily while scoring nifty boardroom victories with well-heeled clients such as Kodak and Bethlehem Steel.
Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is a junior account manager whose runaway professional eagerness is matched only by his sheer personal unlikeability on every level. He courts Don's favor, desperate to make an ally, but Draper, whose savviness for reading people makes for a keen tool in his trade, sees Campbell for the self-loathing creep that he is. Peter becomes a newlywed very early in the series--wife Trudy (Alison Brie) is clearly more a power match (her parents are, like Pete's own, very wealthy) than a love connection. I particularly enjoy witnessing Pete getting neatly sliced down to size in various scenes involving Don.
And then there's Little Miss Peg. Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss, who was apparently the First Daughter on the West Wing, which I've never seen) arrives as a fresh-from-secretarial school tyro who proclaims her place of origin--Brooklyn--as a reason for her backwardness in the very first episode. But do not be misled by Peggy's primness, for she eventually gets into quite a steamy situation (and handles it with aplomb). Peggy represents all that will be changing for womanhood in the not-so-distant future: as things around Sterling Cooper go, female coworkers are subjected to cruelly misogynistic treatment in all forms. The execs openly leer at, comment on, and (at times) even physically accost the administrative staff; Peggy, all wide-eyed innocence, asks why she's being treated in this manner. Her answer comes from the seductively ruby-red lips of Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), the curvaceous, flirtatious office manager. Her approach? "Get it--male attention--while you can", and she certainly does, with her figure-hugging wardrobe and air of voluptuous competence winning nakedly lusty loyalty from the male staff.
Peggy, through a combination of dogged tenacity and sheer luck, eventually moves beyond the scope of typist, but not without significant burdens. She symbolizes new doors through which her generation and those to follow would be happy to pass.
Mad Men can, on many levels, certainly prove unnerving. Women are hardly the only marginalized group (although their unjust treatment is the most commonly seen). Jews were regarded as pariahs; when told a Jewish-owned department store is coming in to consult, Sterling alarmedly asks if there are any Jews on the staff (his idea is to have at least one Jewish person present in the meeting in order to make for a more welcoming ambiance), to which Draper replies, "Not on my watch!". *Ouch*
Poor Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt) is a ruthlessly closeted gay man who is more conspicuous for his Italian heritage than his barely-repressed flamboyance; homophobia is a well-established mindset. Besides extreme chauvenism, anti-Semitism, and anti-gay bias, there is also a strong streak of "white power" (African Americans are seen fleetingly, and then only as janitors, nightclub musicians, or elevator operators) present. Distressing as these images are, one must remember they mirror the zeitgeist of the age.
I would say glamorous is perhaps the best one-word adjective to summarize the rich visual pageantry this series has to offer: the incredible detail given to the sets, costumes, and music all make for a dizzying spectacle into what Manhattan life offered a certain class at a specific time in our national history. Characters are constantly boozing, downing snifters of brandy, whiskey, gin, and much else besides. Only Peggy and Pete seem to refrain from smoking; otherwise, every scene has men and women lighting up with flair. Even in a scene where a gynocologist is preparing to examine a patient, he asks for her to sit tight--while he sets his Parliament ablaze (!). Snappy crooner tunes ooze into various scenes and all the world's a cocktail and cigarette away from ultimate, urbane sophistication.
Mad Men blends incredible acting talent with potent plot points, a dyad I find despairingly rare on the TV dial nowadays. I invite the reader to dive into its maddening grip and take a dizzying backwards leap into our recaptured past.
2 comments:
Your posts are must-reads for me!
Nathaniel -
I don't know how you do it. I can barely keep up with the dog and cat, work a 40-hour-a-week job, fight waxy yellow build-up, and stay current with my reading group's current title ("Secret Life of Bees" - love the book, HATE the constant spitting), and read the Eagle. I'd love to see "The Daily Show" and "Stephen Colbert" program so I could keep up with the international news too, but honestly, there's only one of me. Well, two, but he's always at work.
Say, you won't say anything to the people on Delaware Avenue, will you? I'm actually *listening* to "TSLOB" on CD on my way to work. It's the condensed version too - less spit.
Love ya, hun. Keep up the good work.
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