September 30th 2008
(M)Ad Men
In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
Douglas Adams
Among the this year’s Emmy winners AMC’s drama series “Mad Men” stood out by becoming the first ever cable series that won the Outstanding Drama Series award. This was merely the last among other distinguished awards given to this show.
Focused on the New York booming advertisement industry of the 1950es, Matthew Weiner’s “Mad Men” is a mesmerizing picture of the lost “Golden Age” of USA where everyone smoked, casual bigotry was abundant, women struggled to establish themselves in the business world and dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
In the centre of all this is Don Draper (played delightfully low-key by Jon Hamm), successful business man, father of two, lover of many and a liar hiding his true identity from everyone around him. Life is good for Don and his colleagues in Sterling Cooper advertisement agency but tectonic shift that are 1960es are just around the corner and first signs of the incoming cultural changes are already nibbling at the hearts and minds of these supposedly self-assured and successful men.
There is a sad, resignated look in Don’s eyes, his younger competitor Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) vies for the promotion in a profession loathed by his father (”Advertisements? What kind of business is that anyway?”) while their boss Cooper comfortably states that he’s at peace with his mind while hitting the bottle around four o’ clock in the afternoon.
On the other hand, women are also facing the changes. Some, like Don’s wife Elisabeth (January Jones) are at the edge of the nervous breakdown trying to articulate everything she misses from outwardly perfect marriage. On the other hand, cynical Joan (Christina Hendricks) artfully navigates through bigotry of 1950es business world.
“Mad Men” shows just how far forward the USA progressed in mere 40 years, proving once again that old adage of history being a foreign country: everything is similar to our world yet there are numerous small, disturbing differences in behavior and conventions. Casual sexisms abound with men groping their secretaries right in front of everyone. There are no blacks in sight, except for the manual laborers, while the only homosexual worker in the office stays hidden in the closet – luckily for him, invention of gaydar is still two or three decades away.
Instead of downright cynicism of HBO’s “Deadwood” and “Rome”, “Mad Men” mainly keeps a tone of quiet irony assured that it’s audience is intelligent enough to make their own judgments about the characters of this – for the large part – bygone era. There are also small moments of humor like when the characters are baffled by “complexity” of electrical typewriter or when they champion Richard Nixon as the sure winner of 1960es elections.
Every good story is about us. By giving us the imperfect mirror of the time mere generations ago, “Mad Men” allows us to measure just how (dis)similar we became in the meantime.
Oliver out.
This should be the best season ever.
