MAD MEN 6

When Mad Men returned to the air waves (and all those second and third screens) last year, nearly 18 months had elapsed since the previous season. Die-hard fans like me barely survived the overlong wait. When the premiere date for season five was finally announced, I decided to celebrate with a month-long blog event. Sunday Night is Mad Men Night was a joint effort with four blogger friends who each assessed the award-winning series from a different point of view:



FlickChick, of A Person in the Dark, contemplated past versus present through the authentic period detail the series is famed for with Mad Men: Now and Then and Back Again.

Whistlingypsy, whose blog is Distant Voices and Flickering Shadows, took a thoughtful look at the series via some of its key female characters in The Feminine Mystique of Mad Men.

Christian Esquevin, author of Adrian: Silver Screen to Custom Label and the blog Silver Screen Modiste, reflected on the series through its iconic Mad Men Style.

Motorcycle Boy, a contributor to The Lady Eve’s Reel Life, gazed into Mad Men: Through a Glass Darkly, linking the series narrative and its themes to the roots of addiction.

My own piece was a wide-ranging Meditation on Mad Men.

And now that Mad Men 6 is about to begin it is perhaps a good time to look back at where season five ended...and consider where the new season may take us.

 

Top: The Francis and Draper families, season 6; lower left, Peggy on her own; lower right, three partners

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Sunday Night is Still "Mad Men" Night

As the fourth installment (the 2 hour premiere covered two episodes) of Mad Men Season 5 approaches (see below for Episode 4 update), there are no signs of waning interest from its audience or the rapt media. In my travels through cyberspace over the past two weeks I've come upon a wide assortment of posts about the new season of this most intriguing series. Here is a sampling - click on titles for links...

Betty Francis

In Episode 3 Roger Sterling (John Slattery), becoming ever more frustrated with changing times, utters a phrase that will no doubt echo on the series - and off - for some time to come, "When is everything going to get back to normal?" Laurel Brown, senior writer at BuddyTV, contemplates the implications of Roger's question with Normal Isn't Coming Back.

By far the most talked-about element of last week's episode was the revelation that beautiful Betty Hofstadt Draper Francis (January Jones) had gained more than a new home in recent months. This new twist in Betty's story arc created intense discussion, some controversy, and a variety of reactions. Jessica Grose presents her Defense of Betty Draper at New York (.com) magazine's Vulture. Bruce Handy of Vanity Fair considers Betty's dilemma from a different perspective by delving into The Amazing Junk Food of the '60's. 

Megan and Don Draper

Not soon to be forgotten is that 5th Season opener moment when Don Draper's young and slender new wife, Megan (French-Canadian actress Jessica Paré), turned heads and inspired tongues to wag when she gave Don (Jon Hamm) a surprise 40th birthday party and a very special gift. Megan's rendition of the French pop tune "Zou Bisou Bisou" lit up the Twitterverse, and was the water cooler subject of the week. Leaving no stone unturned, Lauren Streib looks into the History of Zou Bisou Bisou for The Daily Beast.

The Return of the Ladies of Mad Men is the focus of Alison Willmore at Indiewire, who views the series as one "about gender, about masculine ideals and shifting female identity." Eleanor Clift, a former Newsweek staffer (and sister-in-law of Montgomery Clift), recalls her memories as a woman in that news magazine's workplace during the '60s with Mad Men and Working Women (here, courtesy of The Daily Beast).

Joan Harris and Peggy Olson of SCDP

At the UK's Daily Mail, Kristie Lau contemplates How Mad Men Embraced the Fashion Trends of 1966, and at GQ, Matthew Sebra posts weekly on what the men of Mad Men are wearing, so far: Season 5/Style Report 1 and Season 5/Style Report 2.


Update: Click here for Bonnie Stiernberg's take on Episode 5.04 at PasteMagazine.com 

Stay tuned...

Note: Sunday Night is Mad Men Night will continue. Next up, Jill of Sittin' on a Backyard Fence  - date TBA...

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A Meditation on Mad Men

 "...nostalgia. It's delicate...but potent...in Greek, nostalgia literally means 'the pain from an old wound.' It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone."

Sterling Cooper's creative director Don Draper is pitching his promotional concept to Kodak, a prospective client, for its new product, a wheel-like slide projector. As images of his own young family flash by, one by one, on a projection screen, he continues his inspired dream-spinning:

"This device isn't a spaceship. It's a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again."

With these words, words that also echo an aspect of Mad Men's emotional appeal,  the client and everyone else inside the hushed room is in the palm of Draper's hand; he concludes:

"It's not called 'the Wheel." It's called a 'Carousel.' It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around, and back home again...to a place where we know we are loved."

The carousel whirl that is AMC's Mad Men sweeps the viewer along on the labyrinthine journey of Don Draper, preternaturally savvy and eloquent Madison Avenue dreamweaver, as he and those close to him navigate the dark and white nights of their own souls and that of 1960s America.

Click here to watch Don Draper's entire 'Carousel' pitch

In an early episode, Betty Draper, Don's then-wife, stares at him as he lies sleeping and wonders aloud, "Who are you?"  Betty's late father, Gene, didn't like his son-in-law at all and, in another episode, complains of him, "He has no people. You can't trust a person like that..." Season 4 opened with the question, "Who is Don Draper?" posed to Draper over lunch by a reporter from Advertising Age. Series loyalists learned early on that Draper was once a neglected farm boy whose impoverished family moved from the Midwest to Pennsylvania coal country. While serving in the Korean war he saw a way out of his nowhere-man future and seized the opportunity. In just a few years he would be a rising star on Madison Avenue with the trophy wife, children, Cadillac and suburban Ossining house to certify his status.

Don and Betty Draper at home

Draper's mysterious past and meteoric ascent have inspired comparisons to another iconic fictional character, Jay Gatsby of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It was of Gatsby that Fitzgerald's narrator, Nick, would say, "If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him..." Gatsby, born James Gatz in an upper Midwestern backwater, was based on a character out of ancient fiction named Trimalchio. A freed Roman slave who became wealthy and powerful and was intent on winning over the 1st century crème de la crème, Trimalchio hosted an elaborate but tasteless feast about which the elite laughed behind his back. Gatsby, who made his fortune through confidence schemes and shady connections, was rich but naive, and his grand soirees were attended but scorned by New York's finest.

A man in full

Though, like Gatsby, Don Draper is an arriviste who was once "a penniless young man without a past," no one is laughing at him. By 1960, when Mad Men picks up, the talented and charismatic Mr. Draper has sparked awe and envy throughout the world of advertising. No, at this point, Don Draper is perceived less like the ill-fated Gatsby and perhaps more like a more fortunate young man who fled his roots and re-made himself: Archie Leach of Bristol, England, who made his name in America and of his reinvented self said, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant."

Despite his great success, Draper lives in barely contained turmoil. He wrestles with personal demons and chafes under mounting pressures at work and at home. The very time in which he lives is a jittery age - it is the height of ‘the cold war’ and American culture is in the midst of rapid change.

Soviet missiles in Cuba

It was at just about this time, in 1959, that developmental psychologist/psychoanalyst Erik Erikson coined the term ‘identity crisis,’ a condition of disorientation or role confusion that results from conflicting internal and external experiences, pressures and expectations that can lead to acute anxiety. Though Erikson originally viewed 'identity crisis' as primarily an adolescent experience, its definition expanded to include crises that occur during major life transitions as well as within social structures.

Not too many years earlier, in 1950, sociologist David Riesman had written what became, and remains, the best-selling book ever in the U.S. on sociology. The Lonely Crowd examined America’s social character and described the country’s shift from 19^th century ‘inner-direction’ (behavior internalized early through parents and community) to mid-20^th century ‘other-direction’ (responsiveness to peer groups and the media). Riesman’s theories spoke to concerns of the time regarding the conformity that accompanied the sweeping spread of suburban culture. It was Riesman’s view that the confidence and unity that followed World War II were in part an attempt to deflect cultural despair, and his term ‘the lonely crowd’ entered the mainstream as a description of alienation within an affluent society.

America, perhaps in its adolescence at mid-century and reeling under the weight of too much power, wealth and responsibility too soon, was entering a period of increasing uncertainty and anxiety as the 1960s unfolded. Clearly Don Draper, with his double life and murky past, is guarded and isolated, and most in his professional and personal orbit are perplexed by the changing, often frightening times.

November 22, 1963 at Sterling Cooper

Walter Cronkite reporting for CBS News, November 22, 1963

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has said that it was during his tenure as a writer on the sitcom Becker that an idea occurred to him for a show set in the ‘60s about someone like himself, “who… had everything and was miserable.”

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

As Weiner focused on writing the story of a character he thought of as a man who has sold out in some ways but is still trying to find himself, he hired a researcher to investigate the 1960s in detail. According to Weiner, the very first piece of research he received was about the crisis in cigarette advertising in 1960. And so it followed that when we first catch sight of Don Draper in the series opener it is 1960 and he is alone at a table in a cocktail lounge quizzing a black waiter about his brand of cigarettes - Old Gold. Draper is struggling to come up with an ad concept for Sterling Draper’s biggest account, Lucky Strike. The noisy, smoke-filled room is dim and in the background a recording of Don Cherry singing “Band of Gold” plays. The episode tracks the sharp, charming and handsome Mr. Draper through the evening and into a night spent with his commercial artist girlfriend, his next day at the office and his trip home after work to – surprise! – his wife and children in the suburbs.

Since then Don Draper and his family and his colleagues at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (formerly Sterling Cooper) have grappled with the wildly unpredictable 1960s as best they can. Having witnessed everything on the national scene from historic space flights and assassination to the explosion of the civil rights movement and the beginnings of women’s movement, they are at the same time dealing with upheaval in their personal lives.

The 1960s are accurately reflected and exquisitely replicated in Mad Men, and immersion in that glittering and chaotic decade is mesmerizing. But it is the series’ finely drawn, palpably authentic characters, credible story lines and archetypal themes that provide its greatest appeal. Mad Men, to borrow a phrase from Don Draper's Kodak presentation, affords that "rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash."

Season 5 begins...

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Mad Men: Through a Glass Darkly

by guest contributor Motorcycle Boy

“A personality marked by traits of compulsive and habitual use of a substance or practice in an attempt to cope with psychic pain engendered by conflict and anxiety.”

~      definition of addictive personality, Mosby’s Medical Dictionary

  

“Mad Men glorifies alcoholics.”  This statement was made to me by an acquaintance, clearly meant as a criticism of my favorite television series.  He went on:  “It seems the writers take every opportunity conceivable to shove a glass in the hands of the actors.”

Now, there is no denying the fact that at the office of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, alcohol is a constant given. “I drink, therefore I am” seems to be the ad man’s motto.  And everyone on this show smokes – they smoke like chimneys, as if there’s no tomorrow (or at least a tomorrow not leading to premature illness and death). Of course, these characters live in a different time – the early 60’s -  a not so distant past when people freely and thoughtlessly litter a park while they picnic and adults slap children, even ones that aren’t their own.  This was a time when women and minorities were openly treated as second class citizens.  And along with this, it was a time when many people were alcoholics, though they may not have identified themselves as such, who drank throughout the day. Mad Men depicts all this as it enters into the reality of the era, though these things are never portrayed as something to be emulated.

But as  much attention that is given to Mad Men -  its smoking and drinking, its obsessive attention to period detail (the length of women’s skirts, the hairstyles and interior design of the rooms)  -  there is so much more that lies beneath the glossy, escapist surface of this show. Mad Men is an extremely complicated drama - a human drama.  There is much to discover in its characters and storylines – much about our society and about ourselves. I believe that it’s all these factors that contribute to this show’s great appeal.  Something draws us to watch it - something we’re seeking to discover (whether we’re conscious of it or not) and this, in itself, is addictive.

Mad Men depicts a period in American culture when habitual drinking and smoking (and bigotry) were an accepted part of the norm. It deals with the social changes that were happening at the beginning of the 60’s and into the mid-60’s. Often different episodes will show the tension between the passing era of the 50’s – the rigidity, repression and denial – and the approaching of the turbulent changes associated with the 60’s – the civil rights and women’s movements, open sexual freedom, drug experimentation and the events that were about to blow the lid off of American society. It’s quite fitting that there’s an episode in the first season titled “Kennedy vs. Nixon”.  There is the “old order,” in which the different levels of society were much more hierarchical and defined (like the male dominated pecking order of the ad agency), and then there is the dawning of a new awareness that is full of promise and, at the same time, threatening. How society worked and how people coped during this changing time is fertile ground for exploration and producer/creator Matthew Weiner makes the most of it.

         

...So what habits are Don Draper and his agency pushing?

         

The basic thrust of consumerism is marketing an image to people so that they can be sold a product. It’s not just about what people want, but what they really want – their unconscious desires and the obstacles to fulfillment represented by their unconscious fears.  In the time period of Mad Men - much more so than even today - there were many social boundaries around sex and race, of one’s basic identity, and a suffocating rigidity in roles that people felt pressured to act out in their lives.  This is an obvious formula for the kind of psychic pain that comes from conflict – the conflict that grows from a repressed identity.  How can you know what you really want or need when you don’t know who you really are?  If the “social mask” fits too tightly it makes it difficult to breathe.  The constant drinking in Mad Men is shown more as a socially sanctioned way that many people sought some relief from this internal pressure – or at least as a way to numb themselves.  A person who is imprisoned, whether conscious of it or not, feels the overwhelming need to be released.

Don Draper and his associates cater to this need.  By the 1950s America had undergone a form of mass hypnosis constructed around total consumerism.  Television and growing mass media connected people in a way that opened them further to manipulation by the “professionals” who understood the pressure points of living a false identity and could use it to sell product.  Many people, then and now, present a fabricated image to society - a façade for the real identity underneath. This condition  is embodied in the whole Madison Avenue advertising industry as presented in the show and, in particular, in the central character of Don Draper, who literally has taken on a false identity to hide the truth from the world, and, as best he can,  himself.  If anyone is in psychic pain its Draper and it touches everyone in his life.  Still, no one knows better how to sell people a bill of goods by manipulating their insecurities and, unavoidably, their addictions.  On some level Draper seems to understand that he reflects a kind of mass delusion where consumerism is a substitute for self-knowledge and love.  The whole thing, from the perspective of the men in advertising and the unknowing public, is like one great dysfunctional, addictive process, founded on repression and denial and affecting everyone.  What motivates people is spiritual “thirst” and Don Draper knows how to use that to sell product because he’s so familiar with the feeling himself.

Mad Men is a series with many stylish surfaces and is so well done it could easily be appreciated strictly as escapism. But it’s so much more than that.  The characters are full of twists and turns and their fates interest us because they’re very much up for grabs.  What will happen next?  By the fourth season Don Draper is moving headlong into alcoholism and we wonder if he’ll end up a more fashionable version of his rival, Duck Phillips, or a less farcical Roger Sterling.  What’s captivating is that we, the audience, know what is to come for America but we don’t know how these characters will respond to or reflect the change.  The events are part of history, and though these people’s lives are shaped by them, they have to strive and discover for themselves their place in the new society.   We wonder if Betty Draper will completely go over the edge and continue to alienate her children.  She seems hopelessly stuck and unable to discover a path out of her false existence - she could take a number of courses, one of which could easily be addiction.  Sally Draper, the difficult young daughter who also is struggling to find her way, seems to represent a coming generation which will be defiant and loud, sexually active, and impossible to ignore.

There are multiple angles from which to interpret Mad Men, but I feel that there’s a great overriding tension at the core of the series, and in many ways it’s linked to the addictive process.  When people live within tightly wound conventions and are prevented from expressing their true nature, they can cut themselves off from their life force – there’s no creativity, only conformity.  If, on the other hand, they go deeper and connect with their instincts, it’s possible to feed the soul but it’s inherently dangerous because there is no formula to follow – anything can happen – the “old order” drops away and chaos can emerge.  Fear is what keeps the characters in Mad Men from genuine lives and leads them to grasp at substitutes, whether it be alcohol or consumerism.  Don Draper attempts to stay fixated on externals and selling an image rather than facing his true identity. He functions on the inside of society, spinning out illusions (he’s a powerful force and influence on people’s lives), still, when it comes to his personal relationships and his own inner life, Draper is the ultimate outsider – a living enigma.

As long as Mad Men is able to peel back the layers and creatively express this very human conflict, it will continue to mesmerize (perhaps the word should be intoxicate).  Over the course of multiple seasons Matthew Weiner and his writers have the luxury to explore these characters and their relationship to the times – to get at the truth of their lives.  Mad Men is addictive on so many levels because it’s a psychological adventure, an entry into a tumultuous past that has shaped our current world of mass media - of reality shows and twenty-four-hour news. In this context, it’s not just a joy to watch and a benign habit, but, through the range of its insight, a lush oasis of sanity.

~

Motorcycle Boy, a new contributor to the Lady Eve's Reel Life, is a loyal follower of this blog as well as a family friend. He has worked professionally in the fields of psychology and music, is a longtime resident of the San Francisco Bay Area and a lifelong lover of art and history.

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Mad Men Style

by guest contributor Christian Esquevin

The thing that makes Mad Men such a perfect television series is its “all-of-a-piece” quality. It has all of its elements operating at a high level and fully integrated into a drama geared towards adults. This goes well beyond high production values, or even great writing – it is a seamless creation mixing fascinating characters, interesting plots, evocative sets and costumes, a down-to earth reality needing no gratuitous violence. It is a perfectly pegged recreation of the Zeitgeist - not just of the world of advertising - but of urban America at the turn of the 1960s. Despite its very real display of sexism in society and in the workplace, including the very negative consequences of that mindset, Mad Men is mainly the story of one man and his perilous perch high atop the hierarchy of a corporate ad agency. The series title is a play on “ad men” and Madison Avenue, where the big ad agencies were located.

The opening title graphic and much of the show’s advertising uses the art and theme of a man falling from of a skyscraper. The new 5^th season advertising art of the falling man in New York was printed on reflective plastic so it would show the surrounding skyscrapers as backdrop – causing a bit of a controversy by recalling bad memories of scenes from the Twin Towers. Regardless, it is no accident that the show’s creator Matthew Weiner was influenced by the aesthetics of Alfred Hitchcock. The character Don Draper is very much living a dilemma like Vertigo’s Scottie Ferguson, not because of a fear of heights like Jimmy Stewart, but rather of crumbling along with his stolen identity and the edifice he has constructed of his life. “Who is Don Draper” a reporter asked him in Season 4. Very few people know, and those characters have been mostly dying off, including the real Don Draper himself. In a rare display of self-analysis, Don took up a diary in a 4^th season episode titled Summer Man: “When a man walks into a room, he brings his whole life with him. If you listen, he'll tell you how he got there. How he forgot where he was going, and that he woke up. If you listen, he'll tell you about the time he thought he was an angel or dreamt of being perfect. And then he'll smile with wisdom, content that he realized the world isn't perfect. We're flawed, because we want so much more. We're ruined, because we get these things, and wish for what we had.”

Mad Men is full of metaphors that enhance the theme of the show and add layers of meaning, but we are still trapped like voyeurs watching unfold a real life drama. One of those subtle metaphors is that Don seems to be the only person that carries keys. He can use them boldly when entering his domain, clumsily when he’s drunk, or nervously shaking them in his apartment door lock when he thinks the FBI is tailing him. At his low point, he forgets them completely and relies on his secretary to deliver them to his apartment, where she finds him asleep in the hallway. The show is all-of-a-piece because, in a story about how advertising creates images for products, the show creates images for the characters in the plot, and the characters are involved in creating their own images of themselves. As Don Draper says, “You are the product.” 

The Man with the voice - Jon Hamm as Don Draper

The show’s hallmark is its obsessive attention to visual detail. This provides the audience with a rich experience through the recreation of the early 1960s: the clothes people wore; the interior architecture of their offices and homes; and the sparkle of those material things that they crave. That re-creation of the era was taken so far by Matthew Weiner that he cast actors based on whether they had that late 1950s-early 1960s look. For example, Jom Hamm as Don Draper could not be a muscled actor, a rare trait in the early 1960s. Similarly, Christina Hendricks as Joan Harris needed to have a full-figured, hour-glass silhouette (though helped by padding). But Jon Hamm as Don Draper was the perfect choice, not only does he have the looks that slays the ladies, but he has the voice – that smooth deep soothing voice that could sell snowballs in Alaska.

The secretarial pool at Sterling Cooper

The set design recreates the world of the early 1960s when America had the world by its tail. The interior office architecture was planned not just for efficiency, but to show the benefits of modernity and the use of the same kinds of products the ad agency helps sell. The buildings were in the “International Style’ of modern architecture. The offices had wood paneling and Danish influenced furniture. The chairs and couches were streamlined and low to the ground. Windows had Venetian blinds with curtains, executive desks had pen sets, and whisky was in the drawer. The secretarial pool was in an open layout, and a plethora of IBM Selectric typewriters denoted a modern business. Abstract art hung on the walls. The firm may have re-organized in lesser quarters later in the series, but the mid-century style remained the same. Roger Sterling’s new office was designed by a “decorator” in various monochromatic shades of gray, leading him to quip that with his gray suits and gray hair he just disappeared in his surroundings.

Don's first office at Sterling Cooper: manly but modern

As for the ladies of Mad Men, they provide the sizzle that makes the show such fun to watch.

Although it’s also a guilty pleasure to see how much bad behavior they think they can get away with, or how long it is before one of them screws up. The show is anchored by January Jones as Betty Draper (later Betty Francis), shown below, Christina Hendricks as Joan Harris, and Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson. Betty is always the classy, if somewhat immature, woman – and a not very good mother. Her wardrobe is always stylish; she’s a Grace Kelly in the suburbs. She wears bouffant skirts in single piece dresses, all in cheerful colors and floral prints. She is always, “put together” wearing jewelry, matching purses and shoes (as was de rigueur in the day), gloves, and red lipstick. 

January Jones as Betty Draper

Joan Harris is the red-headed and curvaceous bombshell. She wears tightly-fitted dresses in bright jewel colors. Her costumes are made with fitted foundation undergarments, which was how they were made for the Hollywood movies at the time, though ladies of the day achieved the same effect with girdle/bra combinations.

Christina Hendricks as Joan Harris

The Mad Men cast

During most of the series Peggy Olson’s wardrobe was still influenced by her former Catholic School uniforms.  She dresses very plainly and unattractively, and she is often dressed in plaids and stripes. As she advances in her career and matures, her clothes become more sophisticated and becoming. In the photo below she is wearing a dress seemingly inspired by vintage Metlox California ceramic dinnerware.

Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson

Janie Bryant is the show’s excellent costume designer. She designs many of the items for the show’s large wardrobe, although vintage clothing and accessories are also used. Like other costume designers, she must design the costumes to define character. Subtle changes have marked the advancing years of the early 60s. As we make our way into the mod-influenced and youth movement fashions of the later 60s, significant changes will be shown in the women’s wardrobes. Skirts will go up, and clothes will increasingly define personality in a more forceful and even rebellious manner.    

As for the men, the business suit is the most prevailing costume, which is making a comeback thanks to the show. In the case of Don, it’s his armor, and he seems vulnerable during the times he dresses casually. Gray flannel suits were the preferred dress for business men of the era. For Mad Men, Janie Bryant had to find distinguishing features for the various mad men and others. Don always wears a white dress shirt with French cuffs, with slim ties then fashionable. The suits were slim with narrow profiles Don’s accessories are the tie clip and the white pocket square worn flush. He keeps his bills neat in a money clip. Roger tends to wear three-piece suits with vests, often in light gray to complement his hair. Pete wears darker suit colors. When tough times rock the firm and Don in particular, his suits also become darker. Lane Pryce is English. He is usually dressed in a suit with an unmatched vest. To be more accurate, his suit jackets should feature side vents rather than a center vent, as was preferred in England, but we won’t quibble.

John Slattery as Roger Sterling and Jon Hamm as Don Draper

The men’s fashions in Mad Men have also influenced current trends. As mentioned, the suit is back. Skinny pants have been common for a number of years, but the skinny ties and tie clip are one influence of the show. It is hoped that that the current style of wearing dress pants 3 or 4 inches too long will disappear as a result, and maybe even the single jacket button fastened high above the waist.

January Jones and Jon Hamm as Betty and Don

Don and Betty are now divorced, and at the end of last season Don fell in love with his new secretary Megan and they became engaged. It remains to be seen in the new season what their fates will be. Jessica Pare plays Megan. She’s beautiful and ambitious, but also caring and nurturing. She’s perfect for Don – perhaps too perfect. She doesn’t know much about him, but who does? Whatever happens to the couple, we will be smack in the middle of the turbulent years of the 60s. Everyone is sure to get buffeted.

Another reason the show is all-of–piece is the embedded themes and currents that influenced the era of the early 60s. These include such iconic books as Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown from 1962, David Ogilvy’s 1963 tell-all, Confessions of an Advertising Man, and the earlier The Hidden Persuaders, written by Vance Packard and first published in 1957. The latter explained the new techniques of using psychological research and subliminal messages in advertising.

Mad Men is also amazing because it can deliver nostalgia while simultaneously setting the show during the most tumultuous period in modern American history, when the influence of the past was questioned and the present was crumbling. Now that’s what makes a great show. We’ll see if Don’s motto of “live in the present,” while escaping from his past and adjusting to his surroundings like a chameleon will serve him well.

Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.

~

Christian Esquevin's blog is Silver Screen Modiste and he's the author of Adrian: Silver Screen to Custom Label.

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The Feminine Mystique Of Mad Men

by guest contributor Whistlingypsy

“Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.”

 - Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

Although the title might suggest the notion; this is not a discussion of feminism in Mad Men’s very male dominated industry. The inspiration is, in part, taken from the photograph above: a provocative portrayal of beautiful women and men perfectly accessorized and stylishly coiffed. The division of these individuals into feminine and masculine, light and dark, personal and professional, implies not only different natures and different worlds but a separate mystique.

Mad Men artfully dramatizes the many ways female identity can wiggle and re-shape in even the narrowest spaces, from captivating leading ladies to intriguing supporting characters. The show has explored some popularly held notions of femininity, some of which were already ossified by the 1960s, by placing these notions within the context of an advertising campaign. When Paul Kinsey proposed his "new concept" for the Playtex account in "Maidenform," (S2, E6), "All women want to be Jackie Kennedy or Marilyn Monroe", he wasn't referring to their conservative or liberal politics. He was putting a mid-century spin on the old Freudian concept of "the chaste versus the loose" woman. The return of the show for season five is a great opportunity to look back, and in the words of advertising man Leo Burnett, see “the inherent drama of everyday life” through the eyes of Peggy, Joan and Betty, Mad Men's powerful feminine mystique.

Be unforgettable,
disarming and sensational
in MYSTRECE by Hanes.

The quote at the top of the page was introduced in the storyline of "Flight" (S2, E1) and in this context seems to be a wholly masculine concern, but there is no reason why a woman wouldn't want her personality to seem "beautiful, interesting and modern". In 1963, Betty Friedan published her groundbreaking work on the nature of the female, titled The Feminine Mystique, which I will attempt to highlight: her goal was to dispel the notion that women were not only best suited but exclusively suited to the role of wife and mother, an instinctive role portrayed in terms worthy of a mythical character: the feminine mystique. She frankly addressed the false notion that a woman's suppression of her natural role, sublimated by a desire for an education and/or a career, would lead to grave discontentment. Her premise would have taken issue with Ann Margaret singing "How Lovely To Be A Woman" and Nancy Kwan singing "I Enjoy Being A Girl." Why? Despite these songs celebrating the woman of the late Eisenhower era, with humor and irony, Friedan would have claimed each woman’s cause for celebration is too dependent on a phone call from a man, and implies all the trappings of femininity is meant to help catch a husband.

By Appointment to
Her Majesty,
Mrs. Homemaker.

Friedan also appraised the advertising industry from the perspective of inducing women to believe each new product was necessary to her role in the feminine mystique. The adage “a housewife's work is never done”, was behind the notion that so long as a woman is busy, she will never question her role as wife, mother and consumer of household goods. The development of a range of cleaning products and household items was intended to keep women busy (and presumably content) Monday through Sunday, sunrise to sunset. This could certainly be interpreted as a woman's guide to elementary Freud with a proto-feminist spin, in Friedan’s defense, we know this is partly true. However, the book has been criticized, after the passage of fifty years, for a limited view of women’s choices and for the research’s exclusion of women of color and a narrow focus of sexual orientation. It would be foolish to assume American women had no options fifty years ago, each life was as different as the woman who would tell the story.

“I’m Peggy Olson, and I want to smoke marijuana,” Sterling Cooper’s only female copywriter informs her male colleagues in "My Old Kentucky Home," (S3, E3). A young woman who knows her mind, she later tells her secretary, in response to a comment informing her actions have consequences, “Don’t worry about me. I am going to get to do everything you want for me”. The question is why Peggy doesn’t tell her, “I am going to get to do everything I want,” perhaps she isn’t so certain after all. Peggy has a steep learning curve her first day on the job at Sterling Cooper advertising agency.

A promotional tie-in:
Underwood Red nail polish
& Underwood 150 typewriter.

Her secretarial school training would have prepared her to take and translate shorthand, type and make carbon copies, but unlikely to have equipped her for the intrigues and romantic values of a mid-century Manhattan advertising office. The agency's office manager, Joan Holloway, implies she is Peggy's senior in all the subjects that matter and happy to advise her as she begins her new life. Peggy goes decidedly "off lesson plan"and her innovations result in a heartbreaking scene in "The Wheel," (S1, E13) when she turns away from her newborn child. Peggy's entry into the world of copy writing is made possible not solely based on a clever turn of phrase when she hands Freddie Rumsen a "basket of kisses". He recognizes her ability to create "word images", a skill he is certain will be invaluable in persuading female consumers to buy an entire line of similar products. When her talent is not enough to persuade her male co-workers to take her seriously, and they fail to include her in an important meeting, she arrives at the bar where they have taken the client dressed to accentuate her advantage over her male colleagues. In response to her question regarding her bad luck with men in "The Jet Set," (S2, E11), Kurt, Sterling Cooper's freelance artist, tells her "you are old style" and offers to give her a new hairstyle.

Discover the Swinging
World of Yamaha

Peggy struggles with the dichotomy of needing to be taken seriously as a woman in a male dominated industry, and she stumbles through attempts to be one of the boys while becoming one of the girls. Although her integrity will not allow her to trade on her sexuality to get ahead, she is not without contradiction and she breaks personal and professional taboos when she begins an affair with Herman "Duck" Phillips. The pressure of these conflicting desires finds an object in the person of Don Draper, a man Peggy has reason to respect and trust. She expresses her reserved anger and disappointment in "The Suitcase" (S4, E7), when she accuses him of stealing her idea for the Glo-Coat campaign. She also wonders, with the parade of women in Don's life, why not her? She doesn't harbor a secret wish to spend time in Don's bed, she has accepted the truth behind the image. Peggy does want reassurance that her desire for recognition and her need to be desirable aren't mutually exclusive, and she confides, "I know what I'm supposed to want," she says, "but it just never feels right, or as important as anything in that office."

“If this were me I would say something like ‘fun loving girl, responsible sometimes, likes to laugh, lives to love, seeks size six for city living and general gallivanting. No dull moments or dull men tolerated.’ or something like that!” Joan (Holloway) Harris, Office Manager at Sterling Cooper advertising agency comments on Peggy Olson’s notice for a roommate in "The Arrangements" (S3, E4). Joan is a competent and confident woman; she can cook and she's a good hostess; she can play the accordion and sing in French, if necessary. She makes no secret of her taste for the finer things in life, and she is certain she'll get everything she wants.

Pardon Us While We Slip Into
Something Comfortable!
The 1963 Dodge gives women options.

The trouble is, she has been married to a young surgical resident for a year, and she seems as discontented with married life as she had become with her life as a single woman. Joan’s voluptuous feminine allure appears to mask something darker, sometimes merciless, which often shows through the cracks of her well-coiffed, couture-clad exterior. Joan is in the midst of a year-long affair with Sterling Cooper partner Roger Sterling in "Long Weekend" (S1, E10) when he tells her he is free to spend the weekend with her. Joan is far from the "fun loving girl" Roger expected when she refers to The Apartment and describes a female character as being “handed around to the office men like a tray of canapés”. Joan later reveals to Roger in "Six Month Leave" (S2, E9) a vulnerability he seems unable, or unwilling, to accept. He sees the death of Marilyn Monroe as inevitable, a movie star who had everything and threw it away. Joan sees herself in Marilyn, a beautiful, sensual and vulnerable woman who, after "this world destroyed her," was destined to die alone. Joan has begun to consider the truth of being a self-aware and sexually liberated woman, much like a courtesan of an earlier era it comes with built in limitations and an equally bleak future.

She's busy...
yet she's beautiful...
she uses Pond's.
Pond's makes a woman
alluring and competent.

Joan doesn’t tolerate others defining her life or her personality, and she has an even lower threshold for whiners. When Joan asks Lane Pryce for time off to spend with her husband in "The Good News" (S4, E3), Lane alludes to her willingness to use her sexuality to get whatever she wants, "I understand that all men are dizzy and powerless to refuse you", and he adds, "Don't go and cry about it". Joan later expresses a frustration that Peggy Olson knows only too well when she throws a bouquet at Lane and tells him, he consistently makes her "feel like a helpless, stupid little girl." When her husband returns defeated after doing poorly on an interview in "The Gypsy and the Hobo" (S3, E11), Joan is so enraged by his comment that she has never known what it is "to want something your whole life" and not get it, she picks up a vase and breaks it over his head. She might feel a crack on the head is the least he deserves, after he raped her at Sterling Cooper and she quit a job in which she had made herself indispensable. She might feel his failure to notice she wants so much more from her life is typical of him; he had told her earlier she should "be home eating bonbons and watching television, not reading scripts". However, her act of rage is made all the more inexplicable in "The Summer Man" (S4, E8) when she arrives home as her husband is about to leave for basic training. "Who am I going to talk to?" she asks him and breaks down in tears when he mentions her friends at work. Her overwhelming sense of isolation could lead her deeper into a cruel deception.

“I hate this place, I hate our friends, I hate this town,” Betty Draper informs her husband in "Souvenir" (S3, E8) after an idyllic trip to Rome. Why is Betty Draper so miserable? She lives a charmed life as the wife of Sterling Cooper’s most promising advertising executive. She had an affluent childhood; attended Bryn Mawr; where she majored in anthropology; she had a brief career as a model; she is well-read and speaks fluent Italian. She lives comfortably in a beautiful upstate suburb, where she is a housewife raising three young children.

Be Bright! Be Light! Have a Pepsi!
Modern girls neither
sacrifice pleasure nor
compromise their figures.

Betty Draper is also, much like Joan Holloway, a good hostess: she knows how to dress well and set a good table. Her misery is abated with cigarettes and cocktails, horseback riding, European vacations, a glamorous wardrobe, and occasional target practice with a neighbor's pigeons. Why, then, is she fast becoming the inspiration for “Mother’s Little Helper” with her own fainting couch? Betty spends time in therapy, after exhibiting “unexplained emotional episodes,” which could be further compounded when her husband echoes her doctor’s assessment in "Red in the Face" (S1, E7), “Sometimes I feel like I'm living with a little girl." Betty could be living her life with unrealized aspirations, in a mistaken sense of loyalty to her mother, whose standards continue to haunt her. Her relationship with her husband perpetuates the parent/child dynamic. He scolds her for allowing a salesman into the home, he criticizes her bathing suit for looking desperate, and uses her as a test subject for a ad campaign. Perhaps Betty finds a few answers in her choice of reading material, The Group by Mary McCarthy. The novel explores many themes, including the notion of whether higher education makes women unsuitable as wives and mothers and the use of mental illness by husbands to control ambitious and intelligent wives.

This Spring, The blues
Are The News for Eyes!
and for Little Girl Blues.

Betty confides to her therapist in "The Wheel" (S1, E13) in her first truly honest moment "I can't help but think that I'd be happy if my husband was faithful to me”. A particularly messy exposure regarding her husband’s infidelity with the wife of a comic, finally forces Betty to face the harsh reality regarding her marriage. Betty tells Helen, her divorced neighbor, in "The Inheritance" (S2, E10) that Don has moved out of the house. She is undecided about the future of the marriage and responds, "Sometimes I think I'll float away if Don isn't holding me down." Her divorce from Don Draper, when she learns the truth of her husband’s past, and her remarriage to Henry Francis, does nothing to alleviate her feelings of insecurity. Although she made no secret of her contempt for all things Ossining, she lives in the same house with her new husband that she once shared with Don. She has never been a bad parent, perhaps a little disengaged, but she is becoming increasingly irrational with Sally and Bobby. Henry's mother observes the children during a particularly stressful Thanksgiving in "Public Relations" (S4, E1) and tells her son "They are terrified of her". Betty responds in "Tomorrowland" (S4, Ep13) when Henry asks her why she fired Carla "I want a fresh start". However, she appears overwhelmed by the prospect of leaving her old life behind and lies down on Sally's unmade bed.

This post is dedicated to Sterling, Cooper Draper and Pryce's most senior member of staff, Ida Blankenship: she was conscientious and loyal to the bitter end.

~

Guest contributor Whistlingypsy's blog is Distant Voices and Flickering Shadows.

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