I admit I am counting down the days to the start of Season 3 of Mad Men, the award-winning drama about advertising in the Mid-Century. The new season begins August 16 on AMC, and not a minute too soon.
For those who have never seen an episode, or missed a Season, there are DVDs and other ways to watch on the internet. I strongly advise a trip through Season 1 and 2. Watching Mad Men is a complex, simple pleasure. This series offers High drama (and some comedy) among all the players, but also great insight into what happened in the advertising world circa late 1950s through the early 1960s. It is clear to me that the advertising world strongly contributed to the widespread popularity of smoking and drinking and other unhealthy habits. Underlining how important the marketing of smoking and drinking were to the success of the advertising agencies is the portrayal of Mad Men characters doing a lot of both.*** When you watch Mad Men, you have to get used to all the characters smoking and drinking, because that’s pretty much the way it went in the Mid-Century.
For example, here is Amy Vanderbilt, the queen of Mid-Century American manners, in the 1950s, discussing The Etiquette of Smoking in an advertisement for Lucky Strike cigarettes. This ad is truly an example of what must have been a creative advertising coup for ad men like Don Draper (Mad Men’s protagonist).
Ask Your Doctor
It must be said there isn’t much non-documentary television out there with a perspective as realistic and biting as Mad Men’s. Not only does the series help us see how we got into a place where Tobacco Companies seemed to have so much power with our government, we can also see how advertising shaped our feelings about automobiles, driving, gasoline and prescription drugs. If you’ve ever wondered why your parents or grandparents smoked or drank, Mad Men can answer some of your questions. Advertising took us down that road.
But Wait, There’s More
I should mention there are other important themes woven into the first two seasons of Mad Men. We see the roots of the women’s movement and civil rights activism beginning to take hold. We see some examples of competitive business and competitive lifestyles, as they were practiced in the Mid-Century, and also widespread infidelity, and its consequences. Some people also love Mad Men for the vintage clothing and Mid-Century design (impeccable).
As a see-er of life on different levels, I believe Mad Men is very much a program for our times. More and more of us are beginning now to understand how we have been misled by faulty and harmful advertising (take the credit card solicitations from a few years back or the widely advertised balloon-type mortgages), and Mad Men shows us how it all started. Yes, advertising was not new to the 1950s, but the push to entice consumers to want and desire more, despite the risks, was certainly part of the Mid-Century popular culture. You can watch and "read" Mad Men on many levels - from that of soap opera to incisive history of popular culture. It was this popular culture that influenced and affected our health and, ultimately, our standard of living.
Mad Men, as you will see (or have already seen) has great writing and acting. The creator of the series comes from a background of writing for the Sopranos, so there is little wonder about the rationale for the bite and darkness in some of the scenes.
A Limited Time Offer
From what I can tell, Mad Men brought a whole new group of viewers to AMC, a channel that was known for showing classic movies. It’s a similar story for Bravo, TLC, FX, and, of course, the Food Network. As wonderful programs become more available on outside-the-TV-big-box networks, the big old channels, like NBC, ABC, and CBS, have something to fear. Unless they get with the program and start producing series that have quality content, they are likely to lose more ratings, more viewers, and even more respect. We’ve already seen magazines falling by the internet wayside; big TV networks could be next.
***Program spoiler note: From one who knows, the cigarettes smoked by many, if not all, the actors on Mad Men are herbal and not carcinogenic tobacco.
08.10.09
