(S01E02) "I can't tell you about my childhood. It will ruin the first part of my novel." - Don Draper
Is it possible to fall in love with a TV show? I don't mean a show that you really like and respect and put on your TiVo season pass, I mean a show you actually want to date and kiss and walk hand in hand with on the beach? Mad Men is that show for me. I'm even in love with the credits, a montage of black and white graphical images of buildings and people and subtle, sly music.
I also like how this show is set in 1960. It's firmly set in the attitudes of the 1950s but there are more than enough hints that the "60s" that we all know is coming fast. And these people are trying to prepare for it (some a lot more than others, of course).
Tonight's plot: Betty seems unhappy, to the point of not only having her hands go numb (she almost wrecks the car with the kids in it) but also to the point of thinking of seeing a psychiatrist. But only "unhappy" saw shrinks in 1960 right? Don tries to talk her out of it.
At the office, everyone is still hitting on Peggy (what exactly is in the water at Sterling Cooper anyway?). Most of the guys are blunt and creepy, though Paul seems to have a little more depth to him (he seems to genuinely like Peggy as a person and even suggests she become a copywriter), even when he makes a pass at her in his office. He read her wrong. Of course, Peggy is waiting for Pete to come back from his Niagara Falls honeymoon (Roger's view: "Niagara Falls. It redefines 'lack of imagination.' "). Don is working on the RIght Guard account (a new space age deodorant in a can - how do you pitch that?), and it also looks like he's going to be handling Richard Nixon's campaign. This could be great fodder in a fun, historical sort of way, the 1960 campaign versus JFK, though I hope they don't go overboard and point out all these events with Nixon and Kennedy that we now know went a different way. It could tip into the "overly clever" realm, but I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it in future eps. (As for the solution to the Right Guard campaign, you'll figure out the angle 5 minutes before it's announced.)
Is it weird that while watching this I often forget that it's a 2007 show about 1960 and not some movie made in 1960. OK, I'm not crazy or anything (there's that shrink talk again), but it gets the mood and attitudes and music and style so right that it sucks you into the world. There's a funny scene with Betty and another wife talking in Betty's kitchen and one of her kids has a dry cleaner bag over her head. She tells her to come over, and we think that she's going to shake her finger at her and tell her she could suffocate in that bag, but she only warns the girl that her clothes better not be on the floor. This isn't bad parenting, this probably was just another thing they didn't quite worry about 47 years ago. Like when the kids aren't secured in Betty's car during the accident and all the smoking.
I'm curious as to where the writers are taking the Don/Betty relationship. Jon Hamm should be nominated for an Emmy for his performance - it's a no-brainer, actually, and I hope it comes true. He seems moral and a family man, even as he's schtupping the pretty artist in some apartment any chance he gets. He's old-fashioned but open enough to the new world, just a bit. Is it possible to be the "nice guy" on the show but also a cheater?
Betty ends up seeing the psychiatrist (after a weird speech about her not being afraid that she almost killed the kids in the car accident but that it could have been even worse - her daughter could have gotten a scar on her face!) The episode ends with Don secretly calling the doctor to get a full report on her state of mind.
There's a scene where Paul tells Peggy that he'll kill himself if they cancel The Twilight Zone. Peggy has never watched it because she doesn't like science fiction. Mad Men reminds me of that show, the way Rod Serling used monsters and aliens and the supernatural to talk about the social problems of the day. Like creator Matthew Weiner says in a behind the scenes snippet after the show, they can talk about things on this show in a way they couldn't talk about them in a show set in 2007. That's interesting to me.
And like Paul, I'll be upset if my new favorite show is cancelled too.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-27-2007 @ 4:03AM
gooby said...
I watched the first episode and that's where it's gonna end with me. It might be a great look at what the 60s were about, but the truth is, it pissed me off so much that I just can't devote another hour of my life to something that makes me hate men and the way they've treated women back then (and in some cases, presently as well). I just, can't.
I wouldn't exactly call this entertainment, at least not for me. I'm sorry to say that being pissed off and wanting to smack every character that was on screen didn't really make for a good viewing experience. But I'm glad some found it entertaining. To each its own, I guess.
I don't really need a show like this to tell me that things were screwed up and unfair back then and we've come a long way since then... or have we. Either way, I don't care. I rather watch Pushing Daisies or Psych than this.
Sorry to be all negative nancy, but that's my take on this show.
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7-27-2007 @ 8:33AM
Jim said...
Go ahead and date a TV show, Bob. Just be forewarned that "Mad Men" is male.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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7-27-2007 @ 1:10PM
khamel said...
Mad Men - where men were men and women were objects.
I still like, not love, the show but it seems to be going overboard on some of its cooler/interesting aspects. I get it, people smoked, do they ever not smoke though? Maybe i'm just a naive 24 year old, but its getting old already.
I hope it doesn't blow its load too early in the season and run out of steam before the finale (and hopeful second season).
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7-27-2007 @ 2:11PM
Karen said...
I'm old enough to have been raised by Don and Betty's generation of parents--no, we didn't have seat-belts until the early 1960s, but my parents sure as hell knew that you suffocate with a plastic bag over your head. I understand the point that they were trying to make, about a time when parenting paranoia hadn't reached its current heights, but it didn't actually work.
James Wolcott, over at newcritics.com, made the point that there isn't much narrative yet, and that the show is to a great extent letting its considerable style "do the heavy lifting." To an extent that's true. Peggy is a bit of a cypher--well-bred Brooklyn girl goes on the The Pill and shtups the office Neanderthal on his wedding eve? It didn't really work.
Some of the period detail seems to clobber us over the head, and some of the period attitudes seem almost...hmmm. How to phrase this? Like the writers are enjoying giving voice to their own secret prejudices in the name of pre-PC behavior. I felt that most strongly in the scene where the "Hitler Youth" pin down one of their colleagues on Don's desk and assault him with the aerosol deodorant. One of them makes a remark about him being "the girl" that was, frankly, a bit over the top in terms of period detail.
But I'm the daughter of a guy who sold ad space, and I grew up with "Advertising Age" in the house, and I'm a total ad game junkie, so I'll keep watching for now.
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7-27-2007 @ 2:51PM
paulie said...
I work in advertising on the account side, and I wish the era of the 60's would return. In this high-stressed politically bullshit industry you should be allowed to smoke and drink in the office. It would alleviate some of the tension.
Also, ERA was the worst thing that ever happened to this country. Woman should go back to being barefooted and pregnant and/or fetching my starbucks. I am sick of these naieve, talentless cunts playing around in a Man's world.
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7-27-2007 @ 3:50PM
gsh said...
This is going to be fascinating. Betty's hand numbness is a typical early sign of Multiple Sclerosis. And I don't think the diagnosis or treatment was at all useful in 1960. Quack quackery ahead!
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7-27-2007 @ 5:27PM
Bash said...
Damn it. Bob loves this so it most definitely will get canceled .
I love this show because it's the complete opposite of "Desperate Housewives" - The golden 60s, when the female orgasm was still a myth...
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7-28-2007 @ 12:11AM
Justin said...
I love how some folks are taking the chauvinism personally. Yes, it's a men-dominated show but that only reflects the late 50s/early 60s era. There are the subtle hints of change and women being confident without being labeled feminists.
The second episode hooked me much more than the first. I'm a fan of stylized 50s noir. And to answer people's questions: yes, everyone smoked and smoked often during the period. It may seem like overkill but it honestly was the time and place of cigarettes. All that supressed sexual tension and social revolution anxiety had to be put into something.
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7-28-2007 @ 1:29AM
marali said...
I, like you, am having orgasms over this show. How true how true that this is where we came from.
I was born in 1962. I've turned my 18 year old daughter and all of her friends on to it.
However, like "I'll Fly Away", I'm sure many will miss the point.
When was the last time that such an exceptionally stylized show will succeed?
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7-30-2007 @ 1:31PM
Roberta said...
First of all; I love the show. I think it somehow manages to portray how far we've come and simultaneously how we've not really advanced so much. I work in pharmaceutical advertising; finding a way to say that something is healthy when you are absolutely not allowed to say any such thing is a way of life in that world.
I don't, however, have the experience of thinking that this show is of the era that it is set in. I never get 'lost' in the era. To me the magic is that we are clearly looking at things through today's eyes. The writers do need to watch the head-clobbering when it comes to the period details and ironies, but so far I think it is just the right balance... and it is what I love best about the show. I think it is achieving what Far From Heaven was shooting for... exposing an underbelly. The balance is to be found (as opposed to the head-clobbering) by not overexposing it. By exposing it to us, the 2007 audience, by including us in the foreshadowing, we are all on bated breath, waiting to see if these characters will ever get just how twisted it all seems.
(For example... we know that there is a gay character when he doesn't even know.)
This is brilliant stuff.
PS is there a moderator here? Do we really need Paulie's comment? This isn't a democracy; that comment should be scratched.
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7-31-2007 @ 5:55PM
Lady Farin said...
It's so gay that all the men want to say what Borat put right on the table when he hitched a ride with all the drunk southern boys in the RV who slurringly agreed that "all women should be slaves". I haven't yet seen a guy with the balls to say what a wet dream this show is, no just a bunch of sugar-coated pacifist crap disguising the old machoism. However, the show is beautifully produced, flawlessly acted but unfortunately the writing is a bit off as to what it was really like back then and there's no indication of men treating women like princesses in public, i.e., if a man grabbed a ladies' butt in public, another man would punch him out for it. There was a lot of sexual harassment in the office but people also didn't talk about it like it's presented on the show, it was discreetly done and not out in front of anybody. I don't think the writers interviewed enough people in old folks' homes to get the real story. I can tell you that the public ladies rooms back then were so spotless you could eat off the floor and nobody ever dreamed of not flushing the toilet or leaving anything on the seat without wiping it up themselves. Sigh* I do miss the public niceties but I wouldn't go back to being sexually harassed for anything. I'm just waiting for the newspapers to start carrying stories of women punching out male co-workers that think the show means they can get away with it. Ah, sexual harassment lawsuits on the rise!! Too bad, I think with a little less shock value and a little more research this could have been a really great show. I see why HBO passed on this pitch. Art director is top notch however. Lady Farin
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7-31-2007 @ 6:13PM
Lady Farin said...
Ahh, I see Paulie gets it, at least he's honest about it!! I, too, work with a bunch of fluffs half the time and I don't mind at all fetching Starbucks for my bosses but I do draw the line at having to put out to keep my job. As feminist as I am, I am also feminine enough to say I would like to meet a NICE man who really liked/loved me for who I am that would support me and I would make sure he had a hot meal and drink waiting for him when he got home; however, we would always go out for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights. I think it is the dependency part that makes a guy want to take advantage of a woman. A real man is a real man no matter what the situation. Lady Farin
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