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Why I Love...Mad Men

The cast of Mad Men
  • Posted at 4:55pm
  • 09 April 2008
  • by JackSeale-RT
  • 6 comments

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner used to write for The Sopranos, a show about male vanity, pride and rage. Mafiosi were the ideal metaphor, graphically showcasing men's destructive impulses. Mad Men has no guns, strippers or heaps of rigatoni, but its heart is just as black. It's set in a 1960s advertising agency - another macho hierarchy dedicated to doing something immoral, if not in this case actually illegal. Peeking into the brainstorming rooms of super-smart Madison Avenue is the hook, but the real point of Mad Men is to dissect the stunted male mind.

Those times when you stare out of your office window for ten minutes straight, unable to face opening an email headed "Q4 figures" and wondering when your boss will realise you don't know what you're doing, are Mad Men Moments. Here, modern consumerism's treadmill of jobs, mortgages and status symbols has just arrived, and the lost little boys at Sterling Cooper can't deal with it.

They spend all day trying to look like urbane, in-control adults who can see where they're going in life. Maintaining this lie is slowly driving them barmy. And writing ad copy is, of course, professional lying. It's also not proper work, leaving hours to fill with back-stabbing and one-upmanship. Uncomfortable parallels to one's own 9-5 existence are key to Mad Men's success, but so is its meticulous period backdrop. The early 60s are the recent but distant past, innocent but brutal: everyone smokes, everyone drinks and drives, sexism and racism are overt. This world doesn't have today's fashion for confessional self-analysis - appearances must be stiffly maintained, down to the slim suits and skinny ties that look both stylish and suffocating.

A show about feckless men has to feature unhealthy attitudes to women and, sure enough, everyone here supplements their loveless marriages - their wives being the biggest mystery to them of all - with loveless affairs. The closest Mad Men gets to emotionally mature characters is its women: Peggy, the rookie secretary who apparently has no ego, and Joan, the iron-breasted queen of the typing pool who's more coolly manipulative than any man.

So why watch this borderline nihilism? Because when it's as classy as this, it's compelling, like a genteel blood sport. Mad Men's protagonists reveal themselves slowly in measured two-handers, written with the utmost skill to tease out their neuroses. Plus there's always the possibility that someone will crack and go American Psycho on their colleagues. At the centre, as in The Sopranos, is a crumbling monolith of a man. The boss of the copywriting mafia is Don (ha!) Draper. He's the biggest faker of all: his entire life, including his name, is a lie he's constructed to escape his past. He's rudderless, but his wit, good looks and intense vulnerability mean we want him to survive.

Mad Men's most quietly terrifying scene sees Don leave his daughter's birthday party to pick up a cake, and not return. Hours later we see him, sitting in his car, next to the railway line, blankly staring at trains as they thunder past. We've all been there, eh lads?

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Comments

  • Posted on 28 May 2008
  • at 3:10pm
  • by oldfashionedgirl
After the final episode I just had to come back! The poingnant final scenes when Don returns home and the contrast between how he wished it to be and how it realy was, and the birth of Peggy's baby and her shattered dreams of a career left me longing for more. Yes, I suspected she might be pregnant in earlier episodes but the storyline was so cleverly written as to distract the watcher so that the final revelation came as a shock. I shall be suffering withdrawal symptoms for some weeks to come
  • Posted on 21 May 2008
  • at 4:26pm
  • by mannfay

Ive not enjoyed anything like Mad Men for so long I nearly stopped watching TV. It is unlike anything I have seen before. I long for every episode to continue......and can't wait for the next. One more to go. Please let there be another series.

  • Posted on 09 May 2008
  • at 1:43pm
  • by deano999

This series is sheer bloody genius! To think how awful was the reputation of American TV when I was young and how far it has come. I thought the Sopranos was the finest TV to ever make it over here, until I got into Mad Men. God, so many neuroses in one office! But what is superb is how tightly drawn are the characters: there are no short cuts for expediency's sake to get the story over and no-one ever acts out of character.

If you are reading this blog and have never seen Mad Men yet - SEE IT NOW! And don't worry about catching up, go to the Mad Men website for a resume - you soon wil get au fait with the characters.

  • Posted on 07 May 2008
  • at 10:11am
  • by oldfashionedgirl
What an amazing piece of serendipity when I chanced upon the first episode of madmen. I have been hooked ever since! Witty, subtle, dark with well drawn characters and an excellent sense of the period (without it being hammered home) there hasn't been an episode in this series that hasn't been totally absorbing.Alison Graham says nothing much happens -what does she want? Is she looking at the same programme I have been watching?I was 18 in 1960 and although British I well remember the sexism that existed then (I was subjected to it in a job interview)Sadly the series is drawing to a close, can we hope for another? can we hope for another!
  • Posted on 01 May 2008
  • at 4:29pm
  • by newface

But don't you see? It's about the women, not the men.

Don Draper is suave, talented and unreasonably handsome. Yet it's his chain-smoking wife and bits on the side (not-so-bitty: sharp, steely and stylish are the adjectives that spring to mind) that draw us in. Not to mention, Peggy, Joan, the "unfortunate" divorced single mother...

Don aside, the men deserve barely an adjective between them.

  • Posted on 20 April 2008
  • at 5:19pm
  • by wallisb235qg

It is a wonderful series, the characters are so sharp and witty - the 'hero' is an utter s--t, but totally charming, last week for example, he invited his boss back to a meal, 2 pieces of steak so his wife has salad, his boss makes a slight play for the wife so the next day Don (our hero) 'arranges' for the lift to be out of order when he and his boss come back from lunch and they have to climb 23 flights of stairs, they get to the top, our hero slightly out of breath, but his boss in bits, comes into the office and is promptly sick on the floor in front of the Agency boss and their most important Client! - absolutely magical!!!!!!!!!

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