Although I initially ignored it, I have become absolutely obsessed with AMC’s Mad Men, watching the entire first season in about a week. But beyond a now insatiable craving to start having scotch and cigarettes with lunch, it was impossible for my mind to stop buzzing throughout each episode. These are some thoughts I’ve collected on the show’s appeal to me and, more specifically, why I think it allows us to ‘witness the birth of contemporary era’ (there may be some minor spoilers).

Don Draper, Ad-Man: producing visions of America, producing visions of himself.

Often, as Don is making ad magic, the camera zooms in on his face and one feels as if one is viewing the creation of poetry. But Draper’s insistent clarity about what is being sold, those ineffable desires that make people want to buy, are as constructed by Don as they are perceived by him. Draper, the man who constitutes the public vision of America for itself, has also entirely created himself, building his life into the image of success that he simultaneously lives and aspires to. His pristine suburban home and Grace Kelly lookalike wife, Betty, only add to the idea that Don’s life is a beautiful fiction – and precisely the same fiction that he sets atop a mythic pedestal for American to strive towards.

Watching the Arrival of Late Capitalism

There are two key ‘advertising moments’ in season one of Mad Men. The first is Don’s mid-meeting realisation that when selling identical products – in this case, cigarettes – what is key is to produce an association between the brand and a desired trait. Lucky Strike smokes are ‘Toasted’ – that’s it. But more to the point is the baffled reaction to a VW ad for the Beetle/Bug that simply reads “Lemon”. The aim of the piece is twofold: to create an image of the brand rather than the product; and to have that image supercede the product in both importance and relevance.

But what is so fascinating about Mad Men is that we can see the struggle to understand this new world. Mired in it as we are, we are often only aware of the oppressive ubiquity of advertising and branding. In Mad Men, it’s almost as if we get a window into those first glimmers of the movement into today, a world in which we mark out our identities with the things we consume.

Retro Aesthetics; or, “Let’s Talk about Christina Hendricks’ Ass”. (Don’t worry – I won’t be as misogynistic as that sounds. )

The first thing most people remark on about Mad Men is its fastidious, obsessive dedication to getting the aesthetic of the sixties right, from the clothing to the hair to the technology. But what struck me was the following scene: Joan Holloway, bending forward in front on a two-way mirror and the men standing behind her in the observation room actually ‘saluting her ass’. The question though is almost one of aesthetics – and I quite deliberately mean to invoke the reduction of the female body to an aesthetic object. We live in an age where skinny women are idolized; what does it do then to watch men watching and ‘approving of’ Hendricks’ body which, as Buzzfeed remarked is, “refreshingly voluptuous”. It’s a strange dynamic – on the one hand, it’s clearly and explicitly sexist; and on the other it stands as an oddly ambiguous challenge to our own, more subtle contemporary forms of sexism.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that a group of guys ogling a woman is somehow a positive feminist move. But it’s not supposed to be. The question is what the effect of us watching them when the ‘object of affection’ (and the pun is intentional there) doesn’t conform to contemporary standards? Ask yourself: which phrase seems more out of place in the contemporary era, more indicative of a lack of understanding of ‘how things work’? “Wow, that woman has a great ass”; or, “I like bigger women”. Alone it’s worth considering, but in light of Mad Men and its representation of a radically different aesthetic and cultural mode, it’s even more so.

That Theme Song…

First, to steal a bit from Adam Lisagor, the way it pares down to the rhythm section just as the shot pulls out to a silhouette of Don is so great it makes me want to take it behind a middle school and quote 30 Rock with it. But the impossibility of distinguishing whether the tune is contemporary or retro is the perfect metaphor for the entire show. Is it about the past or the present? About things that are over or only just beginning? Where exactly is the line between… actually, you know what? You get the point. It’s fucking great.

Part 2 to follow…