Human zoos (Madison Ave. and the suburbs) A.D. 1960

Preface
 
The 1950s are widely celebrated as being the "golden age" of television. There were some live dramas that have lived on mostly in memory (though some have become available on DVD) along with Milton Berle (a taste I never acquired), "What's My Line" (ditto), ""The Honeymooners," "I Love Lucy," "Ozzie and Harriet," "Father Knows Best," and "Leave It to Beaver" (all of which I watched in reruns and/or in 1960s seasons. I watched westerns, but my ogre of a grandfather loved "Gunsmoke," so I avoided it.

I liked "Maverick," Wanted"Dead or Alive," and "Have Gun Will Travel" more than "Deadwood," but, leaving westerns aside, I think that the golden age of television decade is the one we are in with "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under," "The Wire," "Rome," "Dexter," "Weeds," "Damages," and "Arrested Development" and more (for me, "Queer as Folk" and the last six seasons of "NYPD Blue" rather than "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "Grey's Anatomy"). These series have long arcs and developing multitudes of multidimensional characters.

Review

The new series with critical buzz before the 2007 network tv series began was ACM's "Mad Men." I watched the first episode when it was first broadcast, but between seeing no likable characters and the presence of commercials, I stopped there. After it was available on DVD and won six Emmies, including Best Dramatic Series, the Golden Globe for Best Dramatic Series, and the Screen Actors' Guild for Best Ensemble Cast, I rewatched the somewhat klunky first episode that introduced the "Mad[ison Avenue] Men" and their neurotic women (both in the office and tucked out in the suburbs, plus one Jewish heiress, Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff ), wanting to make the store more upscale).

Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is a sort of stolid late-1950s leading man, like Rock Hudson. Like Hudson, Don has secrets to conceal while maintaining a rugged facade. He has fled his past, coming out of the Korean War in one piece and a lieutenant's rank. He is the most creative person in Sterling/Cooper,  a medium-size Manhattan advertising agency, with a former model in the Grace Kelly mold, Betty (January Jones) out in the suburbs raising their young son and daughter. Both Don and Betty chain smoke. Luck Strike is one of the firm's clients, so Don has an excuse of loyalty to the customer (though he is also better able to cut through the disinformation campaigns about links between smoking and cancer..) The characters also imbibe a lot of hard liquor—in the office and elsewhere.

In the first episode, I sympathized with Don's new secretary, Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) and Ms. Menken, both of whom were treated rudely, the latter only by Don. By the end of the 13 episodes of the first season, I still had not found any characters to like, though I had some sympathy for Don and the young schemer Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) by the second episode and its glimpses at how they were raised. As the assured but still self-deluded queen of the office, Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks in very tight dresses) somewhat amused me. I remained appalled by the resident closet queen, Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt) and could not muster sympathy for Don's boss, Roger Sterling (John Slattery).

I don't know what Madison Avenue agencies were like in 1960, but the set decoration and props, clothing, racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism seem authentic to me. A lot of the ads, including the Lucky Strike "It's toasted" one that Don devises, are lifted from the time. The firm is also attempting to help Richard Nixon's presidential campaign, though the candidate was not willing to take their advice.

One interesting development — the historical plausibility of which I question — is Peggy getting recognized and promoted to being a writer. Heaven knows, she is clueless in other regards and has a gynecologist whom I think deserved to be shot.

And Don's real background poses a threat of blackmail, even as Betty is coming around to recognizing that Don's fidelity is fake.

The flashbacks to hardscrabble childhood don't impress me. Those to war in Korea do, and the historical recreations of restaurants, urban apartments, suburuban homes, and, above all, the Sterling/Cooper office are very impressive—and had to be expensive.

The show's writing has received a lot of praise. I don't think that is groundbreaking, as "The Sopranos" that spawned it, was. The office politics and infidelities are reshuffling of old decks, sold by good actors, some of whom recognize that the clothes make the character, or at least provide a foundation for characterization.


There are commentary tracks for each episode and a number of bonus features on advertising, on period music, etc. The "making of" feature(s) on the third disc provide plot-spoilers of what is still ahead, BTW. There's also a slideshow with commentary, and a preview for Season Two.



© 2009, Stephen O. Murray

Episodes:
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"
"Ladies Room"
"Marriage of Figaro"
"New Amsterdam"
"5G"
"Babylon"
"Red in the Face"
"The Hobo Code"
"Shoot"
"Long Weekend"
"Indian Summer"
"Nixon vs. Kennedy"
"The Wheel"