It's Madison Ave. in 1960 when men were men, women were harassed and smoking was good, as the ad agency Sterling Cooper take their message to post-war America.
9.3
A good period television show is a rare thing. If the pilot of Mad Men is any indication, this one's going to be a good one, indeed. The premise is simple: we experience life in a New York ad agency by following two characters. The first is Senior Account Executive Don Draper. Clean cut, square jawed, and handsome, he is the epitome of the male of the species living the Playboy Philosophy on the cusp of the 60's. The second is junior secretary Peggy Olsen, fresh from secretarial school and innocent of face, we soon learn hers is an innocence that may hide naivete, or something more cunning. Surrounding our two leads are a collection of junior executives with more sass and vinegar than sense, convinced the advertising world is their oyster, and a collection of women determined to hook one of the men who surround them by any means necessary, including tolerating unrelenting sexual harassment. It's a world of narrow ties, nosecone bras, blatant anti-Semitism, sharply defined gender roles and hard drinking, all seen through a cloud of cigarette smoke. The male characters we meet are predictably male: they smoke, they drink, and women are their toys, to use, discard and judge. Given how comparatively short a distance men have traveled since the sixties, their conduct is discomfiting, but still somewhat familiar, a grosser version of behavior still seen all too often today. More intriguing, and surprising is the dynamic among the women, who seem to not only accept the harassment as part and parcel of life in the office, but in fact, pander to it. As is seen in curvaceous office manager Joan's advice that Peggy evaluate her assets with a bag over her head, it was a tacit understanding among these women that they were there for one reason: pursuit of the male of the species. The subtleties of female aggression are explored, too, in a simple scene where Peggy must bring gifts to the telephone operators, who leave her in no doubt the power to make her or break her they wield: power politics of a very different kind than that practiced by the men they both serve and pursue.
In 1960, the cigarette was king, but the crown weighed heavy as the dangers of smoking were becoming increasingly hard to deny. For Don, the challenge was simple: combat a recent Reader's Digest article regarding the health hazards of smoking and design a new ad campaign for an unfiltered cigarette. And Don is stumped, until blind inspiration comes from an off-handed description of how tobacco is processed, made by a cigarette company executive (played effectively by John Cullum, in a one-scene appearance.) This is a show not about the grind of making advertising happen, but about Madison Ave. magic. Less magical, however, is Don's interaction with Rachel Menken, owner of Menken's Department store, an upscale "Jewish" store in a slump. We anticipate Don's anti-Semitism will flavor the meeting with Rachel, but when Rachel dismisses Don's trite strategies for marketing to housewives (a coupon and a spot ad on a family comedy,) we discover what really threatens Don is a smart, independent woman who not only wants to do business on level ground, but doesn't see the need to have a man help her do it. I found myself wondering just how much of Don's seeming prejudice is a survival strategy; he says what he must to survive. And survival would seem to be key in the cutthroat world of advertising. We see that again and again, whether it be the Italian stallion tactics used by the clearly gay junior executive Salvatore, or the misdirect and conquer advertising Don proposes to the cigarette company. Everyone we meet seems to be clinging to something by their fingernails and hanging on for dear life. It's a brutal world these men and women inhabit. In the end, though, it's the women who intrigued me the most, and it's they, along with the very effective Don Draper, who will keep me coming back for more.
