I was a late adopter to the hit AMC series Mad Men. It had already had 2 sets of Emmys before I started watching the the acclaimed show. I heard so much gushing over the premise, the intrigue, the characters and Don, that I finally started tuning in on Sunday nights in season 3.
Why do we watch Mad Men?
- the style
- the sex
- the characters
- the mess
- the drinking
- the smoking
- the indulgence
- Don
I like the advertising industry story lines since I’m in a subset of that world. I love hearing the pitches for a campaign.
How did they get smoking to be sexy again? Oh, it’s because they have Don doing it. And adultery is OK? Well Don does that too. He makes everything look cool even when there are consequences for what he does. He wakes up coughing from his smoking habit, he gets caught having affairs, he spent a whole season drunk and barely functioning. Yet he still looks so damn good doing it. All men want to be Don and all women want to be with Don.
We follow Don through his existential crisis, his identity crisis, his warped views of women and how he treats them. Death is a popular subject on the show. Issues of the 60’s are covered: women’s rights, race, sex. All of the characters are deeply flawed and it’s in those flaws that we peek at our own dark side. There’s a difference between the bright shininess of what is advertised and what is real underneath.
Next season is the last season. Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men was interviewed on Fresh Air
Looking beyond the salvation or damnation of Don Draper, Weiner says he’s beginning to think about the way the show will ultimately end.
“You know the show is going to end on an ambiguous note,” he says. “My God, people must be prepared for that.”
My guess is that we will be left with wanting more and there will copious fan fiction stories.