As a rule, popular culture can be described as a kind common dream that says something about times in which we live. It resonate in the minds of many of us simultaneously. To borrow a lofty German term, it captures the zeitgeist - the spirit of the time. This is always true of popular culture, especially when it reaches the status of genuine fad. In the parlance of the time, when it goes viral.
Yet, as true as all that is, the particulars are missing from such an explanation. What is it in fact that a show set in a time a solid half century earlier is so perfectly capturing of the zeitgeist that it goes viral in the way that has the Mad Men TV show? This is another question.
I don't have the job description to qualify as providing some definitive explanation: I'm not a social psychologist or modern ethnographer. But I do have a few ideas.
I've heard some people say it captures a simpler time. Really? That's not what I see every week on my screen. This ain't Leave It to Beaver or Ozzie and Harriet. This is a 50s and even early 60s that isn't often recognized by mainstream mass media: full of adultery, narcotics and desperation. Neither does the show soft pedal the ugliness of the iconic political assassinations, the racial tensions, gender discrimination nor growing quagmire of the Vietnam War. On the contrary, if anything, perhaps one appeal of the show is the far more realistic depiction of the era than one commonly sees.
That, though, you can get from PBS. There's something else at work in the formula for success of the Mad Men TV show. Sure, the writing is great, full of deep character development and real life adult struggle; the acting is impeccable; and it is aesthetically delightful, with meticulously detailed attention to the art work in settings and costumes and the gorgeous cinematography. Yes, yes, all that is there, too. But there's still something more.
That something I've called I've called elsewhere the old school cool of Mad Men. The charm of lives lived with intention and absent cloying navel gazing. It subtle. Initially it can slip in under the radar. But it's there; the most compelling tidbit of authenticity in Mad Men's notorious inventory of 60s accuracy is the depiction of an era before the swamping of our society in the grim therapeutic ethos.
Whatever their challenges, the characters of Mad Men do not whine about how unfair life is, they don't complain that daddy didn't love them or mommy was too mean (though in some instances, that might well be the case). They take on life's challenges free of our contemporary fixation on communicating, expressiveness, finding ourselves and fretting over emotional IQ. This show captures the last great era of American life, before the guidance tyrants, emotion police and relationship regulators took over the culture.
Certainly, the social colonization of these so-called "experts" was already beginning at the time that Mad Med is set. This is gestured toward in the sub-plot of Betty's breakdown. The child psychologists, the local school snoops, the know-it-all therapists, talk show mental health snake oil salesmen and social engineering public policy savants, even then, were rearing their ugly heads. Mad Men though preserves for us a glimpse of an era before these self-righteous do-gooders had managed to hijack modern culture, reducing it to the current state of incipient therapeutics and runaway, claustrophobic paternalism.
It was a time before men were feminized, women were androgynized and children were pathologized. No, life wasn't perfect, but whatever other problems people had, they didn't have to deal with the peeping toms and patronizing nannies poking noses into their lives, guilt-tripping them about their feelings, ridiculing their choices and regulating their pleasures.
The Don Drapers and Peggy Olsons were the last of a generation who didn't have or need their emotions monitored, validated or otherwise administered by the therapeutic class. Despite all their problems, they were free in a way strangely foreign to us. And we can't help being a little fascinated with them because of it. That above all is the greatest secret to the old school cool of Mad Men.
Yet, as true as all that is, the particulars are missing from such an explanation. What is it in fact that a show set in a time a solid half century earlier is so perfectly capturing of the zeitgeist that it goes viral in the way that has the Mad Men TV show? This is another question.
I don't have the job description to qualify as providing some definitive explanation: I'm not a social psychologist or modern ethnographer. But I do have a few ideas.
I've heard some people say it captures a simpler time. Really? That's not what I see every week on my screen. This ain't Leave It to Beaver or Ozzie and Harriet. This is a 50s and even early 60s that isn't often recognized by mainstream mass media: full of adultery, narcotics and desperation. Neither does the show soft pedal the ugliness of the iconic political assassinations, the racial tensions, gender discrimination nor growing quagmire of the Vietnam War. On the contrary, if anything, perhaps one appeal of the show is the far more realistic depiction of the era than one commonly sees.
That, though, you can get from PBS. There's something else at work in the formula for success of the Mad Men TV show. Sure, the writing is great, full of deep character development and real life adult struggle; the acting is impeccable; and it is aesthetically delightful, with meticulously detailed attention to the art work in settings and costumes and the gorgeous cinematography. Yes, yes, all that is there, too. But there's still something more.
That something I've called I've called elsewhere the old school cool of Mad Men. The charm of lives lived with intention and absent cloying navel gazing. It subtle. Initially it can slip in under the radar. But it's there; the most compelling tidbit of authenticity in Mad Men's notorious inventory of 60s accuracy is the depiction of an era before the swamping of our society in the grim therapeutic ethos.
Whatever their challenges, the characters of Mad Men do not whine about how unfair life is, they don't complain that daddy didn't love them or mommy was too mean (though in some instances, that might well be the case). They take on life's challenges free of our contemporary fixation on communicating, expressiveness, finding ourselves and fretting over emotional IQ. This show captures the last great era of American life, before the guidance tyrants, emotion police and relationship regulators took over the culture.
Certainly, the social colonization of these so-called "experts" was already beginning at the time that Mad Med is set. This is gestured toward in the sub-plot of Betty's breakdown. The child psychologists, the local school snoops, the know-it-all therapists, talk show mental health snake oil salesmen and social engineering public policy savants, even then, were rearing their ugly heads. Mad Men though preserves for us a glimpse of an era before these self-righteous do-gooders had managed to hijack modern culture, reducing it to the current state of incipient therapeutics and runaway, claustrophobic paternalism.
It was a time before men were feminized, women were androgynized and children were pathologized. No, life wasn't perfect, but whatever other problems people had, they didn't have to deal with the peeping toms and patronizing nannies poking noses into their lives, guilt-tripping them about their feelings, ridiculing their choices and regulating their pleasures.
The Don Drapers and Peggy Olsons were the last of a generation who didn't have or need their emotions monitored, validated or otherwise administered by the therapeutic class. Despite all their problems, they were free in a way strangely foreign to us. And we can't help being a little fascinated with them because of it. That above all is the greatest secret to the old school cool of Mad Men.
About the Author:
Mickey Jhonny writes as well for The Walking Dead celebration site, Pretty Much Dead Already, about the Walking Dead fanfiction and the Walking Dead news.
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