All popular culture is the shared dream of our times. It's an expression of something that resonates in the psyches of many people at the same time. To use a rather fancy German word, it captures the zeitgeist - the spirit of the time. This is basic to all popular culture, especially that which crosses over into the domain of genuine fad. The stuff that, in modern lingo, goes viral.
For all that, the particulars are missing in this explanation. How in fact do we explain the specific popularity of a TV set a half century earlier than the zeitgeist that it captures, as in the case of the Mad Men TV show? This is another matter.
Well, I don't claim to have the credentials of social psychologist or modern anthropologist -- that one might claim necessary to provide a definitive explanation. I will share a few thughts with you, though.
First off, those who claim Mad Men's appeal lies in capturing a simpler time have me baffled. Are we watching the same show? That's not what I see weekly on my television screen. Surely no one is mistaking this for Leave It to Beaver or Ozzie and Harriet. We have here a fifties and even early sixties that usually are pretty much invisible to the standard, mainstream cultural depiction: full of adultery, narcotics and ennui. Likewise, the show hardly downplays gruesome iconic political assassinations, the racial problems, gender inequalities nor the gradually approaching disaster of the Vietnam War. The popularity of the show could well in part be precisely the unusually candid depiction of such aspects of the era.
If it's just period accuracy you want, though, you can stop your dial at PBS. There is a whole other dynamic at work in the recipe for success of the Mad Men TV show. The production qualities can be itemized: yes, the writing is enthralling, full of profound character development and depicts real life adult conflict; the acting is superb; and the show is a constant delight visually, with meticulously accurate art work in settings and costumes and the luscious cinematography. That is of course perfectly true. There remains though something further, not accounted for in such descriptions.
There's still that something called, on this blog, the old school cool of Mad Men. The charm, the glamour, the charisma of lives lived with intention and absent cloying introspection. It's so subtle at first that it easily slips by your cultural radar. But it's there; the most compelling accuracy in Mad Men's great arsenal of period authenticity is the depiction of a time before the inundating of our society with a 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.
Yes, it's true that the therapeutization of the culture by these self anointed "experts" had already begun at this time. This fact is hinted at in the story line of Betty's breakdown. The insinuating psychologists, the prying school counselors, the know-it-all therapists, talk show mental health hucksters and big brother for-your-own-good social planners, even at this time, were rearing their ugly heads. Mad Men preserves for us a time before these insidious PC do-gooders had yet pulled off their hijacking of our society. They hadn't yetreduced it to the current state of therapeutic culture and rampant, claustrophobic paternalism.
It was a time before men were feminized, women were androgynized and children were pathologized. Sure, they weren't living anything like perfect lives. They had as many problems as we do. Whatever problems they did have, though, they dealt with free of today's peeping toms and patronizing nannies, poking noses into their lives.
The Don Drapers and Peggy Olsons of their world were the last of a unique generation, freed of having theirs emotions, feelings and actions relentlessly monitored, judged and administered by the therapeutic class. They were free in a way strangely foreign to us. And I suspect that that's part of our fascinated with their world. So close to ours, but oh so far away. That is what we're talking about, in the end, when talking about Mad Men's secret success: old school cool.
For all that, the particulars are missing in this explanation. How in fact do we explain the specific popularity of a TV set a half century earlier than the zeitgeist that it captures, as in the case of the Mad Men TV show? This is another matter.
Well, I don't claim to have the credentials of social psychologist or modern anthropologist -- that one might claim necessary to provide a definitive explanation. I will share a few thughts with you, though.
First off, those who claim Mad Men's appeal lies in capturing a simpler time have me baffled. Are we watching the same show? That's not what I see weekly on my television screen. Surely no one is mistaking this for Leave It to Beaver or Ozzie and Harriet. We have here a fifties and even early sixties that usually are pretty much invisible to the standard, mainstream cultural depiction: full of adultery, narcotics and ennui. Likewise, the show hardly downplays gruesome iconic political assassinations, the racial problems, gender inequalities nor the gradually approaching disaster of the Vietnam War. The popularity of the show could well in part be precisely the unusually candid depiction of such aspects of the era.
If it's just period accuracy you want, though, you can stop your dial at PBS. There is a whole other dynamic at work in the recipe for success of the Mad Men TV show. The production qualities can be itemized: yes, the writing is enthralling, full of profound character development and depicts real life adult conflict; the acting is superb; and the show is a constant delight visually, with meticulously accurate art work in settings and costumes and the luscious cinematography. That is of course perfectly true. There remains though something further, not accounted for in such descriptions.
There's still that something called, on this blog, the old school cool of Mad Men. The charm, the glamour, the charisma of lives lived with intention and absent cloying introspection. It's so subtle at first that it easily slips by your cultural radar. But it's there; the most compelling accuracy in Mad Men's great arsenal of period authenticity is the depiction of a time before the inundating of our society with a 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.
Yes, it's true that the therapeutization of the culture by these self anointed "experts" had already begun at this time. This fact is hinted at in the story line of Betty's breakdown. The insinuating psychologists, the prying school counselors, the know-it-all therapists, talk show mental health hucksters and big brother for-your-own-good social planners, even at this time, were rearing their ugly heads. Mad Men preserves for us a time before these insidious PC do-gooders had yet pulled off their hijacking of our society. They hadn't yetreduced it to the current state of therapeutic culture and rampant, claustrophobic paternalism.
It was a time before men were feminized, women were androgynized and children were pathologized. Sure, they weren't living anything like perfect lives. They had as many problems as we do. Whatever problems they did have, though, they dealt with free of today's peeping toms and patronizing nannies, poking noses into their lives.
The Don Drapers and Peggy Olsons of their world were the last of a unique generation, freed of having theirs emotions, feelings and actions relentlessly monitored, judged and administered by the therapeutic class. They were free in a way strangely foreign to us. And I suspect that that's part of our fascinated with their world. So close to ours, but oh so far away. That is what we're talking about, in the end, when talking about Mad Men's secret success: old school cool.
About the Author:
He 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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