If you aren't familiar with the show, it is about a fictional Madison Avenue ad agency circa 1960 (although the second season starts in 1962). Now, I wasn't alive in 1960, but from what I understand, the sets, the costumes, the mannerisms and personalities, the situations, etc are all painstakingly realistic to the time.
One of the best lines of the show is between two of the ad men:
Don: What do women want?
Roger: Who cares?
The interesting thing about the show is we see all these stereotypes, but we get to watch characters develop behind the stereotypes:
The acceptably sexist men
The cheating husbands
The husband-chasing secretaries
The (not so) happy housewives
The closeted gay man
The closeted gay woman
The seductive secretary
The wants-to-get-ahead secretary
The sweet husband (who, of course, ends up cheating)
Another interesting thing about the show is how closeted everyone is about their own life, regardless of what they are hiding.
I think this is especially interesting because it is so far from what our current society is like. Could you see any of the mistresses dragging their lovers and their wives onto a talk show to accuse them of being their baby daddy? Could you see any of the unhappy housewives actually admitting to their other housewife friends how unhappy they really are? Could you see any of the cheating husbands actually admitting to their wives that they are cheating? Would any of the husband-chasing women decide to go on a reality TV show to find a mate?
Yet, these actions have become so acceptable in 2008, whether on reality TV or talk shows, for all the world to see. Why is that? Why are we so eager to bear all and come clean and air our dirty laundry in public? Why is it almost an abnormality to keep private things private?
It used to be that women were known as the talkers, the communicators, the ones who shared everything. But even men are becoming like that. Is there any virtue in following the example of Mad Men, and returning to a society that values privacy? That is buttoned up, both verbally and in the style of dress? Our fashions are thankfully returning to a more conservative tone, maybe the rest of our lives (that we'll admit to) will follow suit.
Or at the very least, we'll see the value in keeping private things private between the involved parties, instead of splashed across a talk show's stage.
In the meantime, I'm am looking forward to the return of my new favorite cosmopolitan show set in New York.
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