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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
However great may be their daily challenges, the characters of Mad Men are not found whining over the unfairness of life; they don't wallow in self pity that father show them affection or that mother was bitter and cruel (though that may have been precisely so in some cases). They confront the obstacles of life unfettered by the present-day obsessions with communicating, expressiveness, finding ourselves and hand-wringing over one's emotional IQ. Mad Men offers us a window upon that last time in American life when our sense of self had not been corrupted by professional navel gazers: before the feelings tyrants, thought police and relationship regulators captured 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. No one would say their life was perfect, that's not the point. The problems they did have, though, they dealt with on their own terms, free from the peeping toms and patronizing nannies poking noses into their lives. They didn't make their choices constantly inundated with judgments and accusations about the legitimacy of their feelings, ridiculing their choices and regulating their hopes and desires.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
However great may be their daily challenges, the characters of Mad Men are not found whining over the unfairness of life; they don't wallow in self pity that father show them affection or that mother was bitter and cruel (though that may have been precisely so in some cases). They confront the obstacles of life unfettered by the present-day obsessions with communicating, expressiveness, finding ourselves and hand-wringing over one's emotional IQ. Mad Men offers us a window upon that last time in American life when our sense of self had not been corrupted by professional navel gazers: before the feelings tyrants, thought police and relationship regulators captured 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. No one would say their life was perfect, that's not the point. The problems they did have, though, they dealt with on their own terms, free from the peeping toms and patronizing nannies poking noses into their lives. They didn't make their choices constantly inundated with judgments and accusations about the legitimacy of their feelings, ridiculing their choices and regulating their hopes and desires.
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 is lead writer at the Mad Men celebration cite, the Don Draper Haircut.
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