Don Draper: American Badass

Mad Men




Ok, I admit I am coming to this party tardy. But let me just tell all you other holdouts out there that if you have not seen Mad Men get this crap in your netflix queue pronto. I originally watched some episodes a couple of years ago out of order, did not understand what the show was trying to do and canned it. I recently sat down and watched the first nine episodes back to back and let me tell you, holy crap.

The show takes place in 1960 in a fictional advertising firm called Sterling-Cooper. Every character that works in this office and their significant others are so profoundly unhappy it is hard to even quantify the depth of their misery and yet none of the characters misses any opportunity to make themselves more unhappy than they are at any given moment.

The remarkable thing about this show is how funny it is. All of the screwed up attitudes people had fifty years ago about sex, race, equal rights, bigotry, the environment and communism are in full effect here and no one bats an eye. The secretaries exist to have sex with their bosses or prevent anyone else from knowing who they are having sex with. The booze and cigarettes are ubiquitous and the white upper class ad men are blissfully and naively unaware of the world that exists one inch beyond the tips of their noses.

This is the type of show that has a closeted gay character whom everyone else considers without irony to be a confirmed bachelor. Virtually every character is in some form of super denial and all are some parts tragic and comic. Don Draper, a partner and the creative director at Sterling-Cooper, is the main character. On the surface he is every man's ideal best buddy. Successful, handsome and smart; smooth is the word that best describes him. Draper, on closer examination, reveals that he has a great deal of inner turmoil that causes him to make potentially dangerous decisions with his personal life.

Draper's opposite number in the office is Joan Harris the office manager. This woman may be the best looking lady I have ever seen. Dressed in sixties clothing that accentuates her rather curvy bod she uses the office to push her own agenda. At times she seems to be out to have fun and at other times her more calculating nature shows through and it looks as if she is merely working at Sterling-Cooper in order to find a husband. Because she doesn't respect most of the men she works for this is a source of conflict for her. She wants to be taken seriously as a smart, capable woman, but she doesn't feel that she can abandon her role as sexy office sex bomb. That doing so would represent a loss of power.

It is these trade offs that dominate every show. Seeing the compromises that people make, the things that people value which today would be valueless gives one the feeling that they are eavesdropping on a dinner party their parents are having, hearing conversations lost and from long ago.

You should rent this TV Show if:

1. You want to see a truly excellent show.
2. You are under 40 and want to know what the swinging sixties were really like.
3. You think things are going badly and want to feel good about your life and relationships.

You should buy this TV Show if:

1. You want an example of what an excellent TV show looks like to pull out and watch everytime Win it in a Minute comes on.
2. Christina Hendricks is the only example of intelligent design I can think of.
3. Don Draper is James Bond, Superfly and Kung Fu all rolled into one.
4. Buy it.

Here is a link to Amazon where you can buy Mad Men Season 1 on DVD for reasonable price: