In a sense, this show doesn’t belong here.
Overthinking It proclaims its niche as “subjecting popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn’t deserve.” Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men definitely deserves scrutiny. (We’ve already got some here, in a special podcast supplement.) Everything, from its stylistic choices to its minimalist presentation to its historical grounding, communicates meaning on multiple levels.
(In fact, I wonder if there’s an audience out there that underthinks this show, that just takes it at face value. “Gee, Joan sure seems unhappy with her husband. I wonder why she doesn’t just leave him?” Ah, well. I’m glad you’re not one of those lightweights. Good thing we’re deep intellectuals, eh, Overthinking It readers? *clinks martini glass*)
Several quality weblogs exist to recap and delve into the references sprinkled throughout each episode. We won’t be challenging that hill. But now that season 3 of the most intriguing show on television has wrapped, with this past Sunday’s season finale, we can delve into the season, and the series, as a whole.
So shut the door, have a seat, and settle in for some Overthink.
(Warning: the following post will contain substantial spoilers for Season 3 of Mad Men)
It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To
For the newbies, Mad Men is an AMC original series depicting an advertising agency in New York in the 1960s. It follows the lives of Don Draper (Jon Hamm), his wife Betty (January Jones), his clients and his subordinates. Extramarital affairs are frequent, sexism and racism are rampant and nobody tells anybody the truth.
Season 3 began in the spring of 1963. The ad agency of Sterling Cooper has been bought up by a British advertising firm and the transition still seems rocky. Two young go-getters, Pete Campbell and Ken Cosgrove, are made competing account managers, with the presumption being that one of them will ultimately claim the sole title. Roger Sterling, having divorced his wife and married his secretary last season, grows further removed from the company he supposedly owns. Joan gracefully retires from her secretarial role, only to find that her husband isn’t as competent a breadwinner as she’d believed. Salvatore Romano’s homosexuality becomes less of a secret and Peggy’s ambitious career climb starts to earn her some enemies – as well as some romantic attention.
Don Draper’s wife, Betty, begins to take a more active role in her own life. Her senile father moves into the Drapers’ spare room for a few months before his death, awakening a sense of learning and pride in his granddaughter Sally. After a rough pregnancy, Betty gives birth to a son: the family’s third child. She makes small steps in defining a life for herself outside of housewifery, pursuing an affair with Henry, a campaign chair for Governor Rockefeller. Though she’s still a child in many ways, we start seeing a semblance of maturity in her.
But Don Draper remains the enigmatic center around which Mad Men revolves. Through luck and charisma, he bags Sterling Cooper’s most prestigious client yet, Hilton Hotels, after a chance meeting with the eccentric Conrad Hilton. Connie proves too demanding, even for the work-obsessed Draper, and he falls back into habits that he promised Betty he’d left behind. Chief among these is skirt-chasing: he begins a passionate affair with his daughter Sally’s teacher. But a bit of carelessness leads Betty to discover Don’s darkest secret: that he was born Dick Whitman, the poor son of a prostitute; that “Don Draper” was a sergeant in the Korean War whose dog tags he swiped after a mortar raid; and that he’d had a wife in California under that name whom he divorced.
All this and the Kennedy assassination, too.
In the roller coaster season finale, Draper, Cooper and Sterling stage a coup when they learn that the agency is being sold yet again. Don pulls out every trick in his arsenal and calls in every favor he has to continue working for himself. He doesn’t display that level of passion for his own marriage, though, letting his wife and family slip further away from him. Don completes the arc that his father aborted in his childhood, doing whatever it takes to save the family farm.
As stated before, Mad Men tackles such a complex range of themes, events and thoughts that it demands overthinking. There is no superficial level on which to engage it. Many of the show’s motifs – the difference between appearance and reality, the subtle games of power, the war between young and old – have been discussed to death in better media than ours.
But there are two overarching themes for Season 3 that we can uncover.
The Answer, My Friend, Is Blowing In the Wind
Every character in Mad Men looks elsewhere for the force that will give their life meaning.
Some do this because they have little other choice. Salvatore Romano, the closeted gay art director for Sterling Cooper, buries himself in his work and his marriage to bottle up the feelings he succumbed to on a business trip in Ep1. But when trapped in an awkward situation by a sexually aggressive client, Don fires Sal, with some regret but little hesitation.
Peggy and Joan, the strongest females on the show, continue to pull in opposite directions. Peggy climbs the corporate ladder at Sterling Cooper with unprecedented speed. But her ambition makes other writers like Kinsey jealous of her and makes Don frustrated. Joan gets everything she always wanted: a marriage to a handsome, successful doctor. Only the doctor’s not quite as successful, or stable, as she imagined him to be. Both characters end Season 3 on an optimistic note, but only because they have a new crisis into which they can throw themselves. Outside of work, what do they have?
And the power couple of the show – Don and Betty – live meaningless lives because they lacked meaningful childhoods. We only get glimpses of Betty’s childhood in Season 3, hinted at in her strained relationship with her father. Betty has made up for it so far by living a child-like adulthood: drifting from one male to another in search of the one to save her. Don certainly had a childhood packed with meaning; he flashes back to it several times in the beginning of Season 3. But he’s done everything he can to bury that childhood, and his past before the war, behind him. Neither Don nor Betty have a firm foundation on which to build their adulthoods. This is unfortunate, because they picked a hell of a year in which to grow up.
Toward the end of Season 3, we start to see some anchorless characters gain a stronger resolve. Peggy enters an odd but satisfying affair with “Duck” Phillips, getting the sexual liberation she’s craved since Season 1. Pete Campbell, previously a vacuous blue-blood, becomes embittered in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. Betty, after some hesitation, reaches out to Henry to start a new life – the same sort of romantic liaison her husband has engaged in for years. And of course, there’s the pressure of starting a new business to keep everyone busy.
But not everyone ends up so lucky.
Mad Men is a story about men and women searching for meaning. Mad Men can tell this story because it’s set in an ad agency. Consumer capitalism, which really came into its own following World War II, sells products that add meaning to people’s lives. If Americans don’t believe that their choice of cigarette will make them happy, or that a slide projector can restore the innocence of youth, then Don Draper and his crew are out of a job.
The language of advertising transforms products from the utilitarian to the spiritual. You don’t stay in a Hilton Hotel because of price or convenience. You stay in a Hilton Hotel because it brings the comforts of home to a foreign setting. Pepsi can reinvigorate our tired routine; AquaNet can capture the man who’ll provide for us; London Fog can take us on stimulating romantic adventures.
Most of the characters in Mad Men started 1963 with a brand in lieu of a soul. Roger Sterling was the silver fox with a trophy wife; Hilton was the golden treasure that every ad agency sought to claim; Don Draper, the genius with his finger on the pulse of culture. But we discovered that the brand and the product behind it don’t always relate. Roger is more of a lost boy than a dignified man; consider his Kentucky Derby party, or his growing feuds with his new wife. Conrad Hilton turns out to be a cranky, implacable eccentric. And Don? Behind the mask, what is Don Draper?
The Kennedy assassination, the climax of Season 3, exposes branding as the poor prop it is. So many smart young Democrats in their 20s and 30s identified with Kennedy. The youngest President, the first President to capitalize on the new medium of television, and the first definitively “post-war” President in 30 years, Kennedy blessed his fans with youthful optimism. When he died violently, the entire cast of characters took a punch to the gut. It’s in light of this tragedy that Pete grows a spine, Betty declares to Don that she no longer loves him, and Don stages a walkout at Sterling Cooper. When your crutch gets knocked away from you, you stay down or you pull yourself back up.
The men and women of Mad Men search for a force to give their lives meaning. Whether they find it or not tells you how their story will turn out.
Wise Men Stay, Only Fools Rush In
Episode 6 of this season, “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency,” begins with Ken Cosgrove triumphantly driving a John Deere lawnmower onto the floor of Sterling Cooper. He’s just won the John Deere account, a big feather in his cap. Later, the entire office has a party to celebrate the arrival of new British staff and Joan’s departure. Cheap liquor flows and one of the secretaries takes a turn on the John Deere lawnmower. As Peggy and Joan bond over their common trials, the din of the mower’s engine grows louder.
Any long-time fan of Mad Men will tell you that their most frequent reaction to the show isn’t laughter, or catharsis, or even a quiet poignancy. When you watch this show, you cringe.
The second theme of Season 3 of Mad Men is that it’s going to end exactly the way you think.
Don starts a new affair with his daughter’s teacher, Miss Farrell. He drives over to her apartment one evening after a disappointing day at the office. The two flirt for a while, dancing on the boundary between committing to the affair and walking away. “I know exactly how it ends,” Farrell says. She’s thought about sleeping with Don, but she’s also thought about how it’ll turn out in the long run. Don’s response: “So what? […] I want you. I don’t care. Doesn’t that mean anything to someone like you?” And they begin the affair. And, as everyone knew in advance, it can’t last.
Betty discovers the key to the desk drawer we’ve been watching Don fill for three seasons now – a drawer full of evidence of his past life as Dick Whitman. After fretting over it for a few weeks and consulting her family attorney, she confronts Don with it in “The Gypsy and the Hobo.” “I could have had a locksmith in here any time I wanted,” Betty tells him. “You obviously wanted me to know this, or you wouldn’t have left your keys. You wouldn’t have kept all this in my house.” Don’s secret was too big for him to keep forever: Pete Campbell and Bert Cooper both discovered it in Season 1. And Don was too smart a man not to know that. He kept making it day by day, however, hoping that the secret would hold at least until he got to bed.
But the biggest sword hanging over our stars’ heads is mounted in “Love Among the Ruins,” when Roger meets with his ex-wife and their daughter to plan his daughter’s wedding. She brings some sample invitations, and Roger muses over the date. The camera lingers long enough to make sure we all get it: November 23rd, 1963. A Saturday wedding in the fall. From that point on, every episode heightens the tension and brings us closer.
Of course, the Kennedy assassination isn’t the only funeral bell chiming in Season 3. The civil rights movement becomes violent in the South, with the death of Medgar Evers (“The Fog”) and the Birmingham church bombing (“Love Among the Ruins”). We only get glimpses of this battle in cozy liberal New York – usually through the Draper’s maid Carla, or the occasional radio snippet of Dr. King’s speech on The Mall – but they’re enough to keep historically aware audiences clued in. Pay attention, the show is saying. Something’s about to happen.
It’s impossible to be optimistic about Roger’s daughter’s wedding. We know it’s going to be ruined as soon as we learn the date. It’s impossible to share Miss Farrell’s optimism regarding Dr. King’s speech; we know he has less than five years to live. It’s impossible to hold out hope for Sal; we know the status of homosexual rights in the U.S. in 2009, much less in 1963. This fatalism creeps into every aspect of the show until it starts informing every part of each episode.
We know what’s going to happen because Mad Men is set forty-six years in the past. But we also know what’s going to happen because Mad Men is about choice disguised as fate.
We cringe when Peggy falls into bed with “Duck” Phillips, or when Sal makes a lying phone call to his wife from the Rambles, or when Betty confronts Don over his past with an unflinching glare. We wonder about the cruel fate that brought them to that place. But an eye for the show’s history reminds us that each of those characters made a succession of choices (mostly smart, some bad) that led them to that point. Peggy craved a sexually adventurous life with a man who could treat her well and stimulate her intellectually. If the only man in her life who fits that role is an older ex-coworker, so be it. Salvatore wanted to climb the ranks at Sterling Cooper by taking on ambitious projects (London Fog, Pepsi “Patio”, Lucky Strike), even if that meant repressing his homosexuality. And the choices Don’s made hardly need to be revisited.
Though the institutional biases of the period, like racism, sexism and classism, play a large role in defining attitudes, Mad Men makes clear that you still have a choice. Choosing outside the boundaries of the institution carries risks: vide Kurt, the blonde German art designer who openly admits to his homosexuality in Season 2 and how little we see of him thereafter. vide Kinsey, who in Season 2 dates a black girl and goes with her to civil rights protests in the South (though it’s implied that this may be an affectation).
Is it possible to evade the guillotine? “Shut The Door, Have A Seat” suggests yes, as all our favorite characters stage a lightning raid on the Sterling Cooper offices and salvage every file, client and bit of talent they can muster. But even ending on this optimistic note, as Don says good-bye to one family and stares with tearful pride at another, can’t dampen what long-term fans know. Sterling Cooper Draper Price has its work cut out for it, even before they get an office.
Stepping outside the lines may be risky. But Season 3 suggests that staying inside the lines isn’t always satisfying, either. Because if you stay within the lines, it’s going to end exactly the way you think.
Don’t Think Twice; It’s All Right
So what will future seasons have in store for Sterling Cooper?
Season 3 ended with the foundation of a new ad agency, comprised of all our favorite characters and some people we didn’t even know we liked (Pete Campbell, Lane Price). It also ended with Don letting go of his failed marriage and Betty flying off to Reno for a Nevada divorce. Don wins the trust of his new agency by speaking to them honestly, an honesty which he could never give his wife. And so 1963 winds to a close.
Matthew Weiner and the gifted writers and directors he’s assembled have shown a gift for shocking us at every turn. So speculating on future developments might waste everyone’s time. But we know how the 60s are going to turn out. Maybe a few guesses are in order?
1964
President Johnson declares a War on Poverty. Barry Goldwater announces that he will seek the Republican nomination, leading to a surprisingly bitter political campaign throughout the year. 1964 sees Goldwater give his infamous “extremism in the defense of liberty” speech at the RNC, and the Johnson campaign counter with the infamous “Daisy ad.”
Two reports of attacks on American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin (the second report later found to be in error) accelerate U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The 21,000 “military advisers” already present in Vietnam are soon supplemented by an intense aerial bombing campaign. Student at the University of California, Berkeley, prevent police from arresting an activist who refuses to show ID. This incident escalates into a sit-in taking over the University administration building – the beginning of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement.
Malcolm X makes his “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech, beginning his division with both the Nation of Islam and the non-violent civil rights movement. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Rivonia Trials begin in Johannesburg, South Africa, in which ten leaders of the African National Congress – among them a Mr. Nelson Mandela – are charged with sabotage. Race riots flare in Harlem and in Philadelphia.
Oh, and these guys called The Beatles show up.
So where does this leave our heroes?
- Henry Francis, Betty’s husband-apparent, works for the Rockefeller office. Rockefeller contests the Republican nomination in 1964, ultimately losing to Goldwater. What effect will this have on the new Francis household?
- Carla, the Draper’s maid, is going to be raising the kids a lot more than she has been already. Will they grow up with more liberal attitudes on civil rights than their parents?
- Draper brought Peggy and Campbell over specifically to reach out to younger markets. As youth culture explodes – the Beatles, television culture, peace movements and Bob Dylan – how will they react to it?
- Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique came out in 1963; hasn’t anyone read it yet?
- And what will the fate of our less-liked characters – Joan’s husband, now an Army doctor; Lane’s wife, hysterically allergic to New York – mean for the new members of SCDP?
For all the ink we’ve just devoted to Mad Men‘s hidden themes – searching for meaning outside oneself, everything ending exactly the way we thought – one theme has remained obvious through all three seasons: the disconnect between appearance and reality. That’s what advertising is: putting a different gloss on things.
SCDP needs to pass itself off as the old Sterling Cooper. Putnam, Powell and Lowe need to pretend to still be a good buy for McCann. Betty and Henry need to act like everything’s all right for the sake of the children. The country needs to pretend that Vietnam, civil rights and the Baby Boom aren’t tearing it apart.
This would be scary enough in an uncertain future: a world full of rudderless ships, all searching for meaning. But we know how the Sixties turn out. That doesn’t stop us from watching, though.
