By Delia Paunescu
Lots has been written about the AMC show, producer Matthew Weiner’s follow-up project now that “The Sopranos” has ended. And you’ve probably heard about its beautiful costumes, great lead actor and general fantasticness. If you haven’t, let me take this opportunity to tell you that you’re behind – waaaay behind. Here is you chance to catch up.
“Mad Men” is a title that the advertising executives who worked in Madison Ave. in the ’50s came up with for themselves. Clever huh? They started the concept of the diamond engagement ring to sell more DeBeers, perpetuated the housewife stereotype and made us into the consumer nation we are today. Basically, they were untouchable…and they knew it.
The show tells the story from one particular man’s viewpoint. Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the manliest man of the all. A creative executive at the Sterling Cooper ad agency and more of an enigma with every episode. Like all men of that era, he has secrets from his wife as well as from his many girlfriends.
Picture-perfect wife Betty Draper (January Jones) spends her days at home in upstate New York with the two children. She spent the first season in therapy trying to figure out why her life, full of the latest products and appliances, wasn’t making her happy. The housewife cabin fever is setting in now and just last week, she confronted Don about his cheating and kicked him out.
And the office is never without drama. Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), secretary turned copywriter and closet strumpet, had a child out of wedlock with someone in the office-a married someone-and has recently been spotted in lingering looks with Father Gill (Colin Hanks of “Orange Country” notoriety), her family priest.
Art director Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt) was about to come of the closet last season but instead, got married and started having junior executive Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) over for dinner. All that flattery might lead to something more, but the repression is too great right now.
And finally there’s Joan (Christina Hendricks) who spends every episode strutting her exaggerated curves in the best outfits possible. A true modern woman of her time, Joan joined the firm to find a husband. But now that she’s engaged, the redhead is finding there’s more satisfaction in contributing to actual pitches than bossing around the other “girls.”
Sure, there’s plenty of lascivious drama and gossip. Just that would not have gotten “Mad Men” its two consecutive Emmy award wins for Outstanding television drama. It’s the sharp writing, the rigid attention to period detail (Don and family leave trash behind in an open field after an afternoon picnic – there were no litter fines, after all) and the basic intelligence it assumes the audience to possess.
The historical references are aplenty in this show but don’t expect the writers to spell it out for you. Books on Don’s night table, recipes in Betsy’s kitchen and even plotlines from the soap operas discussed in the secretary’s lounge are accurate beyond belief. And then there’s the treatment of women. The misogyny can be quite unbelievable but it’s when Don or Sterling Cooper partner, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) treat Joan or her army of tight-sweatered beauties in a manner that we today would ideally deem unacceptable that we can see just how far we’ve come or, in some very disturbing cases, have not.
The show HBO, Showtime and the networks passed up (are you kicking yourselves, NBC?) is as much a history lesson as an entertaining substitute to whatever drivel you may have been watching on Sunday nights (here’s looking at you “Desperate Housewives”).