Mad Men season 5 premiered last month. I don’t have super-duper cable so I don’t get AMC. I watched all 4 previous seasons via NetFlix. I’m always a bit behind on popular culture because I don’t want to pay the full rate and freight for cable. My wife and I just recently discovered Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations.” We were among the last people to watch “Curb Your Enthusiasm”. But we’re OK with that.
I find Mad Men incredibly interesting. Marvelous production value, great acting, intriguing story lines. Typically I’m not a big fan of period pieces, because they are either overdone, underdone, badly acted, or out of context. I admit that at first I found Mad Men to be a bit of a farce, but that’s really the problem, isn’t it? Mad Men might seem funny now, but hindsight is a deceptive trickster.
The most striking thing to me about the Don Draper character is how much like James Bond he is. They are both promiscuous drunks, they are profoundly destructive, they play by their own rules, and they are, in my estimation, profoundly lonely. Perhaps “singular” is a better word. I suppose “loneliness” only matters if you care.
The best Bond book was “The Spy Who Loved Me” because it methodically and precisely revealed the true nature of James Bond: he was a cold-blooded killer. Ian Fleming’s best work, for my money. All the Bond novels are silly and vapid, but that one was a minor masterpiece. Draper, like Bond, has much more in common with soldiers then civilians. They exist in a “do or die world”, with not much room for compassion in between. The carefully constructed 2000 year-old salon sensibilities of Western Civilization are lost on them; they are quite Roman in their outlook.
Don Draper is a much, much more sophisticated a fictional character then Bond, which is a good thing from an entertainment perspective. There is nothing vapid or silly about Draper. His gargantuan flaws are revealed to be the result of tremendous psychological shock. And from time-to-time he shows an incredible depth of compassion — visiting Peggy in the mental ward, allowing his angry child-wife to walk away with the children, the way he took extreme care to respect and support the woman whose husband’s identity he stole. I think Draper is the most interesting fictional character alive today.
The supporting cast has an incredible depth of talent. These actors create a dynamic rhythm; they establish themselves firmly. It must be a huge amount of work. I’m envious of them.
I admit Mad Men has a rather noir silliness — could people really be that callous? One wonders if it’s not the same thing one would have found right before Pompeii was destroyed. But the destruction in Mad Men is more psychological then physical. Of course there is a much starker version of this same theme — see Revolution Road.
But I remember the sixties well enough. One day my mother and I were coming back from a trip, and got into a taxi to get home. The taxi driver was chatty. He told us a bit about his life. He had a good job once, made lots of money, but drank too much and lost his career. That and his family. I remember the cab smelled like cigarettes. He had been an advertising executive; a life of booze and women as he described it. My mother didn’t say a word the whole time we were in the cab. It took me a long time to understand why. In fact it I didn’t quite get it until I had watched a few episodes of Mad Men.
So which is it — art imitates life or life imitates art? Beats me.
Cheers.
