Mad about Madmen

Betty Draper Queen of the Kitchen

For those of you who live in a cave or live lives that don't revolve around television, Madmen is a series on the AMC channel entering it's fifth season. The plot revolves around the lives of the movers and shakers of Sterling Cooper, a fictitious ad agency located in Manhattan during the early sixties. Hence the title; advertising execsutives on Madison Avenue during this period referred to themselves thus so.Don Draper, starting as the creative director for the agency and later made a junior partner, encompasses all facets essential to succeed in this dazzling world. He is dashing, sexy, and strong-willed. However brewing just beneath his polished surface lies a web of secrets which are revealed to the viewer via flashbacks. His wife,(and later ex wife) Betty, resembles a young Grace Kelly. She met Don while working as a model in stylish 50's New York, abandoning her career in favor of a woman's true career of that period: wife and mother. Don provides the good life for her; a lovely home in the suburbs, a "girl" to help with the house and kids, a fabulous wardrobe, elegant nights out on the town with clients, and all the cigarettes she can smoke. Despite all this Betty suffers from a vague feeling of unfulfillment, a syndrome prevalent to housewives at that time, soon to be expressed by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique.        

Don Draper King of Madison Avenue

What I enjoy most when watching this mesmerizing saga unfold are the bits and pieces that jolt my memories as a child growing up in the late 50's and early 60's. The fashions, hairdos, and manner of the characters are right on target if memory serves me right. I also get a kick out of the incessant smoking (I wonder if the actors all smoked prior to being hired for the series or if it was something they were required to pick up). It is downright ludicrous watching Betty's neighbor smoking and drinking while very obviously in her third trimester of pregnancy. Then there are the characters driving while well over the legal limit for alcohol and when involved in an accident given a mere slap on the wrist. And most disturbing (though strangely entertaining) are the the scenes of sexism that cleverly thread through every episodes. Common place are scenes involving secretaries that if occurring in today's workplace would scream sexual harassment; women as mere ornaments with nothing interesting or worthwhile on their minds; and women being anything other than secretaries or switchboard operators in an office, doing time until they can reel in a man. Also subtly brought to our attention are the nondescript roles of blacks in society a mere 50 years ago. For example, the young black man who runs the elevator at Sterling Cooper. When confined in this little box packed in like sardines, the high and mighty ad execs talk as if he is invisible. The few times he speaks to any of the characters, aside from saying, "Good morning sir," or "good evening sir," he is blatantly disregarded as a man to be taken seriously. Also we see the Draper's maid, Carla's (whom Betty continuously refers to as "the girl") opinions dismissed as if she were a  child speaking out of turn. Never in a million years would Betty recognize her as a grown woman with wisdom, worthwhile opinions, and a rich life of her own.

Check out out amctv.com (no, I do not work for them). Not only can you check out listings of previous episodes but you can explore the world of the Madmen and perhaps understand why I am mad about Madmen.