The smoke. Everyone always mentions the smoke, the exhaust exhaled by each and every character—even a doctor conducting a gynecological exam—on “Mad Men,” the AMC series set in a fictional Madison Avenue ad agency, circa 1960. The tobacco habit is such a symbol of
the show—serving as ubiquitous prop and setting the mood in every scene—that the first season DVD collection comes packaged in a slipcase designed to resemble a Zippo lighter.
Then there’s the institutionalized chauvinism. Lead character Don Draper, played with brooding cool by John Hamm, storms from a meeting with a female client, stating, “I’m not going to let a woman talk to me like this.” Head secretary Joan Halloway (Christina Hendricks)
unveils a new typewriter, telling a recruit, “Now try not to be overwhelmed by all this technology. It looks complicated, but the men who designed it made it simple enough for a woman to use.”
Mistresses are freely taken, secretaries openly harassed, burlesque clubs frequented, and working girls strategically employed on client pitches. And that doesn’t even touch the racism, the alcohol abuse, or the moral bankruptcy, including the cynical support
of then-presidential hopeful Richard Nixon (deregulating Dick appeals to the agency's corporate clients, explains one character).
It’s all part of the show’s verisimilitude, as your English prof might say, a time and place captured so well that those who were there have raised a brimming rock glass to the series’ realism. “Picture a bunch of drunks talking to each other through a cloud of smoke—that's
really what the ‘60s was,” said veteran copywriter Jerry Della Famina.
So, yes, the smoke rings true, winning the critics’ attention, grabbing Golden Globes, and turning eyes away from network shows that dwell in the now of the sensitivity-trained white male increasingly overshadowed by the empowered female. But there’s more to it than that.
A Glimpse Behind Draper’s Curtain Cinematically produced for the small screen by “Sopranos” writer-producer Matthew Weiner, “Mad Men” is well-crafted stuff—as close as television comes to literature—and as such the smoke is not simply a prop designed to shock, but “smoke,” a
metaphor. In Weiner’s hands, it represents—sure, the mists of time through which we view our not-so-distant-yet-somehow-foreign past—but mostly advertising itself as embodied by the enigmatic Draper.
By Episode 5, just when we’re thinking, Enough! I’m getting a little numbed here by this deliberate pace and these unlikable dinosaurs, we discover that the agency’s impervious alpha male is not what he appears to be. There’s something rustling behind Draper’s
curtain.
Through the curl of smoke, behind the glass of rye, beneath the granite-hewn features, under the armor-gray suit, there lurks a virtual onion of dark secrets—an abusive childhood, a tour of duty, an unexpected death, the theft of an identity… even the pulse of a heart, longing
for something more. Tension builds as Draper’s nemesis—account manager Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser)—catches on to his biggest secret and begins to peel back the layers, pull aside the curtain, clear the smoke.
Yet the showdown takes a surprising turn (spoiled here) by television standards. Exposed to the truth about his creative director, Draper’s quirky boss, the shoeless, bonsai-snipping, Rand-reading Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse), waves off Draper’s dark secret, suggesting he recognizes
something of himself in the man’s reinvention. In the world of advertising, “Mad Men” tells us, it’s perception that counts—the impenetrable haze, not the shady past; the lucrative results, not the cheap means. As long as Draper produces the campaigns that land
the clients, his job remains secure for now.
Riding The Carousel Home And produce he does, often—as he admits to himself with an awed headshake—from thin air. The closest he comes to articulating his creative process is when he advises a protégé who’s struggling with a campaign for the Relax-A-Cizor, a weight-loss belt for women
that has a nether-tingling side benefit. “Just think about it deeply and then forget it,” Draper says, waving a hand before his eyes as if to hypnotize himself. “And an idea will jump up in your face.”
As he suggests, his best material does seem to emerge via psychic alchemy, leaping up from the depths of his repressed past and integrating with his present, often in the midst of a presentation. His work, in turn, helps to stir what could be a personal transformation
for the man in the show’s second season (coming in July). By the end of series one, it’s suggested that he mourns the conventional home life—the beautiful wife, the beautiful children, the beautiful home—from which he’s been pulling away—a mistress here, a mistress there—and
almost leaves behind in the concluding episode.
In a pitch to Kodak for its latest technology, what the company is calling a slide “wheel,” Draper weaves real life with fantasy, conjuring a poignant mood thick enough to rival the smoke in the room. First, he frames up the pitch by reminiscing about his supposed early days
in the business when he worked with “this old pro copywriter, Greek, named Teddy.” Good ol’ Teddy (likely fictitious but crucially Greek) imparted the following wisdom to Draper (which, to the show’s credit, is still workable advice for those in marketing):
“The most important idea in advertising is ‘new.’ Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion. But Teddy also talked about a deeper bond with the product—nostalgia. It’s delicate, but potent.”
Then Draper kills the lights and fires up the slide projector. “Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means ‘the pain from an old wound.’” Draper clicks to a slide showing him and his wife sharing a hotdog at a backyard cookout. “A
twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.”
Click. A photo of Draper, cigarette in mouth, pushing his son on a swing. “This device isn’t a space ship. It’s a time machine.” Click. Shot of Draper resting his head on his wife’s pregnant stomach. “It goes backwards and forwards. It takes us to a place
where we ache to go again.” Click. His daughter riding on his shoulders.
“It’s not called The Wheel. It’s called The Carousel.” More slides of Draper and his children. “It lets us travel the way a child travels. Round and round, and back home again.” The ad man asleep on his couch, his young children rampaging around him. Click. “To
a place we know we are loved.” Draper in a tux carrying his young bride in her wedding gown, both beaming. Click.
At presentation’s end, the lights come up and the room goes silent except for the moist clearing of throats. One man, a newly philandering junior exec, bolts from the space, choking back tears. And as the camera pans in on Draper, we think we might spot a tear in the alpha ad man’s
eye, as well, a misting up over innocence lost. Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s the smoke.
Robert Cherry is Senior Writer at Seed Strategy. As a freelance journalist he has contributed to “Rolling Stone,” “Entertainment Weekly” and Cleveland’s “The Plain Dealer.” Contact him at rcherry@seedstrategy.com.
A Method To “Mad Men”
The smoke. Everyone always mentions the smoke, the exhaust exhaled by each and every character—even a doctor conducting a gynecological exam—on “Mad Men,” the AMC series set in a fictional Madison Avenue ad agency, circa 1960.
Innovation Reigns When Tough Times Pour.
“BusinessWeek” and the Boston Consulting Group recently announced their annual picks for “The World’s Most Innovative Companies,” with Google, 3M and Nintendo leading the pack. The qualifiers that separate the best from the rest?
