First, it was the marketing and advertising Twitterati converting their avatars into "Mad Men" characters this summer in anticipation of the show's return; then the Emmys nominations, which conferred no fewer than 16 nominations to the show, which ultimately won best drama, and now "Sesame Street," always au courant on cultural trends, with its sly nod to "Mad Men." And, in reaching this broad intergenerational audience, creator Matt Weiner may have inadvertently done more to introduce the Boomers to a new generation of Madison Avenue denizens than any generational anthropologist or media planner.
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For the record, Weiner was not looking to add to the Boomer nostalgia canon. Instead, he was more intrigued with the America of the mid-1950s and early '60s; a time of peace and prosperity when bucolic suburbia enticed America to its leafy streets, well-groomed lawns, and shiny new schools.
When husbands went to work in far away cities, mothers gathered at neighborhood coffee klatches and children -- aka the Boomers -- hung out unattended, un-play-dated, unscheduled. He wanted to tell the story of America at a time of surface happiness and inner dissatisfaction when the nation as a whole looked around and asked, "Is this it? Is this as good as it gets?"
In capturing the cultural zeitgeist of the late 1950s/early '60s, Weiner gives non-Boomers a ringside briefing each week on the forces that ultimately form and fuel the Boomers' rejection of the status quo. Consider for example:
And this briefing occurs with hardly a mention of the Boomers. They are present only on the periphery: as Don and Betty's children, Sally, Bobby and new born, Gene; as advertising targets ("Pepsi for those who think young") or, more recently, as two hitchhiking, pill-popping teenagers willing to do anything to avoid the draft.
But, as Weiner and his writing staff work through seasons three and four, they will no doubt incorporate some of the upcoming social and political events that will bring these Boomer children into sharper relief -- events such as the civil rights march on Washington, D.C., when Martin Luther King delivered his "I have a dream" speech, the publication of The Feminine Mystique, the succession of assassinations (John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X), and the arrival of the Beatles to America.
And, in doing so, they will continue to illuminate the Boomers for the two million plus 18-49 year olds who tune in each week, including the new generation of Madison Avenue denizens.
I have worked in advertising since the sixties and the things that suck about this business then, still suck about this business. Chief among those issues is the blatant racism that defines the hiring practices of the entire industry. To hear ad pundit after ad pundit praise this salute to bigotry and sexism turns my stomach. Blacks and Hispanics are dying every day to defend the so-called American Way overseas, yet they can't get a job on Madison Avenue. What is wrong with this picture?
Thank you for this article - will be very helpful for a grad paper I'm writing on Mad Men.
Maybe that was the way it was in New York, but it certainly wasn't in a small town in South Texas. We didn't have Madison Avenue and not every single person smoked or drank during the day.
Phoenix was a long way from Madison Avenue yet most if not all the advertising professionals I knew as a college student majoring in advertising did smoke -- as did most of us up-and-coming ones. Everyone felt free to drink at lunch but I can't speak for what they kept in their offices -- although there was always a bottle or two in Arizona's newsrooms. The most intriguing thing to me about Mad Men is that as undergraduates, this is what we were all aspiring to, no matter what our final destinations became.
In my opinion, this is the best TV show since The Sopranos. I literally sat up in bed the first time I saw Mad Men because I was in the midst of developing a social networking website for Baby Boomers www.snabbo.com. Watching Mad Men is like revisiting my childhood. Thanks for a great article!