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Like many ad men, I resisted watching Mad Men, a TV show about a Madison Avenue advertising agency in the early 60s. I took a pass on the show during its first season, catching up with it on DVD when mounting peer pressure and feelings of alienation at dinner parties finally got the better of me.
Perhaps I imagined it was too close to home, or a bit of cliché, or that no self-respecting doctor watches Grey’s Anatomy. Or maybe I just feared it would be as shallow a depiction of what I do as so many Hollywood portrayals have opined in the past.
But by the time the season-three premiere aired last month, I too had created a virtual testament to my addiction to Mad Men in the form of an avatar, posted to my Facebook profile – depicting myself in a chic red dress, gloves, and cat’s-eye glasses.
Thank you madmenyourself.com!
Which is all to say, to my great relief, Mad Men has turned out to be a show that’s less about advertising than it is a show about people – specifically, the kind of people drawn into the world of advertising. The kind of people whose outer shell of confidence is often at odds with doubt, even loathing that lurks beneath the surface.
That’s not to say that other fields of endeavor aren’t equally filled with characters as flawed as us. But the veneers and avatars people fashion for themselves in life are that much more vulnerable for those of us toiling away at the Sterling Coopers of the world, I believe, precisely because we have so long been the manufacturers of veneer.
In the end, watching Mad Men is like looking into a mirror (albeit with better clothes and fewer cocktails). And who in the world of advertising can resist their own reflection?
Dimitri Stamatis
November 23, 2011 @ 2:38 pm
Mad Men is a very addicting show to watch I agree that the show is more about people’s lives then it is about advertising. http://www.hbomax.tv/hbo-la/mad-men . I like your thoughts and ideas.