Mad Men posits an early 1960s Manhattan in which everyone smokes all the time. This cannot be overstated. People light up before the morning sun peeks through the window, during the middle of the night when they can’t sleep, and literally at any other moment. Almost every shot has an ephemeral, translucent sheen, and every foggy exhalation either prefaces or concludes some monumentally dramatic observation on the commodification of necessity. The smoking makes it all seem more dire and authentic. And there’s the drinking, as well: three-martini lunches, 8-year-old bartenders, and a slug of scotch that seems to accompany every administrative decision made during a normal work day.
The consistency of these vices are what distinguish Mad Men – the only television program I’ve been hooked on since Arrested Development – foremost because they manifest the utility of a brand. In the pilot, Don Draper – whose charisma is more demonstrable than James Bond’s physical prowess – makes a last-minute pitch to Lucky Strike—“It’s Toasted.” Appropriately, from this point forward a pack of Lucky Strikes is visible in the front pocket of one of the dress shirts he recycles daily, often withdrawn in accordance with a new spot of whiskey.
This “brand ambience” is my favorite aspect of the show. The characters must inhabit the worlds they strive with great effect to invent, worlds in which lipstick privileges its wearer with the option of total ownership, or in which a slide projector is a time machine of great emotive power. When Draper is describing each of these products, you’re held rapt by his words, and how they pronounce, with consummate precision, their transcendent significance. It’s all bullshit, of course, but what wonderful, wonderful bullshit.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: OnDemand
05 Aug 2008 5:45 PM | Comments (2)
I really like this show too -¬†and you’re totally right on about the brand ambience/loyalty/aura of taste that it manages to project, just like an early 60s era advertisement. Which, it occurs to me now, is what makes the moment in the first episode of the second season (which so far has been a little slow) when Draper buys the Frank O’Hara book after being mocked for not knowing about it earlier so effective. Draper just looks wrong reading avant-garde poetry: it’s not in his taste profile and thus a sign that he’s losing his power. I think we’re going to see him Ñ and everybody else Ñ get really disoriented this season.
Also, on a more fanboyish level, I was just excited to see a Frank O’Hara book on a television show.
Thank you kindley, Evan.
I’ve always wanted to say that!
Evan
6 August 2008
1:44 PM