‘Mad Men’ Reflects American Spirit

AMC’s runaway hit “Mad Men” rounded off its third season this past Monday, and once again it is tempting to see creator Matthew Weiner’s depiction of an advertising agency in the early 1960s as a mirror of present times. Praise be to that firey avatar of all things good, St. Joan Holloway, however, that the recent season finale made the more direct of these comparisons seem misguided, irrelevant. Far from a show focused solely on capturing the essence of another time, or even our own time, the season finale of “Mad Men” made it clear that the show aims to remind viewers of the potential for creativity and forward-thinking to fundamentally change our lives in America.

Certainly, the parallels between Don Draper’s time and ours are unavoidable. There is the new, handsome, and inspirational President and the overwhelming sense of great change (and potentially, calamity) on the horizon. Direct comparisons fall short, however, if signaled by nothing more than the tragedy of President Kennedy’s assassination. With his death it becomes clear that although we do not know how the lives of Mad Men’s characters will turn out, we are, relatively speaking, omniscient to the impending historical events that will undoubtedly shape their lives, quite the opposite from how we know our own futures. We know that the Beatles are coming for them, but what is in store for us?

If anything, the best lesson to date that can be drawn from the show is the one manifested in the remarkable pluck and ingenuity of the Draper himself. Faced with the decision to continue on blindly, and unhappily, as a piece in a nebulous mechanism he has no control over, our man refuses to resign himself to the station of a corporate whore (as his mother was, and as he views his soon-to-be ex-wife Betty to be). I, and certainly many fans, expected this finale to be a doomsday episode–the death of a character seemed inevitable. Instead, Don (really, Weiner, who co-wrote and directed the episode) embraced the notion that the only viable way to dig oneself out of seeming disaster is to innovate and march forward. In a turn of events that Hitchcock himself could have imagined, Draper manages to release himself from the fetters on pre-’60s corporate conventions, venturing out into uncharted territories–helming an independent company and living what is sure to be a rollicking life as a single man in the age of free love.

Don looks forward just enough, realizing that rebellion is most successful if a group effort. The intense misery of the final undoing of his marriage and the previous episode’s wrenching depiction of the President’s death are balanced by an overwhelming sense of open-mindedness, measured risk-taking, camaraderie, and a near total severance from the comfort and predictability of the past.

Believably, Don comes to this approach organically. In rounding the troops needed for this insurrection, Draper keenly approaches the talented Peggy first. His initial failure of an attempt to sway her to join him, more of a command than a supplication, is keenly followed by an admission of her creative force. “With you or without you, I’m moving on, and I don’t know if I can do it alone. Will you help me?”

It’s Don’s season-long struggle with his daddy issues (alternately brought to life through often irritating flashbacks to his childhood and his relationship with Conrad Hilton) that allowed him to break through. Unlike Betty, who in times of distress reverts to childhood–she might as well have reached for a Demerol when she picked up her newborn during the final fight with her husband–Don’s reflection on his upbringing in the finale is both a source of inspiration and a farewell to the solace found in blaming one’s problems on one’s parents. His secret is out, he’s free to fuck, and he’s shrugged off the stifling atmosphere of his midtown office.

All signs point to the necessity of innovation, but it’s really Don’s meeting with Hilton that forces him to change his trajectory. “I got everything on my own,” says the consummate American businessmen. “It’s made me immune to those who complain and cry because they can’t. I didn’t take you for one of them, Don. Are you?”

Needless to say, I can’t wait to see what the new office is going to look like next season, let alone what a Draper bachelor pad will hold. If Joan’s return is evidence of anything, it’s that change is coming, and those who can see it coming just in time will be the ones to make it.

As viewers we are left with the incontrovertible knowledge that “Mad Men” is not, at its core, a show about the 1960s, the Obama era, or the space between. Rather, it’s a series about the phenomenon of reinvention and independently-spurred change in America and the many forms that personal evolution and even revolution can take.

—Staff writer Ruben L. Davis can be reach at rldavis@fas.harvard.edu.