For thirteen Fridays last summer, the staff at PME® Enterprises (producers of M2W® - The Marketing to Women Conference) were subjected to Mary Engvall and Robin Zaleski’s enthusiastic rehashing of the previous night’s episode of Mad Men, AMC’s critically-acclaimed, award-winning original series about the ad world of Madison Avenue in 1960. With the ad industry abuzz over the Season Two premiere on Sunday, July 27, and AMC hoping to grow the show’s audience from 1 million to something more akin to the 9+ million viewers of other basic cable successes like TNT’s The Closer, AMC reportedly spent between $10 and $25 million on promoting Season Two. Mary and Robin weigh in on how and why a show oozing with sexism appeals to their normally more feminist natures.

The Season Two Premiere re-introduces us to the Mad Men characters on Valentine’s Day, 1962. It is 15 months since we left them dealing with their various issues. We see the efforts they have made to move forward and reach for their dreams or at least strive for the conventional dreams they think they should obtain.

Mary: People who may have seen only Sunday’s season premiere may write it off as a sexist romp that is destined to push us all back into the stone age, or wonder why all the fuss. But those of us who have watched these characters and storylines develop over the course of the series know the appeal is attributable to amazing storytelling, creativity and sensibility. This show does not glamorize or pine for days gone by – it exposes the underlying issues that a whole generation tried so hard to mask with an outer shell that crumbled violently in just a few short turbulent years.

Robin: I was excited for this show to begin again. Season One left us with up-and-comer Peggy delivering a surprise baby, newly-minted agency partner Don waxing poetic about the importance of family photographs while contemplating running away from his own family, and his perfect 1950s housewife Betty having a very adult conversation with the little boy next door. Secrets and lies all over the place; it makes for good TV. But is it just a big soap opera?

Mary: It’s deeper than a typical soap opera; it’s real drama. The initial appeal is in the nostalgia of the June Cleaver version of the early 60’s complete with short-stringed pearls, men in fedoras and a shiny surface which we know hides many flaws, but love anyway.

Robin: Yes, even though many in the audience (like us) may have been too young or not yet born during this era, it is made more real by the fact that it characterizes – with OCD-like attention to period detail – a time that was fraught with huge social change but is remembered fondly as both “simpler” as well as glamorous and sophisticated.

Mary: I love the authenticity of the set and props. My mom drove a black Ford Country Squire with faux wood paneling just like Betty’s new car (although I’m proud to say my mother – who also spent a great deal of time driving around a suburb while her husband worked long hours in Manhattan – took an auto mechanics class so she could fix her own car when it broke down instead of having to flirt her way through a cheap repair job with the tow truck driver because she was short on cash like Betty does). And that monstrous photocopy machine – hysterical to us now who carry small multi-tasking computers in our pockets, but what a perfect tip of the hat to the dawning technological age. It’s hard to believe there was a time when we didn’t understand the features of a copy machine, not to mention that an office might spend days trying to decide where to put it. Everywhere you look from the TVs to the office furniture to the wonderful wardrobe – there is a terrific commitment to authenticity; especially critical to a story set in the ‘60s as this was the decade that ushered in mass marketing, homogenous commercialism and the technological modern era.

Robin: I love the references to then-popular culture, the vintage product placement and the clever interplay between the plot and the commercial advertising; how fitting for a story about the pioneers of the modern ad age. Last year we saw product placement for Jack Daniels in the nearly every episode. This year we get an almost commercial-free opening episode courtesy of BMW. Did you notice that as they broke for the first “word from our sponsor”, Sal, the closeted gay Art Director who was watching Jackie Kennedy‘s TV tour of the White House (and wishing aloud that the young, attractive President himself were giving the tour) also experienced a commercial break? Subtle but smart. And then there are the fun product trivia notes that precede and follow every ad – adding to the history of the impact of the advertising era transforming products from a part of our existence to a part of our identities.

Mary: The character development in this show is superb. Sunday night we saw the slimmed-down (post-natal) Peggy digging her high heels in and showing her stuff. She calmly answers “I don’t know” to the sexist question from Pete (responsible for her pregnancy) as to where are the extra glasses for the office bar. Lord knows he would never assume his male co-workers would know where the drinking glasses were kept. She also notes that she is not sure why Sterling Cooper is hiring young creatives just because they are young—she points out she is only 22. As an enterprising, talented working women in the early ‘60s she is hiding in plain sight. But I’d put money down that her comment foreshadows her being the one who, in the end, wins the Coffee Company account! And that is just one example—there were lots.

Robin: Are we looking too deeply into the veneer here, trying to find something meaningful in what is basically shallow entertainment? As a modern society we have dumbed down news, politics, and societal issues into “infotainment” – are we now trying to ascribe intellectual worth to something that is just “a good story, well told”, or is there cultural value here?

Mary: There is cultural significance here. The producers have created an artistic portrayal of a sensitive time in our nation’s history – an optimistic, post-war modernism which gave birth to the beautiful American Dream, and yet the clean-cut, god-fearing, dinner-in-every-pot, car-in-every driveway world buried the truths of racism, religious bias, sexism, homophobia and anything counter-culture, extreme or revolutionary. This was an America where you needed to fit in, not stand out. The characters in Mad Men balance the ever-rocking struggle between appearances and realities in such an intriguing way.

Robin: But there are so many aspects of this show that should make us hate it: the sexism, the men’s rampant and shameless infidelity, all the women in the office are “girls” and it appears none of them are married (because once you got married you quit working). And the constant smoking and drinking – when did anybody get any work done?

Mary: Yes, especially as modern, working women – why do we enjoy watching this story about the good old, bad old days? I say it’s because we’re viewing it in the rear-view mirror. And sometimes a reminder of where we’ve come from helps us appreciate where we’ve arrived… and energizes us to push onward toward even brighter horizons.

(Reviewed August 2008, M2W® Essentials)