But aren't we all Mad?

After the season two premier of Mad Men, I began wondering why we're all so crazy about this early 60's period series—and why now? The simple answer is that the aesthetic is spectacular, the acting is superb, and with lines like "I’d like to dip you in bronze and mount you on the credenza," and "When God closes a door, He opens a dress," who wouldn't love it? Maybe it's also that we can relate to the characters on some level—they're all so lovably and despicably human. But that kind of gray-character humanity is timeless; we've been falling in love with those types since storytellers recognized the redundancy of purest good and evil. And besides, it doesn't tell us why Mad Men works just at this moment.

I think—and tell me if this crazy—we're in an era that in some ways parallels the early 60's. First, there's a loosening of sexual mores: Joan's on the pill, Peggy gives birth to an illegitimate child AND she's promoted to junior copywriter (in one episode!). Now gay marriage is in the mainstream; there are more stay at home dads; and women… well, who can tell what's going on when we almost had a female Democratic presidential nominee, BUT women are disproportionately laid off because of the crappy economy and everyone says they CHOSE to be full-time mommies.

Further, both periods exhibit changes in the methods of advertising and patterns of consumption. The Mad Men ad men begin to dispense with testimonials and expert opinions about products. They use negative space, like the full page Volkswagen ad with a tiny Bug in the center, and slogans that are all about style instead of substance: It’s Toasted! They are beginning to realize that an ad is not about a product; rather, it’s about the way we interact with a product and what it symbolizes, what the product says about the consumer. Now advertisements have shifted even further away from their products, growing subtler, more enigmatic, and entertaining. The Geico Caveman TV series tanked, but isn’t it conceivable that another advert show could actually make it? And think of all those iPod ads that have shuttled unknown music artists like Fiest and the Ting Tings to near stardom. Great ads promote multiple products, often without our conscious knowledge of it. Our love affair with products that started in the 60s has matured into a life- affirming relationship. What we consume defines who we are—and if you don’t believe me, just look at your Facebook profile listing your favorite books, movies, music and TV, depicting the places you go, and publicizing the events you attend—a pastiche of products telling the whole world who you are.

There’s also that Obama- Kennedy parallel. In the season two premier, our characters spent Valentine’s Day glued to their screens as Jackie O. gave a televised tour of the White House. Both Obama and Kennedy are these young savior types. They have the magical enigmatic quality of the leader who doesn’t quite belong: both are religiously or ethnically different, erudite and forward thinking, and handsome, amiable incarnations of hope.

Mad Men works because it’s really just us in vintage clothing, experiencing the same types of unexpected and often uncomfortable social changes. Everything seems to be tossed up into the air; nothing is certain, and we can’t quite put our finger on what has changed between yesterday and today.

- shoshi