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Mad Men’s Final Word on the 1960s … And Today

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History News Network
History News Network

This post is in partnership with the History News Network, the website that puts the news into historical perspective. The article below was originally published at HNN.

April 5 marks the beginning of the end for Mad Men, and viewers anxiously await a final coda to creator Matthew Weiner’s tale. Will advertising executive Don Draper’s tumultuous peaks and valleys experiences of the 1960s conclude with happiness or tragedy?

The 1960 film, The Apartment, and presidential history during that decade, may hint at an answer.

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has cited this Academy Award winning movie as an important inspiration for his serial drama. Since The Apartment ended on a positive note with the main character finding love, viewers might expect a similar conclusion to Weiner’s production. More significantly, The Apartment stands as a cultural symbol of the youthful optimism for social change that many Americans associate with the 1960s. Along with the defeat of Richard Nixon by the youthful, vigorous John Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election, The Apartment’s director, Billy Wilder, helped create today’s conventional wisdom that the year 1960 represented a break from the staid conformity characteristic of the 1950s.

In The Apartment, Director Wilder presents protagonist C.C. “Bud” Baxter as a young, bored number-cruncher (played by Jack Lemmon) in the accounting division of a corporation known as Consolidated Life Insurance. There are two primary settings where the characters interact—the vast 19th floor of seemingly endless rows of desks in the skyscraper where Baxter works, and Baxter’s small apartment in New York City.

The story’s problem emerges when Consolidated Life’s personnel director Jeffrey Sheldrake asks Baxter if the rumors are true that married senior executives have borrowed Baxter’s apartment to conduct secret extramarital affairs. Sheldrake’s intent, we soon discover, is not to reprimand Baxter, but to borrow his key so that Sheldrake may have exclusive privileges to bring his own mistresses to Baxter’s den of iniquity.

Although Sheldrake rewards the junior executive with a 27th floor private office and a bowler hat to boot, Baxter soon regrets the decision when he finds himself having to choose between his career and his love for Fran Kubelik, an elevator operator (played by Shirley MacLaine) in his company’s building. When Baxter discovers that Kubelik is one of Sheldrake’s conquests, he must either cling to his newfound place on the corporate ladder or fight for this damsel in distress. In witnessing Baxter’s decision to abandon the company in exchange for romantic love, we recognize a rejection of the 1950s culture of conformity which sociologists, novelists, and journalists portrayed in books such as The Power Elite, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, and The Organization Man.

The Apartment concludes with Baxter’s rejection of conformist and debased corporate culture, but Mad Men presents Don Draper as still engaged in the struggle to maintain individual autonomy in the complacent, risk-averse, and conformist white-collar world. In order to carry the drama forward through the 1960s, Weiner created a character more complex than Wilder’s Baxter. Viewers balance Don’s misogyny against his elevation of his secretary Peggy Olson to a position of copy editor. His infidelity is placed in the context of his troubled past growing up in a whorehouse. In the Darwinian jungle of corporate America, furthermore, Draper’s ambition and authoritarianism appear somehow necessary for a man who began without inherited wealth or business contacts.

In Season One, Weiner used the Nixon-Kennedy presidential contest as a Hegelian thesis-antithesis recasting of The Apartment’s theme. Nixon hires Draper’s advertising firm, Sterling Cooper, to help publicize his 1960 presidential campaign. The upstart Kennedy’s victory appears as a tragic defeat for the company’s corporate elite that seeks to perpetuate the conformist 1950s. The image of a triumphant Kennedy symbolizes the hope for change in the new decade, and Draper appears to represent this icon of youthful optimism. In one episode, a character describes the youthful, handsome, and decisive Draper as Kennedyesque—distinct from the common corporate type–saying “You’re JFK!”

But Draper identifies more with Nixon. Somewhat surprisingly, Weiner’s protagonist thinks Nixon’s defeat says more about how the candidate’s handlers failed to present his background than about the spirit of the age. When Draper sees Nixon, he says, he sees himself—a self-made man of the people. Draper’s self-image is not as a member of the power elite, but neither as an idealist. He is a working class man pursuing the American Dream. While many of the Mad Men characters—including Draper—appear to admire Kennedy, the president’s tragic assassination in 1963 casts a pall over the ebullient optimism which Draper, his family, and work associates embodied in the first three seasons.

Given that the program is concluding during 1969—Nixon’s first year as president–Washington Post opinion writer Alyssa Rosenberg has posited that Nixon was “the key to understanding Don Draper.” In Rosenberg’s view, Nixon’s ability to come back from multiple political defeats—including the 1960 presidential campaign and a failed 1962 bid for governor of California—appeared as the model for Draper’s similar skill at surviving setbacks by reinventing himself.

The Kennedy-Nixon dialectic certainly serves as one way of understanding the tension between hope and cynicism in Mad Men, but another politician–Ronald Reagan—may provide the model that Weiner has in mind for Draper’s ultimate fate. Draper’s creative genius and macho cool seems more similar to Reagan’s Hollywood confidence and calm than to Nixon’s calculated professionalism. While Nixon and Draper certainly reinvented themselves multiple times, Draper does not seem to share the dark side that Nixon’s closest aides identified in the former president.

19 Real-Life Ads from the "Mad Men" Era

LIFE Magazine Volkswagon Ad, 1960
Volkswagen, April 11, 1960 Early in Season 1, Don Draper comes across this Volkswagen ad in an issue of LIFE Magazine. He tells his colleagues he doesn’t know what he hates more, “the ad or the car.” But after discussing Volkswagen's strategy at length, he’s forced to concede, “Love it or hate it, we’ve been talking about it for the last 15 minutes.” VW’s Lemon ad, along with its “Think Small” campaign, was widely considered some of the most innovative advertising of the 20th century for its honesty, irony and freshness.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Coca-Cola Ad, 1960
Coca-Cola, April 11, 1960 Although Sterling Cooper never counts Coca-Cola as a client, Coca-Cola nearly counts Betty Draper as a model. The ad she models for, later ditched when the agency decides to go with an Audrey Hepburn look over Betty’s Grace Kelly countenance, is a shot of a picture-perfect picnicking family, a counterpoint to Betty and Don’s troubled real-life family. This real Coca-Cola ad from the same year focuses not on familial love but on innocent romantic love, with words by a copywriter who dealt heavily in exclamation points.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Maidenform Ad, 1960
Maidenform, May 16, 1960 One of Sterling Cooper’s clients in Season 2 is Playtex, whose executives are envious of the head-turningly sexy ad campaign by their competitor, Maidenform. Sterling Cooper comes up with an equally sexy campaign that shows the two sides of every woman, at least as contained within the male fantasy: her Jackie Kennedy and her Marilyn Monroe. In its real ads at the time, Maidenform did, in fact, play up the sex factor, though they also included a substantial amount of copy touting the materials and construction behind the seductive product.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine American Airlines Ad, 1960
American Airlines, May 16, 1960 Sterling Cooper pitches American Airlines in Season 2, ultimately failing to win the account. Though the pitch meeting is never shown, some of the ideas appear in the meetings leading up to it. Taglines include the rather generic “American flies the world,” “Let’s fly away” and “This is American Airlines,” the latter accompanied by a watercolor of a plane taking off against a darkening sky. This real ad from 1960 tugs at the heartstrings, playing up American Airlines’ role in bringing families together when it counts, at great speed and an affordable price with stewardesses that “keep you feeling at home.”LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Lucky Strike Ad, 1960
Lucky Strike, December 12, 1960 Lucky Strike is one of Sterling Cooper’s most important clients throughout the series. The pilot episode focuses on the challenges of advertising for cigarette companies amidst a growing public awareness of the health risks associated with smoking. Don proposes emphasizing the taste and unique quality of a Lucky Strike cigarette (“It’s toasted!”). This real ad similarly focuses on taste, promoting the pleasurable experience of smoking as a distraction from the health-related drawbacks.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Playtex ad, 1961
Playtex, June 30, 1961 Though Playtex is a client of Sterling Cooper’s, we only see the agency’s work for the company’s undergarments division. In 1960, Playtex began selling tampons, baby products and other goods. This ad for disposable diapers takes a different approach from Sterling Cooper’s usual strategy, attempting to blend in with LIFE Magazine’s content by taking the form of a pictorial essay. The arrangement of photos and captions mimics the layout of a reported photo essay, making it easy for a reader to miss, at first glance, the fact that he or she is looking at an ad. LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Pepsi ad, 1962
Pepsi, August 31, 1962 In Season 3, Sterling Cooper produces a commercial for Patio Cola—rebranded in 1963 as Diet Pepsi—in which an Ann-Margret look-alike sings “bye bye sugar” to the tune of “Bye Bye Birdie.” This real print ad for Pepsi, from the same year that the episode takes place, relies on the same youthful glow Sterling Cooper was hoping to achieve by alluding to newly crowned superstar Ann-Margret. Youth, the ad suggests, is less about one’s age than one’s attitude (assuming it’s accompanied by a bottle of Pepsi).LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Lufthansa ad, 1963
Lufthansa, June 28, 1963 Whereas Mad Men’s pitches for airlines tend to focus on the planes and the journey, many aviation companies put their stewardesses (or at least the models playing them) front and center in their ads. This 1963 ad for Lufthansa advertises flights to “darkest Africa,” where Bob Hope had recently completed shooting the film Call Me Bwana. The flight attendant, or so the ad would have its target audience believe, is prepared to treat customers with the same gentle touch as she does George the chimpanzee and Tony the lion.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Bethlehem Steel ad, 1963
Bethlehem Steel, June 28, 1963 Don’s pitch for Bethlehem Steel is a picture of the Manhattan skyline with the tagline, “New York City, brought to you by Bethlehem Steel.” The company’s real-life ads also advertise not the steel itself, but things that can be made from it, in this case, soda cans. Whereas Don’s idea played on the notion of reverence for the modern metropolis, the real ad is more lighthearted and playful, imagining a day at the beach made easier by replacing bottles with lighter, smaller cans. LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Samsonite ad, 1963
Samsonite, July 12, 1963 Mad Men’s pitch for Samsonite coincides with the legendary Muhammed Ali vs. Sonny Liston fight for World Heavyweight Champion. Don’s last-ditch idea is to play off the photo of a victorious Ali that appeared in newspapers across the country following the fight, comparing the suitcase to the boxing champion. This real Samsonite ad mentions the luggage’s durability in the copy (“dent-resistant body, strong magnesium frame”), but visually prioritizes its value as a handsome fashion accessory to take on exotic trips.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Heinz ad, 1964
Heinz, February 14, 1964 Don, Peggy and the team throw around a lot of ideas for Heinz, a hard-to-please client, from “Home is where the Heinz is” to “Heinz beans: some things never change” to “Heinz. The only ketchup.” This 1964 Heinz ad is much less sentimental, though the images it uses emphasize familial togetherness with Heinz at the center. Here, it’s the notion of variety, and the excitement of a dual-identity brought about by multiple ketchup flavors, that’s used to entice customers.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Acutron ad, 1964
Accutron, September 11, 1964 In the first episode of Season 7, Don pitches Accutron, using Freddy Rumsen as a mouthpiece. His tagline: “Accutron. It’s not a timepiece. It’s a conversation piece.” The pitch is meant to suggest that the watch makes its wearer interesting. This real Accutron ad from the mid-1960s favors simple design and a briefly stated plug for the watch’s best feature: its accuracy. The copy describes the technology that elevates the watch to best-in-class for timekeeping, so sophisticated that even the government relies on it for satellites.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Philip Morris ad, 1965
Philip Morris, January 29, 1965 Philip Morris is a recurring player in Mad Men, a desirable client due to its sizable share of the cigarette market. In Season 5, Peggy is asked to brainstorm ideas for a top-secret ladies cigarette, and later, the partners pursue Commander, a Philip Morris brand. This 1965 ad, echoing both Don’s Lucky Strike pitch and real-life Lucky Strike ads, places flavor at its center. Targeting women, it sends the dual message that Philip Morris cigarettes are simply enjoyable and flavorful.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Sunkist ad, 1965
Sunkist, July 2, 1965 When Sterling Cooper & Partners pursues Sunkist during Season 6, Don makes a big push for advertising on color TV, which he believes will be the most effective way to advertise a fruit whose name itself is a color. This real Sunkist ad, though it’s in print rather than on television, uses bright color to its advantage to snap readers’ attention into focus. From bright orange lettering to the shiny oranges to the use of a redheaded model, the ad creates a visual counterpart for the experience it’s meant to sell: “real citrus excitement.”LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Honda ad, 1965
Honda, August 13, 1965 Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce only pretends to shoot a commercial for Honda Motorcycles, so we never see any completed work on the show. Honda’s actual campaign at the time took a friendly approach. This ad’s copy suggests that nice people ride Hondas, which the well-dressed couple in the photo reinforces. Playing up its ease of use (“Almost anyone can handle it”), the ad conveys the message that motorcycles are not just for those who prefer leather—white gloves and a knee-length skirt will do just as well.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Ponds ad, 1965
Pond's, August 22, 1965 In the show, results from a focus group suggest that the best way to target potential Pond’s buyers is to play on young women’s dreams of getting married. This Pond’s ad from 1965 targets a slightly older demographic, as the model, French actress Jacqueline Huet, was a married mother. The visual choices contribute to a sense of elegance and maturity, not least of all the use of a Parisian backdrop, European architecture and a sophisticated gown. The ad is imbued with a slightly modern sensibility, appealing to busy working mothers.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine John Deere ad, 1967
John Deere, April 7, 1967 When remembering the Season 3 episode featuring John Deere, viewers will think first of the gruesome office accident involving a lawnmower. We never actually get to see the agency’s work for the company. The company’s real advertisements, later in the decade, sold lawnmowers by emphasizing how little time those who bought one would end up spending on it. It’s a bold way of circumventing the problem that the company’s product, for many customers, is something they need but don’t necessarily want.LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Chevrolet ad, 1967
Chevrolet, October 27, 1967 Sterling Cooper & Partners works long and hard in an attempt to secure Chevy’s business, but the company proves a tough customer. This two-page spread from 1967 takes on a lot a once: It introduces the next year’s models, targets a specific demographic (youthful, affluent) and uses significant copy space to tout its use of computers, explain new features and highlight safety, including a brand new safety measure: the seatbelt. LIFE Magazine
LIFE Magazine Heineken ad, 1969
Heineken, September 12, 1969 Don pitches Heineken on targeting suburban housewives by advertising in grocery stores. Conversely, this ad from the late 1960s is explicitly aimed at men, and not just any men: the model is bespectacled (intelligent), suited up (a businessman) and bejeweled (married). In contrast to ads like Chevrolet’s that rely on ample text, this one is simple, offering two straightforward takeaways. First, that Heineken’s product is distinguished from its peers. And second, that it simply tastes good.LIFE Magazine

Reagan’s sunny optimism wedded to “tough love” conservatism seems to embody the synthesis that Draper will need to embrace in the years following the Kennedy and Nixon administrations. Similar to Reagan, who was elected governor of California in 1967 (and again in 1971), Draper survived by balancing artistic and practical responses to challenges. Hollywood plays an important role in Draper’s professional and personal lives. Reagan’s divorce and remarriage serve as another parallel with Draper (and not with Kennedy or Nixon). Finally, Reagan’s penchant for concealing his inner self appears akin to the mysterious Draper, who hides his true identity as Dick Whitman from even his closest friends, who are few.

If The Apartment served as a Muse for Weiner’s Mad Men, viewers can expect Don Draper to walk off the screen this year facing a sunny future. Just as Billy Wilder’s film portrayed the protagonists as rejecting 1950s corporate conformity, Mad Men began in 1960 with a theme of individual liberation. The Apartment did not require C.C. Baxter and Fran Kubelik to sacrifice the ideal of romantic love, and Mad Men has vindicated that choice by celebrating the 1960s office culture as a space of social revolution.

But as 1969 draws to a close, Draper will need to engage with the rise of corporate power during the Age of Reagan, as historian Sean Wilentz has characterized the 1974-2008 United States. Indeed, one of the subtexts of Mad Men has been the rising importance of work in the lives of Americans. Weiner’s narrative has shown how corporate America’s adoption of the 1960s liberation movements strengthened rather than weakened capitalism’s roots in the United States. In many cases, Don Draper and his colleagues Pete, Ron, Joan, and Peggy formed closer relationships with their colleagues and their firm than with their own wives, husbands, and children. Weiner surely knows that the show’s fans want those bonds to last a lifetime.

Thomas J. Carty, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of American Studies at Springfield College.

The 10 Best Outfits From Mad Men

Betty Draper (January Jones) - Mad Men - Season 3, Episode 7 - Photo Credit: Carin Baer/AMC
Betty’s floral dress Her outfit for lunch with future husband Henry is quintessential Betty, with soft colors and a fitted silhouette.Carin Baer—AMC
Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) and Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) - Mad Men - Season 4, Episode 2 - Photo Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC
Joan’s pen necklace There are few television accessories as iconic as Joan's pen, always dangling over her chest and eventually insulted by a snarky young copywriter who sees its placement as a power play.Michael Yarish—AMC
Megan Draper (Jessica Pare) - Mad Men_Season 6, Episode 5_"The Flood" - Photo Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC
Megan’s metallic dress Megan has all the glamour Peggy lacks, with a more fashion-forward sensibility than Betty.Michael Yarish—AMC
Trudy Campbell (Alison Brie) - Mad Men - Season 3, Episode 3 - Photo Credit: Carin Baer/AMC
Trudy’s floral dress Trudy’s garden party outfit is put to good use when she and Pete impress guests with a mean performance of the Charleston.Carin Baer—AMC
Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) - Mad Men _ Season 6, Episode 13 _ 'In Care of' - Photo Credit: Jamie Trueblood/AMC
Peggy’s pantsuit Peggy may not be a style icon, but she was well suited for ladder climbing in a loud vest and trouser set at a pivotal moment in her professional ascent.Jaimie Trueblood—AMC
Mad Men (Season 5)
Megan’s Zou Bisou Bisou dress Megan surprises Don and her party guests with a performance as sultry as her little black dress.Ron Jaffe—AMC
Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) - Mad Men - Season 3, Episode 3 - Photo Credit: Carin Baer/AMC
Joan’s accordion-playing dress Dresses are like armor for Joan, who wears this form-fitting number while entertaining her husband’s colleagues on the accordion—despite their marital problems.Carin Baer—AMC
Kiernan Shipka as Sally Draper - Mad Men _ Season 5, Episode 7 - Photo Credit: Courtesy of AMC
Sally’s go-go boots Sally tries on a very grown-up look for an awards ceremony with Don and Megan, and finds herself in a grown-up situation when she witnesses Roger in a compromising position with Megan’s mother.AMC
John Slattery as Roger Sterling - Mad Men _ Season 7, Episode 4 - Photo Credit: Michael Yarish/AMC
Roger’s blue suit Roger always looks sharp in a suit, but his sartorial gifts look even more impressive when surrounded by hippies on the farm where his daughter joined a commune.Michael Yarish—AMC
Betty Draper (January Jones) - Mad Men - Season 3, Episode 8 - Photo Credit: Carin Baer/AMC
Betty’s Italian dress For a trip to Italy with Don, Betty gives herself a makeover more befitting of her days as a model than her life as a Westchester mom.Carin Baer—AMC

 

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