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Television
MAD MEN (BBC 4)
The casual observer would deduce that there was a party going on. While the ladies zip themselves up into improbable dresses and the men thread the cufflinks that will prove the killer accessory, Chubby Checker works himself into a frenzy exhorting everybody to Twist Again.
This series being set in a Madison Avenue advertising agency, twisting is the appropriate word.
Appearances, as so often in advertising, are deceptive. Even though Jackie Kennedy is on the television guiding a spellbound audience through a tour of the White House, a cold, hard reality is setting in.
The toilers in the factory dedicated to mass production of the American dream are waking somewhat blearily into a dawn in which optimism is streaked with cynicism.
Specifically, the previously untouchable Don Draper is having his blood pressure taken by a doctor. This was a man who invented ad campaigns of voodoo efficacy in the short breaks between womanising, depleting the world's cocktail reserves, and signing off on two packs of cigarettes a day. He still looks a bit like Robert De Niro, but his innards are beginning to resemble late period Brando.
Don thought he would live for ever, but intimations of mortality cannot be denied, even though he “eats lots of apples”.
Meanwhile, technology marches on in the office of Sterling Cooper, where the first photocopier has just been installed.
It is the size of a small bungalow and, as no room has been set aside for its unexpected bulk, it sits in the corridor, awaiting the moment when someone realises it does not just make copies of bits of paper but can do human parts as well.
That moment is not long in coming.
The problem, as perceived by the powers-that-be at Sterling Cooper, is that they are failing to appeal to the youth market. Plus ça change. Apparently, the all-important 25-year-old or thereabouts demographic thingy does not respond to the allure of coffee.
And there is the problem of selling Mohawk Airlines to a new generation of tourists without conjuring up the image of a cockpit stuck with arrows.
Mad Men is one of those rare television programmes that credits the viewer with a certain amount of empathetic intelligence, particularly those in this country who can have little conception of the advertising industry in Sixties New York.
It goes without saying that the production is immaculate – you do not need HD TV to have your eye poked out by the pointy bras or, for that matter, the frequent barbs.
The point is that Mad Men shows a society on the cusp of change. Personal behaviour may leave something to be desired, but hats are still to be removed for ladies in lifts, and a roadside mechanic can still change a fan belt without taking advantage of the sexual favour which has been tacitly offered.
Mad Men is occasionally portentous and undoubtedly pleased with itself, but there is currently no better depiction on TV of the slow death of chivalry and the rise of naked greed.
Reader views (2)
An accurate depiction of what life was like in the U.S. in the 1960s -- probably much to the disbelief of the younger generation of today.
- Phil Jones, London UK, 12/02/2009 11:31
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YOU HAVE HAD THE GAIN NOW SHARE THE PAIN
- Ronald Carter, hove england, 11/02/2009 17:51
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