Mad Men

I am taking a moment to shift my focus away from movies right now and talk about a show that I recently got hooked on and have been watching all week. Mad Men is about ad men in the 1960s and shows their struggles at work and home. The main character is Donald Draper, played by Jon Hamm. He is an extremely successful and talented ad executive with a perfect family and wife in the suburbs. However, he continues to cheat on his wife throughout the episodes with female clients and other acquaintances. A young ad man named Peter Campbell makes it clear that he wants Don's job and constantly competes with him. Campbell like the rest of the men on the show also cheats on his beloved wife.

I really like watching it because it is a cool representation of life in 1960s Manhattan. While the characters still maintain their perfect nuclear families, society is changing. Don's receptionist for example eventually works with the men to creates ads. The show also illustrates attitudes of racism, anti-semitism, and misogynistic views toward women. The ad men are also dealing with the crisis of their cigarette clients impending law suits and research that shows that smoking causes cancer. The men constantly smoke and drink throughout the episodes and are shown coughing in meetings from all of the smoking. Don's wife is talking to her pregnant friend in some of the episodes and the pregnant friend is smoking and drinking. It is a weird thing to watch. But it is interesting to see life in the 1960s re-created.