The Mad World of Mad Men

Mad Men is making good on its promise of taking us through a whirlwind tour of US political, social landscape, thereby highlighting major issues that came to define America. We left last season with Betty leaving Don for good, after so many mishaps they lived through as a couple.

If we think back for a second, we will remember how Betty came to a point where she could not take it anymore.

It was RFK’s assasination.

Think about it: She lived in a modern world, living in a nuclear family, in a suburban home, with a working husband and her 2.5 kids (well 3, but you get the point -they started with 2 though-). In this life, you do things because they are expected of you. It’s how things are done. It is said that in this world, people are so detached from what they are producing, they simply become pieces in a machine that simply works. That was the case for Betty. She did not question, things were just the way they were. There was a contract.

But her life was being shattered by social changes triggered by new working habits. First of all, her husband, Don Draper, is working in advertising sector, a 3rd wave creative white-collor job. He has all the opportunities and the temptations that come with the job, along with the desychronized, irregular working hours and lifestyle.

We mentioned before that Don Draper is a man torn; this fact is made much more clearer through a literary device; Don has a past he is trying to hide. The fact that this past is rooted in World War II is no coincidence. This was the exact moment after which America started to change dramatically, a watershed time period after which US’s “past” could not guide its future anymore. Don is a symbol, coming from a past we cannot rely on, into a future that brings more questions than answers.

Back to RFK assasination [1] - this event became last drop in a torrent of bad news ripping through Draper household. Betty did her part in her home, waiting for her husband, raising her kids, but the world around her just did not seem to care. She could even partly ignore the fact that her husband was cheating on her [2], treat this event as an “outlier” in a linear world of nuclear families, predictable lifesytles, but after RFK assasination (which came after JFK assasination) you can see the dramatic change in her, she came to the conclusion that the entire world had gone mad, and she started asking the timeless question:

But what about me?

If the world was not following the same contract she had been following, what was to become of her? Then she decides to leave Don Draper. She decides to go after what she wants, instead of what everyone (the system -family, friends, etc-) is expecting of her.

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[1] JFK’s and later RFK’s assasinaton were a sign of military / industrial complex’s structure breaking down. For the first time, the complex took out a president who was not suitable for them. But in this system a president is supposed to be the head of the military / industrial complex, hence the assasination caused a major problem for the system’s structure.

[2] Each society lives through 3rd wave changes through its own culture codes. In America, the main cultural rift is between freedom and prohibition. Hence when social order starts to break down, people started living “free” (as in free sex) because the old way was to “prohibit” self from doing such things. This rift could occur in different places in different cultures.