“Nostalgia, it's delicate, but potent”.
Don Draper, 1960.
Mad Men's very own creative director Matthew Weiner once said that his dream scenario for the ending of the show was that upon its end, audience members would immediately begin rewatching out of nostalgia for the characters and their past lives. It's now fifteen years since the first episode of Mad Men graced our screens, and in that time the pang of nostalgia has only deepened. Why is that?
First we should understand ‘nostalgia' through the lens of Mad Men's mercurial protagonist, Don Draper (Jon Hamm). In the finale of season one, titled ‘The Wheel', Don gives a pitch to Kodak and waxes lyrical about this phenomenon; “nostalgia, it's delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means ‘the pain from an old wound'. It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.”. At its essence, nostalgia is a paradox, situated somewhere between cutting and comforting, a reminder of the beautiful times that did not, or perhaps more aptly, could not last. Mad Men fully embraces this contradictory notion and runs with it.
Spanning seven seasons, ninety two episodes, and the entire 1960s, Mad Men focuses on the life of Don Draper, the hotshot creative director at the fictitious advertising company Sterling Cooper (Draper Pryce). When we are first introduced to our would–be hero, he's the very picture of put together; all-American looks, the perfect nuclear family, and a successful self-made career. Don appears to be the aspiration for the contemporary American man. That is, until it's revealed that Don Draper is an illusion, a persona stolen from a fallen soldier in the Korean War, and the man we've been following for the majority of the show's first season is actually Dick Whitman, the unwanted son of an alcoholic farmer from the midwest. Desperate to escape the war and to leave behind his previous life, Dick becomes Don and gets his fresh start, although it's never smooth sailing.
It's established from the first season that Don is a man of inherent contradiction; caught between disdain for his past life as Dick Whitman and his impoverished, traumatic childhood, and desire to cling onto the life he's created for himself as the razor-sharp ad-man Donald F. Draper. Herein lies the crux of Mad Men. It's in this continual battle between Dick and Don, the past and potential future, the old and the new that forms the foundation for Matthew Weiner's era-defining show, and elevates it beyond a mere office drama. It's his lack of a true identity that allows him to deftly adjust to the changing times, but also what leaves him unfulfilled. The tragedy lies in the fact he can sell the perfect life, but forever struggles to attain it for himself. Advertising may be the profession in question, but Mad Men is more concerned with the personal, the internal and while the show may orbit the colossal ego of its sharply-dressed leading man, it's far from just Don's story.
What makes Mad Men so deliciously rewatchable is that its side characters are among some of the most three dimensional, fleshed-out in recent memory. There's the petulant and pitiful Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), the affable one-man punchline machine that is Roger Sterling (John Slattery), and of course who could forget Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), the eternally resilient secretary turned office manager turned silent partner. But the unquestionable stand-out has to be Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss). It's no surprise that the series' pilot episode ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' coincides with Peggy's first day working for Don as his secretary. At first, Peggy is a naive, but ambitious outsider, who has to overcome a series of obstacles just to get a foot in the door. In this, Don see's certain amount of himself in his young secretary; her work-ethic, humble background and creative potential lead to their relationship developing into that of a mentor/protege dynamic, one that Weiner utilises to highlight their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Through all seven seasons, Peggy's journey of learning to navigate the insular, misogynistic world of 1960s advertising as the “new girl”, leaves her as exactly that, the new girl, emblematic of a shift in status quo within not just the workplace, but America as a whole. Famed for its intricate aesthetic recreation of the 1960s, Mad Men's strengths lie not just in its period-accurate set design and costume work, but also Weiner, along with fellow Mad Men writers, use some of the huge, culture-shaking moments in contemporary history as reference points for their characters. Moments like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War are exploited, for better and occasionally worse, to colour in the lines. What's more, is that we're very rarely treated to any definitive stance on these matters, or the themes that they naturally discuss, instead Weiner lets us view them through the somewhat rose-tinted lenses of our favourite characters. A feat of three-dimensional writing that puts the audience in the murky waters of these contemporary issues, rather than simply using them as narrative wallpaper.
All of this, it could be argued, could render a show like Mad Men somewhat dateable, if not dated, with its eagerness to abide by period-correct dynamics and historical events. However, like its protagonist, Mad Men remains singular and so, this couldn't be further from the truth. For my money, what allows Mad Men to stand apart from its peers, is how deeply, innately human it is; at all times Mad Men functions as both comedy and tragedy, a yearning for the glory days whilst also dispelling that sentimentality as myth, of its time and simply timeless. For all this and more, Mad Men remains eminently rewatchable, it's a testament to the dizzying heights of prestige TV, and the depths of character study that can be accomplished on the small screen.