Lies, Lies, and Advertising

Since it began, I’ve been glued to AMC’s series “Mad Men.” Because of the sporadic way in which I choose and watch TV programs, I didn’t know until I started this post that it was written by Matthew Weiner, who wrote “The Sopranos.” We are now ten episodes into it, and since you can download them to ITunes, I thought I’d share my impressions with you.

“Mad Men” is about the advertising world of 1960 in New York. In 1963, I had my first job in advertising, at J Walter Thompson company in New York. So the first thing I noticed about the program is how true it was to my first glamour job, a job in which I, as an Ivy League graduate, typed copy on an old Remington typewriter while the men around me who wrote it went to meetings. Because I was a fast typist, I had plenty of time to polish my nails and wonder what the meetings were about. I remember some of my boss’s clients were Preparation H, Sinutabs, Singer Sewing Machines, and Maxwell House Coffee. I remember this because I was in Singer’s corporate offices delivering (yes, I was also a messenger) something when I heard about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The office was at the top of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

Why do I remember this so vividly? First, because everybody remembers where they were when Kennedy was assassinated. It was the 9/11 of my generation. Second, because after that I quit the glamor job to go back to school, disgusted with the opportunities for women in the workplace.

And that’s what “Mad Men” depicts. The women are sex objects and chattel. The men are hot shits, chain smoking, drinking in the office, and cheating on their wives. This was still the Eisenhower era, in which women tried to be happy as “homemakers,” while their husbands called them at dinner time to say they’d be late. Said husbands were in the arms of their secretaries. The homemakers were neurotic. The secretaries were frantic. Birth control was new.

I grew up in an era of lying, about everything from whether cigarettes caused cancer to where you were in the evening. Everything was about appearances: how could you “spin” cigarette information so it didn’t look dangerous. How could you “sell” Nixon. And in my real life job? How could you convince everyone who had a headache that it was a sinus headache. This carried over into family life: how could you “sell” the cute new thing in the office on bedding down with you rather than with the guy in the next office?

The main character in “Mad Men,” Don Drake, is conflicted about these lies, of course, because he’s the hero. But his wife has no idea how and where he grew up, just as he has no idea why she is losing feeling in her hands. Only his mistress, who is also his client, knows. Don may be conflicted, but he’s a great liar.

We only find out about Don’s shabby origins because his work buddy, Roger, has a heart attack while screwing a 20-year-old model on the floor of the office while HIS wife and family are away for Labor Day weekend. Of course Don has to cover for him as he is wheeled out of the office naked on a gurney. “He just keeled over at his desk,” says Don loyally, after telling both his girl and Roger’s girl to scoot out of the agency.

Don goes to the hospital with Roger, who says “I always thought it would be the ulcer that got me. I did everything I could; I ate the butter, I drank the cream. And then I had this damned coronary.” 1960 was before we made the connection between heart attacks and cholesterol, heart attacks and smoking, heart attacks and stress. Anything could have caused Roger’s coronary. Karma would be my guess.

But it scares the sh*t out of Don, who runs over to find his mistress at home in the middle of the night. His wife? He calls her to tell her he is staying in the City. Stay tuned.