Mad Men

By Gary R. Edgerton

This one-stop primer offers a succinct analysis of one of the most skillfully produced, artistically innovative, and culturally resonant scripted series in modern television. It opens by explaining how Mad Men (AMC, 2007–2015) functions as a representative example of much deeper and more profound structural changes happening in television since the 2000s. Gary R. Edgerton highlights influences driving the creation of the show, including creator Matthew Weiner’s personal connections to the subject matter and the development of the main character, Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Analysis of the show’s story progression is delineated by a pivotal shift from a culturally relevant Zeitgeist phenomenon to a narrative more concerned with Draper’s introspective and existential journey to reconciliation and self-awareness. Cultural reflections are also explored with interrogations of privilege and prejudice, the American Dream, ethnicity, race, gender politics, and class as witnessed through the program’s complex and conflicted characters.
Following its debut, Mad Men quickly became a bellwether of contemporary culture. The award-winning series set the creative standard in drama over the span of its initial run and is now recognized as a milestone in the history and development of scripted television. Throughout its seven seasons, the series struck a delicate balance of being both complex and cerebral while also entertaining and accessible, a balance that Edgerton skillfully carries over to this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Release date: Apr 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9780814345474

Book preview

Cover Page for Mad Men

Praise for Mad Men

"From the first scene (‘I love smoking’) to the last (‘I’d like to buy the world a Coke’), Mad Men was all about packaging. With compact precision, venerable television historian Gary Edgerton describes how this remarkable series employed the new aptitudes of twenty-first-century television to repackage the 1960s."

—Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture, Syracuse University

"Gary Edgerton’s meticulous research and industrial/cultural expertise has yielded a rich study of Mad Men that those familiar with this acclaimed show will treasure. It provides a ‘one-stop’ account by deploying the multifaceted analysis that is Edgerton’s forte, allowing Mad Men’s significance to be demonstrated socioculturally, creatively, and industrially. This fascinating book explains why Mad Men—a show about advertising in the 1960s yet one whose overarching obsession is the ‘high-wire act’ performed by Don Draper—so successfully engaged its contemporary audience through its critical reassessment of a much-celebrated yet manifestly flawed past."

—Trisha Dunleavy, associate professor in media and communication, Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

"To understand how and why Mad Men made history, read this book! Gary Edgerton offers here a much-needed and comprehensive historian’s perspective on a historic and historical TV series. For TV lovers and history buffs alike."

—Marjolaine Boutet, American studies professor at Sorbonne-Paris-Nord University and TV series critic

"Gary Edgerton’s comprehensive understanding of Mad Men makes this book a delicious feast for readers. With production research, astute analysis, and detailed readings throughout, Edgerton demonstrates why Mad Men remains one of the smartest and most culturally relevant dramas produced by American television."

—Karen McNally, editor of American Television during a Television Presidency (Wayne State University Press) and co-editor of The Legacy of Mad Men

"As a Triple Crown historian, critic, and fan, the ever-eloquent Gary Edgerton dexterously shape-shifts through the period drama as if a partner in the Sterling Cooper Ad Agency, Don Draper’s psychotherapist, and Matthew Weiner’s production assistant. The keenly crafted chronicle is comprehensive and richly contextualized, a graceful and singular exploration of a touchstone series in which Edgerton identifies, interprets, and illuminates nuances that the rest of us mere Mad Men mortals overlook. Profound and penetrating are understatements. This is another casually brilliant masterpiece from one of the preeminent and prolific voices in media culture criticism."

—George Plasketes, professor of media studies, Auburn University

Mad Men

TV Milestones

Series Editor

Barry Keith Grant, Brock University

TV Milestones is part of the Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series.

A complete listing of the books in this series can be found online at wsupress.wayne.edu.

Mad Men

Gary R. Edgerton

Wayne State University Press

Detroit

Copyright © 2023 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan, 48201. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal permission. Manufactured in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022946617

ISBN 9780814345467 (paperback)

ISBN 9780814345474 (e-book)

Cover image © istockphoto.com

Wayne State University Press rests on Waawiyaataanong, also referred to as Detroit, the ancestral and contemporary homeland of the Three Fires Confederacy. These sovereign lands were granted by the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot Nations, in 1807, through the Treaty of Detroit. Wayne State University Press affirms Indigenous sovereignty and honors all tribes with a connection to Detroit. With our Native neighbors, the press works to advance educational equity and promote a better future for the earth and all people.

Wayne State University Press

Leonard N. Simons Building

4809 Woodward Avenue

Detroit, Michigan 48201-1309

Visit us online at wsupress.wayne.edu.

References to internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Wayne State University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Why Mad Men Matters

1. Mainstreaming the HBO Formula: A Prelude to Peak TV

2. Realizing Indie TV: Matthew Weiner and the New Serialists

3. Capturing the Zeitgeist: Seasons 1 through 3

4. Don Draper’s Psychological Odyssey: Seasons 4 through 7

Conclusion: Mad Men’s Emerging Legacy

Notes

Works Cited

General Index

Television Series Index

Acknowledgments

Imust admit that the first season of Mad Men had come and gone in the summer and fall of 2007 before I had even watched an episode. My oldest daughter, Katie, had bought me downloads of season 1 for my iPod (remember those!) as a Christmas gift, and I finally got around to viewing my first few episodes of the show during a cross-country flight to a conference in March 2008. I was immediately hooked and understood right away what all the fuss was about.

My relationship with Mad Men has been on and off and on again over the intervening years. The first encouragement I received for my enthusiasm and admiration for the series was from Kim Akass and Janet McCabe, who reacted positively to my inquiry about the prospects of editing an anthology for their Reading Contemporary Television Series for I. B. Tauris. The result was a labor of love for me that was published six months after Mad Men’s fourth season ended in April 2011.

At that time, Mad Men was just shifting gears and evolving from a zeitgeist show to a deep and unsparing psychological study of Don Draper / Dick Whitman, although few of us recognized the extent and significance of this change right away. Editing this early Mad Men reader was the first time I had an opportunity to think deeply about the program over an extended period of time. I in turn learned a great deal from the various perspectives and insights offered by the book’s talented group of contributors, beginning with Kim and Janet and including Tim Anderson, Jeremy Butler, Mary Beth Haralovich, David Lavery, David Marc, Horace Newcomb, Sean O’Sullivan, Alison Perlman, Brian Rose, Ron Simon, William Siska, Robert Thomson, Mimi White, and Maurice Yacower.

Moving on to other scholarly projects, I kept my interest in Mad Men somewhat alive but on the back burner through a few short-article-length blog posts and conference presentations. In that way, I want to thank my then-colleague at Old Dominion University Avi Santo, who recruited me to write a piece on Mad Men for In Media Res, the scholarly online forum he cocreated. I am also grateful to Kim and Janet for CST Online, the web extension of the UK journal they cofounded, Critical Studies in Television, along with Stephen Lacey, David Lavery, Robin Nelson, and Rhonda Wilcox.

Likewise, I broke ground on an assortment of Mad Men–related subtopics in papers I presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, American Culture Association, Broadcast Education Association, and Film & History conferences in the early to mid-2010s. The first time I really looked back at Mad Men in its entirety was in preparing a keynote address titled "What Just Happened? The Emerging Legacy of Mad Men (2007–2015)" for Mad Men: The Conference, sponsored by Middle Tennessee State University in collaboration with the University of Salford, UK. The late David Lavery graciously hosted this wonderful event in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, along with his coconveners Jane Marcellus, Kirsty Fairclough, and Michael Goddard. Thanks to them all for organizing this enjoyable and edifying event.

This conference rekindled my interest, but what got me seriously reengaged with Mad Men as a scholarly topic was a much-appreciated invitation, albeit unexpected, by editor in chief Krin Gabbard to take on and complete a twelve-thousand-plus-word critical bibliography on Mad Men (published online in 2020) for The Oxford Bibliography for Cinema and Media Studies. Thoroughly reviewing more than one hundred books, articles, television programs, and films that have a direct link to Mad Men in one way or another reimmersed me ever deeper in the series, only this time from a longer-term, more comprehensive perspective.

I soon afterward contacted Annie Martin, whom I had worked with as senior acquisitions editor for The Sopranos (2013) as part of the ongoing TV Milestone Series for Wayne State University Press (WSUP). Annie had just become the editor in chief of WSUP, and she was once again generous and supportive in helping me develop this project at the press. My main contact while researching and writing this volume has been Marie Sweetman, who assumed Annie’s old editorial position. Marie has been patient, professional, and a delight to work with throughout the gestation period of the book up through its subsequent production process and now publication. I thank her and all of her colleagues at WSUP for the many things they’ve contributed toward making this TV Milestones version of Mad Men a reality.

Many thanks as well to Barry Grant, series editor, and the two anonymous reviewers for their many helpful comments and suggestions for fine-tuning the manuscript. Of recent note, thanks are also in order to the members of the organizing committee of the twenty-fifth SERCIA (Society for the Teaching and Researching of Anglophone Cinema and Television) conference, who provided me with the opportunity to present my evolving thoughts in "Making Sense of Mad Men in a New Era of Accountability at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France, in September 2019; and likewise, the planning group for the fourth INTH (International Network for Theory of History) convention, where I discussed Remediating Camelot in the 21st Century" as represented throughout Mad Men, in Puebla, Mexico, April 2022.

Finally I want to express my deepest thanks to my immediate family. My wife, Nan, and I have enjoyed innumerable hours together watching and discussing Mad Men. Similarly, sharing our observations and opinions on the series with our daughters, Katherine and Mary Ellen, has always been fun, instructive, and gratifying over the years. Nan’s, Katie’s, and Mary’s many enthusiasms and insights are a source of continuing joy and inspiration for me every day. This book is dedicated to them with all my love.

Introduction

Why Mad Men Matters

If I made the show [in 2000], I don’t know if it would have resonated.

—Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men, 2008 (Wyatt)

Once or twice a decade, a new television series comes along to capture and express the zeitgeist. Mad Men (AMC, 2007–2015) was that program at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and into the early 2010s. It debuted less than six weeks after The Sopranos (HBO, 1999–2007) ended on HBO with its controversial finale, Made in America, on June 10, 2007. AMC (formerly American Movie Classics from 1984 to 2003) launched Mad Men on July 19, attracting wide critical acclaim and an extraordinary amount of public attention beginning with the first season, even though it was a show appearing on what was then an also-ran basic cable network. By the time of Mad Men’s finale, Person to Person, which premiered on May 17, 2015, the series was being syndicated in over fifty countries and was available 24/7 through online streaming worldwide.

Mad Men set the creative standard in drama over the span of its initial run, and it has since been acknowledged as a milestone in the history and development of scripted television by industry insiders and the critical establishment alike. It was recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as the Best Television Drama of 2007, 2008, and 2009; the British Academy of Film and Television as Best International Show of 2009 and 2010; and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as the Outstanding Drama Series of 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011, being the first basic cable program ever to win this award. Overall, Mad Men won five Golden Globes, sixteen Emmys, and fifty other major awards, including honors from all of the major Hollywood guilds as well as receiving a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting.

In addition, Mad Men became a phenomenon of contemporary culture. Its stylistic imprint was evident in TV commercials and print advertisements, magazine covers and feature articles, designer fashions and all sorts of consumer products. The series was as au courant as any contemporaneous television program from the late summer of 2007 through 2011, when the effects of a seventeen-month hiatus between seasons 4 and 5 (from