'Mad Men' Returns!

This Sunday the much acclaimed and award-winning show “Mad Men” returns for its third season.
When I say “award-winning,” that is no exaggeration. The first season of “Mad Men” won awards in almost every category from almost every organization that presents awards to television shows. And season two of “Mad Men” received 16 Emmy nominations.
In fact last year “Mad Men” became the first basic cable show to win the Emmy for Best Drama. Ironically, the week after winning the Emmy, the ratings actually DROPPED, as only 1.6 million people viewed the episode, where 1.9 million people had watched the previous show.
(By comparison, 6.1 million people watched an “America’s Got Talent” recap show this week during television’s “dog days” of August.)
In other words not too many people watch this show, which I find amazing. Now is “Mad Men” one of those “artsy-fartsy” programs viewed only by high brow intellectuals? Not at all; I have watched and thoroughly enjoyed every episode of “Mad Men” since its inception, and I am about as low brow as one can get. (After all I regularly write about “America Idol” and “Jon & Kate Plus 8.”)
Of course a primary reason “Mad Men” receives relatively low ratings is its placement on the AMC network. In fact as I write this, I admit I don’t even know what number AMC is on my cable system. Last year I almost missed watching an episode; I was yelling at the on-screen channel guide while searching for the A&E Network, when my wife calmly reminded me that “Mad Men” was on “one of those networks that shows old movies.” We found it with seconds to spare.
In any case, I implore anyone reading this article to search for “Mad Men” when season 3 premieres this Sunday at 10 p.m. on the AMC network.
What makes this show so good? Well, I am sure everyone has different reasons for watching. Is it sexy? Yes! Are the plots intricately woven together and the writing superb? Absolutely! Is the acting and art direction fantastic? Of course!
For me, though, what I find most fascinating is the way the show depicts a pivotal era in the changing values and gender roles in our society. Over the first two seasons and now into its third, “Mad Men” takes place during the early to mid-60s. When most people think of the 60s decade, they think of Woodstock, hippies, psychedelic drugs, Vietnam, and women burning their bras, etc.
But that 60s decade really did not begin until about 1967. Prior to the “Summer of Love” and Woodstock, the early 60s were not that different from the somewhat traditional, vanilla, Eisenhower 50s.
And the first season of “Mad Men,” gave us a great view of that period. That is most adult were chain smoking and drinking cocktails throughout the day at work. Gender roles were as traditional and frozen as they had been for centuries before.
Married women stayed at home, wearing their aprons over their pleated dresses, doing the grocery shopping, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, taking care of the kids, and preparing dinner for when the “man of the house” returned home from work, fully expecting dinner to be on the table and the kids to be well-behaved and quiet.
If a woman did have a job, it was as a subservient secretary getting coffee for her boss, picking up his dry cleaning, and typing away. In most cases she was single with a primary goal of finding a husband so she could escape her job and become the housewife described in the previous paragraph.
As for the men, like series star Don Draper, they were the strong and silent type, living the lifestyle akin to 16th century royalty, spending their days smoking, drinking and chasing “wenches.”
But about halfway through the first season the “winds of change” began to blow and blow they did throughout the second season. Don’s wife Betty sank into a depression, began to wake up, and finally kicked her philandering husband out of the house. And miraculously, secretary Peggy Olson, who was far more “with it” than her male colleagues, became the first female copy writer at the Sterling Cooper ad agency.
Moreover, and to me this is the best part of the show, the writers began to demonstrate that there were CONSEQUENCES to people’s actions and vices. Agency bigwig Roger Sterling suffered a heart attack, and besides being booted out of his house, Don Draper developed some ominous health problems which no doubt will worsen in the coming season.
The story arcs and sub-plots that have and will develop around the entire cast of characters are revealing the hypocritical standards of the early 60s in other areas, such as religion, birth control, and archaic attitudes towards homosexuality.
Watching “Mad Men” gives viewers the opportunity to begin to understand why the societal changes of the late 60s and beyond happened.
So don’t forget to watch or to set your DVR Sunday night at 10:00 to the AMC network. That is, if you can find it.