crystallized the diverging desires of the
American public. The respectability and
bourgeois achievements of the 1950s
were still the order of the day, but this
was when the veneer officially began to
crack. The world of advertising, with its
odd mingling of art and business—plus
drinking and smoking and sex—provides
the ideal vantage point for watching the
old and new worlds collide.
“A lot of what people find attractive
from that era in history is that people
weren’t so incredibly overprotective
and careful,” says Hamm, who plays the
show’s lead character, creative director
Don Draper. “To a lot of people, what
that represents is a sense of freedom—
and there’s a lot to be said for that.”
A successful working actor for a
number of years, Hamm is enjoying a
breakout role in Draper, the perfect embodiment of moral ambiguity for his time
and place.
“It’s a pretty quintessentially American story: reinventing yourself and never
looking back, and trying to
find happiness,” Hamm says.
Stunningly handsome and
coolly restrained—except
in those moments when
repressed rage and secrets
from his past rear their
ugly heads—Don has lied,
cheated and stolen his way to
the American dream. Yet, in spite of it all,
you can’t hate him because he’s a genuinely self-made man and because, for
all his accomplishments, he constantly
seems to be asking, “Is this all there is?”
The show portrays the
sexism of the period so
vividly that it’s easy to see
how female characters
might want to put on a few
protective layers.
An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse
Mad Men’s success is an accomplishment
that creator Weiner wasn’t sure would
ever happen. After writing the script seven years ago and getting his job on The
Sopranos based on its strength as a writing sample, he was afraid that “
commercial limitations,” such as the characters’
constant smoking and the expense of
making a period piece, would make getting it produced a difficult proposition.
Luckily, AMC discovered the Mad Men
script and pursued Weiner to produce it
just as The Sopranos was winding down
and his schedule was opening up.
Weiner credits his time on The Sopranos with making him a better writer and
with teaching him a thing or two about
the kind of plot twists that grab an audience and won’t let go.
“This is a storytelling decision that I
made early on in the show, from the pilot
on—the audience would not be able to
guess what’s going to happen,” he says.
“And there are really very few things like
that on the air or in the movies, where
people are willing to sit down and hear a
story where they don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Last season’s final-episode gut punch
came courtesy of Draper’s secretary
and aspiring copywriter, Peggy Olson,
played beautifully and enigmatically
by actress Elisabeth Moss. The subject
of constant derision by other characters
for her apparent weight gain, the final
episode reveals a pregnancy about which
she herself had been in deep denial.
Weiner loved the economy of being able
to explore two themes at once.
“I thought this was a great way to tell
a story about a woman who goes to work
and, through stress and constantly being
sexualized, eats her way into another
body so she doesn’t have to deal with it.
And then, of course, the real payoff is
that she’s in denial over this pregnancy.”
The show portrays the sexism of the
period so vividly that it’s easy to see how
female characters might want to put on
a few protective layers, but Weiner’s intent is to illuminate rather than to glorify
these attitudes.
“People sometimes get confused and
call the show sexist, which is the opposite of what it is,” Moss says. “It’s showing how horrible it was. If anything, it’s
far more from the female perspective.”
“All you do is thank God that lawyers
got involved so people can’t behave that
way anymore,” Weiner adds.
Though Weiner won’t divulge any
specific plotlines from the coming season, one thing the audience can look forward to is more of the show’s trademark
mixture of drama and comedy, a rare occurrence in the television world. Weiner
admits he sees little difference between
writing comedy and writing drama.
“I always thought The Sopranos was a
comedy,” he laughs. “I like to think that
everything in life is comedy and, if you
do it right, then the drama is the part that
sinks in afterwards.”
With critics raving and audiences
queuing up to enjoy another summer of
seductive secretaries and sultry cigarette
smoke, Mad Men is definitely sinking in.
