Mad, Mad World

The AMC series "Mad Men" seems to have gotten lodged in our collective simile gland -- or at least that of the New Yorker writers. Two separate and unrelated articles in the April 27th issue (wow, I am way behind in posting this) make reference to the world of pencil skirts and martini lunches.

First, in a piece on the rising use of "neuroenhancers" -- drugs like Ritalin or Aderall that were developed to help the clinically restless but are increasingly being used by healthy people to gain a mental edge -- Margaret Talbot likens modern pharmaceutical aids to those used in the past: "My college friends and I wrote term papers with the sweaty-palmed assistance of NoDoz tablets. And, before smoking bans, entire office cultures chugged along on a collective nicotine buzz -- at least if "Mad Men" is to be believed" (p 42).

Then, writing on the decline of GM, Chrysler, and Ford, Peter J. Boyer describes a visit to the showy GM Technology Center in Warren, Michigan. "The chief designer's office is like something from the set of 'Mad Men,' with rolled-wood panelling, built-in sofas, and a glass-topped coffee table that can be raised and lowered by push-button command" (p 55).

Is it just the sleek aesthetic of the show that we find so captivating? Or is it something else -- something about the image it projects of American cultural ascendance and material plenty, an image that has become increasingly problematic amidst the rising intensity of consumer culture and the precipitous decent of the market?

I think this entry took me so long to write because the emotions that Mad Men evokes in me -- and I think in the audience the show is aimed at -- are so contradictory -- smug superiority over its restrictive mores and undisguised intolerance, envy of its unapologetic self-indulgence, and sheer wonder at the lack of irony and cynicism on display.