Mad.

As an advertising student I take great interest in anything that correlates to my field of study, but wait... have I watch Mad Men you ask? No.. what's that?

Yes somehow in my very busy schedule I have not been able to pick up the hit show about an ad agency in the 60's. What I had heard is that it really has nothing to even do with advertising and some people told me that the show was very slow paced and boring. I still wanted to see for myself what the plot of this series was and if it would hit home on the ad junkie I am.

As I watched the first season I realized, yes, I could see where some may say it is slow paced but there was so much happening in the episode. Did I mention I love vintage probably more than advertising? This series if full of vintage everything! Clothes, phones, language, habits, culture, styles, logos, advertisements all from the 50s-60s era. Amazing and on top of that it has so much do do with advertising! There are jokes, major ad campaigns that came out those years and lots of other things like drinking and smoking at the office and well everywhere else!

On a deeper note I realized that this show displays the raw truth about the culture our country lived in that time. Not so long ago either. What's funny is that today we thing that the world is so bad and scary. What this show shows is that people were just as bad back then as they are now probably even worse. Just over 50 years ago we lived in a country that allowed you to smoke at the office, on a train, in a hospital or even while pregnant. People did not know or believe that smoking was harmful to your health. Back then in corporate America people drank all day long at work and then cheated on their spouses like it was no big deal. Actually in the show it seems very common and almost mandatory when your married. I feel like these things still happen in today's society but not like that.

In one episode, the neighbors were over for the son's birthday party and as one of the children knocked over a vase a man slaps him on the face. Then the father of the boy comes over and say "what is going on over here?" I'm watching, thinking that the men were going to argue because he just slapped his son but then the father of the boy asks his son "Do you want some more?" What?! That guy just slapped you kid! Thats just how it was in those days I suppose. This thought brought me to realize that maybe the reason parents today are so lax with their children (making them little hellions) is because they were scolded as children and do not want to subject their children to the same thing. Who knows...

One of my favorite characters in the show is a neighbor to the main character. She is the told of the neighborhood because of the fact that she got a divorce from her husband. So uncommon and frowned upon in that era. As a single mother of two working a low paying sales job to pay the bills all of the other women think of her as foolish to leave her husband. The best thing about this situation to me is the fact that she stood up for herself and is showing everyone that she does not need a man. I love it. Basically the show is letting us watch the era of when women started taking a step to be more independent something women display on a daily basis.

So would I recommend this show even though it does not educate you on the field of advertising and you will probably feel like your getting lung cancer just by watching them chain smoke? YES!! It s more than just a show about the scandalist lives of advertisers, it is a show that is telling America's history in a raw but truthful manner. Watch it. Thank you.