Only five more days until the new season of Mad Men! When I was lamenting the end of the school year, I consoled myself with the idea that Mad Men would be on all summer and that I would have something to look forward to every Sunday. Alas, it was not to be, and the premiere date was set for middle of August. In despair, I even went to Banana Republic to try on their line of Mad Men clothing.
For those who don’t know about Mad Men, it’s an AMC series focusing on the employees of a small Madison Avenue advertising agency in the early sixties. More broadly, it’s a look at the changing culture of the early sixties.
The summer has blown by, and finally the next season is upon us. I approach it with some trepidation; the directions the show might take offer a depressing, perhaps too timely, array of ideas. The delicate, elegant culture that the characters inhabit has a limited lifespan. Pop culture and politics of the time are approaching an upheaval: the Hollywood studio system is essentially over, The Beatles are coming(!!!), along with assassinations, riots, and Vietnam.
All current parallels and philosophical ramblings aside, dramatically the show could become very, very interesting.