Mourning Becomes the Mad Men: Notes on Nostalgia

To say that Mad Men exhibits some ambivalence toward Don Draper as a character anyone might admire or emulate would be an understatement. So, too, the show’s sense of nostalgia evinces a continual tension between longing and disavowal. The series represents its era, setting and cast of characters as simultaneously alluring and repellent. In this essay, I explore two aspects of the show’s nostalgic appeal; in both cases, the pleasures of Mad Men’s nostalgia are such that the show both indulges and repudiates its viewers’ desire(s). First of all, it presents a fiction of the 1960s that renders some of its most abhorrent elements at the very least fascinating, if not downright appealing, from sanctioned workplace misogyny and widespread philandering to rampant smoking, alcoholism and consumerism. Mad Men asks, “Wasn’t it beautiful?” while flaunting the era as past; here fiction and history merge to offer a joint disavowal: you can’t go home again, but would you really want to? Secondly, the show presents us with a prickly protagonist; despite his success, Don does not quite fit in with his coworkers. More overtly charming and confident than his coworkers, he is also the most damaged character and, as a protagonist, does not offer much of a foothold for potential viewer identification. While he is innovative as a creative director, Don’s personal life is stuck in the past. He is constantly bogged down by his troubled upbringing, war-time secrets, and memories of his once-happy marriage. Therefore, he is unable to fully assimilate into the rapidly changing present. Mad Men articulates not only viewers’ potential nostalgia (for being part of an era of hope and radical change), but also Don’s yearning for an identity that has always been a fiction. It is through Don that these desires merge and Mad Men plays out the dangers of living in the past, but it also marks viewers as helpless against its nostalgic appeal