Mad Men on the Couch: Analyzing the Minds of the Men and Women of the Hit TV Show

PREFACE

In a therapy session, circa 2010, a young woman worries about whether she will earn a promotion. My parents don’t understand why I work all the time. They tell me to focus on my social life so I can meet someone, get married. My mother thinks if I don’t stop working so much I’ll never have a life. I don’t agree. I love my job … I’m much more a Peggy than a Joan. Peggy knows what she wants—and she doesn’t apologize for it.

The colleague who told me about this session knew I was working on a book about Mad Men. I guess you’re onto something, he told me. People are really fascinated by these characters and by that time in history.

Now, I’m no Matthew Weiner, and I don’t claim to have an inside track on the show’s characters. But as a clinical psychologist/psychoanalyst, I can make some very educated guesses. Writing this book has allowed me to delve into meaty social issues and make polemical claims—practices that my colleagues and I usually consider to be beyond the psychoanalyst’s purview.

Most analysts believe that no one can be an expert on another person’s psychology. We do not routinely give advice or issue dictates about what a patient is thinking or feeling—nor do we presume to tell patients how to behave or what choices to make. Advice, good as it may be, applies to onetime situations. Advice will get you only so far. Psychic change, on the other hand, goes a long way. It is achieved through the arduous, but very worthwhile, work of gaining insight into personal dilemmas and patterns. Psychic change transcends the onetime situation.

So I do make proclamations, use labels, and even call these characters some rather strong names like narcissist (hint: he’s tall, dark, and handsome). Why defy psychiatric convention and throw caution to the wind? The characters in Mad Men present rich material to be mined. Diagnosing them and examining their inner workings can be an enriching and challenging exercise for those who enjoy dissecting the episodes, clinically trained or not. Plus, my editor made me do it. And once I began, the characters came alive in new and exciting ways. In the end, it was really a lot of fun. (Since you’re wondering, the answer is no, I don’t get out much.) But Don and the gang certainly do. And their exploits are enough to fill a book.

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Things sure have changed since Don and Betty set up house in Ossining, New York. On the show, the Drapers have separated and divorced, of course. But in reality and in the larger world, the social, political, and cultural landscapes are now vastly different than they were in the Mad Men era. Our society has made great advances: in the workplace, women and people of color now hold many of the same positions as white men. Families look different, as more people choose to be single parents or marry same-sex partners. Society has become less rigid overall. But not all trends have moved in a less restrictive direction. While Don’s professional and financial fortunes continued to rise, we now find ours on the decline. We are entrenched in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, experts on global affairs, have written a new book in which they boldly declare, That used to be us.¹ They note that a drama is being played out on the global stage, and caution that unless major challenges to our economy, educational system, and government are met, we will continue to lose ground to China and other nations. And so, it is the media that delivers and continues to fuel the message that America has come down. Books, movies, and TV have a profound impact on our thinking. As Andy Warhol once said, It’s the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.²

What Warhol meant was that movies not only reflect major social trends and changes; they also shape cultural norms and expectations. Movie and television stars become the avatars of fashion and style, the messengers of ethics and morality.

And TV’s powerful effect continues today. Only now, people emulate the stars of their favorite real-life shows. For some, reality TV, with its new breed of celebrity, sets the mark for fashion, design, lifestyle choices, and status, just as the movie stars did in Warhol’s day. Fifty years ago the bar was higher, though, and people adhered to a confining, but more mannered, set of social dictates. The Mad Men and women behave in ways that are more formal and less revealing. And they always look great doing it. But underneath their staid dress, pillbox hats, and fedoras lie complicated and puzzling psychologies.

INTRODUCTION

A handsome dark-haired man sits in a crowded, smoky bar writing advertising copy. Oblivious to the noise, mostly male crowd, and glamorous scene, he focuses solely on his work. A uniformed busboy—an older, somewhat reticent African-American man, delivers a drink, and hesitantly answers questions about his favorite brand of cigarette. A bartender—who is white—runs over to the table. I’m sorry sir. Is Sam here bothering you? He can be a little … chatty. No, the handsome man assures the bartender. We’re actually just having a conversation. Is that OK? After the bartender exits, the man remarks, You obviously need to relax after working here all night (Season 1, Episode 1, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes).

We find out that this man’s name is Don Draper—and instantly we want to know more about him.

Draper is, of course, the central character in Mad Men, the series that has spawned a cadre of same-era television and Broadway shows and books and inspired at least one national retailer to offer a line of clothing styled after 1960s fashions. The show’s ubiquity and loyal fan base have made it a watercooler mainstay, and have afforded it a certain pop-cultural heft. How do we account for the fact that Mad Men has gotten under our skin? It is just a TV show, after all. But its characters are so psychologically compelling, fans of the show watch to see them navigate their difficult and complicated relationships—and to puzzle over what exactly makes them tick. Some may even watch because they identify with Don, Peggy, and the other Mad Men and women, and hold them up as a mirror through which to view and measure themselves.

Plus, the characters are immensely entertaining. Who doesn’t get a kick out of seeing Don and Roger knock back a drink—or seven? Who hasn’t experienced a vicarious thrill watching dalliance after dalliance, with partner after partner? Watching Mad Men, we are like anthropologists studying a lost tribe. They eat that? Their kids run around with dry-cleaning bags over their heads? They smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol at their desks? People really used to do those things?

By all accounts, the 1960s were a different time. The characters on the show behave in ways that our millennial sensibility does not sanction or easily comprehend. They get to indulge in ways we cannot. Watching the festival of cigarettes, booze, unprotected sex, cholesterol, and negligent parenting on Mad Men entertains, then, because it chronicles what life was like during a more carefree time. Sure, everyone was terrified during the Bay of Pigs crisis. But the show’s first few seasons take place before the advent of the late ’60s, one of the most explosive times in history. The characters are on the brink of a seismic social shift, but the social and political unrest we know is imminent has not bubbled up quite yet.

We watch as the tension mounts, and we know that major changes in the social, cultural, gender, and political landscapes are about to occur. Even so, life is hedonistic and somewhat safe for Don and company. They know smoking causes cancer, but no one really worries about their health in the same ways we do. No one worries about binge drinking or alcohol abuse. No one wears a seat belt. The kids on the show stare endlessly at whatever is on TV. How different than the current, more restrictive, zeitgeist, which favors healthy behaviors and encourages helicopter parenting. Watching Mad Men provides an escape from our more cautious and more anxious modern sensibilities.

Adults need opportunities to escape, to be sure. As Dr. Glen O. Gabbard observes in his book The Psychology of the Sopranos, opportunities to fantasize, step out of reality, play, and imagine are important—and not just for kids. Borrowing from D. W. Winnicott, the British analyst who wrote extensively about creativity and child development, Gabbard describes how movies and TV shows (and, it is implied, literature) provide what psychoanalysts call a transitional space, a vehicle through which adults can engage in much-needed opportunities for play, creativity, imagination, and fantasizing.¹ Play allows adults to enrich their day-to-day experience.

And just how does Mad Men allow adults to play? The characters indulge in a worry-free spectacle that provides a source of voyeuristic pleasure for viewers. We vicariously drink, eat, smoke, and engage in affair after affair, things we would not dare to dream of doing. And the escape feels so good. On a more basic level, the show, with its meticulously created settings and costumes, is a sight to behold. It offers all the visual pleasures of a period piece. We are treated to glamour—the dresses are gorgeous, the cars look spacious and inviting (no environmentally friendly compact cars here!), the furnishings and hairstyles take us back to a more formal, even genteel, time. And don’t forget those hats! All in all, the show transports us. The corsets, fedoras, furniture, and cars allow us to experience or re-experience a long-departed era, and to get to know a little about the people who lived way back then.

We watch, then, to know the characters in all their complexity, and to see them interact in their relationships. We identify with their struggles with identity, with those about valuing appearances over substance, and with their inner turmoil. We watch, riveted, as they try to find a work-life balance, to get ahead professionally, to stop their self-defeating behaviors and patterns. We step into their shoes and play at solving our personal dilemmas. There seems to be a little bit of Don, Peggy, Betty, Joan, Pete, and Roger in all of us. In them we encounter the mind-sets of our parents or grandparents, and of course, ourselves.

1

Meet the Mad Men and Women of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce

Things are looking up for the men and women of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (SCDP) in 1964. Don has managed to extricate himself from an unhappy marriage and has made a fresh start with Megan, his gorgeous secretary. The admen have freed themselves from the British agency that had taken over their company. And Joan and Peggy have each been promoted. But, as always, appearances do not tell the whole story.

Sure, the office and the people within it look great. The new agency’s sleek lines and design are in the style of Mies van der Rohe, and evoke an open atmosphere. But while the ever-so-modern glass partitions may be transparent, the characters within remain closed off, their relationships complex and opaque. Don’s true identity; Roger’s most recent dalliance with the firm’s office manager, Joan, and her resulting pregnancy; as well as Peggy’s history with Pete and the birth of their child all remain closely guarded secrets. Don’s office romps with Faye, Megan, and others are also kept secret—until he can no longer conceal them.

And while the fledgling firm gives the appearance of prosperity—with 1960s op art and abstract prints adorning the walls, a C. Jeré sculpture in the entranceway, and Danish modern furniture at every turn—what lies within the modern, stylized rooms is pure turmoil: Lucky Strike, which generates the lion’s share of revenue for the partnership, has announced that the agency’s services will no longer be needed. Glo-Coat Floor Wax defects soon after, despite the shiny Clio Don was awarded for his work on their campaign. After this one-two punch, SCDP’s finances become so precarious, it is unclear whether the agency will survive.

With business so tough, the stakes are financially, professionally, and personally high for the agency’s employees. They have all bet big on the firm’s success—and on one another—leaving the stability of Sterling Cooper for this fledgling agency. Peggy thrives at the office; the workplace provides a major source of gratification for her. Pete bets big on his partner; he loses a $4 million government contract, a huge portion of the business he has brought in, to protect Don from a routine background check (Season 4, Episode 10, Hands and Knees). And Don needs SCDP to survive, perhaps more than the others. The agency is his home, professionally and psychologically. At least three of Don’s partners (Roger, Bert, and Pete) know that Don has a secret past—and they accept him despite his deception.

Without the agency, Don might have fewer opportunities for employment. He is hiding a fake identity, after all, and not every agency would let that slide. He needs this job; without colleagues like Roger and Peggy to look over his shoulder, and a home to go to at the end of the day, he might fall apart. In psychological terms, Don is someone who desperately needs outside supports like rules, conventions, deadlines, and tough-love confrontations to function. His life becomes especially difficult after his wife, Betty, insists on a divorce and quickly remarries, for example. At his nadir, Don’s solace is whiskey, his companions outside the office mostly waitresses and prostitutes, and his life nearly spirals out of control. Just what would happen to Don without a professional setting on which to hang his hat and define his place in the world?

DON DRAPER, MADISON AVENUE’S MARLBORO MAN

Tall, dark, and handsome, stoic and macho—Don is a silver-tongued image-maker who is himself a creation, having stolen the identity of the real Don Draper, a soldier who died serving in Korea. Like the Marlboro Man, the iconic brainchild of admen, the new Don exudes confidence, self-assurance, and masculine strength. But for him and the cigarette icon, the machismo is merely a veneer; what lies beneath is darker and more complicated. The actor who played the Marlboro Man is ultimately killed by the very product he hawks, and serves as a cautionary tale and a metaphor for Don’s life. Draper and his colleagues suffer under the brutal pace and nature of the advertising game—a ruthless pressure cooker that threatens to destroy those who earn their living making images. Duck and Freddy develop crushing alcoholism. Roger has two heart attacks at the office.

Though Don seems to thrive under work pressures when we first meet him, he begins to fold as his unhappy home environment and secret past close in on him. As his true identity and extramarital affairs become known to his wife, cracks begin to show in Don’s refined and competent veneer.

BETTY DRAPER, THE ORIGINAL DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE

A classic beauty from a privileged background, Betty receives a top-of-the-line education and goes on to marry a rising and talented adman, Don Draper, with whom she lives in a picture-perfect house in a wealthy Westchester community. But her glamorous veneer unravels in tandem with her husband’s emotional struggles. Soon after Don and Betty set up their beautiful home with their 2.2 children, we see the Drapers begin to grow apart. Don buries himself in his work, seems unable to give much emotionally or communicate with his wife, and has many lovers. Betty fantasizes about cheating with an air-conditioning salesman but remains loyal to Don, though she ultimately does have a one-night stand and an emotional affair with Henry Francis, the man she will marry a short time after the Drapers divorce. Though Betty has all the trappings of wealth and privilege, she has become increasingly desperate and lonely throughout the series thus far.

Being married to a man like Don Draper might explain some of Betty’s emotional difficulties, but fans of the show are frequently puzzled by the way in which she grows angrier and angrier, even after her marriage to Don has ended. Some participants in a recent online vote on a popular Web site have even urged Matthew Weiner to kill off her character entirely. Why is she so reviled? Is she merely the angry, rejecting woman fans love to vilify? Like all the others on the show, Betty is more complicated. Her actions are in large part a result of living during an era in which women had few choices, while her psychology reflects her family of origin. We learn, in fact, that what has prevailed is a like daughter, like mother scenario; when Betty was a child, her own mother was very much like her, if not worse.

PEGGY OLSON, THE CAREER WOMAN

Peggy, buoyed by her ambition, refuses to be stymied by convention or traditional gender roles. Single-minded in her pursuit of a career, she gets ahead at work and breaks free of traditional male-female boundaries in ways other woman of her time, like Betty and Joan, do