Spoiler alert: don’t read until you’ve watched to the end of season three.
Mad Men is well-made television, but so is plenty of other television. Why is this particular show so compelling to me and so many of my buddies? I think it’s that watching Mad Men is like watching a documentary about our parents and grandparents. In particular, Don Draper is a window into our emotionally inaccessible fathers. For me, the generations don’t line up exactly right – in 1963 my dad was only 21 – but it’s close enough for some intense emotional resonances. I feel like I’m looking through a magic window into events that the old photo albums only hint at.
My dad and Don. There’s so much overlap. Both were authority-resistant guys disguised by suits and corporate jobs. Both underwent name changes and had complex parentage. Both earned a lot more money in New York City as adults than they grew up with in middle America. Both were divorced parents of young kids. Here’s a more detailed rundown of the similarities and differences.
Name changes
Don changed his name from Dick Whitman as a young adult, voluntarily, to escape an abusive family and general abject misery. My dad’s name change was involuntary and happened when he was an infant. He was born John Arthur Rammer, and was given up by his birth parents when his biological father had to go fight world war II. He was named Michael Hein by his adoptive parents, Milo and Phoebe, who raised him in a stable and relatively loving environment. Still, Dad never quite resolved the issue of his adoption. Like Don, he had problems with commitment, with authority, with connection and a sense of belonging. Like Don, he was a smart and talented guy whose rise up the corporate ladder was slowed at times by an unwillingness to be a team player.
Divorce
Again, not quite the same circumstances. My mom is much more Peggy Olsen than Betty Draper.
To my knowledge, Dad never cheated on her (though he did have some serious infidelities in his subsequent relationships.) But there’s some overlap. My sister and I were about the same age as Sally and Bobby Draper when our respective parents split. I don’t remember this scene from my own childhood but it remembers me. With us and the Drapers, it was a similar slow build to a swift and matter-of-fact resolution.
Politics
Dad was younger than Don and more liberal. He went to civil rights marches and in youth was kind of a rabble-rouser, at least by Wisconsin standards. Like Don, he was intrigued by the counterculture but not a member of it.
Fashion
Dad wore standard-issue gray suits to work, not quite as dapper as Don but presentable. On the weekends he lapsed somewhat into his Wisconsin roots: jeans, sweatshirts with cows on them, caps with logos of machinery makers worn without irony. Hard to imagine Don wearing any of that stuff.
Smoking
Dad smoked a pipe in the office, back when that was still allowed. In that regard he was a little more like Paul Kinsey.
Dad wasn’t a cigarette smoker that I’m aware of, though Grandma and Grandpa were. Grandpa eventually quit after jaw cancer, but Grandma was a Draper-level chain smoker until she died.
Drinking
I never witnessed Dad pounding back hard liquor like Don; he was more of a glass or two of wine with dinner kind of guy.
Recklessness and risk-taking
My dad shared Don’s fondness for reckless driving. Dad rode a motorcycle; Don was a half a generation too early for that. Dad didn’t drive drunk that I know of but he did love speeding. He also loved fireworks, which I could imagine Don having a thing for too.
General emotional inaccessibility
I saw Dad bury both of his parents and his second wife and I never saw him shed a tear. I barely remember him ever even mentioning his emotions, much less frankly discussing them. Very Don Draper in that respect.
A couple of other weird similarities between the Mad Men universe and mine. Dad had an accordion and did a little playing. Not as well as Joan, but still.
Any TV show you want to make that functions as an alternate-universe documentary about my family and friends, I’ll obsessively watch it. King Of The Hill has that quality for Dad’s midwestern ancestors. Seinfeld is a window into Mom’s Jewish relatives. Six Feet Under captured some of my family dynamics early on before it exploded into ridiculous melodrama a few seasons in. It’s lonely in modern life. Our tribes are scattered. If I have to use TV as a way to stay in touch, evidently I will.