By now so many shows have been set in the 50’s and 60’s that they’re practically a sub genre of their own (albeit not usually a successful one). The “60’s set shows” often showcase intact nuclear families being as wholesome and perfect as the time allows while grappling through a series of “world changing events” that the show goes through like items on a history checklist (JFK assassination-check, Vietnam-check, Civil Rights-check) without really bringing them to life.
And you could definitely accuse Mad Men of the same type of historical name-dropping (Kennedy vs. Nixon, JFK dead, Vietnam, and Civil Rights have all been mentioned without the show actually digging deep into them or having a real concern for any of these events, particularly Civil Rights…so far). However, the show sets itself apart in not just conveying the gee-whiz events of the 60’s, but in getting the overall mood.
Where as most 60’s-set shows overdose on the wholesome and corny, Mad Men revels in an age not drastically less cynical than our own. Often the characters strive for the fantasies of the 60’s (intact nuclear family, old fashioned gender roles, a breadwinner husband, utter domestic happiness) but keep getting undone by the less picture-perfect realities they can’t keep at bay. No matter what type of cookie-cutter conformist fantasies of the past the characters have, miserable realities of the future keep seeping in…
Joan thought she had the perfect doctor/army hero husband and she can play housewife to that, but is actually miserably married to a man who struggles to fill like a man (being a doctor in Vietnam is as much about his own ego and wanting to be treated like a hero as it is him actually doing good), must continue to work, and winds up being a single mom.
Roger once basked in old money as the lead partner at an advertising firm, but has lost almost all real power and happiness (he left his first wife for the middle-aged fantasy of a younger secretary, and his second marriage is worse than his first). Now he’s a downsized dinosaur as the kind of guy who’s having a hard time adjusting to changing social realities, and is almost entirely usurped by a “kid” (Pete) he doesn’t like. Speaking of…
Pete “has it all” on the surface (a loving, old-fashioned wife, a partner position at an ad agency) but struggles with how miserable and unfulfilled he really is.
Ken is financially fulfilled as an account man but actually enjoys being a sci-fi writer of the kind of stories his co-workers will never get.
Lane would be happiest being divorced and re-marrying the black Playboy bunny from season 4, but he lives in a time when that’s not (mentally) possible. He strikes out instead by beating up Pete Campbell and making a pass at Joan, but those are also dead-ends for his fledgling sense of joy.
Betty thought she wanted the boring life in the suburbs and the older (father-ish) husband who would never cheat on her and had no inner depth, but she is bored to tears and eating herself into obesity.
Peggy thinks she’s enlightened and the most forward thinker around, but still worries if it’s safe to leave her purse full of cash in front of the black secretary she’s pretended she has a similar background to.
And of course Don, he had the all-American, Grace Kelly blonde wife he was SUPPOSED to want as a corn-fed Midwestern “war hero” turned success story. But has found actual happiness in his second marriage to a younger, more exotic French speaking woman who “slept with the boss,” as the old cliche goes.
Of course, another way of talking about the contrast these characters face between what they think they want and what they wind up with, is to say that it’s the difference between the ideals that came before and the ideals that came after. Because what they SHOULD want looks a lot like the past, but what they wind up with looks a lot like today. It’s that attention to a world changing not just around them but also inside of them (is there really any doubt that most of these characters would be much happier with the greater personal freedoms this decade allows?) that really sets Mad Men apart.