AMC's powerhouse drama Mad Men has been dominating award shows and critics lists for the past three years, and rightly so. Carefully interweaving it's fictional narrative with the real life historical events of the sixties, Mad Men tells character rich stories that slowly build into climactic finales. And, of course, the lead man Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is one of the charming, suave, all around engaging characters. Even with his flaws (and there are many, what with the secret past and sleeping around), he is the kind of character that audiences are willing to root for by virtue of his charisma alone.
But that charisma is starting to fade, and it's no accident. After "The Good News", the third episode of the fourth season, aired August 8th, the show officially entered the year 1965, halfway through the decade that is the series setting. Many of the characters have changed over the years (as characters should), but none has undergone as drastic and impactful a change as Don Draper himself.
Don The Charmer
Throughout the first two seasons of Mad Men, and even a little in the third, Don was presented as a man who could get what he wanted. He had a seemingly perfect family, beautiful wife, a great job in a corner office with a mini bar, and could pick up women without appearing to even try. He was, in fact, a very insecure person, troubled by the fact that he had taken the identity of someone else and was not, really, who he said he was. But he was still able to sell himself as convincingly as he sold his advertising pitches to clients, and had such a charming demeanor that audiences couldn't help but be in awe of him. He may be insecure, but at least he was on top pf the world, so to speak.
This notion began to fade during the second season, as his aversion to staying faithful led to his wife, Betty (January Jones), kicking him out of the house. This, however, did not last long, as both the Cuban Missile Crisis and Betty finding out she's pregnant led to her asking Don to come back home (though not before engaging in some casual sex herself. Don's world had been preserved.
Don's Decline
As the third season ended, though, Don's world would see significant change. Betty has finally filed for divorce, and Sterling Cooper, the advertising company he had been working for, is being sold. Don and some of his co-workers end up finding a way out of their contracts and start up a new company, but it is clear that the life they had before is no more.
The fourth (and current) season picks up a year after the new company is formed. Plenty has changed, but nothing as dramatically as Don himself. While drinking was always an acceptable part of life for these characters, Don's drinking has increased enough that even those who work beneath him are snickering behind his back.
The biggest change, and the most telling of how far Don has fallen, is in his interaction with women. The season four premiere revealed that Don is now having to pay a prostitute for sex, something the old Don never even had to think about doing. It's easy to see why. This season, any scene that involves Don trying to seduce a women falls flat. The charm and charisma that used to be there have been replaced by a pitiful sense of desperation. He even breaks one of his unwritten rules and sleeps with his secretary after the Christmas party, leading to one of the series saddest moments.
Don seems to realize the downward state he is in himself. Whether it's brought on by the divorce or by having to essentially start his career anew, he has developed somewhat of a self-loathing mentality. He even has his prostitute slap him during sex, as if he is trying to find a way to absolve himself of his guilt.
1965 and Onward
One of the themes of Mad Men has been how everything seemed to be changing in the sixties. Whether it's the way products are sold to the masses, the evolution of politics, or the cultural shift on certain issues, one of the main sources of conflict has come from characters trying to stay ahead in an ever changing world. Seeing the drastic changes that Don has gone through with so much of the season still to go gives a lot of promise to how Mad Men might continue to play with these themes in a darker, more personal light.
Timothy Gaydos - I attended Ohio University for four years, studying Video Production and Film, earning a BA in Science and Communications from the Scripps ...
