A key element in the experience of many men in the Western world is the dream, or desire, or obsession, to be a perfect man. The environment, television, advertisements, instill in us a complex, sometimes contradictory, picture of an ideal man: a successful, rich, charismatic man, tough but not violent, sensitive but not soft-spoken. Although this idea is usually of a cisgender and heterosexual man (with a perfect woman by his side), homosexuals also have their own idea, and it is not as far from the classic as it was comfortable to think: a muscular, sexual, rough man who externalizes his toughness and power. Such a perfect man will never experience rejection. He will always hear “yes”. Maybe we even know such a man, or we once knew. Perhaps we are pursuing this dream without breathing a moment and asking: Will we ever be satisfied? Will there come a moment when we will be beautiful enough in our own eyes, tough enough, successful enough?
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Today, 15 years ago, the pilot of “Meter Man” was broadcast, a series that, due to its iconic status on television, may have been tagged by those who did not watch it as a heavy quality series. But she is everything but: she is colorful, special and juggling professionally between comedy and drama, between intimate realism and absolute surrealism – and her whole complex spectrum always passes through Don Draper, who is the (seemingly) embodiment of that perfect man, whom the men and women of the series respect, Jealous of him, afraid of him and / or blown away by his charms. He has a reputed job, a perfect wife, two children, a home in the suburbs. He does not externalize weakness, let alone difficulty. When he’s around, it seems the American dream is possible: if you just work hard enough, you too can be the Don Draper to other people. And to yourself.
But Matthew Winner, the creator of “Meter Man,” gave us a chance to see the draperies from the inside, just as the real draperies in our lives would never let us see it. It’s just that many viewers, especially men, did not understand the series at all. This is not condescension, but looking at responses to the series: In the Alphamale blog, dedicated, well, to how to be an alpha male, it is written that “Don Draper is an archetypal and powerful man from whom there is much to learn.” The qualities that make him such are detailed later in the text of Alphamail: he speaks little and fluently, he does not seek validation from others, he is discreet, he works hard, etc. A popular YouTube video analyzes Don’s body language to teach men to broadcast self-confidence. John Ham, the actor who played Don, has been repeatedly voted one of the sexiest men in the world by countless magazines, a win given to him, of course, not just because he’s a ruinous hunk – but because he’s Don Draper. But here’s a feature of Don Draper that none of them mention: he is very, very unhappy.
And this is noticeable precisely because happiness is such a central theme for “Meter Man”. The series, which deals with advertising not only as a workplace but also as an industry shaped and shaped by American ideals (and by extension, of any country affected by its consumer culture), actually repeatedly asks – do we suffer because of capitalism (as a method, as a culture) or has it suffered? Just an existential, eternal and independent human condition? “The thing you call love was invented by people like me to sell tights,” Don says in the pilot episode, and after breaking up the love goes on to dismantle the happiness: “What is happiness? Happiness is the smell of a new car, it is freedom from fear, it is a roadside sign that shouts “Whatever you do – it’s okay, you’re fine.” And if we do not pursue happiness or true love, then who are we? And after what should we be persecuted?
To answer this question even partially the series brings us together with Peggy Olsen. Peggy, who at the beginning of the series is a talented 20-year-old (but still does not know it), a very innocent Catholic who comes to Manhattan to work for the advertising company “Sterling-Cooper” as a secretary, goes through a long and tedious sexist paving: there, on the 30th floor, she is taught to expose Feet, smile when needed, seduce even when not needed, and in short, be “something between mom and waitress” to the men around her. Peggy’s ideals of love and happiness first crash, then are replaced with ambition for things she did not know she wanted, like a career – until at the end of the series she manages to strike some relative balance between these things, and rather release some of the cynicism she wrapped up as a defense mechanism.
In the end, the “Mad Man” historical view of the Sixties constantly passes through the gender prism. It shows how oppression affects everyone – men and women, straights and queers. There are those who suffer more, there are those who suffer less, but no one comes out of it completely healthy and whole. It also shows us what a great way we have managed to do since – but at the same time how much oppression is still here. More hidden, elusive, but here.