If you haven’t seen the AMC show Mad Men, you aren’t going to understand this post. The show follows a Madison Avenue advertising firm through the early 1960’s, exploring the culture and prejudices of the time. I find the show interesting because my father was working himself up to an executive position on Madison Avenue during this period, but I can’t really picture him as a member of the cast. In any case, we all know the period; civil rights protests, the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, advisors in Vietnam, the Pill, the assassination, Marilyn Monroe. It was the period just before the great cultural rupture that played out most dramatically in the 1968 Democratic convention, and in the inner city riots. For conservatives, it is the moment of maximum of sentimentality. They see it as the last period when they felt comfortable about the nature and direction of this country.
Mad Men disturbs them because it displays the crass materialism, instinctual sexism, and lazy racism of the period in unvarnished terms. They aren’t mean enough to dispute the shortcomings of the era, but they think portraying it as flawed is smug. Who are we to pass judgment on the people of another era? It’s like doing a show about the Founding Fathers and harping on their slave ownership. I agree that historical treatments should avoid sanctimony, but they shouldn’t shamelessly romanticize either. I think the show has a good balance.
Rod Dreher makes his point this way:
The problem with either demonizing or canonizing any era in history is you see what you want to see. Of course by far the dominant narrative in our news and entertainment media has been that the Sixties were a glorious time of revolution and the overturning of the hated, oppressive ’50s. On the right, we have tended to locate in the Sixties the locus of all our contemporary problems. The thing we conservatives struggle to come to terms with is this question: If everything was so great in the Fifties, how come it all went to hell so fast in the Sixties?
It’s a good question that Dreher makes no real effort to answer.
… I don’t think “Mad Men” tells the entire story of Life Before the Sixties. Does anybody believe that? If “Mad Men” stays around for a while, and traces the arc of its characters, I would expect it to show that the liberation many of its characters yearn for and struggle for won’t turn out to be what they expected. It is a downbeat, melancholy program, and that’s fine. Again, if it’s true to its pessimism, it won’t make the mistake of following these characters till, say, 1970, and finding them all fulfilled and high on life. Because that’s not what happened in real life, is it?
As I’ve mentioned here before in connection to “Mad Men,” the book to read is Alan Ehrenhalt’s “The Lost City,” which traces changes in Chicago and community life after the war. Ehrenhalt points out that the Fifties we all long for, of cohesive communities, clear standards, better behavior, was purchased at a price in personal autonomy that few of us today would be willing to pay. “Mad Men” explores in part that cost, e.g., women having to learn to put up with their husbands philandering. And yet, as Ehrenhalt cannily observes, the kind of people who escaped those sorts of places and went on to write films, plays and books about them were typically unhappy rebels. The kinds of people who remember those days as mostly good, happy times aren’t often heard from. Anyway, I’m sure liberals and conservatives who are both fans of “Mad Men” watch it differently. Liberals may watch it with the smug self-congratulation about which Schwarz complains. My suspicion is that conservatives who like the show are drawn to it in part for its tragic aspect: that is, we know what’s coming next for these people, historically speaking, is not the hoped-for liberation, but a new and different kind of misery. There is no exit from the human condition.
You learn a lot about people when they are talking among themselves. Here you have a conservative writing a column for conservative consumption. And he writes of, “the Fifties we all long for, of cohesive communities, clear standards, better behavior.” I grew up in the 1970’s, and I have very happy memories of that decade. Most people who were trying to work for a living in the 1970’s have a much more realistic recollection. Our president resigned in disgrace, the divorce rate soared, we had rampant inflation, two energy crises, lost the war in Vietnam, and suffered from ridiculously high interest rates. We finished up with a hostage crisis in Iran.
It doesn’t surprise me that there is a generation of people who were living a nice comfortable suburban structured childhood in the early 1960’s who see the era with rose-colored glasses. But that’s what they are: rose-colored. That’s what Mad Men puts the lie to. Their fathers and mothers were living in a dreamworld. They didn’t see the revolution coming because they weren’t paying attention to the trouble brewing in our inability to deal with segregation and poverty and women’s equality and the bad decisions being made by the Wise Men of Washington. It all came apart because that illusion would not hold. And what was Madison Avenue but the factory of conformity and illusion? What better place to examine the lazy assumptions of our nation’s last fin de siècle?
Conservatives inability to see the dispossessed and to empathize with those who aren’t getting a fair shake is merely a symptom of their more general proclivity for magical thinking. It’s why someone like Dick Cheney can say that deficits don’t matter, and the Republicans can supportively govern as if that were true until the exact moment that they lose control of the purse-strings.
But no conservative column on popular culture is complete without an effort to make a black man agree with their interpretation.
One more thing: You know what I would like to see? A period drama like “Mad Men” set in a black community around the same time period — a middle-class black neighborhood in Washington, DC, say, in the final years of segregation, as the civil rights movement gained steam. Once when I lived in DC I took a cab ride with an older black gentleman driver. We passed by a desolate stretch of Northeast, and he talked about how when he was a young man, all this was thriving. He said to me that believe it or not, life was pretty good in some respects under segregation. That old man was not wishing for the return of segregation. But he was acknowledging the bitter truth that all the gains in freedom his community made in the Sixties also occasioned some fairly catastrophic losses. That would make for a great serial drama, don’t you think?
So, a conservative version of Mad Men would focus on some middle class black family whose neighborhood went to shit because blacks didn’t settle for their newfound rights and got upset when their leaders were assassinated. They’d all sit around and reminisce about how much better things were before the Civil and Voting Rights Acts riled up their neighbors and got them thinking they should ask for even more.
Or, I guess, that’s how the conservative version would end up. For the first few seasons we’d be treated to a sample of how good this Cosby family had it in segregated Washington DC.
This sounds very promising – kind of a prequel to Bamboozled. Hope Spike Lee is reading the trib.
What his cab companion refers to about neighborhoods under segregation is the economic diversity. Since the more affluent had limited options for where they could live, a neighborhood included the doctors, lawyers, teachers and the upwardly mobile. Nice book: Robert Stepto’s memoir: Blue as the Lake (1998)
yes, there is that. And, also, this was before the White Flight that removed so many businesses and jobs from the cities.
Yes, all kinds of residential patterns shifted (and real estate ppl, never looking a gift $ in the mouth took great advantage) once desegregation was set in motion. The idea that affluent postwar aa’s didn’t move out of urban ghettos because they preferred the close-knit enforced communities to the ennui of the suburbs is probably what this Bamboozled prequel will focus on. Maybe it could be a model for a sitcom about Theresienstadt.
when I was living in the Italian section of South Philly back in 2002-2005, a black family bought a row house on the next street over. Their neighbors across the street starting flying a Confederate Flag in response. Some things never change.
When blacks were excluded from economic life, there was an economic need for services. This led to the development of a black middle class. These businesses performed the same function that white businesses did.
When segregation ended, economic forces destroyed the black middle class. And this is not all good for the black community, despite Booman’s comments.
As an example, the black barber shop/beauty parlor is still a pretty viable institution, because there are components of service that they provide that cannot be obtained from comparable white businesses. Many black men cannot be shaved in the same manner that white men are shaved. If you shave them closely, the beard hairs curl under the skin, and you get a terrible skin condition and infection. Same with braiding of hair, and black beauty shops.
It [dispersed the black middle class http://www.blackdemographics.com/middle_class.html ]more than it destroyed it.
The history is very tragic; Reconstruction era economic success and entrepreneurship of black americans gave impetus to Jim Crow. much tragic to look at in that period. Interesting movie, with lots to ponder in what isn’t said is Something the Lord Made.
Something the Lord Made Vivien Thomas, evidently a medical genius, planned to attend medical school – he was never supported in that option, gained some autonomy and recognition late in life and fortunately for the medical world did have opportunity to exercise his gifts.
for a very perceptive analysis on what made/makes cities…neighbourhoods, etc., whether ethnically or racially organized/segregated…l highly recommend jane jacobs the death and life of great american cities.
it’s a seminal work and was required reading when l was in grad school for architecture and planning classes, and is still considered the rosetta stone for the new town-urbanism movement; although it’s been usurped to the purposes pastiche pseudo eclecticism that places like disney’s celebration.
also, speaking of barber shops in black communities and the role they play in the community as a whole, a very entertaining film is barbershop…a humourous/dramatic look at a slice of south chicago urban life.
…pastiche, pseudo eclecticism, and escapism that places like disney’s celebration represent.
translation: when white man was king, and the women and blacks had to take their crap with a smile and a thank you.
I wonder if this black cab driver isn’t some sort of conservative mythic figure? Because Dreher isn’t the first one to employ him, or somebody like him, to make a point. I remember Pat Buchanan, back in his “Crossfire” days on CNN, telling a similar story. On one episode the dealt with race, Buchanan recalled discussing the segregated D.C. of his youth with an elderly black man. Crazy Pat reminisced that everybody seemed happier when each community had their “own place.”
It’s like Gone With the Wind for conservative guys, with D.C. replacing Tara.
well, my theory is that it is a combination.
they like to put their own words in black people’s mouths. That’s why you see these ridiculous black Republican pundits on your teevee and why you get idiots like JC Watts and Michael Steele in leadership positions. But, on the other hand, a lie has to be plausible, and they know that we know that they are too afraid to talk one-on-one with black people in any other setting than a taxi or elevator. So, they make the lie ‘plausible’ by using taxi drivers and elevator conductors rather than, say, their neighbor (hah) or friend (double-hah).
Sometimes literally: Armstrong Williams.
I haven’t seen Mad Men yet, look forward to checking it out someday.
But I was there, saw the 60s, born in 1949. Even as a child, the culture felt to me like it was suffocating. Everyone’s views were judged by everyone else all the time in an unpleasant way. I remember that on tv the married couples’ bedrooms always had to have 2 beds- to me that was a symbol of silly denial that was everywhere.
I see the hippie age as one made possible by economic boom times, I assume from the war. All the adults, when I was a child, had lived through the depression, and I think they were still hunkered down from that, trying to protect their assets, fiercely if necessary. This leads to bigotry if you are trying to protect your white advantage.
For us kids in the 50s and 60s, the economy was great and money really went far, nothing at all like today. This did lead to many young folks taking advantage of the system, since it felt like there was plenty of money to spare, but it also lead to a leap in art, culture, and open thinking.
Before desegregation, there was a pretty vibrant black middle class. Booman says that it is bigger today, but I’m not sure. Certainly the black middle class provided an alternative hierarchy of black society. Today, there is no alternative hierarchy for better or for worse.
The black middle business class thrived because it had a pretty much captive audience. As a black person, you couldn’t eat in a white restaurant, but you certainly could in a black restaurant. Was this good or bad? Depends on whether you owned the business that catered to blacks.
After desegregation, blacks could eat in white restaurants. Black restaurants went out of business, and whole communities were destroyed. Was this good or bad? I have no idea.
Small towns used to have a monopoly on business. In a small town, you could make a small restaurant, and you had a captive audience. This often meant that you could serve bad food with bad service but sometimes meant that you served regional food. Regardless, you survived in your little corner of Illinois or Arkansas or Nevada or …. really every state.
Two things ended this era of wild capitalism: McDonald’s and Walmart. McDonald’s and other fast food places have pretty much destroyed the small restaurant business in most places in the country. Pretty much the only restaurants left are mexican places and high-end steakhouses. The middle-brow restaurants have all been replaced by chains, which cost a LOT of money to get into. Walmart has in the same way destroyed the business community in most small towns. Walmart moves in and the downtown becomes a ghosttown.
It’s the same thing that happened to the black community. In the 50s, they owned their businesses. Today, the middle class is middle management, and outsourcing makes that a very precarious place to be. In small towns, you used to be able to own a business. Today, Walmart has displaced all but the most boutique businesses and the most hardy of local businesses.
Back then, you owned the business. Today, you run the business. Ownership is much less common today, and what is left is middle management of businesses. Chain bookstores have driven out local bookstores. Chain restaurants have driven out locals. How? Chains have better variety, better prices, and a larger inventory. For the consumer, this is good. For the employee, it is not so good.
While the change was going on, during the 80s and 90s, it all looked good. You ran your little business, and saved money at Walmart. Then Walmart stopped buying locally, all the businesses when bankrupt, and now everyone is an employee.
Small towns today are a disaster, and the black community is pretty much problematic. Is that good or bad?
I can’t comment on Mad Men per se, though it sounds like an interesting program. But I can say something about the way the larger question is framed. What’s odd about that frame is the idea of declaring an entire era to be either good or bad, or as any one thing. There’s something unbelievably simplistic and reductive about this, and rather Hegelian. I see something similar when the subject of “the Boomers” comes up. Don’t people realize that this term refers to the entire population of the United States born within a particular, rather long, time frame? We may characterize that era according to some general parameters, but really, the idea that everyone, or even the majority of people who grew up in that era had and still have more or less the same attitudes and beliefs? It is this stupid reductionism and one-sidedness that is the real problem.
I grew up in the 1950s and I was very happy in the early part of that decade, especially enjoying (as I can see it now) aspects of it that were a direct continuation of the 1940s and even 1930s — free of the depression or the war). Like you in the 1970s, why shouldn’t I have liked that time? I had a happy childhood, at least up to the age of 10. But I know my parents were not happy with the 1950s as they understood it.
I will say this, though. In the 60s, I and all my friends saw the Vietnam war, assassinations, riots of the time as the culmination of the 50s. I emphasize — we saw it that way at the time. That’s why there was this constant emphasis on youth (don’t trust anybody over 30) and a blaming of the older generation for how things had turned out. And many of that older generation openly agreed with this assessment.
It’s a long time since I was a DFH, and my growing up was almost synonymous with coming to understand where the 60s went over the top; nevertheless, I will never be able to forget the very good reasons for the rebellion of the 1960s, and also the many great things that came out of it.
But this illustrates again why it’s wrong to view a whole era as just one thing. Our brethren on the right did not understand at the time what was good and necessary about 60s rebellion, and they don’t understand it now. They see only the negative aspects and they view them as if they arose as the spontaneous exhalation of pure evil, instead of the truth, that they were a reaction, right or wrong, to the evils of the 1950s. On what was good about the 1950s I can often agree with them.
Actually, I do understand why & how the 50s & 60s resonate with conservatives even though I haven’t seen Mad Men.
I recall Samual Alito commenting during the period that he was going through confirmation hearings to the effect that the 60s were very disturbing to him. It was both a silly comment at a superficial level and code for conservatives.
Dreher reveals a couple of the right’s favorite memes in his comments — of a mythologized 50s and of liberal scolds.
Conservative thought (or RWA thought) mythologizes the 50s in the much the same way as the old west was mythologized. It’s not about objective facts as much as the need to project certain beliefs upon that period.
On the flip side, the 60s are viewed as the unraveling of that period. I think of a comment by Raymond Paul Cuzzort, who used the expression “the killer of the dream.” Cuzzort was commenting on the work of sociologist Hugh Dalziel Duncan, how wrote about our need to idealize certain events and aspects of society.
The need to idealize is especially pronounced at certain times because of the psychodynamics present, but it’s also truer of certain types of people.
The 50s are idealized by conservatives because of the social rigidity in keeping with conservative ideals, but also because the Cold War was instrumental in persuading people to adopt a conservative worldview. Moreover, the need to adopt an idealized, romanticized depiction of reality is more pronounced during that time, and we see that in the era’s television shows, such as Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver.
Curiously, a common complaint among conservatives is the idealism of many people during the 60s. However, a regressive form of idealism occurs in regards to conservative attitudes towards the 50s, as a past is invented (or even a present), under the curious rationalization of returning to the way things always have been.
It’s not that there isn’t any factual basis for some of the conservative beliefs, the problem is with the beliefs themselves. There isn’t a common framework under which we could evaluate events. And “loss of personal freedom” is hardly the way I’d describe the McCarthy era.
I was reminded of the 50s once again recently, although it’s a time I only dimly remember. What prompted my memory was some comments by Bryan Zepp Jamison on a paper entitled: “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition.”
http://bit.ly/uewxJ
http://www.wam.umd.edu/%7Ehannahk/bulletin.pdf
The following comments by Jamison and the paper’s authors provide insights into the conservative thought processes, and I think they’re relevant to this topic.