Making Peace with my Own Personal Mad Men

I am the direct descendant of a Mad Man; Mad Men, actually. I spent my childhood surrounded by all the trappings of that most remarkable heyday – or really the remains of the day. The family continues to thrive in the post-mad men, super-digital, Wild West era.  My grandfather’s raging creativity and risk taking in the late 1940s and 1950s set the stage for generations of us making a living in the luckiest and sometimes riskiest  of ways – surrounded by remarkable people who, like us fed on good ideas and  were always on the hunt and at the  ready for the next thing. We were blessed with an amazing history, back-story and powerful genes. And the lot of us have all found our way into the most remarkable places. Mine is here at the helm of Forty Weeks. I’d like to think that my unearthing and nurturing of a new niche would be just the thing that would float my Grandfather’s boat – and I am sure he would be proud.

Watching Mad Men, for me has been strangely bittersweet. On one hand, it feels familiar and inviting. I am captivated as the faded family photographs come to life.  And why not?  I have paid close attention to and savored this new glimpse into the era (I feel like my little kid self – looking down the stairs from the second floor landing) – the design, the music and the mood of the day are all a treat for the senses. The clothes, the cars the parties are all so familiar. Even the office furniture rings real.  There are the offices, the homes and the clubs (and if you are wondering about those clubs and other institutions of the day, we were terribly assimilated and that is how that worked).  It is a time I had glamorized in my mind. There is little doubt that I have let the cream rise to the top and had all but ignored what I must have already known. The rise of advertising, and the culture that it propagated was a white boys club. This was the cultural norm, this was everywhere and this was the social standard. And is our collective history – not just mine but ours.  And while I knew (yes I had information about where women and minorities did and did not fit in) I know it never really connected it to my personal history. And certainly, I never really allowed it to permeate my view of the day.  

Along comes Mad Men. And with the new, rekindled romance of the times comes a new found take on the reality of so much of what was wrong about it. Mad Men has forced me to reconsider the role of women in my family and in our business.  And to, finally process the whole of it – not just the sweet and shiny parts. And so, I will do just that. Somehow, come to terms with the glory and the shame of this era, my personal history and then tuck them away somewhere safe. Mainly because I have miles to go before I sleep and the legacy of all who came before me urging  me on to the next creative challenge…not to make it right but simply because I can.