Changes Of The 60s

20th October 2014

The stylish, secretive and ruthless world of Madison Avenue advertising returns as Mad Men Season 7 – Part 1 arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on 3 November, 2014. In season 7 we enter 1969, the final year of the 60s – a decade of drastic social transformation and political movement. This feature will take a look at some of the major social developments and historical changes that the characters of Mad Men experience throughout the 60s; changes that have had a lasting effect on American society.

Technological changes

The 1960s saw a surge of new technology that changed the lives of Americans, domestically and politically. Whilst there was the emergence of the television and refrigerator in family homes, the 1960s also paved the way for a technological sub-plot in the cold war between the USA and USSR. With season 7 of Mad Men comes 1969, a significant year in terms of the space race. The USA congratulated themselves on a massive victory as Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, uttering those famous words, “one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.” By the end of the 60s, man had the ability to walk on the moon, and everyone with a TV set – including the characters of Mad Men season 7 – shared in the moment. Although one character in particular didn’t quite get to see the whole moment…

Civil rights movement

Mad Men has been criticised in the past for avoiding the race issues that were prevalent in 1960s America, a decade famous for the civil rights movement and a time when black people were fighting more than ever before for equality and representation. In season 1, 1960, black characters represented the servant class in the roles of unnamed janitors, nannies and elevator operators. In season 7, 1969, viewers see a storyline for Mad Men’s first significant black characters, Shirley and Dawn, the only African-American employees at SCDP, who regularly poke fun at how interchangeable they are in the eyes of their white colleagues and employers.

In the privileged, white-dominated, middle class world of Mad Men, Don Draper’s family and his professional colleagues rarely crossed paths with black Americans. However as we progress through the 7 seasons of Mad Men, viewers and characters alike witness the improving rights, opportunities and lifestyles that black Americans experienced throughout the 1960s. As we move into season 7 of Mad Men, black characters continue to play increasingly significant roles in a previously white-dominated middle class world.

Style

One of the most drastic changes of the 1960s came in fashion – the clothes and hairstyles of the decade transformed beyond recognition, as we see in the characters across the 7 seasons of Mad Men. From seasons 1 and 7 we see a transformation from the era of fifties elegance and the New Look through to bright and bold shift dresses and go-go boots of the late 60s. Whilst Peggy first arrived at SCDP wearing girly jumpers with heart-shaped buttons and a conservative haircut, she enters season 7 – along with the rest of the characters – wearing bright, bold clothing representative of the feel good, self-expressionist, hippy era of the late 1960s where politics and fashion collided.

Healthcare

In Mad Men everyone drinks, everyone smokes, no one exercises, and characters often fail to make the connection between their unhealthy lifestyles and the medical outcomes. In Season 3, Betty Draper lights up while pregnant with her third child and she is also seen drinking cocktails when visibly pregnant. Indeed parents of the 60s were unaware of the risk of foetal-alcohol syndrome, miscarriages and birth defects caused by smoking and drinking whilst pregnant. A particularly dark yet comic moment that depicts this ignorance towards health is when Roger Sterling suffers his second heart-attack, mid-drag, grimacing “not again,” with cigarette in hand. Seemingly ironic only to contemporary viewers, this scene illustrates the 1960s ignorance towards healthcare and the massive changes that have been made since.

This is not to say the 1960s were devoid of any medical improvement or progression. In July 1965, the Medicare program was established by legislation and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Medicare a social insurance program administered by the government still exists today, providing health insurance to people who are either age 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria. Whilst we see the characters of Mad Men act irresponsibly and ignorantly in matters concerning their health, the 1960s were also a time of radical change in healthcare and awareness.

The stylish, secretive and ruthless world of Madison Avenue advertising returns as Mad Men Season 7 – Part 1 arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on 3 November 2014, courtesy of Lionsgate Home Entertainment.

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