Mad Men and not(yet) Marxist women

"What ever you are doing is okay” says Don Draper in a TV drama set in the late 1950s. We see that an advertising executive aim to make consumers sure that they feel happy when they smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes. Today, the main purpose is the same, advertising campaigns aim to make consumers feel happy. Karl Marx would probably think of advertising as way of manipulation to exploit proletariat by bourgeoisie (Rius, 92). Basically from his perspective we can assume that an advertising agency is a tool of manipulation for bourgeoisie, and an advertising agency is also owned or managed by a bourgeois. Marx would not only be very sad seeing the commercials but the role of women in Mad Men.



I knew that women did not have an equal role with men during the 50s in America, but I was still very surprised to see the amount of inequality between men and woman. A woman has two choices in the show; she can be a low paid worker or a housewife. Additionally, secretaries should entertain their bosses in and out of the office! Engels argues that administration of the household became private service and the wife was a domestic servant at home (Rius, 120). His argument crosses a path with women's role in Mad Men. According to the Marxist idea, working class (women at this point) does not know that it has been exploited by the boss(es). That is why women are not aware of the exploitation; they are blind to the truth.

Finally, I assume in upcoming seasons we will see the uprising of women's rights. The audience will have a chance to experience how roles were changed for women in American society. The show parallels American history and will soon depict the 1960s and 1970s uprising against the inequality of women in the society. Mad Men is a great drama. I have watched every episodes so far and it is one of the best TV productions that I have ever seen. Although it has a very slow paced story line, there is this high level of reality, story structure and acting that makes this drama something I would highly recommend.

Rius.(2003). Marx for beginners. New York: Pantheon Books.