An examination of the 1st episode of Mad Men: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Here are some of the sociological perspectives I got from watching the 1st episode of Mad Men: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Discontentment

Don Draper is the top ad man at Sterling Cooper. In this episode, he needs to come up with a way to pitch a cigarette brand called Lucky Strike despite the fact that the government says that smoking causes cancer. Today, he’s meeting with the owner of Lucky Strike and if he doesn't come up with an angle around the FTCs findings, the agency will lose the account.

Don trying to figure out an angle to justify smoking is metaphor for him trying to justify maintaining a relationship and a life that he is not happy with; this is why he has a mistress which is just another dead-end relationship. At the meeting with Lucky Strike’s owner and son, Don’s pitch is not to disprove the FTCs findings that cigarettes are poisonous—all cigarettes are poisonous. What sets Lucky Strike apart from its competitors is that they are “roasted.” Just as he dances around the dangers of smoking, Don uses the temporary pleasure he gets from having a mistress to dance around the fact that he is not happy with his marriage. 

Living a double life

Greta Guttman from the agency’s Research Department enters the office and warns Don that they should police themselves to offset government regulations on their cigarette ads. Cigarettes are part of American life, she says, citing Freud’s theory that some people have a death wish. Sal quips “So we’re supposed to believe that people are living one way and secretly thinking the exact opposite? Ridiculous!”(this statement sums up the entire series as everyone is living some kind of double life starting with Don Draper who is actually a deserter named Richard Whitman who has stolen his identity off of a fellow soldier killed in action. Sal, who comes out as gay in a later episode, is pretending to be straight in a sexist, ultra-masculine culture.)

Sexism

In Mad men, women are exposed to sexism at work, in business and at home. 

• On Peggy Olsen’s 1st day at the agency, ad men make sexist remarks about her in an elevator
• The ad men place bets on who will have sex with Peggy 1st
• Don Draper walks out of a meeting with a female client for being ‘out of line’ by disagreeing with him and voicing her opinion
• Don Draper meets with a female client but assumes that the guy with her is the owner until she tells him that she’s the boss
• The doctor at the clinic asks Peggy, who’s getting a pap smear, if she’s married; warning her that “easy women” don’t get married and telling her not to become the “town pump” because his is  writing her prescription for birth control pills

Racism

There are many examples of racism in this episode. For instance, 

• The manager of a restaurant reprimands a male middle-aged waiter, who is Black, not to be too “chatty” with the customers when he sees the waiter speaking with Don Draper
• Except for Salvatore Romano who works in the agency’s Art Dept. and a young Jewish man who works in the mail room, there are no other ethnic groups represented at the agency
• Before finding a Jewish employee to represent the agency at a meeting with a potential Jewish client, Don makes a racist joke when Roger Sterling asks where they can to dig up a Jew for the meeting, asking Roger “Want me to run down to the deli and get someone?”
• Don recommends to Ms. Menken, who is Jewish, that her store offer coupons to increase business. Ms. Menken insists on raising prices to compete with her competitors who don’t offer coupons which angers Don because the coupons, on a deeper level, suggests that she, a Jew, is a 2nd class citizen and is, therefore, of lesser value than her White competitors 

Conforming to norms

Joan Holloway offers advice to Peggy Olsen, the new girl, on how she should accommodate her male superiors like keeping a bottle of Rye in her drawer for Don Draper to wearing shorter dresses to get her ankles to “sing.” Peggy is portrayed as a fish out of water. In the later episodes, her backstory reveals her as being raised by women and not exposed to the overt sexism she is exposed to at the agency. Joan is portrayed as the native who has shaped herself to survive in a world dominated by White males. As lead Secretary, her function is to teach Peggy how to conform.

Off the chain

At the striptease club, the ad men are at a table drinking and smoking and making passes at waitresses. Some girls arrive and sit with everyone except Sal. One of the girls makes a comment about the place: “It’s hot, it’s loud, and it’s filled with men!” Like alcohol, this environment frees the men of the civil restrictions imposed on them by society. (the striptease is a metaphor of the systematic liberation of the ad men’s egos, particularly, Pete’s who is about to be married and, in a sense, restricted from openly expressing himself). As the stripper on the stage peels off her clothes, Pete’s inhibitions fall away and he molests his date. Afterwards, he stops by Peggy’s apartment because, with her, he can privately express himself as Don Draper expresses his true self with his own mistress. When Peggy takes Pete into her place despite knowing that he is getting married in a few days, she is also agreeing to be a 2nd class citizen in his life as women are 2nd class citizens at Sterling Cooper.

Conclusion

Ultimately, this episode lays the groundwork for the changes that will take place in the agency but, most importantly, the changes that will impose themselves on society and the orderly world of Don Draper. The 1st seismic event marking the end of his world is Ms. Menken, the Jewish owner of the department store who embodies 2 oppressed groups challenging him and his world. Don Draper is an amalgam of the 60s, from the civil rights movement to the public’s disillusionment with the war in Vietnam.