By Nicole Hakimi
The winner of an astounding 13 Emmys and four Golden Globes, Mad Men follows life in the 1960s at Sterling Cooper, a fictional advertising agency on Madison Avenue. Although the critically acclaimed costumes give you a taste of another time period, Mad Men features three things we can never get enough of: drinking, sex and advertising.
Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the mysterious creative director at Sterling Cooper, seems to split his time evenly between those three things. He drinks during the day, smokes in the office, has affairs with women of all ages and at the same time is so charming that he can almost (almost!) be forgiven. Many would call Draper’s life perfect: He’s powerful, wealthy and, until recently, married to the beautiful Betty Draper (January Jones).
In the current fourth season, much of Draper’s life falls apart. He can no longer see his wife, who left him because of his infidelity, or their three kids. He no longer works at the prestigious Sterling Cooper and is now a partner at the newly formed Sterling Cooper Draper Price, along with Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse), Roger Sterling (John Slattery) and Lane Pryce (Jared Harris). Lonely and humbled, Draper is now forced to make necessary changes in his life.
This new season allows the audience a closer look into the psychology of the glamorously flawed main characters. Between Sterling’s notorious one-liners and Cooper’s discreet references to Randian philosophy, viewers can expect to fall in love with the refreshingly original plot, as well as the changing politics, emerging media and guiltless society of the 1960s.
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Nicole Hakimi is a sophomore writing and integrated marketing communications major who hopes to use her major for good. Email her at [email protected].