San Diego Professor Delves Deep Into Politics, Culture of 'Mad Men'

The TV show "Men Men" is in its seventh eating that season and the final error -- episode airs next month. You can divide the world into people who have watched "Men Men" and people haven't. Some people watch a few episodes of forget and others to see such a depth of meaning in the characters and the plot that it has become one of the most talked about TV series in the air. My guess, Linda Beail is one of the latter, not surprisingly professor of political science and director of women's studies at point Loma Nazarene University My pleasure. You go attitude of book called "Men Men" nostalgia and the remaking of America. It's a serious analysis. What you think this TV show deserves this level of analysis? It's an interesting show because it's gotten a lot of critical acclaim, a lot of awards but also really touched a nerve in the popular culture and become a phenomenon the president talked about it in his State of the Union speeches as an example of why we need equal play -- pay legislation. Banana republic has done clothing line around their Barbie dolls of main characters. Many ways in which I think even the resurgence of interest in midcentury modern style and aesthetic, people are interested in this vehicle of time. In so many ways. And it has an appeal, and attraction, and a bit of a dark side. Right. Let's talk more about that. This nostalgia for the 60s. Those two sides to the 60s, there was a side we see in "Men Men" which has got a bit of plastic with an superficiality. And then it contrast it with the later 60s where the hippies and breaking down of all of that more uptight possibly superficial kind of a culture, but why do you think this area that "Men Men" really represents is just so attractive to us now? I think it is really intriguing because in some ways it represents the invention of modern America. It's the postwar period will we be, military superpower and an economic global power, and then there's so much change that is happening in that time period of the civil rights movement, freeze -- free speech movement, and the women's movement, and all of those things. And I think there is a nostalgia for some of the optimism of that era. Man on the moon, John F. Kennedy, youthfulness, and all of the social changes that is happening, but I also think the fears and anxieties of that period that the show doesn't a really nice job of illuminating are some of the same anxieties we have of commodification, of exclusion, even of national security and try to figure out what our place is in the world. It's the same time, not only of all of those good changes, but also of the Cuban missile crisis and with similar peers in the post-9/11 world. So I think there are things that speak to us and I think that is what the show does really well is not only tells a story about a time period that is very different from our own, but it was a story about ourselves. And you are the director of women's studies at Point Loma Nazarene University pic you have a good perspective on what the women on the show have to tell us about ourselves today's. The women are such deliciously complicated and full-fledged characters on the show and they are allowed to be very different from each other and they're all moving to -- to this period change particularly for changes in the workforce and in the home and we see them responding really differently to those opportunities and in halting steps. There is no character of now here's the second wave of feminism embodied in a straightforward way. It's confusing and exhilarating for Peggy Olson to spread -- to stumble forward in the world of work and to find her voice and a Bishop expect she works there and rises rapidly because of it feels. One of the first and the firm to write. That we see Joan Harris rise to become a partner in the firm but in a complicated way. She has been much more comfortable using her sexuality for power and effect that gets turned on her and she basically gets pimped out by the partners to gain a really big account. So -- we have cut or clip of these two talking to each other but I think it was just as well. Let's hear it. This is Peggy and Joan. You are falling prey to a very common situation for new girls. I'm not new anymore pics but that's just it, don't you want to do well here? On the first girl to do any writing of this office since the war. March Tomie Writing? Is that what this is about I thought you were doing that to get close to Paul? Thank you. Again,. I heard you were being considered for an account because of a clients wife saw you and thought it would be okay if you work with you? You're not a stick, yet I never wonder what women think of me. You're hiding a very attractive young girl with too much lunch. I know what men think of you. They are looking for a husband and you are fine and not in that order. Peggy, this is an China there is no money virginity. I'm not a virgin. No. Of course not. I just realized something. You think you are being helpful. Well, I am trying, dear. I'm going home. Such a wonderful unwrapping of all the issues about how to get ahead at the moment. Do you feel when you hear that and when you see that that we come a long way? Or is this still going on? I feel like you see some of the really blatant sexism, even some of the things in the conversation and you do have is jarring moment of thinking, wow, that wasn't that long ago and yet things are very very different and women have a lot more opportunity to maybe don't take some of the casual sexism as so normal anymore. And yet, I do feel like that is not a distinct conversation. There are these really relevant and contemporary issues that get raised about women's power and our femininity and what it means to be taken seriously in the workplace, but also maybe embrace of the empowered by one's own sexuality. And femininity and not try to act like one of the guys. So please don't feel like very distant dilemmas. Perhaps this more subtle but it's nice to be able to see them in the 1960s when it was more out there that these different ways of getting ahead. It's clear to see them and to watch them and to recognize how much -- I was morphed into subtle ways in our current workplaces. Absolutely. There's quite a few stark reminders about how things are related to racism as well assisted them. Don Don Draper, then main ProPac -- protagonist gets a black secretary in season five and we get to hear what she, that's John, here is about the firm where she's meeting a friend for a drink after work and she is late. Here we go. I'm sorry. But I couldn't leave. I don't care as long as you brought those bridal magazines. What's wrong with you? Added date today that pushed Europe's to the wedding to the bottom of the list. To get fired? No. I don't think so. Who can tell about that place. What happened? One of the girls asked me to punch out her timecard. I told you those girls are different spirit's biggest they are pitching in more trouble than maybe what you think she has to? You can't say no because you are too scared. All they see is yes, sir. Everybody is scared there. women crying in the ladies room. Man crying in the elevator. It sounds like New Year's Eve when they empty the garbage. There so many bottles. And I told you about that poor man hanging himself in his office. They got so bad, they must all be jealous of you. What am I going to do? Throw a brick through their window? I want to keep my job. So I'm going to keep my head down. Well, I couldn't do it. Well, you don't have to. You are getting married. And dinner. So interesting, sexism and racism coming up and that clip. But, don't, juice pretty much the only African-American in the firm and she feels that just to keep her head down to keep her job. How far do you think we've come when you look come of this is part of your business, isn't it to look at the workplace and how it's changed pick up argue think would come from those days. I think diversity is their biggest of expect there have been recent research that shows for white Americans about 91% of our social networks are all white. That the vast majority of white Americans live in segregated worlds with neighborhoods, schools, churches, where we do not run into very many people who are different than us in these racial and ethnic ways and I think one of the things the show has been criticized a lot for is not having more prominent characters of different races, particularly African-Americans and people thing way, it's a 60s, civil rights movement was happening, why are we not hearing more African-American stories. But I think the show has a really deliberate strategy of representation. A risky one, but one of immersing us in this white privilege and the invisibility, the ability to not have to see people who are different from us. And I think that is one of the things that makes a little bit startling when you watch and you realize maybe things aren't all that different. Some things have changed and some things have not. Change very much Is easier to absorb it when it's a different era, different decade, yet it is still strikes uncomfortably close to home. Don Draper, that's John Hamm of course, he's the main protagonist and he's come a long way in this 7-8 years is it since the show began? Right. Right. Yet, I remember one image of him fishing a clean shirt out of the bottom drawer. He always has a clean shirt stashed away somewhere. Who knows who put it there for him. [ Laughter ] But how far do you think is come in the series? And we're coming up for the end of one month. Do you have any predictions? I have no predictions except to say that I think Matthew Weiner has created a beautiful show that is a lot like a gorgeous novel with many layers of symbolism and really deep and interesting characters and so I don't think we're going to get some amazing with hanger or plot twist. I think we're going to get some beautiful lingering images of these people. I will say about Don that, you know, some of like the really famous scene where he talks about the Kodak slide carousel and how it's sort of this instrument of nostalgia that brings us back to home, to the places we long to go. And I feel like the show has done that a lot. It's flirted with viewers, I think, who think Don is going to change. Don is going to sober up and wise up and maybe he will make his mayors to make it work and of course it doesn't. And I think these last few episodes have shown is a lot of data on meditating on how much the future is indebted to the past, which is one of the political reasons I'm interested in the book, not just for these characters individually, but for us, how much of our national identity and who we are is indebted to the past or controlled by the past or how free are we to make different choices and decisions. And I'm not sure there is a terribly fatalistic answer to recommend I'm also not sure there's a completely unencumbered, optimistic answer to that I understand Don's daughter has grown up in the last few episodes. And that Matthew Weiner the creator of this show might have gotten a role for her because he really is writing about his parents here. He was born at 65, right? That's right. So that she have a perspective that is helping us look to the future? As lipid ethics is one of the most interesting characters on the show because I think we as viewers who may be identify with her a lot, both generationally but also, she is kind of the hope for the future. If her parents are sort of these discontented and morally bankrupt people, what is our future going to be an epic where come to identify a lot with her point of view in seeing her parents as real people and seeing this era as an arrow with a lot of promise but a lot of flaws. Son of you were to imagine a series, to be serious about this decade, [ Laughter ] Have you thought at all about what the qualities would be that would stand out? You know, that's a really interesting question. I'd love that you asked that. I think we are going to need some of the distance that we get from the 60s if we are going to do a very smart series maybe about this moment in time, but I think some of the -- one of the things of Jan and ovaries over that's over and over again has been this issue of appearance over reality an office and -- authenticity. This is something we are struggling with a lot in the ways that we've been talking about now in terms of identity and race and sexuality, but also in terms of power and how transparent that is or how authentic it is and in terms of commodification and how much we can see people as truly human's and relate to each other that way or whether our fears drive us to put up walls, be isolated from one another, and those themes seen perennial and particularly at two right now so maybe a show about today would have many of those same kinds of things. The coming more effective. I like that. Yet, is the greater of the show talking about anymore shows in the future? I don't know. I think maybe he should savor this moment and I would love to see what his amazing creative brain comes up with next because this is been a really fun world to watch a live in and to write about. It has been wonderful. Good. Well, I would love to read more of your book it is called "Mad Men And Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America" and you are the professor of political science and director of women's studies at Point Loma Nazarene University. Linda Beale thank you for joining us. It's been delightful.