In addition to the excellent setting and rigor of the clothing, Mad Men has stood out for the contrast of its characters . Since the 1940s, Hollywood has known how to maximize the contrast between couples: like Charlie and Rosie in The Queen of Africa (1951). It is a resource in the cinematographic narrative that gives dynamism in the story. Most of the time, the characters reach an intermediate point, that’s when love arises; in others, characters are simply irreconcilable, and separate.
As for Mad Men , we can talk about three couples (two sentimental and one professional) who constantly play the opposite. The first, for obvious reasons, is that of Don Draper and his first wife Betty . While, as Iñaki Martínez defends in the aforementioned work ( Guide to Mad Men. Reyes de la Avenida Madison , 2010), Don is the man who did not have the opportunity to be a child, Betty is the woman who has never stopped being girl. While Don (or Dick Whitman) had a childhood marked by mistreatment, life in a brothel and poor health; Betty was raised among cotton to be a good and beautiful girl and a good wife and mother. Although Betty intuits that Don is unfaithful to him with several women, she prefers to maintain the social and economic status that her husband offers her. Gradually, Betty’s character will harden, but will always continue under the male yoke. In fact, Betty abandons Don for Senator Henry Francis.
In reference to the second couple Don and Megan , from the beginning the age difference is presented to us as a handicap so that this relationship comes to fruition. Megan is a young woman who , despite being good at her job as a secretary and, later, as an advertising creative, still has the dream of being an actress . The moment Hollywood strikes you as the biggest of your dreams, Megan and Don’s characters will drift apart. And even though Megan will constantly yearn for her husband’s presence, Don will resume her infidelities again.
Finally, Don and Peggy’s characters , unlike the previous two examples, will get closer and closer. Peggy is the first secretary that Don has at the beginning of the series, but already in the first season, Don notices a certain talent for advertising. Gradually, Peggy will earn rewards for her hard work, something that no other woman in the series will get. Also, Peggy is almost Don’s soulmate , so there is no possibility between them that there is any love relationship. They are both creative geniuses, they both have a hidden past, they are both cynical and ambitious … and of course, they both represent the self-made man (woman) .
The richness of the Mad Men characters is that we do not find heroes, or evildoers in the series. In reality, they do not represent values, but rather the characters show their miseries, which are, after all, universal miseries . For this reason, the series achieves that, although Don is not the perfect husband, we feel identified with him. Don and Peggy are cynical, but no less than us; like Betty and Megan are innocent and childish as we still are today.
