Newsweek's Mad Men issue dons 60s homage ads
on Richard Johnson (India), 24/Mar/2012 16:46, 34 days ago
Ahead of this weekend's long-awaited restart of the hitAMCtelevision seriesMad Men, America's perennially ho-hum, middle-class mouthpieceNewsweekis hooking newsstand readers with a Draperesque issue featuringretro advertising creativeinspired by the fictional firmSCDPand the show's maddeningly addictive 1960s-era pop style.This hopefully one-time-only (please don't spark a fad) collection of blissed-out, gender-normative magazine ads puts the fun in advertising fundamentalism; they're worth alookand a re-look, perhaps alongside a reading of the wonderfulHarper'sessay "The False Nostalgia ofMad Men" by Jenny Diski from the JanuaryJonesissue.From the psychedelic "The Spam Who Shagged Me" page to the erect Johnston& Murphy ad and the all-the-right-props Uprising piece, these homages are as priceless as Peggy's glass-ceiling tantrums, as tasteless as a Patio commercial, and almost as historically accurate Cooper's infamous "slippery slope" line.Great move by the magazine: It's Don Draper's rye-soaked train wreck, and we can't look away.You can view all the adshereand vote for your favourite. (Tip 'o the hat to theMagazines Canadablog.)