MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Representative as two reflective cultural studies of American modern life, both AMC’s Mad Men and HBO’s Girls take place during drastically different times where the subjectivity of American societal values and concerns were in the flux of restless cultural investigation.

The 1960s of Mad Men was a decade of boisterous transformation, adroitly adapted to the small screen with close detail to story, tone and thematic convention. Meanwhile, in the present day of Girls’ 2010s, American life is predicated in crippling cynicism aggravated by growing national anxiety and lassitude. Both decades culminate in the rise of a new social consciousness and disenchanting awareness. Thus, the permeating question remains; has anything really changed in the time between the Swinging Sixties and the Tumultuous Twenty-Tens? Are we still building the same house, only with different tools?

Mad Men and its lost characters have recently come to a meditative end and Girls will soon be entering into its fifth season early next January with another chance for blogs and critics alike to watch and denigrate Lena Dunham’s cohort of young, solipsistic characters. Both shows wrestle with the same pertinent ideas: A never-ending search for genuine identity through the supposed voices of their generation—Don Draper and Hannah Horvath—during a time of great cultural change. For better or for worse. With a sociological perspective based on both iconic television series, this paper aims to highlight the many dynamics that represent our culture through socioeconomics, race, sexuality, urbanization, feminism, masculinity, technology, family and relationship dynamics, as well as a close look at how both show’s characters move about the world. In doing so, it compels to explore and possibly answer whether there is indeed much reason to label both the 1960s and the 2010s as the Decades of (endless) Discontent.