One of the main things that strikes me about “Mad Men” is how the issues of smoking and marketing and corporate greed run through the entire series with the lesson that it is the buyer who should beware. Our first clue is a cigarette in Don’s outstretched hand in the opening credits as life scrolls by before him.
The pilot episode is titled “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”. In that episode, Don is working on his account for Lucky Strikes and has a conversation with a waiter in which they discuss the news in Reader’s Digest that smoking is bad for you. Don and the waiter dismiss this, but the waiter says his wife is concerned. “Ladies love their magazines”, they both agree.
In the final episode, “Person to Person”, Don and his ex-wife, Betty, discuss what will happen to their children now that Betty has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. In our final shot of Betty, we see their oldest child doing the dishes while her mother sits at the table smoking. Despite also smoking throughout the series, it’s not Don but his wife who will die. And, it is evident that the children will be called on to clean up the messes their parents left behind. As the marketing tool for corporate greed throughout the series, Don’s dismissal of the article in Reader’s Digest in the first episode has led to the imminent death of his wife and the mother of his children in the final episode.
Here in 2017, I keep seeing comparisons of how Big Sugar took a page from Big Tobacco’s marketing strategy to convince us all that sugar wasn’t so bad for us, and each time it makes me think back to the final scene of “Mad Men”.
Betty Draper’s story is going to end in death caused by smoking. Big Tobacco plays an important part throughout the series, but in the end, it does appear that the smoke has finally cleared from Don’s eyes as he sits there meditating on the new day.
How does Don Draper’s story end? He’s going to offer the world a sugar-laden Coke.
Hearseeno 