Everything is changing at the fictional ad agency of "Mad Men." That's because the world outside this god's plenty of drinkers/chain-smokers and women looking for love is changing.
The Asian Invasion has started. Honda, which is introducing its motorcycle to the U.S., is looking for an ad agency. Don Draper, ultimate game-player, wins that account through fooling the competition and doing an end run around the Japanese in charge of the presentations..
The push for civil rights is gaining momentum. There was a clip from television of a Unitarian minister who was murdered in the struggle. Following Civil Rights will be women's liberation. The office will have fewer Allisons and Peggys who sleep with the higher-ups because they have stars in their eyes. Post-consciousness-raising, they will view sexual favors as bartering for professional goodies.
And, it's the beginning of the end for the wonderful world of tobacco as the agency's cash cow. Right now Roger controls the Lucky Strike account. Of course, it's the anchor client and gives Roger job security, influence, and power. But, for how long. Already the regulators have forbid the use of professional athletes in television commercials. Teenagers can't be seen smoking. And there can't be footage which creates the notion of smokers as some kind of superheroes. The era of Dickie Scruggs can't be too far in the distance.
Since the ad agency men and some key women such as Draper's former wife smoke heavily probably no one in that loop would have predicted the fall of tobacco. A bit of regulation would be expected for such a popular product. Those who pushed for and pushed along those regulations would have made a name for themselves. That's the game as usual. What turned out to be unusual is this: those advocating eliminating smoking cigarettes would ever have become so successful and both the plaintiff and defense attorneys would have made myriad kinds of litigation associated with the product a niche industry.
If "Mad Men" still runs as a series around the late 1990s and the Master Tobacco Settlement [MSA], it will be interesting to get Draper's take on all that and what anchor accounts the agency has.
Note: The best chronicle of how the war on tobacco came to be and was won by Scruggs et al. is in KINGS OF TORT, co-authored by Alan Lange. Lange, editor of YALLPOLITICS, was in Mississippi the whole amazing time. He still is.
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