by David Keating
The Keating Files – September 28, 2020
One of the most enduring shows to have aired on television in recent years is AMC’s Mad Men.
Mad Men features the character of Don Draper, an advertising executive whose creative pursuits, marital affairs, and drinking exploits we follow throughout the course of the series. Of the things that I love about Mad Men’s character study of Draper is that it explores what it means to truly be happy.
Don is a character that, when we first meet him, appears to have it all. He has a lovely home in a suburb north of Manhattan. He has a beautiful wife named Betty, who is portrayed by January Jones. He has two children, Bobby and Sally, a white picket fence, the whole American dream that is envisioned in 1950’s America. Yet, the most consistent theme that we see Don struggle with is how to define happiness. It comes through in his creative work for his advertising firm, and it certainly comes through in conversations he has with the many different women in his life.
In an early episode of Mad Men, Don describes happiness in this way, “Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is OK.” Much of Don’s work in the marketing world seems to reflect this view, especially early on in the series. It seems as if Don reflects a view that many have in our culture as well. Happiness is whatever brings us a sense of comfort and peace, perhaps even a sense of distraction, that helps us to put our minds at ease when compared to the many things which worry us in our day-to-day lives.
Later on in the series, Don offers a similar take when pitching DOW Chemical on his agency taking over the marketing division of DOW. The DOW executives explain that they are happy with their agency since they have a good relationship and sales are strong. After all, they have 50% of the market share for what DOW chemical provides. To this, Don replies, “Are you? You’re happy with 50%? You’re on top and you don’t have enough. You’re happy because you’re successful for now. But what is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness. I won’t settle for 50% of anything. I want 100%. You’re happy with your agency? You’re not happy with anything. You don’t want most of it. You want all of it. And I won’t stop until you get all of it.”
What viewers come to realize in this exchange is that Don isn’t really talking about DOW Chemical. Instead, he is offering insight into his own character’s struggles. Don has defined his own happiness in two ways: whatever provides a sense of comfort, and the idea that in order to acquire happiness, you need to be chasing the things we want, even until we have acquired everything there is to have.
Christians, especially in North America, can often fall victim to the same kind of thinking that Don puts on display here. We assume that if we had a little bit more money, possessions, leisure, etc., then we would finally be happy. But what we find when we acquire these things is that they quickly become passe. Our happiness, when defined along the lines of what Don Draper describes, only becomes one moment of satisfaction before we need more.
St. Augustine offers us some comfort in response to the struggles to which Mad Men gives voice. St. Augustine once wrote that, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” In other words, when left to our own devices, we will constantly be unsatisfied with the things we require. Simply put, when our faith, trust, or satisfaction is found in things other than God, we will always be dissatisfied and looking for more, even when we seemingly have acquired everything, or at least everything our culture tells us to acquire.
Matthew reminds us of a similar idea in his Gospel account. He records Jesus' words which tell us, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
Christianity’s answer to Don Draper’s dilemma then is to remember what our wants are versus our needs. Focus on the things that are within our control, but, ultimately we trust that God will care for us in those things which are out of our control. Surely, God does provide for our needs. We have a Heavenly Father who cares for the Church, and therefore not only do we have the gifts of food, family, and home which stem from God, we also have the most precious gift of all: the satisfaction that comes with the eternal life which Christ Jesus offers. At the end of the day, our hearts can only truly be satisfied not in the acquisition of more happiness, but in the rest which our Savior provides.
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The Reverend David Keating is pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Curtis, Nebraska.
Previously by Pastor Keating…
“Zack Snyder’s Messy Super-Jesus”
“Short Message: How Do, or Should, Christians Witness?”
“Amazon’s ‘The Boys’ - Does Christianity Have a Culture Problem?”
“Reflecting on 9/11: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?”
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