"The Wizard of Oz" and "Mad Men"

The classic film "Wizard of Oz" depicts a young farm girl journeying through the fantasy land of Oz; the highly rated TV show "Mad Men" follows Don Draper, a highly successful executive in the golden age of advertising. What do the two have in common?

Oz is a magical place; when she first awakes there, Dorothy is dazzled by all the rich color and imagination-defying people and places. But soon she encounters Oz's darker passages, the bends in the road populated by witches and angry trees. Dorothy herself is believed by the populous to be a witch capable of and gifted with extraordinary ability. But, of course, she's really just a simple farm girl. Her journey through--and eventually out of--Oz is a a journey of self discovery. The land of Oz proves to be a dream, a world of false promise. Dorothy tries to find her heart's desire only to discover she had it all along back home with her family.

Advertising in 1960s-era New York City is widely considered the industry's golden age. Don Draper starts life as dirt-poor Dick Whitman, a farm boy who spent much of his formative years meekly in a whorehouse. But during the Korean War, he takes up the identity of a fellow soldier who, unbeknownst to most of the world, actually died in combat. With this identity, and entering the world of advertising, the new Don has the chance to escape his troubled, humble past and build a new life with his confident good looks and intelligence. But the business of advertising, while high in status and flush with cash, hides a competitive world of illusion, promising a life of fulfillment and happiness that can never be delivered. Don's journey on "Mad Men" is proving to also be one of self discovery in which our protagonist returns to his roots and his family.

So Oz and advertising are both worlds of illusion. Both Dorothy and Don are thought of as something they are not. Both characters journey though a land seeking something that ultimately they had all along. Etc ... you can figure out the rest.

Notes:

• There could be (and probably are) more specific correspondences between the film and TV show. For example, Don's partners could fit the roles of the talking lion, tin man, and scarecrow; Pete Campbell is the Cowardly Lion, Roger Sterling is the Tin Man, and Peggy Olson (and maybe Joan Holloway) is the Scarecrow.
• When we last saw Don Draper, he had returned with his family to the whorehouse-home Dick Whitman grew up in. Similarly, at the end of her journey, Dorothy ends up back home in Kansas, surrounded by the family who loves her.

Is there another kind of advertising?

Read this Washington Post article about the rainbow Oreo. Read it in a dry monotone voice.

Siri and iPhone 4S (or whatever it is) commercial

See the two commercials for the iPhone 4S: one with Samuel L. Jackson and the other with a "Zooey Deschanel". Note the repartee between actor and phone. What are they selling?

Most immediately, they are selling Command. Command requires a commander, someone who controls, who navigates, who regulates; in this case, the phone owner. Command also requires the attention of another, someone willing to take as her will the will of the commander; she is the audience--in this case, the phone.

But what need does Command satisfy? What common desire are the marketers exploiting?

We're buying the license to indulge our own personality. To indulge, to express the self to the machine for the benefit of the self. Notice how the characters run a commentary, as if entertaining the phone; but really they are entertaining themselves.

When we narrate for and "interact" with Siri, we can act obnoxious or cute, voice whatever witticism, drivel, passing thought and fancy that would otherwise shrivel and die as things do when they are unfit for survival. But now such behavior is legitimized because now you have a (captive) audience, which, in your mind, makes you a star, a sovereign without territory, holding court with your first and only servant.

But that is the illusion. What is the actual effect?

Man, obliterated again and again by technologies since the industrialized age, seeks yet again to actualize himself through more technology, this time through the validation that comes with getting recognized by the machine--the machine that consumes him.

He doesn't speak to a person through the phone; he speaks to the phone, and the phone answers him. But it answers not the way a patient parent answers her insufferable child. Rather, he merely hears the mechanized echo of his own voice and mistakes it for contact. And rather than grow up, he grows even more dependent until he can't function without it. He is obliterated in his discourse with the machine that tolerates him, for, in this discourse, no one is learning about him, growing to like to him (or hate him), getting used to him, making him more compassionate or better or more patient--indeed, probably the opposite is true. He regresses into infancy.

But now he is old.

Notes:

• I don't know who a "Zooey Deschanel" is but judging by an images search it's a professional face maker.