Mad Men Takes On the JFK Assasination

Hello new readers! Welcome! So if you've read my bio (which I encourage you to do!) you'll know that I LOVE television. So much so that I'm actually going to school for it. One of my absolute favorite television shows right now is AMC's beautifully shot, beautifully written Mad Men. I highly encourage you to watch it, so to give you a taste of how fantastic it is, I present you now with a write up I did for one of my favorite episodes - Season 3 Episode 12 "The Grown Ups".

In this episode, Mad Men tackles one of the most dramatic moments in United States history: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Instead of taking the show Dallas, Texas and trying to recreate the fateful moment and the confusion at the scene of the crime the show takes a completely different tack. One which I find fascinating because I feel like it’s never given the coverage it deserves. Programs about the JFK assassination always seem to focus on the specifics of how the murder took place. Where the shooter was. Where the president was. How it was committed. Whether there multiple gunmen. The actual event and the official events which follow, like Oswald’s death and LBJ being sworn into office are the focus. Any mention of how the nation coped with the President’s death is usually kept to a “the nation entered a period of mourning as its leader, beloved by many, died at a tragically young age”. This episode of Mad Men however, focused on the nation’s reaction to the President’s murder on a much more individual level, which in turn opened up entirely new reactions of my own.

Mirroring the days of every citizen of the United States, the episode began for the first 15ish minutes, just like every other episode. Don was having trouble at home and there was trouble brewing at Sterling Cooper. Then the news begins to break of the President’s shooting. But just like the people who were experiencing it, we don’t learn all of the facts right away. We’re forced to wait throughout the entire rest of the episode as each character learns little bits of information at a time. Hanging on the news broadcaster’s every word. The news interrupts their daily lives. Every single person on the show stops what they’re doing to either watch television or to think about what’s happened. Even Duck, in the middle of one of the shows many romantic trysts, stops to watch the news wide eyed, aghast. First comes simply the shocking news of the shooting. What exactly happened? What’s happened to the shooter? Is the President alive? What will happen if he dies? Then later comes the news that JFK has died of his wounds. From that moment on the tone of the episode changes into one of shock, loss and mourning. The characters can’t seem to wrap their heads around what has happened and are unsure of the future of their country or themselves. Their President, just 46, has died and they don’t what happens now. The women of the show can’t seem to stop crying. I was actually myself. I mean.... no I wasn't

Then Oswald was murdered and we got to see firsthand Betty’s reaction as she watched it happen live. Basically she screamed for a minute and was speechless. When she finally regained her voice she stood and with a truly pained look on her face yelled (which is uncharacteristic of her) “What is HAPPENING!?”. I really think that one line captured the mood of the entire country. First the murder of a beloved (by many) president and then his assassin is shot and killed by a man who simply walks up to him through a crowd of witnesses and policemen.

The world really must have seemed like a crazy, scary place.

I'd be interested to see if anyone reading this happens to remember what it was like like for them, when they received the news of the assassination. Was it anything like this episode of Mad Men? Let me know in the comments section below!