Satisfied (What I've Learned from TV part 1)

If you read my blog at all last summer, you may remember that during the summers I watch a lot of tv shows on DVD. Last summer, I watched Prison Break, which you may recall made me slightly paranoid for about a week. Using your mad deductive reasoning skills, you can figure out that I've watched my fair share of tv shows this summer too. The other day my mom asked me why I found television so interesting and how I thought that Jesus fit into tv. I gave her a short answer, basically telling her that I liked getting to see different perspectives and that I thought Jesus was most present in His absence (which will make more sense later). After talking with her (and being harassed by a certain wonderful friend who I think dearly missed my blog), I decided to do a four-part series entitled What I've Learned from TV in which I highlight some of the spiritual truths I've been reminded of this summer.

Recently I started watching Mad Men. A combination of multiple awards and multiple people talking about how amazing this show is made me decide to try watching it last year. I hated it. I watched five or six episodes and couldn't figure out why people thought it was so good. Despite that fact, I decided to give it another chance this summer, and I'm so glad I did. I think the problem before was that I was watching Season 3, and because the show is so character-driven, you really have to start at the beginning or things won't make sense. So a few weeks ago I settled in with Season 1 and haven't looked back.

If you've never seen the show, the basic story is about a character named Don Draper who works as the creative director at an advertising agency in the 1960s. Don has a great job that he's very good at, a beautiful wife, kids, a great car, and a house in the suburbs with a red door that I absolutely love. He's good looking, charming, and every girl he ever meets basically falls all over him. There's lots of cocktails, smoking, and really great clothes. Anyone looking at him would think he had the perfect life, but Don also has a pretty big secret and an undesirable childhood that he's run away from. Basically, he has built for himself the ideal American-dream life like Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, which is one of my all-time favorite books, and I suspect that the parallels I see between the two characters may be one reason why I enjoy the show so much.

As you watch the show and learn more about Don's past, it becomes clear that he is the archetypal self-made man. Everything he has he has worked hard for, and he works even harder it seems to keep up the facade that his life is amazing and satisfying. In the early seasons, there are several occasions when another character will ask Don why something is being done. He always responds with "it's what people do," as if the entire motivation for his life up to this point has been trying to follow the status quo because that will, eventually, lead to a sense of being fulfilled, yet the more you watch and the more he gets, the more disillusioned he becomes. And, when you get to Season 3, you start to notice that Don begins to feel guilty somewhat for his job. He creates ad campaigns selling things to people on the pretense that these things will make them happy, but he is becoming all to familiar with what a lie that is.

Watching Don Draper, I can't help but see shades of myself. I think that if I just work hard enough, do well enough, I can build for myself a rather perfect and satisfying life. I can't count how many times I've thought to myself this Spring that I've done everything right--I went to college, have a good job, I even threw in a year as a "missionary" for good measure--and yet the result isn't what it should be. Since I worked hard, aren't I supposed to be able to have the things that I want--like my own house, a fabulous wardrobe, a husband? I mean, I live in America, and isn't that what American kids are told growing up?

But watching Mad Men is a wonderful reminder that the American dream I am sometimes so upset about not seeing come true in my life is, in fact, a far cry from the satisfaction it promises. It is actually the exact opposite; it's really a trap that would leave me forever thinking I just needed one more thing or wondering why I still wasn't happy when I had checked everything off the list, like Don Draper surely would be able to do. It is a wonderful reminder that the longing of my heart will never be satisfied by a house, or a spouse, or praise and accolades at work, or the attention of others. (Or accidentally rhyming in a blog post.) It is an example of just how unsatisfying all that is and a reminder that satisfaction comes in the form of Christ alone. So as I watch, I can't help but think to myself that Don Draper would be a lot happier if he really was late for work "because [he] was spending time with [his] family reading the Bible."

(As a side note, I have been doing things other than watching tv this summer. One of which was a Bible study doing the first book in Priscilla Shirer's Seed Series. It's kind of a funny thing...most of my tv lessons line up with what I've been learning during my time in the word this summer. Who would have thought?)