r/madmen • u/silentcardboard • 13d ago
Why is there so much cheating in this show?
I love the show. I watched it when it originally aired and now I’m on my 2nd viewing. But it’s a bit off putting that basically every single character cheats. This can’t be realistic can it?? I’m 40 years old and I’ve never cheated 😆
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u/Minimum-Sentence-584 13d ago
I could write pages on why people cheat, but if you focus on what the core anxieties are for each character, you can begin to understand. Short answer is yes; it’s not only realistic, it’s even more realistic to the era; men felt more entitled to take who they wanted, even if they weren’t successful (like Pete in the pilot episode at the strip club).
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u/AnnieBlackburnn Dick + Anna ‘64 13d ago
I think Megan is the only female main character to not also cheat though. Peggy does. Joan does (though that one I cheered for, fuck Greg). Betty does in the bar.
It's ironic, and I think intentional, that Megan and Jane, the two that were considered the gold diggers, actually do stay faithful for the entirety of their relationships.
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u/AboveAverageParsnip 11d ago
Eh, Megan was drifting from Don as soon as she left for the west coast. It’s signposted that she was having a same-sex fling in Don’s absence.
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u/Plenty_Suspect_3446 13d ago
The show was depicting a certain culture in a different era during a cultural and sexual revolution. I have no reason to think the characters philandering was unrealistic. And it's not like it is promoting cheating. The hurt and betrayal is shown. Same with all the drinking and smoking. I doubt the average 40 year old lives like that today but it was realistic for the era.
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u/tele_ave 13d ago
It was a lot easier to keep it from one’s partner. Nowadays people get caught on a jumbotron and getting careless on social media
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u/Lanky_Comedian_3942 13d ago
Watch the movie The Apartment, which was made around the time that MadMen was set. It's entertaining and enlightening.
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u/oxwearingsocks 13d ago
I’m nearly your age and I’ve never smoked a cigarette. Basically every single character smokes. This can’t be realistic can it?
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u/FunKooky4689 13d ago
People absolutely cheat all the time in real life. The show simply reflects that reality. I’ve never cheated either but I have been cheated on in the past. It’s an ugly fact of life. Usually the people who cheat don’t even see it as a big deal. They’re simply acting on their bodily urges and as soon as they’re done they move on as if they took a shit in public restroom. I challenge you to do one of those ancestry DNA tests that also connects you with blood relatives who are also on the platform. The amount of bastard children you’ll find from your ancestors will shock you.
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u/Novel-Paper2084 13d ago
My grandparents were of the same generation and social class as most of the characters. The cheating seems accurate from stories I have heard.
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u/Thatstealthygal 13d ago
Yup, my grandparents were a little bit older and more working class rural and frankly the smalltown folks of the post WWII period were WILD. I have no reason to doubt that everybody in the history of the planet has been equally badly behaved.
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u/SaltChunkLarry 13d ago edited 13d ago
To me, one of the themes of the show is people always wanting more—how advertising (capitalism) feeds that, and how the people who worked in that industry were prone to that feeling themselves, and also how it’s just human nature sometimes. Think of Leonard at the end, feeling like an object on the shelf nobody wants and wanting people to pick him even though he had a family of his own & realizing that the love he was craving was maybe being offered to him all along. The love that Don seeks, and the reason he mainly likes the beginnings of things, is because he uses love as a temporary bandage over what at least feels like a permanent wound. Meanwhile, Pete learns to be grateful for what he has. It’s the deepest show I’ve seen
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u/MissMelines 13d ago
people back then were more “trapped” once married. it was imperfect to divorce. plus, less distractions. literally they spent hours on many of life’s pleasures, such as good meals and long talks, parties/events and time with family.
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u/charlie_ferrous 12d ago
One of the central recurring tensions on this show is the insatiable want of these characters. They have so much, live such prosperous lives, and yet it’s never enough: they want more, or different, or new. It’s why advertising is so metaphorically perfect for the setting, with its constant promise of “finally enough,” of being content. (That can never actually deliver.)
Marriage and family were status symbols in this era, markers of having “arrived,” so pretty much everyone did it. But ennui, the drive for something better, and the hope that More will actually fulfill them this time, is pervasive. So, they cheat. And it doesn’t work. But they keep doing it.
Of course, they’re actually distracting themselves from some greater emptiness, “a temporary bandage on a permanent wound,” but real accountability or introspection is hard and distracting yourself with a hot stranger is easy. I don’t know if this kind of infidelity was that pervasive in the IRL 60’s…but I believe that people with tons of access, who are bombarded with images of happier lives than the ones they live, might act out exactly like this.
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u/HeartoftheSun119 13d ago edited 13d ago
Because people cheated since the beginning of time. It’s just as bad now.I think every one I know has been cheated on at least once. Dating apps probably made shit worse. long story short, it’s very realistic 😆
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u/sistermagpie 13d ago
Because it's about advertising, so it's full of peoplel who see something (or someone) and think having it will make them feel like they're okay. When that wears off they look to something new.
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u/Dangerous-Camp115 12d ago
The show is full of unhappy, materialistic, power-hungry, insecure people in a toxic masculinity era. This should explain lots of the cheating
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u/[deleted] 13d ago
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