Mad Men, Bohemian Boys  The AMC series Mad Men, an hour-long
drama about the lives and loves of Madison Avenue advertising
executives in the early 1960s, may still want for a larger
audience, but as its awards stack up, and many deem it the best
show on television, it's not wanting for critical reception.  In
a way, it's surprising that the show has marshaled such
enthusiasm, since, on its surface, it seems to retread two of
the most cliché themes of modern narrative: the repression and
bigotry of 1950s America and the times-they-are-a-changing mood
of the 1960s. The show has found a way to portray the 1960s
without falling into the trap of revisiting, and refighting, the
same culture wars. But what Mad Men really gets about the 1960s
is a story that isn't told as much: how much the era was about
collapsing the boundaries of pop culture and lived experience,
how the illusions we built up quit being fantasies and became
indistinguishable from reality.  Mad Men actively runs against
the stale narratives that po