Sunday Thoughts: Mad Men

I’ve been watching Mad Men recently.  It’s a TV show set in 1960′s America, and it takes its name from the advertising executives of New York’s Madison Avenue, hence Mad Men.  The show depicts 1960′s life vividly, but that life is in stark contrast to how many of us live today.

The most striking difference is the ubiquity of smokers.  The opening episode centres around the lead character’s problems in trying to create a new advertising campaign for a cigarette company, which seems ironic given that everyone in the show smokes.  All the time.  No matter where they are.  It’s as though cigarette advertising is the most pointless advertising ever imagined.  There is so much smoking going on that I suspect many people will contract a lung disease just from watching Mad Men.

Then there is the drinking.  Not drinking at home or at a bar or a pub, but drinking in the office.  In the boss’s office.  In fact, having the boss pour you a drink.  And not just a celebratory drink because you landed a big account.  Oh, no.  In 60′s America it was apparently ok for the guys to just have a Scotch or two in the same way that most us have a coffee or two at work now.

There is also the lack of regard anyone has for their safety when in a car, because no one wears a seatbelt.  I’m guessing this isn’t much of a problem however, as only the men seem to drive and they are all drunk from being at work, so if they do crash they won’t feel anything anyway.

Which brings me to the subject of the women in Mad Men.  Or, rather, the way that women are treated by men.  Living in the 2010′s, it’s hard to imagine some of the sexist shenanigans.  Like the way an exec’s secretary will take the man’s hat and coat and hang it for him on the coat-stand in his office.  The same coat-stand the man was stood in front of while removing his hat and coat.  Or how the prim and proper housewives have dinner waiting on the table when the man gets home, having rung him first to make sure they were preparing the meal he wanted.

As I said, it’s a stark contrast to how we live today, but the changes didn’t happen overnight.  Many people still smoke, but you won’t find anyone smoking inside an office building any more.  Likewise with drinking.  The wearing of seatbelts is law in many places, but some people still drive around as though being a human catapult ball is a good way to go.  And if men treated women as they are treated in Mad Men then, rightly, there would be a huge increase in incidents of crushed genitalia in Accident and Emergency departments, yet some men still want to take that risk.

Over time then, parts of life that were as everyday as breathing have faded until the norm is not to experience them at all.  Which got me thinking; which parts of videogaming lore that exist now won’t exist in ten or twenty or thirty years time?  Think about it; there are some things that we can’t imagine videogaming without, but in time they will probably cease to be a part of videogaming at all.  Or if they are they will be a curio that seems to stand out as much as it once went unnoticed.

Will we always have to “Press Start Button” on splash screens?  Will we always have splash screens?  Can you imagine playing a game where the character with the English accent isn’t the bad guy in a world populated by world-saving Americans?

Think of the most normal, sane, perfectly acceptable videogaming tenet, and then try to figure out how and why it’ll fall out of use over the years.  And when you’ve done that, you’ll have the perfect story for a videogame set in the 2000′s.  Just don’t forget to credit me.