Of Madmen and Marijuana

For those who are unfamiliar with the program, Madmen follows the narcissistic life of protagonist Don Draper, Advertising Executive Extraordinaire, and the stories of a 1960's Madison Avenue advertising agency.  The show sprinkles in historical events such as the assassination of JFK, the creation of Medicaid, and my favorite-the smoking campaigns of Lucky Strike.

Modern advertising can be credited to Edward Bernays who was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and by all accounts a brilliant man.  In fact, Bernays made Lucky Strike the success it was by getting women to smoke.  While others had made advancements in the area before him, he is the father of modern propaganda and showed our mass media and marketing industrial complex how to get any idea from cigarettes to war, and now pot, accepted.

Sunday's episode wasn't the first time the show had a character light up a joint.  They have had a steady stream of pot flowing amongst the creative copy writers for many seasons.  What was interesting in this episode was the frequency and how they used it to increase the "normalization" of marijuana.

For example, the show uses likable figures such as Don's beautiful young wife Megan who associates pot with great sex, "I know you've tried it but you haven't had sex high, it makes it more intense."

Viagra can't buy advertising like this.  Also, notice that this wasn't Don asking Megan.  Not an accident.

Later at work Don smells the aroma of pot in the copywriters pen commenting with only a little displeasure, "I smell creativity," to which his young, good looking, and driven to succeed accompaniment declares, "I love it down here."

Again, don't think this is an accident.

In a final pot scene Don's ex-wife (now a suburban housewife) declines a joint from a New York slum squatting young man.  Wondering about the man's choices in poverty she asks, "Is pot expensive?"  The man never answers.

So why do I call it "normalization."  Bernays knew messaging flown below the radar was far more powerful than overt advertising (watch the documentary).  Those who are against or even on the fence about marijuana legalization would never be persuaded by an ad on TV.  Such messaging would be tuned out and dismissed.  But if characters we like and associate with (if we didn't like or associate with these people we wouldn't watch) smoking pot and show that normal people can still function, and in some cases increase their creative fruits at work, you might be persuaded to think that too.  Unless of course you're a prude housewife mack'in on some poor slob's freedom movement to live off the grid as they choose.

In all, the message was get high, have sex, be creative, and if a prudish woman questions how you live- just ignore the question.

This post, for the record, is not about whether Libertarians want pot legalized.  That's going to happen all by itself if you just look around at the polls being released and the movement nationally.  This is about understanding that when UNSCOM wants you to believe something, they have many many tools and you likely won't even realize it's happening.