Mad Men

Lately I’ve been watching the show Mad Men. The show is set
in the 1960s, years after World War II ended, but at a time when America was
still very much an atomic culture; the advertising agency that the show centers
on travels to a conference to acquire the accounts of top scientist working on
weaponry for the US military. They land the account of North American Aviation,
which develops aircrafts for the encroaching war in Vietnam.  In class one day there was a pretty heated debate over how US soldiers felt toward the enemy and about their position in
the war. We’ve also discussed many instances of sheer racism and prejudice
exhibited by American military, like the slurs and profanity we heard in the
“Collateral Murder” Wikileaks video. This clip from Mad Men shows a meeting
between the advertising agency and Honda, the Japanese motorcycle and car-company.
Roger Sterling, one of the agency’s executives bursts in on the meeting,
appalled that the agency would attempt to do business with men that were his
opposition in World War II. Roger’s reaction exemplifies how US soldiers were conditioned
to have a hatred and racism toward opposing forces.