Don Draper. The Mad Men’s Man’s Man.

It’s happening again.  I’m blogging about Mad Men.  I apologize.  I don’t mean it.  But I do apologize.  

You see, Don Draper, everyone’s favorite creative director has successfully done something that the rest of his generation never could.  He became cool in the eyes of Generation Y. 

Almost over night, Draper and Mad Men became a pop culture hit, but something else happened in the midst of that myriad of wows and 50’s cocktails parties.  Don Draper became the blue print for masculinity for young males. 

Some how, this rye drinking, cigarette smoking, womanizing, leader of men suddenly found himself plastered to dorm room walls and throw into a popculture Canton of male icons alongside Ray Lewis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brad Pitt. 

From the outside Draper stands for the man's man.  He’s good looking, is successful at work, wealthy, drinks like a fish and the epitome of the ladies man.  On the outside he’s decisive, emotionless and determined.  Simply put, he’s better at being the “man” than Jeff Bridges was “the dude.”  So much so that he was named Askmen.com’s most influential man of 2009 ahead of real men like President Obama and George Clooney. 

But Don has a different side to him.  The infamous Dick Whitman.  When dealing with his past, or the side of his life that knows him as Dick Whitman, we see a different side of the infamous Don. 

The Don on the inside, let’s call him Dick, is emotionally distraught, upset over the collapse of his previous marriage and the death of Anna Draper.  He cares for his children and in some ways regrets not being around them more and carries with him enormous emotional baggage.    He keeps trying to relate to the world around him that seems to change daily, unsure what his role is or will be as time goes on.  

It’s a side that you normally don’t see on TV—a man who is deeply troubled and distraught by the world around him.  But Don does the same thing most men do, bottles it up inside and only reveals he problems or shows his true self to an incredibly select few. 

So yes, Don Draper is a man’s man, fitting the profile of masculinity—but he also illustrates the struggle of men to find a place in this world and to define who they truly are.  And perhaps to hide that struggle men do throw on such thick cloaks of masculinity or sink into woman-chasing-clench-jawed shows of power. 

The world is wear of men in some ways.  As jobs get less and less manual labor centric men are having to evolve into new roles to justify ourselves.  It was the only thing that men truly, and scientifically, can be considered as having an advantage of women in.  Lifting things. 

But men don’t do much lifting anymore.  So what does it mean to be a man in the modern world? Don certainly doesn’t know.  And neither do I.