Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Mad Men and Moral Ambiguity

The camera in the opening shot of the first episode of Mad Men is positioned behind a partially frosted glass door, whose swirled pattern mimics wispy tendrils of cigarette smoke. As the camera slowly glides out from behind the glass, it reveals patrons drinking in a bar so smoky that the figures in the back can barely be distinguished. Layering smokescreen upon smokescreen, the composition of the shot calls attention to the idea of seeing indistinctly through a screen that is at once both transparent and opaque: the television screen itself, which reveals the world of 1960s America with vivid realism, while simultaneously obscuring the figures behind the hazy distance of history.¹

The pilot episode takes its title from the number one hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1958, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” a Platters song about deception, self-deception, and the betrayal that is only apparent with the passing of time.

They asked me how I knew My true love was true Oh, I of course replied Something here inside Cannot be denied

They said someday you’ll find All who love are blind Oh, when your heart’s on fire You must realize Smoke gets in your eyes

So I chaffed them and I gaily laughed To think they could doubt my love Yet today my love has flown away I am without my love

Now laughing friends deride Tears I cannot hide Oh, so I smile and say When a lovely flame dies Smoke gets in your eyes.

(The Platters)

Fig. 1.

The opening shot of the first episode of Mad Men positions the camera behind a partially transparent, partially opaque screen of frosted glass.

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” Mad Men: Season One. Writ. Matthew Weiner. Dir. Alan Taylor. AMC, 2007. DVD.

The first two stanzas of these lyrics are narrated in the past tense, and describe the speaker’s past certainty and the warnings of the others. The third stanza, in which the others’ cruel “doubt” resonates with its fulfillment in the betrayal of the lover, transitions between the past and present tenses. The final stanza, which returns with nostalgia to the “lovely flame” of the affair that is over, is narrated in the present tense. This transition between temporal perspectives marks another turn within the song. Whereas “they” initially speak of “smoke” as a metaphor for the selective blindness of a present passion, the speaker twists the metaphor and invokes the “smoke” of painful hindsight, which only stings the eyes once the fire is extinguished. Without contradicting his “laughing friends,” the speaker offers a subtle correction to their view. The fantasy that the smoke will dissipate once the affair no longer blazes (“someday you’ll find . . . ”) is false. The aftermath of passion turns out to obscure his vision as much as its flare.

The song lyrics thus suggest a strange paradox, or dilemma, attending the ideal temporal conditions for clear-sighted judgment. Although close immersion in a present situation makes accurate perception impossible, too much distance (including temporal distance) from a situation also prevents one from seeing it distinctly. The allusion to the Platters song, in conjunction with the opening shot, invite us to view Mad Men as not only a visual representation of American Cold War history, but also as an investigation into the conditions under which the accurate visualization of history becomes possible.

It is no coincidence that a television series concerned with matters of shifting historical perspective and moral ambiguity should evoke, in its opening episode, the dual senses of “smoke” as a product of both temporal immersion and distanciation. Yet many critics of Mad Men argue that the show presents the one-sided perspective of the “laughing friends,” encouraging its viewers to take up a position of moral superiority with respect to the absurd errors of the past. As Mark Greif notes derisively in “You’ll Love the Way This Makes You Feel,” “Mad Men is an unpleasant little entry in the genre of Now We Know Better” (15...