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I recently started watching Mad Men, a stylish, sexy, moody period drama set in 1960s New York. The main characters work in an advertising agency and are sharp, complicated, and competitive. They cleverly weave words, spin stories, and invent images to sell deodorant, cigarettes, and laxatives, in between slamming vodka tonics and Rubenesque "gals" from the secretarial pool. There are many themes woven through each episode like sexism, ambition, adultery, social mobility, cultural shifts, but the one that fascinates me the most is the notion of identity. Each character is fleshed out and wholly believable. In fact, they are so believable they are almost caricatures . The unfulfilled housewife, struggling to maintain her position in a changing society. She struggles to manage her conflicting desires: the desire to fulfill her familiar and expected role as wife and mother and the desire to be a bolder, modern woman. The ambitious young ad-exec who is so oily he leaves a...