Nostalgia and pleasure in Mad Men

The following paper, through its selection and subsequent analysis of the most important scenes from the TV series Mad Men, aims to highlight the increasingly intimate relationship that is established between the narration and the viewer via the medium of nostalgia, which turns out to be in opposition to pleasure. Don Draper's character and the role of advertising allows us to analyze the figure of the homme traque, a myth that can be traced back to the end of the nineteenth century, and the conceptual tool of the mimetic system. Finally, taking up the sentiment of nostalgia and pleasure, reference is made to Campbell's theories and to the figure of the modern hedonist.