The Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency... Anti-Semites in Very Nice Suits

What is up with the Sterling Cooper Agency?

They've been dissing Grey Advertising for three seasons now, and I just don't get it. Did Matt Weiner work at Grey at one time? That might explain it!

I worked at Grey for thirty-eight percent of my life. Not thirty-eight percent of my career. Thirty-eight percent of my life. Not counting sleeping, most weekends and some vacations, from the moment I exited the womb till just now, thirty-eight percent of those years were spent at Grey.

And most of those years were pretty good ones.

So when I started to hear the word "Grey" pop up on Mad Men, it got my attention. The first time was a quickie, one character mentions to one another that a colleague is "at Grey now." I shouted to my wife, "Isn't that cool... they just mentioned Grey on Mad Men!"

Don Draper runs into Rachel Menken while he's catting around with Bobbie Barrett. Remember Rachel Menken, the Jewish department store client who briefly sized up Sterling Cooper as an agency before Draper's dick got in the way?

Don says something like, "How's things at Grey? Those guys still taking credit for our work?"

Hmmm, Grey again. What does Draper mean by that? Is he implying that Grey stole the work from Sterling Cooper? Would he have said the same if the Menken account went to a Wasp shop like BBDO or JWT?

Grey used to be known as a Jewish agency. I know this to be true because of a story told by a family friend. She relates how, in the early 60's she sought a job at an agency. Since she is Jewish, someone suggested she apply at Grey because it was a "Jewish agency." Aghast at the thought that she would use her religion to gain a position, she declined to apply.

Which I found interesting, because if someone told me there was an "Italian agency," I'd have my reel over there quicker than you can say "Chef Boyardee."

Now Duck Phillips, newly at Grey, has invited Pete Campbell to lunch. Campbell, who perpetually looks as if he is aware of a ghastly odor that only he can smell, arrives to find Peggy Olson there as well. Which causes Pete's already pained visage to pinch up by such a degree that one would think Duck had presented him with a turd on a silver platter.

In an effort to calm him, Duck tells him to sit down and "...have a nosh."

To which Campbell replies, "Two months at Grey and you're already having a nosh?"

This retort, and the expression of utter disdain which accompanies it, leaves no question about how Pete Campbell feels about a nosh, people who nosh in general, and people who nosh at Grey specifically.

Make no mistake, it's a Jewish thing... imagine the scenario like this:

Duck: "...have some lunch"

Pete: "Two months at Grey and you're already having some lunch?

Not quite the same.

As I watched this, it occurred to me that Duck Phillips is now working with some of the same people at Grey that I would work with, albeit some years later. Which is a little trippy, like some Back To The Future parallax of reality and entertainment.

To be fair to Mad Men, I think the show is simply (and honestly) portraying the realities of the New York ad business in the early '60s. Like most big agencies of the day, Sterling Cooper is the Wasp-iest place on the planet. The only black person there is Hollis, and he's the elevator operator. Look around the creative department of any big agency today. Not exactly a hotbed of racial diversity, and the more senior you get, the more the color bleeds away.

The only other person at Sterling Cooper with even a trace of ethnicity is Sal Romano and poor Sal has bigger issues to deal with. (I loved the look on Kitty's face when Sal, in full flounce, acts out the Patio commercial and the light slowly goes on for her that, oh my god, my husband is a homosexual).

There's one other very funny thing which occurs in this episode. As Duck attempts to woo Pete and Peggy he says, "At Grey an account man is expected to have ideas, and creatives are expected to be geniuses. You'll be sitting on velvet pillows, showered with riches, rewards."

I believe this is the exact same recruiting verbiage used by Grey today.