Anyone who watches Mad Men knows that every detail means something. So what's with all the milk-based products?
1. Betty has some milk on her nightstand.
2. After his heart attack, Roger starts drinking (vodka-spiked) milk.
3. Roger says, "I like redheads. Their mouths are like a drop of strawberry jam in a glass of milk."
Don replies, "Drinking milk. I never liked it. I hate cows"
4. After Peggy gives birth, she refuses to feed her baby milk from a bottle.
5. Don drinks milk straight from the bottle. Didn't he just say he didn't like milk?
6. Betty feeds Glenn Bishop chocolate milk.
7. Ken Cosgrove talks about making ice cream; "It was a pain in the ass."
8. Don and Anna drink egg nog.
9. Don heats up some milk.
10. When Don (Dick Whitman, actually) was being born, there was some milk in the room.
11. Grampa Gene eats ice cream with Sally...and he puts salt on it.
12. Roger eats an ice cream sundae while congratulating Don on the birth of baby Gene.
13. Bert Cooper eats pudding.
14. A baby bottle sits on the kitchen counter.
15. Don drunkenly pitches a Life cereal ad that features a pitcher of milk.
16. A glass of milk...
17. Sally knocks over her milkshake.
18. Betty eats Sally's unfinished ice cream sundae.
19. Another glass of milk.
20. Another baby bottle.
21. Megan resents Don making her eat ice cream at a Howard Johnson's.
22. Don and Peggy do a pitch for Cool Whip (which, should be noted is an artificial dairy product.)
23. Betty weighs pieces of cheese when she's on her Weight Watchers diet.
24. At the Carnation pitch, there's dairy products everywhere.
Once again, however, it's a pitch for an artificial dairy product. And that must mean something.
25. Milk bottle on the table during this flashback to Don's brothel-based childhood.
26. Don pitches Hershey's Milk Chocolate.
27. Betty chugs raw milk from a metal bucket. WHAT?
28. At this point we can only assume they are drinking milkshakes at Burger Chef.
29. Don makes his kids a milkshake... in his ex-wife's kitchen.
Ok, so what could it all mean?
-Milk represents Don's poor upbringing on a farm?
-Milk represents motherhood and a mother's love (or lack thereof) for her child?
-Milk represents the old, rural America that is giving way to an industrialized modern America of artificial values?
-Milk represents happiness, abundance, and safety?
-Ice cream represents decadence and vice?
-Nothing! It's just milk! What else would babies drink? And in the 1960's everyone drank more milk. Besides, the shows been on for 8 years... of course dairy products will have appeared over two dozen times, you fool!
What do you think milk symbolizes on Mad Men? Comment below!
