QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "I don't know if anybody's ever told you that half the time, this business comes down to 'I don't like that guy.'" Roger Sterling, "Mad Men"
May 20, 2015
By: Linda Case Gibbons
After watching 92 back-to-back episodes of "Mad Men," I comforted myself with the thought that I had learned a lot over that four-and-a-half days.
Mostly that you really don't need that much sleep, but also that (1) Everybody is some kind of crazy, and (2) Every life has a theme.
In advertising they call it a "tag line." It sums up what you're all about. But tag line or theme, everybody has one.
Didn't you know who the "Mad Men" characters were as you watched them move through their lives? Of course you did. You knew.
Why couldn't we do that with real people, like the politicians we elect? After all, they make decisions that affect our lives in ways more important than whether we choose Coke or Pepsi.
Well, we can.
The characters in "Mad Men" were colorful, memorable and will remain in our mind's eye forever, like people we knew, loved and hated. Sure they were all liars and drinkers, some worse, some better than others. They were flawed human beings, but isn't that like the people in our lives?
Think about it.
JOAN HARRIS: "Men don't take time to end things. They ignore you until you insist on a declaration of hate."
Joan Harris? Done dirty by the men she loved, she made the choice she was born to make. Money. It was her drug of choice. You had only to look and see the dollar signs in her eyes to know.
Hillary could play the part, with some minor adjustments in her appearance. Well, okay, some major ones.
PETE CAMPBELL: "Of course I love you. I'm giving up my life to be with you, aren't I?"
Pete Campbell? Pete spent more than half his life being whiny and selfish, ignoring his privileged position in life, ungrateful for the good things he had. Then he woke up.
But maybe he didn't really wake up. Knowing Pete, he probably just realized he needed a wife for the new job he landed and he knew where to find one.
"We're flawed because we want so much more," Don Draper said. "We're ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had."
PEGGY OLSON: "Well, one day you're there and then all of a sudden there's less of you. And you wonder where that part went, if it's living somewhere outside of you and you keep thinking maybe you'll get it back. And then you realize, it's just gone."
Peggy Olson was both naively romantic, then bossy and mean. But she was always a romantic down deep.
Hillary and Obama could both play Peggy, the last Peggy, not the naïve, nice, talented Peggy.
ROGER STERLING: "They say once you start drinking alone, you're an alcoholic. I'm really trying to avoid that." Don Draper: "So I guess I'm helping both of us."
Roger Sterling was an incurable romantic, too.
A heavy drinker, a skirt-chaser, Roger never met a woman he didn't love, then marry, then divorce.
But he was also a compassionate, generous man, and a loyal team player.
You might think Bill Clinton could play the part of Roger, but you'd be way off base.
Bill was never as nice as Roger was to the gals he threw aside and unfortunately Bill doesn't have the money Roger had, so the Bill-Hill connection is still busy trolling for money in all the wrong places. Bill could never be a Roger Sterling.
JIM HOBART: "Have you said it yet?" Don: "What?" Jim: "Have you introduced yourself?" Don" "I'm Don Draper from McCann Erickson."
Hobart, the head of McCann Erickson wanted Don bad. And when he thought he'd finally landed his "white whale," it became clear his plan had always been to dominate Draper and everyone joining McCann Erickson.
A wolf in wolf's clothing, Hobart got rid of Joan with fifty cents on the dollar and tried to tame Don. Shows he didn't know Don Draper.
After an inelegant "roast beef sandwich box creative luncheon meeting," Don left -- the meeting and the firm.
"He does that," Roger explained to Hobart.
Hobart promised the world to Sterling Cooper, but he lied. Obama could play the part.
DON DRAPER: "What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons. You're born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I'm living like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't one."
And Don Draper? The Mad Men were all liars, seemed like that was part of the advertising game, but Draper was different. He was able to lie while looking straight into your eyes.
You might think Obama could play the part. Both he and Draper had parents that rejected them and both were shaped by that.
Both were serial liars and con men, but no, Obama couldn't be Don Draper. He didn't have what Draper had. He wasn't what Draper was.
There are bright and shiny people, heart breakingly beautiful people, who exist for a brief time in the world and Don Draper was one of them.
Good or bad, rogue or angel, people love them without reservation.
Don Draper was no angel, but our love for him? It was unconditional. He's one of a kind and there is no one who can take his place.
After May 13, I could feel guilty about my binge watching, but I won't. I'm glad that I picked something that made me happy.
So while Fallujah, Mosul and Ramadi fell to ISIS and while the president lectured Coast Guard graduates on the importance of global warming, I was in New York City, writing tag lines and going for drinks after work with Don Draper.
Hold the line, America