From Red in the Face:
One minute you’re drinking in a bar and they come and tell you your kid’s been born, the next thing you know they’re heading off to college.
April 20, 2008
How about a little Sunday Rogerism?
Posted by Roberta Lipp under Mad Men Mad, Quotes and isms | Tags: Red in the Face, Roger Sterling |[18] Comments
April 21, 2008 at 1:21 pm
When Bert Cooper told Pete “Who cares” it, for me, culminated a whole season’s worth of Pete’s ideas being overlooked. The biggest reason, IMHO, is that Pete always managed to say his ideas at the wrong time, so nobody cared if he was forward-thinking or not. He just sounded rude and inappropriate. I can’t recall if Pete’s family business was mentioned, but I gather his father had a particular disdain for advertising. And I never got why Pete’s dad essentially called Pete a “pimp,” which turned out to be freakily accurate with trying to “pimp out” Trudy for a silly story to be published….
(This was the correct thread, I think…..)
When you all mentioned about the things Roger said, I kept thinking about what Bert “Yoda” Cooper told Pete. And how Pete’s never taken seriously because, despite the uppity family name, he has no social skills whatsoever….
April 21, 2008 at 2:22 pm
So true, Kay – Pete’s overlooked because he’s so poor at communicating and in social relations. Vin K. does such a great job of displaying Pete’s discomfort. The only reason we know he’s right about things is our nearly 50 year historical edge on the characters. Still, one must think that his foresight, if not recogized in 1960 (or anytime soon thereafter) will become valuable to him later on. To paraphrase Chekov, why load that gun if it doesn’t get used?
One line that I think will be prophetic later on is Cooper’s advice after the “who cares?” scene in his office.
After earlier insisting on Pete’s reinstatement because of his family connections, Cooper tells Don he can fire him if he wants.
But then he says he may want to keep him. “You never know how loyalty will be born.” (or something close to that) It was such a Cooper/Yoda line that I’m sure we’ll see its meaning crop up down the road.
April 23, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Who cares?
Such an intriguing line. Who would have sufficient cause to care? Who, besides Pete, would bring this up again?
Unless the real Donald Draper was completely without family or friends, somebody out there must care. Donald had been gone from home, serving in Korea for almost 4 years–who was waiting for Donald to come home? I can’t help thinking of family members who would receive some kind of notice from the military that their Donald was coming home and then he just disappears without a trace. What kind of burden would that be upon a family who would have to suffer NOT KNOWING what happened to their loved one? To not even have a body, because the real Donald Draper is buried in Dick Whitman’s grave?
I don’t want to feel as if this is just over-imaginative speculation for Season 2. On the one hand, Weiner has said that he doesn’t want S2 to be a mystery; on the other hand, Weiner is always conscious of consequences and there are still consequences galore to Dick/Don’s appropriation of Donald Draper’s identity.
Desertion is a military crime that calls for a court martial and possible 1-5 years in prison. Dick has been using Donald Draper’s identity, which most likely means that he has been using his social security number all this time–a felony with a sentence of 25 years in prison. Then there is the little matter of establishing Dick Whitman’s innocence in the death of Donald Draper–innocence that was established for us, the audience, in the first season, but by no means was it established for the characters and something that would be made more dubious by Dick/Don’s theft of Donald Draper’s name tag and longstanding silence.
There is still plenty of ammunition here to mess with Don Draper’s life and possibly embroil Sterling Cooper in a scandal. From that point of view, it seems odd that Bert Cooper would care so little about Don’s past and so much about Don getting a little nookie from a female client.
April 23, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Interesting points. SS #s were not commonly used in 1960, not compared to today, but they were standard payroll info. Of course, Our Don could have used Dick Whitman’s SS # on his W2…I’m not sure if there would have been any way to catch him back then. The Army wasn’t looking for him, he was dead.
Don Draper may have been without family. Indeed, the two of them building a base all alone had nothing to do but talk, Our Don/Dick would surely have known the real Don’s details, and a family-less man might have increased the temptation to steal those dog tags.
We shall see.
April 23, 2008 at 6:43 pm
The paperwork of Don Draper/Dick Whitman fascinates me. At this point, not only has he stolen someone’s dog tags and “deserted” the army, but he’s also signed a marriage certificate, birth certificates for his children, a driver’s license, probably a mortgage, and insurance documents as Don Draper. Couldn’t he get in trouble for falsifying information on any of those documents? Was it as easy as all that back then?
April 23, 2008 at 6:53 pm
He could easily have applied for a legal name change.
Not like Smoking Gun was going to track his identity down or anything …
April 24, 2008 at 9:04 am
Remember, no computers. No databases built around people’s SS#.
Dick Whitman is legally dead, so no name change. With him goes the SS#, the army records, etc. Don has Don Draper’s purple heart and discharge, so maybe he continued with that identity, and easily got a new SS card and a new birth certificate. For a birth certifcate you have to know the date of birth and the state, but the army personnel record probably has the DOB, and if it doesn’t have the state then you can just send 50 letters–48 back then.
What Don has done is illegal, but only the real Draper family could catch him, I think.
April 24, 2008 at 9:11 am
“He could easily have applied for a legal name change.”
This is a good point and the shrewdest thing he could’ve done. I think it was easier to do this kind of stuff back in those days. This was the era of The Great Pretender and also of that guy whose story inspired Catch Me If You Can.
On the other hand, if Dick Whitman is the one who’s supposed to be dead, how could he have then legally changed his name, kwim? Bc Dick wasn’t supposed to exist to begin with. Hmm. I believe there’s a book that helps you with all the practical stuff you need to do if you want to “disappear”. And I do think that book says something about getting your hands on a deceased person’s SS#. The thing, though, is that story-wise, you get a lot of juicy options if the real Draper’s family tries to find him.
Last night I was thinking about the Tower card in the Tarot and I thought about how healing sometimes means everything falling apart and I thought, that’s what needs to happen to Don. Not next season but, you know, by season 5. And the real Drapers coming to look for Don would certainly lead to ruin and having to rebuild.
April 24, 2008 at 9:43 am
The whole change of identity and paperwork makes me think of Shawshank Redemption, when Andy escapes prison and becomes the fictional person he created while embezzling the warden’s corruption money.
What was the name of the fictional guy he created? That’s gonna bug me all day …
April 24, 2008 at 10:09 am
Randall Stevens!!
April 24, 2008 at 9:56 pm
The Anarchist Cookbook was published in 1971 and deals with, among other things, how to disappear and change your identity. Unavailable to Don in his time fresh out of Korea–but that would not stop a dedicated escape artist. Chances are, he would have to pluck that information from some dicey, or at least, underground characters.
April 25, 2008 at 8:34 am
“The Anarchist Cookbook was published in 1971 and deals with, among other things, how to disappear and change your identity. Unavailable to Don in his time fresh out of Korea–but that would not stop a dedicated escape artist.”
The book I was thinking of was actually published much much later than that and I think its name is: How To Disappear Completely and Never Be Found. My sloppy writing made it seem as if Dick would’ve used a guide but the way the scene was written on MM, him taking the dog tags was almost an impulsive action. He couldn’t have given it much deliberate thought; he just saw the opportunity and grabbed it.
April 25, 2008 at 8:47 am
Dick/Don is very impulsive. The act of taking the dog tags is not unlike the desire to run off with Rachel (or, earlier, with Midge).
April 25, 2008 at 9:02 am
Good point, Deb – impulsiveness would be a key character trait for Don.
In general, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief on this point, and not try to fill in every hole.
It was 1960 – guy switched his name for someone else’s. Paper trails weren’t what they are today. Enough said. I can live with that.
April 25, 2008 at 10:03 am
I’m with Dan. I also think that people found that kind of thing less objectionable in those days than they do now.
Running away like that and disappearing and becoming a brand new person is another quintessential American fantasy. You can’t do that as easily in other countries/cultures, not even in the old days. I come from Latin America and for many reasons, people there don’t disappear like that (unless, you know, they “disappear”.)
I can totally relate to that part of Don that wanted to start over bc then YOU get to write your story, instead of having it handed to you. In general I’m fascinated by stories of people who did stuff like that, even if they’re impostors. A lot of them are motivated by the desire for a second chance. It takes a lot of chutzpah and so I kind of admire it, that courage to say, “You know what? This is who I want to be”.
April 25, 2008 at 10:12 am
Hey, Huck Finn, the quintessential American fictional character, is always running away.
April 25, 2008 at 11:03 am
Yeah. Although I don’t know running away is not just what fascinates me. What fascinates me is the balls to run away from a negative past or an imposed view of who one is and rebuilding one’s story. A lot of us have our families define us (she’s the chubby one, he’s the black sheep, etc.) and those definitions are often so wrong outside of the context of the family. Sometimes sticking with those imposed views can be very imprisoning. The “smart” chick doesn’t know she’s also pretty; the “black sheep” doesn’t know his rebelliousness can be positive or inspiring to others.
Running away all the time is just irresponsible if it’s our only response but knowing WHEN to run away bc something or someone is not serving us, that’s different. That really does take courage. And many many people do remake their lives and stick with the new version of themselves in a responsible way. Don is still in many ways in panic or what I call zombie mode.
If any of that is clear…
April 25, 2008 at 11:28 am
Very clear, eme, and very smart.