Finally, there appeared on Mad Men a character I like – the gay artist from Europe, Kurt Smith. It’s a good show but it really lacked at least one non-pathetic character with at least some self-respect.
I also like the comedian (the one of the Utz chips) but he is still pathetic. Not as much as other characters, but still.
Do you have a favorite character on that show?
Many characters is that series are too archetypal, right? Anyways, I always want to see more Peggy and Joan (see coming seasons). Also, I like Pete and Trudy Campbell becasue they remind me of so many people I knew in CT.
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Define ‘like’
If they were real people some of them would be fun to hang out with in some circumstances (like Roger and Freddie, even Burt) and them some of them are Pete.
I think (especially by later seasons) Ken…. Cosgrove… accounts is pretty sympathetic and not pathetic.
Peggy is also mostly non-pathetic. She stumbles but she senses a chance to escape the life of her mother and sister (which looks dreary beyond imagining) and makes the most of it.
One of the things I like about the show is that they’re mostly doing the best they can in the situations they’re in. Of course their flaws got them into the situations in the first place (and often drive them into even worse ones) but
Even Pete (despite being generally insufferable) is trying to make the best of finding himself married to a girl with more money than him and who’s never learned to take no for an answer…. to anything.
I hated the potato chip comedian but his wife was mostly pretty likeable, a real tough broad (I mean that in the best possible way).
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What I don’t understand about Peggy is this: her family talks like stereotypical New Jersey Italians, they are Catholics, their relationships are very stereotypically Italian, yet they are Norwegians. What does this mean?
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Yeah, I don’t get that either. Norwegian catholics? Is that even a thing?
If they though the actress couldn’t pass for Italian then Irish might have made more sense (I had assumed she was Irish until the Norwegian reference popped out of nowhere).
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I thought at some point that maybe they pretended to be Norwegian because it is less prestigious to be Italian but that seems too convoluted.
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Her last name is Olsen, which is Nordic. Maybe her mother is Irish or something, but dad Norwegian?
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Ah, interesting! Although I still see the mother as more Italian than Irish.
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I have never watched this show. (Or listened to it, in case it is actually a radio show.)
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No, it’s a TV show about the early 1960s.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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