The Wisdom of Roger Sterling
Of all the characters on the AMC drama Mad Men, Roger Sterling Jr. is arguably the most colorful, quick-witted and humorous of the cast. His womanizing ways and membership in the privileged upper-class also makes Roger Sterling a reflection of the well-to-do male of the 1950s. In 1923, his father co-founded the Madison Avenue advertising firm Sterling Cooper and the younger Sterling followed in his footsteps by becoming an ad man himself. When Roger Sterling Sr. died, his stake in the firm was left to his son and in effect made him successful by default.
But Roger Sterling is not simply some “stuffed shirt” used to getting his way. He exhibits both intellect and charm in his dealings with clients of the firm that bares his name and while many of his comments are both outdated and even offensive by today’s standards, they still carry a level of philosophical wisdom about them nonetheless. They are also often quite amusing.
“You know what my father used to say? Being with a client is like being in a marriage. Sometimes you get into it for the wrong reasons and eventually they hit you in the face.”
“If you put a penny in a jar every time you make love in the first year of marriage, and then you take a penny out of the jar every time you make love in the second year, you know what you have? A jar full of pennies.”
“My generation? We drink because it’s good. Because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar. Because we deserve it. We drink because it’s what men do.”
“One night years ago I got very drunk. I drive home to my building, pull into the garage, park in my spot. I get in the elevator. It’s late, there’s no operator. Go up to the twelfth floor, get out. I’m walking down the hall. It’s pink and orange. I remember how ugly it was. Suddenly my key won’t fit in the door. It wasn’t my building. I guess what I’m saying is, at some point we’ve all parked in the wrong garage.”
“It’s your life. You don’t know where it’s going but you know it ends badly.”
“Don’t you love the chase? Sometimes it doesn’t work out. Those are the stakes. But when it does work out, it’s like having that first cigarette. Head gets all dizzy, your heart pounds, knees go weak. Old business is just old business.”
“Maybe every generation thinks the next one is the end of it all. I bet there were people in the Bible walking around complaining about kids today.”
“Why do we work so hard? To have enough money to buy fabulous vacations for our families so we can live it up here.”
“I am very comfortable with my mind. Thoughts clean and unclean, loving and the opposite of that. But I am not a woman. And I think it behooves any man to toss all female troubles into the hands of stranger.”
Roger Sterling is also a master of one-liners. When Sterling Cooper is sold to a British agency, for instance, he stares at a suit of armor located in the office of their new overlord and asks, “You ever get three sheets to the wind and try that thing on?” And when the parent company makes an unpopular decision, he remarks, “I tried to tell them it was a stupid idea but they don’t always get our inflection.”
Other quips include:
“So we lost an account. That just means we’ll have to cut back. Let’s go fire somebody.”
“I have a very good friend... cannot remember the guy’s name.”
“We’ve got Oysters Rockefeller. Beef Wellington. Napoleons. We leave this lunch alone it will take over Europe.”
“They say once you start drinking alone you’re an alcoholic. I’m really trying to avoid that.”
“I feel like I have been on shore leave for the last twenty years.”
“You want to be on some people’s minds. Some people’s you don’t.”
“When God closes a door, he opens a dress.”
Mad Men is a sophisticated drama populated with an array of multi-dimensional characters filled with flaws and uncertainties. While Roger Sterling may be only one of an excellent ensemble cast, his trademark wit and ability to distill situations into their most simplistic—and humorous—fundamental qualities enables the character to stand out nonetheless.
He may also be both sexist and privileged, but at least he’s honest about it.
Anthony Letizia (August 18, 2010)
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