It all begun back in season 1. In Red in the Face, when Roger comes to ask Don to join him for a drink:
Roger: What are you doing tonight?
Peggy: Working and going home.
Roger: I'll let you enjoy that one honey but I was talking to Donald here.
The condescending way he said it, and worse, the fact that he made Don lough at her too must have been a bitter blow to her pride.
Then on season 2, there's this exchange in King of the Hill, when Peggy is asking for Freddy's office:
Roger: What do you want?
Peggy: I need to speak with you.
Roger: Honey, I have a 6:30 dinner reservation, and unless you want to pull me there in a rickshaw, I have to get going.
Peggy: Well, um, I'm a copywriter.
Roger: Why, did I call you something else? No.
Peggy: I don't know if you're aware, but I brought in the Popsicle account today. On my own.
Roger: Hey, Ginger, did you hear about this? - I gotta go.
Peggy: Wait. I need my own office. It's hard to do business and be credible when I'm sharing with a Xerox machine. Freddy Rumsen's office has been vacant for some time. I think I should have it.
Roger: It's yours.
Peggy: Really?
Roger: You young women are very aggressive.
Peggy: Oh, I didn't mean to be impolite.
Roger: No, it's cute. There are 30 men out there who didn't have the balls to ask me.
Again, while obliging to her request, it's obvious, particularly to her, he sees her as kind of amusing novelty.
And in season 3, after Roger was vexed by Margaret not wanting him and Jane at her wedding:
Roger: Heading home?
Peggy: Yes.
Roger: Let me ask you something. You're a young girl.
Peggy: Excuse me?
Roger: You're the only one around here who doesn't have that stupid look on her face.
Peggy: What does that mean?
Roger: What would your father have to do for you to not want him at your wedding?
Peggy: My father passed away.
Roger: There you go. You'd do anything.
She's still just a young girl to him, and even his appreciation of her intelligence is expressed as a slighting backhand compliment. Combine all this with the fact that she had to work so hard to get what she had while he's the epitome of being born with a silver spoon in the mouth, so there was never any reason for Peggy to feel anything but contempt to him.
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kenny-164
8 years ago
Uri,
While I can agree Peggy would see Roger as having issues in regard to his attitudes and the way he treated her, it is too extreme to say she had no reason to view him with anything but contempt. After all in your own examples he gave her the better office and in effect said she had more uh, on the ball than most men in the office.
I doubt the first episode you mentioned caused any bitter blow to her pride. She was not that much of a fragile eggshell.
On the third you even acknowledge the element of compliment. So an ambiguous offer of a compliment is due nothing but contempt?
Imo Peggy understands that Roger is working with her while concededly still caught up in the views of the time. A mixed bag, and as a mixed bag it is something that does not provide a basis for the absolute view you propose.
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Moonlighty
8 years ago
Contempt? They were great together as the last ones at the SCDP office before the merge. If she felt contempt for him, why would she have stuck around?
-
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that I'll be over here looking through your stuff.
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Uri_A
8 years ago
It took them 11 years to get there. Ok - maybe contempt is a strong word. But she certainly didn't respect him too much, and for sure didn't find him irresistible. At all.
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