Who doesn't want to be Don Draper from "Mad Men," right? Suave, impeccably dressed. The kind of guy who can get a woman out of her wiggle dress with a mere raise of an eyebrow. We guess that's why AskMen's readers recently chose the dapper ad man as their most influential man of 2009 and why people keep asking "what would Don Draper do?" Well, somewhere around the halfway point of "Mad Men"'s third season -- which has seen Don become increasingly hostile toward his co-workers and leave his latest tryst waiting for him in the car while being confronted by Betty about his vast web of lies -- he crossed the line from being an intriguingly troubled hero with a tortured back story to just plain being a torture to watch.
We never thought we'd say this, but here are the reasons why we no longer want to be Don Draper.
1. His womanizing has grown tiresome
In the early seasons, Don's flings with a seemingly endless stream of strong-willed brunettes who were the antithesis of fragile homemaker Betty, provided dramatic tension and an interesting insight into his character. (Why did they all kind of look like his dead prostitute mom?) But ever since the third season premiere, when Don bedded a perky flight attendant in a story line that didn't really go anywhere, one of TV's best characters has started to resemble one of its worst -- "Entourage"'s Vinnie Chase. Must every woman throw themselves at Don? We get it, show. He's good-looking. Time for a new vice. Wasn't cocaine around in 1963?
2. He didn't stand up for Sal
One of the most intriguing story lines this season has been art director Salvatore's gradual coming out of-the-closet. When Don caught Sal with his pants down with a male bellhop during a business trip, we thought the fact that Don chose to ignore it showed he was maturing as a character. But then he went and threw poor Sal under a bus, refusing to stand up for him when he was fired over a misunderstanding with a major client. (The guy wanted Sal's "Dick Whitman," and Sal refused.) Then Don went so far as to insinuate that Sal should have slept with the client for the good of the company, even referring to him as "you people." Just because you're a self-hating man-whore, Don, that doesn't mean everyone else has to be.

3. He's a jerk to Peggy and the rest of the staff
For someone who's only in the office for like an hour a day, Don sure loves to ride his co-workers. He's become increasingly hostile toward the rest of the Sterling Cooper gang, recently treating Peggy more like a secretary than a copywriter. (Lest we forget, she once bailed him out of jail.) For most of this season, Don has been off catering to the bizarre whims of Conrad "great-grandfather of Paris" Hilton while the rest of the staff actually, you know, makes advertising. And his patented flowery speeches that woo clients at the last second are becoming as predictable as Detective Stabler throwing a perp against the wall in "Law & Order: SVU."4. He stopped doing awesome things
In seasons past, Don could always be counted on to do awesome, memorable things, like ditching Pete in California to go off on a weekend bender with some bohemians or sticking his hand up his mistress' dress in public just to make a point. But, lately, he's just been kind of mean and boring. And when he tries to do something interesting -- like, say, pick up a couple of hitchhiking kids for some good, clean fun -- he ends up unconscious on a hotel room floor. Is Don Draper losing his touch?
5. He's a big lying liar pants
In a way, it's a relief that Betty finally discovered all of Don's secrets, because now the show can actually move the character forward. We know his past; we know he's an empty shell of a man who stole the identity of his dead commanding officer during Korea. That was interesting two seasons ago. Who is he now? Who's he going to become? Perhaps someone who can be honest for a change? Seriously, he's starting to turn into Jon Lovitz's Tommy Flanagan character.
No, we don't want to be Don Draper anymore. We'd rather be Roger Sterling: raconteur, marry-er of younger women, blackface enthusiast -- uh, scratch that. How about Pete Campbell, the young office sociopath-in-training who forced himself on his foreign neighbor ... you know what? We want to be the elevator operator. He seems like an affable chap.
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Tuesday 27 October
By Heavytoka
Who want's to be Don? I want to be the guy that plays Joan Holloway's husband!
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Tuesday 27 October
By S
Ari Gold: still the champion of Hollywood/entertainment/media industry-based fictional characters.
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Tuesday 27 October
By Strange Botwin
#1 Why is it interesting to his character that the women Don initially bedded looked like his dead prostitute mother? He never met her, and would have never even seen a picture of her. You must be implying there is a genetic proclivity for him liking loose brunettes then? Which is ridiculous since he married Betty, and also nailed Bobbie Barrett and the flight attendant.
#2 It's 1963, why would you expect him to act any different towards a gay male? Stop wanting Don to be some gay rights champion.
#3 Lest we forget that if Don didn't cover for Peggy, and give her "the talk" in the hospital after her pregnancy, she would be in the insane asylum and penniless. He owes her nothing. Moreover, describing his speeches as "flowery" is utterly retarded.
#4 So finger raping his mistress in a restaurant was "awesome," but NOW he's all of a sudden "mean." Riiiight.
#5 So you "don't want to be him" because he's a big lying liar pants, yet that's what he's always been. So he's come clean and is honest and that falls under a reason of why you don't want to be Don Draper anymore? That's contradictory.
This was an awful, ill-conceived article. I found it via a link from Warming Glow, and will never link out to this site again.
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Tuesday 27 October
By Bonnie
RE:
#2 It's 1963, why would you expect him to act any different towards a gay male? Stop wanting Don to be some gay rights champion.
I thought along the same lines and was actually surprised that he promoted him. But then again, Don has shown himself to be pretty liberal except when it comes to his tradition values of what HE expects of HIS wife and kids (OH he is SO much my Father). With the final ending with Sal, he really didn't have a choice once it was revealed in front of the whole staff that they had lost a major account because of him-albeit not why. I think in the storyline, he felt he had given him his "fair shake" already.
Wednesday 28 October
By Quest
I agree with only half of this article, the other half is in my honest opinion deeply flawed, maybe even hypocritical.
I agree with the commenter above who said quite frankly, if you don't like the liar that Don has become this season, then where the hell were you for all the other seasons? Yes, hes a liar. Yes, hes a womanizer, but to suddenly become pretentious and carry on as if Don has somehow only recently become this way is to be willingly ignorant to the fact that Donald Draper has ALWAYS been that man.
Yes, the troubled past, man of mystery stuff is getting kind of old, but I don't blame that so much on poor writing as I do on the realism with which his character is interpreted. Don Draper may very well be one of the most believable characters that I have ever seen an actor portray, almost to the point where he sometimes is so believable that you forget that Jon Hamm is an actor, and that Don is not a real person. So yes, while I think there can be some definite changes to his characters progression, I don't want it at the expense of the realism his character has come to possess over the seasons.
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Monday 07 December
By jackla
Why would you want to be anyone else? You have it all: you are an armchair critic of great art who would love to watch fantasy laden false depictions of humans. Go back to CSI. Everyone does the right thing and really really cares... More justice! Less thinking!
Saturday 31 October
By Violet
I really enjoyed this article, but I have to disagree with the writer's position as it is based on a flawed premise. The writer has lost his desire to be dapper Don, but that's only because he seems to never have known Don at all.
1. It's not really fair to even call Don Draper a womanizer. He isn't hitting on anyone, he's barely even pursuing them in his own mind. He's being perpetually hit upon and chooses to do a few of the girls a big fat favor by giving them the old "Dick Whitman." Don Draper is more like the cat with the white stripe in a Pepe Le Peu cartoon, fleeing from the overeager paws of many a Pepe Le Femme, than anyone's womanizer.
2. It's a bit absurd to complain that DD didn't stand up for Sal. The only damsel in distress that Don Draper consistently protects is Dick Whitman. Other characters have been the beneficiary of his strength and support when it suited Don Draper, but no one else is his cause, his reason d'etre, as are his perpetuation of this vast web of lies, and thereby, Don's grand lifestyle. Sal's actions, or really Sal's inaction, was a threat to the Agency, and thereby a risk to Don's livelihood, and all that Don has painstakingly worked toward. It has nothing to do with gay or not gay, tolerance or the lack thereof, it has to do with who is Don Draper's number one? His actions were completely consistent with his character. He certainly didn't throw Sal under a bus, he merely left Sal under one so as not to disturb his own apple cart.
For that matter ignoring Sal's pants being down wasn't a maturing of his character, so much as Don is smart enough that when something isn't any of his business either way, he has no reason to insinuate his own opinion about the matter, whatever that might be, to no plus sum advantage. What would it really get Don Draper to chastise Sal simply because Sal was gay? Failing to demean Sal for the discovery of his sexual orientation says nothing more about DD than that he had better things to do with his time than just lash out at other people for their lifestyle choices. So long as those choices have no impact on him, the rest is irrelevant to him. What has Don matured from anyway? We haven't seen anything in his character that implies he has any feelings whatsoever toward the gay community, bad or good.
3. He hasn't become a jerk to the rest of the staff, he's always been one. This is the same man who deliberately initiated Roger Sterling's heart attack, after all. We are to imagine that they are in a cut throat Machiavellian atmosphere, all grasping for the same brass ring. All threatening to one another. There is a limited pool of resources, and they each want all the resources that are there. If anything, Peggy, in particular, represents a real threat to Don. She is an advertising prodigy much like we imagine he was when he first began in the industry. In his ascension to power there have undoubtedly been casualties.
4. He has not stopped doing awesome things. The writer's own point about Don's foray into picking up hitchhikers while drinking and driving and pill popping, proves just the opposite. That whole episode was a cautionary tale on steroids. It is only realistic that sometimes when one defies all of societies' moires and rules, one will get burned. He's still doing crazy activities, he just doesn't have everything end with a gilded Midas touch. That just adds to the realism of making such perpetually poor choices.
5. Who could argue that Don Draper is not an absolute Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire? But again, that is who he always has been, at least since Dick Whitman exited stage left and Don Draper entered stage right. To stop envying Don Draper now just because of a few white lies, is not to know Don Draper at all.
I can understand why one may not want to be Don Draper, although just barely. I can't understand, however, why the writer 's opinion has changed of him, since Mad Men's writers have masterfully made DD nothing, if not consistent. The best reason to not want to be Don Draper, is that he, and the rest of the characters, suffer from severe ennui. Not a one of them appears even remotely happy though they are walking, talking examples of the American Dream. What good are all the finesse, charm, great looks, hot women, and money in the world, if they still don't make you happy?
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Sunday 01 November
By C
This is all part of the undeserved "Mad Men" backlash that's been going on this season. You all wanted to be Don before he got snagged and had to fess up. That kind of Rat Pack behavior is always enviable, if there is no piper to pay, of course. He has always lied to everyone about almost everything, but now, when the pressure is unbearable and he has to face consequences, it's "torture to watch." Uh huh. What is Roger Sterling, a prince? He's twice the jerk Don ever was. If anything, the season is too Betty-centric, and she's saddled herself another child.
The show will have natural progressions and changes, like any other show, and I can only hope that you watch it because you want to see the characters weather those changes. Really, everyone is a jerk, from Bert to Pete to Peggy. What else would a show about advertising be filled with??
Nobody would have stood up for Sal in 1963, sadly. It's ridiculous to expect that, especially from a guy like Don.
It's a good thing that they won their Emmys already. Next season, because of piddly whining like this, they won't. It's still the best show on the air now.
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Tuesday 03 November
By sinjin
jeez take it easy! have you heard of "tongue-in-cheek"? the writer is just voicing the obvious, in a clever way..."obvious" being one of the strengths of the show, which is to make us wonder "how DID people function back then?" and to make us think about our lives now
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Tuesday 10 November
By vic
To answer point #1 Cocaine has been around since 1880's when Coca Cola introduced it in soft drinks- as a rec drug in 1963 very unlikely even pot was not used all that much-Alcoholic Drink was the big thing.
Don Drapers' character is being contrived as a "hungry player", which there were many of on Madison Ave. They were never likable persons but users and morally corrupted persons. The "tell" in Dons character is he stole a persons ID and used it to his advantage, lied to his wife, screws anything that moves, usurps authority and is a sneak. WHO would want to emulate a person like that?
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