On the excellent Prestige TV Podcast, Rob Mahoney, Joanna Robinson, and Jodi Walker recently kicked around the notion that Industry’s Harper Stern (Myha’la) possesses qualities that are like Don Draper (Jon Hamm) from Mad Men.
As a Mad Men superfan and ascendant Industry superfan both, this certainly piqued my interest.
And the more I thought about it, not only did I find The Ringer staffers’ assessment to be a strong one, but I also can see parallels between the Harper and Eric relationship and that of Don and Roger Sterling (John Slattery) from Mad Men.
What the four characters share in common
Start with the obvious: ambition, ego, vices (oh so many vices), the need not only to achieve but to be seen, to achieve some measure of heralded success, even legacy.
The irony, of course, is that in the worlds of high finance and advertising, “achievement” can lead to some measure of respect from colleagues and certainly more money, but the work itself is ephemeral – deals won or lost in the margins of the financial markets, or magazine ads and TV commercials that are largely forgotten as soon as they are consumed.
The Prestige TV Podcast crew also pointed out how this dynamic is only sharpened on Industry, where winning professionally by its very nature generates a proportional loser.
Harper Stern as Don Draper
Well into Industry’s fourth season now, Harper’s backstory and family history are revealed to a limited extent, and yet much remains a mystery. Further, what we do know is mostly explained by Harper herself, who may or may not be an entirely reliable narrator.
What we do know is that she’s hypercompetitive, largely amoral, and is willing to say nearly anything to win an argument in a room that will buy her just a little more runway to fix whatever self-imposed crisis she’s managing.
Some of that has creepy parallels to the current occupant of the White House that I don’t feel like exploring further (thank you very much). Still, we can see a clear throughline with Mad Men’s main character.
Dick Whitman conjured the persona of Don Draper (a name he literally stole from a dying man during the Korean War) to be what he wanted to be seen by the world: dominant, successful, unflappable, brilliant.
Like Harper, Don’s competitiveness allowed him to win ad campaigns – sometimes bulldozing high powered clients in the process. And in terms of morality, Don lived a lie both at home and at work every day of his life – and that’s outside of his romantic foibles.
Eric Tao as Roger Sterling
While Eric was an outsider at one time – an American person of color breaking into the old boy’s club of British high finance – the version of him we meet in Industry Season 1 is, like Roger, a Company Man with decades of service to Pierpoint & Co.
Both are institutionalists with rebellious streaks. Each is often funny and enjoy playing the wise elder statesman, and yet both also have a penchant for torching relationships and self-destructive behavior generally.
Harper and Eric, Don and Roger
At one point, a drunken Roger makes a pass at Betty when Don steps out of the room. Later, Don oddly freezes him out after he leaves Mona for Jane. And yet overall, Don and Roger had a warmer and more collegial relationship versus Harper and Eric.
Even so, there are many similarities in the two relationships. Roger and Eric are mentor figures who eventually join their protégés in new, risky ventures (Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, SternTao) based on some common bond and shared ambitions.
Both Roger and Eric also consistently seek out more detail and a closer relationship with their partners-in-crime. Roger probes Don about his past throughout Mad Men, with Don deftly batting away questions with responses like, “I can’t tell you about my childhood, it would ruin the first half of my novel.”
Eric meanwhile earnestly seems to desire a closer relationship with Harper, although as a clearly sad means to replace the distant relationship he has with his own still young children. While Don exploits his partnership with Roger to a certain extent – most significantly when he first hustled/conned his way into working for Sterling Cooper in the first place – Harper is more transparent and cold in framing the parameters of her business relationship with Eric.
Up until the moment perhaps when it’s in her interest to let him believe he’s the great mentor and father figure he dreams of being.
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