Silly Little Country

Mad Men Season 4 Episode 2 - Favorite Line

Peggy, responding to her suitor's attempt to talk her into sex by explaining how advanced they were in Sweden, where if two people just felt like it, they had sex. (I can confirm that such arguments were quite common in those days in just that context.)

You’re never going to get me to do anything Swedish people do.

I gather that her suitor was unaware that Peggy has a Norwegian parent, like me, and I can guess at what notions that gave her in her youth. She also had a Swedish-American roommate.
Disclaimer: I have Swedish friends, have had Swedish colleagues, and my visit to Stockholm has left me thinking that Swedes are about as hospitable as I have ever seen on a trip. But it is also true that Sweden (none of the nice people I know) used neutrality in WWII to make a whack of money seeling supplies to the Nazis.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 10:12 AM