The President as Character
29
ALLEN: The world to see a soft, indecisive woman
commanding the troops as opposed to Nathan
“Bloody Hell” Templeton?
In fact, it’s not until Gardner gets in her face that she finally sparks, and
even then, she backs off of her anger quickly.
GARNDER: Madam Vice President, I really must insist that
you strongly . ..
ALLEN {interrupting, spoken tersely): Jim, you’re not in a
position to insist how I take my coffee. {Pause). That
said, how would this work?
What is interesting in this exchange is that Allen is very uncertain and has
more questions than answers. In fact, the only time she makes a declarative
statement is in retort to a perceived challenge from the president’s chief of staff,
which she then follows with yet another question about the process of resigning
the vice presidency.
In contrast, Jed Bartlet’s first appearance in The West Wing is marked by his
moral outrage at a pro-life group sending a Raggedy Ann doll with a knife in its
throat to his granddaughter, who had talked about her pro-choice views in an
interview with a teen magazine. After he thunders into the meeting between his
staff and the Christian coalition, he smiles and shakes hands, then tells them, in
a very narrative fashion, about the doll and about the fact that he was so angry
that he had a bicycling accident. As he tells this story, his voice shows his
increasing anger and he walks to within inches of the coalition members, saying:
BARTLET: Now I love my family and I’ve read my Bible
from cover to cover so I want you to tell me: From
what part of Holy Scripture do you suppose the
Lambs of God drew their divine inspiration when
they sent my 12-year-old granddaughter a Raggedy
Ann doll with a knife stuck through its throat?
{Pauses, looks at leader o f group). You’ll denounce
these people, Al. You’ll do it publicly. And until you
do, you can all get your fat asses out of my White
House.
In these first appearances, Bartlet is shown taking charge and even bringing
the room to a stunned silence. In Commander in Chief it is Allen who is stunned
into silence before she regroups. He is strong and confrontational, while she is
almost acquiescent to the members of the president’s staff. Even then, as a
woman, she doesn’t let her anger get the best of her—not until she’s faced, later
in the pilot episode, with the egregiously sexist comments of the speaker of the
house, Nathan Templeton, who would become president if she chooses to resign.
In that scene, which comes right after the president suffers complications
and dies, Allen is sitting passively in a side chair in the vice president’s home—