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Popular Culture Review
her home—and Templeton is standing, pacing the room as he tells her she
should resign. Templeton is more active and more dominating in the scene,
while Allen mostly listens. As Templeton speaks, Allen has her resignation
letter, scrawled on yellow legal paper, in her hand.
TEMPLETON: The world is in turmoil, Mac, it could go any
which way. This is not the time for social advances
made for the sake of social advances.
ALLEN: Meaning a woman in the Oval Office?
TEMPLETON: No, meaning a woman as leader of the free
world. How many Islamic states do you think would
follow the edicts of a woman? Very few, I fear.
ALLEN: Well not only that, Nathan, but we’d have that whole
once-a-month-will-she-or-won’t-she-press-the-button
thing.
TEMPLETON {chuckles): Well in a couple of years, you’re
not going to have to worry about that any more.
As Templeton speaks that line, Allen starts to shift in her chair and her eyes
flash, but she stays seated and listens as he continues talking and then raises the
case of a Nigerian woman, Oria Madula, who is going to be stoned to death for
having a child out of wedlock. The case is an important one for Allen, who has
been trying to secure to the woman’s release, but Templeton calls it a “piece of
theater” and chides Allen for trying to get help from France for the woman.
TEMPLETON: C’mon, Mac. We’re going to end up looking
silly and ineffectual because you’re never going to be
able to save her and we’re going to lose face. And for
whom? A lady who couldn’t keep her legs together?
It’s in that moment that Allen decides to take the presidency—perhaps to
keep Templeton from getting it, or perhaps because she’s angry about being
belittled by Templeton. In either case, it’s not the righteous indignation shown
by Bartlet that spurs her to act, it’s the insult. It’s an emotional response rather
than a reasoned one. Allen folds up the letter, places it on the table next to her
chair, and stands face-to-face with Templeton.
ALLEN: Nate, I am going to take the oath of office. I am
going to run the government. And if some Islamic
nations can’t tolerate a female president, I promise
you, it will be more their problem than mine.
Allen is portrayed as an idealistic president—someone who sees the duty of
the office, but is not interested in the power—and as someone who is intelligent
and thoughtful. But in her idealism, she also comes across as naive. As a woman
who has been vice president for two years, she seems to know little about the
ways that politics work and little about the fishbowl that will define her life and