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Is JACKASS 3 in 3D Arriving in 2010?MAD MEN Writer Kater Gordon Gets Fired Three Weeks After Winning Her Emmy
by Nicole Pedersen Posted:October 11th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
This could be a first. Just weeks after winning an Emmy Award for her work on AMC’s “Mad Men”, writer Kater Gordon has been fired from the series. Gordon shared her award with “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner for season two’s finale “Meditations in an Emergency”, one of the four episodes from the series that were nominated this year. More after the jump.
Nikki Finke quoted a “Mad Men” insider who said that Gordon, who rose to the rank of staff writer after first serving as Matthew Weiner’s personal assistant, was “fired” from the “Mad Men” staff because “Matt has decided that their relationship has reached its full potential.”
“We think [Kater's] done a great job, particularly for someone whose career has progressed so quickly… She’ll be missed, but the series has consistently benefited from the influx of new writer talent, and there’s absolutely no doubt that Kater will continue to have unprecedented success in her career as she spreads her wings. She leaves ‘Mad Men’ with our love and respect and a well-deserved Emmy.”
So how, exactly, did Kater manage to rise so quickly? Weiner promoted the young woman to be his personal writer’s assistant and then gave her the plum job of co-writing that award-winning season finale - apparently before Gordon had turned in even one spec script of her own. Gordon then became a permanent member of the writing staff for the current third season. This could be, as the insider says, a simple parting of the ways but - in the wake of the David Letterman scandal - my mind jumped to a more sordid conclusion.
I’m not the only person out there who now sees a connection between the supposed favoritism shown to Letterman’s personal assistant Stephanie Birkitt and the rise of Kater Gordon on “Mad Men”. Of course, it could also be that Gordon contributed very little to the episode she won for and that Weiner and the other nominated writers are only now realizing the mistake of attaching her name to Emmy-winning script.
Once again, you have to give Matthew Weiner credit for giving his audience lots to ponder - both on AND off the set.
Don’t forget the Kimmel thing. They come in threes.
Nikki Finke is hardly a credible source.
If she hadn’t used direct quotations I might agree. But this is clearly a written statement someone sent her that she is quoting from. Seems kind of a weird and inconsequential story to make up. I mean, there’s really not a lot to it that would get her tons of hits.
It’s kind of dangerous to go from ‘young woman is fired’ to ‘young woman was having an affair with her boss which is the sole reason she rose in the ranks and was subsequenty ousted.’ Would you have jumped to that conclusion if the writer were a young man? Why do you also have to assume that she was never that talented as well? Kind of ironic when you consider the storylines in Mad Men - young, female copywriter is promoted and the whole office assumes she is sleeping with the boss… but they were wrong.
I thought the way she took him by the arm as they ran down the aisle was a bit presumptuous and weirdly intimate. But as a former staff writer, I know it’s very possible she contributed a lot to the show, possibly more than her low rank required and then, because often the staff writer is given one of the last episodes of a season, the other writers might’ve become hostile and jealous when she won the Emmy on top of pitching well in the room and having the showrunner’s ear. It’s not unusual for an assistant to move quickly to staff writer. Happens all the time — without boss/baby writer sex. But it could also be that his wife told him he had to do it bc they had an affair. Only they know. In any case, not enough info to assume, just to speculate. We should consider this “article” more of a question, not an assumption because the Letterman thing could be a coincidence and a young, successful woman’s reputation is at stake.
Word has it that not only did Weiner let Kater Gordon go, but he let his other former writer’s assistant-turned-staff writer, Robin Veith go too. Sounds like this is a “fire everyone in the room” kind of situation. It probably does not have anything to do with anyone’s talent or anything else.