Who is Dean Ziegler? And why should we care?
Dean Ziegler is an insurance salesman who likes to party and have fun, but deep down he’s got a sad heart because his wife just left him.
We should care because he’s from Stevens Point and he’s a major character in an excellent new film, “Cedar Rapids.”
Perfectly played by John C. Reilly, Ziegler is the guy Tim Lippe (played by Ed Helms), another insurance salesman, is told to avoid at a regional conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It’s clear why Lippe is given this advice, as Ziegler is the only one there who doesn’t suck up to Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith), the president of the insurance accreditation firm in charge of awarding the coveted “Two Diamonds” award at the conference.
Ziegler moons Helgesson, tells him he’s a hypocrite and drives him crazy every chance he gets. At first it embarrasses the high-strung Lippe, but the more he gets to know Ziegler, the more he realizes Ziegler is the most real person at the conference.
And being real is something Lippe comes to realize is more important than any award could ever mean.
The only references to Stevens Point in the film are the two times characters point out that Ziegler is from Stevens Point. It makes sense, especially given the number of insurance salesmen and people involved in the insurance industry that live here.
And Ziegler doesn’t seem out of place being from Stevens Point. He’s got a perfect Wisconsin accent (John C. Reilly is a Chicago native), and his party-hard ways would seem normal in many local taverns on a Friday or Saturday night.
More importantly, he’s got a big heart, even if it’s really sad. The people he likes, he cares for immensely. He knows Lippe is high-strung, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to get him to open up and live life a little.
Although we never learn why his wife left him within the last year, viewers will probably pick up quite easily that his carefree ways probably contributed to the end of the relationship. He’s sad about it, though, as evidenced by a scene in which he stares in bed one night at a photo of the two together.
If Ziegler were a real person who did live in Stevens Point, my guess is he would live in a downtown apartment after his divorce, mainly so he could have easy access to the bars at night. A big fan of chicken wings, I would assume he’d spend a lot of time at Graffiti’s, which does offer excellent boneless wings, although I could be wrong because he does seem like someone who might like bones in his wings.
He probably would play softball in a Thursday night league, and he’d have a YMCA membership that he rarely uses.
His friends are probably mostly married, so he doesn’t hang out with many of them and instead latches onto the people he does know when he’s out. They don’t mind, though, because he’s kind of fun and always makes the evening more interesting.
At work, he probably gets a number of disagreements with the boss, but they keep him around because he’s a hard worker and makes a lot of sales. He’ll never move up at work, but he doesn’t care.
If he has kids, he cares for them deeply but he’s not the best dad. He can’t relate to them, so he lets them do whatever they want, which is another reason his wife left him.
Ziegler is a complicated character, making it appropriate he’s from Stevens Point. We may seem like simple folk here, but we’re anything but. And maybe that’s one great reason to live here.
“Cedar Rapids” is available on DVD, following a limited theatrical release earlier this year.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Aug. 5, 2011.
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