Yeah, pretty much on Pete. He’s gotten a lot of love because he’s supposedly more modern, but something that’s always overshadowed his character from the beginning is how much he’s the dark-side of Nice Guy TM. He is constantly paranoid about being emasculated and never passes up a chance to try and force power on someone beneath himself. He is in many ways, the living embodiment of privilege and the paranoid hostility that comes with it. If he doesn’t get his way, he drags everyone down, but he sabotages himself and doesn’t have sophisticated wants, so dragging people down tends to be his default desire. In many ways, he’s the slick upper-class version of the movie theatre guy in the post down below or the republicans in congress. Nothing matters over the ephemeral win that doesn’t bring him much happiness.

Of course he engineered that rape and bristled when she didn’t give him the excuse of manufactured consent, just like a Nice Guy TM will fume at the knowledge that he did a favor and bitch wouldn’t fuck him. I think the scene with the gun in Season 1 was a sign that he was very capable of being the LA Fitness shooter guy if born into a different tax bracket or even with just the right (or rather wrong) influences.

And yes he’s openly misogynist. I suspect that if blacks were more present in his social circle or office surroundings outside the subservient elevator operator, he’d be openly racist too and if alive during Obama, would be a 9/12er in no small order.

This episode in many ways confirmed that I was right to hate him from the beginning. He isn’t getting better with time, if anything he’s getting slicker and he’s trying to cultivate the sort of Nice Guy TM facade to try and hide his virulent hatred of women who are not controllable pieces.

And yes, on despairing for Trudy. Pete’s first response in all interactions is to limit her possibilities and deny her happiness and freedom. She will end up abused by his hands and certainly has been run through the emotional ringer several times already. She may be equally privileged, but it’s the sort of blind prejudice sort rather than a petulant exploitation of the top rung.

Pete of course will probably thus do well in the new corporate world as he fits into the stereotypically sadistic middle manager role that likes to exploit tiny power to feel important over lessers.

Also, Betty rocks. It is awesome seeing her awaken to the person she was before the roles she was expected to fulfill shattered her and equally heart-breaking to see her try and perpetuate that role bullshit with her daughter with that god-awful “be a victim” speech on love.

And I love how they highlight how the suburbs become a self-fulfilling prophecy of drab and gah and how everyone miserable and trapped just doubles down on enforcing the standards and becoming moral scolds just so they can feel like they have some excitement without the downsides (see the group ribbing her as if she slept with Henry because she dared show interest and be pretty). I don’t suspect Don will allow a move to someplace where she can be a full person because like in Revolutionary Road, he sees more benefit in keeping her stuck at home (after all, if he gets sick of it, he can just crash with a girlfriend in the city or sleep at the office like he’s done before).

My own worthless analysis:

That speech to Sally sounded like a description of addiction.  “You get high again because you’re always chasing that first buzz.”

Also, I thought that speech sounded like Betty repeating what she had been told, basically creating a new Betty in her daughter.  I find myself seeing that in all of Betty’s parenting.  There’s a distance in it and I think it’s because she’s not doing anything fresh or alive, just repeating what her parents told her and did with her.

3-

Most definitely. It definitely sounds like it’s the advice from her own mother that she basically repeats because she has no clue what mothering is about so she repeats what she was told and how she was raised even though that method of dealing with life has left her miserable. I’m not entirely sure when parents felt confident and human enough from the roles that the general advice shifted in history from “do what I did even though it made me miserable” to “don’t do what I did, have a great life instead”, but I think a lot owed itself to the feminism of the 70s.

I could have thrust a letter opener into Pete’s chest the minute he smarmed at Hildy, “Dear.” And it only got worse.

That said, I love that Kartheiser is playing him so unabashedly.

IIRC, Betty was a model when she was in college and spent some time in Italy doing that gig.  (I remember her discussing how she kept, and still fit in, some of the dresses.)

When Pete brought in the dress and Joan showed up, I knew she would say something about the dress not being Trudy’s size.  Joan knows all.

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I was impressed at Joan’s ability to land on her feet. It’s only been a little over a month, but she managed to if not be the manager of the fancy dress shop, become the fixer that all the other shop girls turn to and respect.

Without the impressive power of institutional sexism, it’d be interesting to see where Betty and Joan would have ended up with that amount of raw political power and quick thinking.

suspect that if blacks were more present in his social circle or office surroundings outside the subservient elevator operator, he’d be openly racist too and if alive during Obama, would be a 9/12er in no small order.

I don’t agree. Pete has all ready proved this season he isn’t as racist as the majority of those around. Not only suggesting them as viable demographic & he was visably uncomfortable during Roger’s blackface. Plus, did everyone catch his reading Ebony is his office. He was polite to the elevator operator. I think he approached him like he would anyone else. He has never been purposely insulting to anyone black. Plus he voted for Kennedy (or at least expressed an understanding of his appeal), he’s a WASP who doesn’t see a Catholic as unworthy of being president so I don’t see why a modern Pete wouldn’t vote for Obama.

How I view Pete is he does what he thinks he’s supposed to do. I think he feels he suppose to cheat on his wife. He’s supposed to seduce the au pair while his wife’s away. I don’t think he knows what he wants so he does what he thinks any man would do.

I am very disappointed that he’s still screwing around. I had hoped Peggy’s confession was a wake-up call becasue him and Trudy seemed very happy this season. Her “don’t go to the well” comment about his mother made me think she really understands him. I want him to be better for her.

As for the Betty plotline. I think my biggest problem with her is that she always been obviously bored with being a housewife, but she never expressed any interests, beside the horse riding, that I couldn’t figure out what she could do besides being a wife & mother. She seemed to just want to be pampered. Also, it’s not just that she’s unsuited for motherhood, she seems to go out of her way to be as awful as possible to Sally.

Slate is having an interesting discussion on whether or not Pete raped the au pair.  Aside from the weird linking of it to Polanski—-I remain absolutely livid that anyone could think there’s ambiguity around raping a 13-year-old who said no—-it’s interesting.  Most everyone thinks it’s a solid yes, even if not prosecutable.  There’s a lot of feminism in this episode, for sure.  It’s not just about stifled women, but about how rape was routine prior to the feminist awakening and subsequent revolt against coercive sex, a revolt we’re obviously still fighting for today.

I thought one of the echoing themes in this episode was privilege and those who have it and exert it over others. Francis kissing Betty; Pete kissing the au pair; Hilton making Don fly all over the place; Francine dumping her kids on Carla.

AmandaPanda, I think the tragedy of Betty’s life is she wasn’t even presented with other options, and her imagination is limited.

And as far as hating any of the characters…I just can’t do it. They are all too fascinating and human for me to see them as anything other than the complex creatures that they are.

Definitely, Amanda, I like how the show really captures how much rape and pushing of consent was normalized back then as a way of getting us to think about what men “get away” with today by exploiting the gray lines.

On the au pair rape, I suspect that industry of nannies is just as open to rape and abuse as back then because of the incredible power held by the family and anyone else. As long as any complaint could lead to total revocation of the right to stay in the country, the ability of the owner class to take what they want becomes commonplace and regardless of what Hildy did, her right to say no was in no uncertain terms heavily compromised long before Pete grabbed onto the back of her neck and held her in place for his kiss.

I’m actually pleased to see Slate having a discussion on that as they seem to tend towards rape denialism in general and maybe depictions of “even worse” like in Mad Men are providing the appropriate context for a much needed conversation on enthusiastic consent.

I’ve always disliked Peter. There’s other blogs where commenters express hope that he and Peggy will get together and I don’t understand it. He openly begrudges Peggy’s every success. And the couple times he slept with her he obviously only did it for the ego boost and then blew her off the next day.
And I’ve always been sympathetic to Betty. She embodies that empty Donna Reed fantasy that my mom aspired to - that a lot of girls raised in her era (and a lot of girls raised by women who were raised in that era) had pounded into our heads as our One True Calling. From the first season, when she had that car accident and later expressed terror at the idea that Sally could have ended up with a scar on her face, which meant Sally would have a miserable, lonely (i.e. unmarried) life, and that this would be a fate worse than death, I got where she was coming from. Betty’s deeply hung up on beauty and male approval so, at first glance, it seems like she’s shallow. But beauty and male approval are treacherous and oppressive things to define your existence by, and I love that the writers address this in a way that makes Betty’s character more complex.
I’m reading really ambivalent feelings from Betty re Henry Francis. I think she feels obliged to take his interest - which is clearly all about her looks, as he’s barely listened to a word she’s had to say or expressed much interest in anything about her beyond his superficial perception of her - as an affirmation of her worth, but she’s getting really disgusted with being regarded as a pretty trophy. I don’t think she’s quite awake enough yet to even recognize or define what’s making her so miserable though.

I agree with maurinsky that privilege was one of the themes of this episode. However, another one was what we might call Nice Guy reciprocation - with the parallel of the political fixer guy/Pete doing something for Betty/au pair and expecting “something” in return.

I have to admit to disliking Betty as a character initially. But she becomes more fascinating as the show progresses. I think I fell in love with her when she took out the air rifle for those pigeons way back when.

Pete, of course, is a dickface. Although I haven’t checked out the slate discussion, I would definitely say what he did to the au pair was rape. Second creepiest moment of the episode (after Betty’s first kiss speech to Sally): The au pair’s employer’s “admonition” of Pete.

[Peter] was polite to the elevator operator. I think he approached him like he would anyone else.

Not really. He shut the elevator down and got seriously up in Hollis’ face, demanding that he explain how all Negroes select their televisions. I think he even grabbed Hollis by the shoulders IIRC. He also told Hollis that he had a very narrow view of the American Dream, which was tragicomic.

Betty lives in Ossining, and feels trapped in a prison!  That is ironic = Ossining is the town with the famous prison - Sing-Sing.

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He likes them as a cipher as a modern suburban rap fan does, but if they felt like a threat to his right to be a petulant man-child who gets his way when he wants to, he’d be a lot more vile about it. I think that was seen when he nearly assaulted Hollis and threatened him in order to get a notion of his confirmed. If there was a Hollis in an office rather than in the elevator, he’d be waving the confederate flag and talking about nooses as what seems to drive him the most is the idea that there’s a place for everyone and maybe they can be exploited for personal gain, but they don’t get to swap places or dictate for themselves what their existence means.

I was one of the ones who thought Pete had potential but last night really killed that for me.  I was reading the comments on Jezebel about this episode and some of the commentors expressed annoyance over the pete rape debate.  They said that it seems like people were accusing Mad Men of being rape apologists.  I thought that was so stupid.  Of course what the writers are doing is portraying the epidemic of sexual violence and use of power to gain what is really non-consensual sex back then, and also I think opening up a discussion about sexual assualt today.  I mean, it’s not as if we dont’ still have an epidemic. 

I remember a flashback scene in Angel when Angelus is depicted back in 19th century England blackmailing a servant in someone else’s home into being quiet while he f’d her because if she made any noise who did she think her employers were going to believe, him or her?  And she’d be out on the street.

That was rape, the writer’s made it very clear, and there was no debate.  How different was the Pete scene?  In fact, if you watch both scenes you’d see that they’re not really any different at all.

Cerberus, in most of your posts you’re ascribing a level of malevolence to the characters that is clearly not born out by the writing. Your fantasy of Pete “waving the confederate flag and talking about nooses” strikes me as having a level of probability just above shear nonsense; the same with Don intentionally trapping Betty in the suburbs just so he can slip off to his bohemian girlfriend or sleep on the couch in his office if he wants to. Pete may be a petulant man-child and Don takes advantage of the opportunities presented to him, but there’s nothing supporting your apparent belief that they actively want to make those around them miserable.

Geocrackr-

Well the bit about Pete waving the flag is admittedly hyperbole and in general, they are all fictional written characters left deliberately open for debate on their motivations.

More specifically to my impression. Don isn’t motivated by making those around him miserable, but has certainly acted in previous seasons affronted when Betty asserted herself and certainly seems to have fallen into the suburban life as a “what you do” not recognizing how it’s making both Betty and him miserable. I’m also willing to predict that Betty’s statement on hating it in the suburbs will have little impact on whether or not they remain in the suburbs in the next handful of episodes.

Pete, on the other hand, has in the past gone out of his way to sabotage himself, his own happiness, and his stated ambitions in order to make a show of power against a woman and does so several times this last episode. His motivations for this marriage to self-destruction and other-destruction is probably complex and indeed the show hints that he seems trapped in a sort of petulant adolescence brought on by his privilege and the expectations of his social circle of ex-frat boys. It also seems to be clear that controlling and dominating those around him actually makes him less happy because it reinforces that very few people actually like him as a person, but that he’s addicted to the action nonetheless because he wants total power now but feels emasculated and threatened that the end goal isn’t just handed to him no work needed and that feeling makes him lash out.

This episode also hints that that spirit goes far deeper in sadism and nice guy TM expectations just as Joan’s husband’s self-esteem and incompetence issues causes him to unleash his evil on Joan.

Haven’t seen the latest episode, but one thing I’ll say in, well, not sympathy for Pete, but insofar as attempting to have some compassion for the character - his family is bone-chillingly awful. One of the things that makes his character compelling is that he seems, sometimes, to be coming around to being more like Trudy than his parents, as when he takes some tentative steps towards adoption, then is told by his mother that adoptees are “discards,” then, instead of deciding “wait, I hate my mom and this is why, because that’s sick,” loses his shit at Trudy.

In other words, I think his character sometimes struggles not to be a monster, but you can see (thanks in large part to Kartheiser, who’s the show’s secret weapon) that he probably doesn’t have it in him. The scene after his father dies just kills me, because you can watch the wheels turning in his head as he figures out how to be a man/human being/adult.

On Pete and racism, you’ll note he is not talking to Kinsey, asking to go down to the jazz shows like the poseur willing to rub elbows with the them and his black research so far as entirely consisted of reading a magazine and assaulting an elevator operator. He may think it gauche to be an out and out racist, but he has also spent his entire life in segregation to them so how he’d act when threatened by them on the personal level as much as the presence of powerful women has threatened him is an entirely unanswered question.

It’s possible he only has eyes for sexism and that he’d be genuinely welcoming, but my suspicions based on his massive crippling issues is that he’d react with similar petulant remarks especially when considering his views on the jews when they were in a position of power (client) over him and his reaction in general to anyone threatening his easy ride to success idea of what he wants.

Oh and I will fully admit to being biased against Pete from the beginning. I mean, he’s such a Nice Guy TM mixed with an Apatow man-child. That alone had me viscerally against him even before he started racking up the creepy/evil points. He’s like the nightmare ex you wish you had never met much less dated and shoots up red flags like no one’s business.

Kartheiser does a good job acting him though and does bring a full humanness to that role and thus avoids the easy trap of just making him a monster instead of an evil human.

Speaking of Pete, I think Emily Nussbaum’s take is worth a read. I like his character for the same reason Ziggy was one of my favorite characters in The Wire - he tries, sometimes, but you can just tell something horrible’s going to happen because of how he’s been miswired. He’s like the loaded gun in the first act that’s going to have to go off by the third, only instead of going off I suspect it’s going to be a long, slow decline.

I agree with Cerberus about Don but not about Pete.  I don’t think Pete’s racism has been shown to be that overtly violent, nor that he’s been shown to be any more racist than the other white characters.  I think the Admiral story establishes that.  (Interesting to contrast Pete’s behaviour re: Admiral televisions with Paul’s loud, pompous speech on the Freedom Ride, telling a bunch of irritated black people that advertising is the way to freedom because “the dollar sees no colour”.)  Just as I don’t see him committing the kind of rape Joan’s husband did (forcing a struggling woman down as she struggled and said “no” over and over again), I don’t see him engaging in that kind of straightforward physical threat against a person of colour. 

But Don really wants Betty and the perfect suburban life as status objects, to be there when he feels the need for them and not to make demands on him when he doesn’t.  He might be perplexed that she’s not happy, but over the course of the series we’ve repeatedly seen him act put-upon or brush her off when she tries to talk about her feelings or about the day-to-day problems of running the house.  He does not want to know, he does not want the hassle of listening, he certainly does not want to change.  He can be a good father when he bothers to be around, but mostly he doesn’t bother.  (Notice how in this latest episode, Carla started telling Betty about Sally acting out and Don was all “well clearly this isn’t my problem, I’ll go get the mail.”)

He’s like the nightmare ex you wish you had never met much less dated and shoots up red flags like no one’s business.

Ha, Pete’s mannerisms and behaviour actually remind me VERY strongly of the worst boyfriend I ever had, especially in this episode.  Something about the way he took off his shirt, the way he laughed when watching cartoons, it’s uncanny.  Kartheiser’s superb at playing a cruel, spoiled man-child with just enough pathos and sweetness that I want him to be better.  I really hoped he was just being kind to the au pair and was nauseated and shocked when, after she turned him down, he came back to demand “payment”.

I agree about the similarity with Ziggy, although Ziggy was more pathetic and less scary than Pete.

@#23 Ben Alpers: Betty’s advice to Sally was messed up, I agree. But she was having a conversation with her woman-to-girl, which is something she doesn’t typically do with Sally. So as much as her advice to Sally to be a passive receptacle is wrong and disturbing, it felt like Betty and Sally were having a human connection there that Sally was craving - and acting out with all the skull-cracking she’s been doing lately.
It was also a neat little illustration of how these crazy ideas about how to be female correctly get passed down from generation to generation and how it is that they’re not all gone yet.

Pete was starting to grow on me this season, so I’m disappointed in his actions in this episode. On the plus side, he was clearly remorseful at the end, and I wonder how/if that will affect how he behaves towards women in the future.

Very nice piece by Emily Nussbaum.  Marc’s said the same thing, that Pete is the Cassandra of the show.

I thought one of the echoing themes in this episode was privilege and those who have it and exert it over others. Francis kissing Betty; Pete kissing the au pair; Hilton making Don fly all over the place; Francine dumping her kids on Carla.

I saw that, too. And in keeping with the over-arching theme of the series, much of it involved more powerful parties providing the illusion of freedom (e.g. replacing the dress, grading the performance of the hotel staff) in exchange for demanding quite onerous tasks from the less powerful.

One exception was Sally, who managed to exert privilege over both the young males in her life. In a decade or so she’ll probably be marching with Gloria Steinem to get rid of this rancid real-life version of The Seven Year Itch that Pete and his neighbour get to “enjoy” (it’s even money that the au pair’s boyfriend is, in fact, her employer).

And beyond the casual sexism, there’s some good old-fashioned racism too: note Francine’s use of the term “the board is trying to Jap us” with their secret surprise meeting. A lot of nice little touches in this episode to remind us how things once were in the “Golden Age” before those dirty hippies and feminists: the sweltering suburban house with no A/C; the landline that physically tethered you to the spot. But hey, at least there was no DHS to stop you from buying a last-minute ticket at the airport (Obama invented the DHS, dontchaknow?)

He likes them as a cipher as a modern suburban rap fan does, but if they felt like a threat to his right to be a petulant man-child who gets his way when he wants to, he’d be a lot more vile about it.

Which is why his reading Ebony at the beginning is such a wickedly funny touch—that’s precisely how he views them, as a market to be exploited so that he can move to an UES apartment building where the hallways are as nicely kept up as the apartments. It’s a different kind of racism than the stuff going on in Dixie at the time, the modern racism-lite that’s intimately enmeshed with classism to the point where the latter can be used as a polite cover for the former.

Pete’s a messed-up guy, no doubt—the kind of creepy man-boy who can chuckle at “Davey and Goliath” with the clueless amorality of a frat-boy, the kind of lonely nerd can’t even muster the effortless smoothness and charm that’s the very least his pedigree demands. But the series doesn’t take the easy route of making him or anyone else a complete villain, and invites us to consider character motivations, whether the character is aware of them or not.

Marc’s said the same thing, that Pete is the Cassandra of the show.

Only to a point: Cassandra wasn’t happy about the predictions that she made, as they represented the end of her own privilege; Pete embraces the coming world of the HR/Fourth Purpose Culture happily, because he’s already lost his old class privilege and needs desperately to find the basis for a new one.

I remember a flashback scene in Angel when Angelus is depicted back in 19th century England blackmailing a servant in someone else’s home into being quiet while he f’d her because if she made any noise who did she think her employers were going to believe, him or her?  And she’d be out on the street.

Note where he meets the au pair: in the grungy back service hallway. Pete, having reverted to the slob student lifestyle while his wife is away, feels a sense of the old aristocratic power “slumming” it—especially when he can exert his privilege by “impressing” a frightened servant from another country with an easy favour. But he reverts back to clumsy nerd status when he’s confronted by her employer, who enters by the front door—they may be fellow “gents” who understand how things are, but Pete can’t seem to ever establish dominance with class equals (at least, not with class equals under the WASP Ancien Regime).

@34: it’s even money that the au pair’s boyfriend is, in fact, her employer.

I was thinking exactly the same thing.

I think the au pair told Peter she had a boyfriend as a brush-off, as women have been known to do when they haven’t internalized the fact that they’re entitled to say no just because they don’t wanna and not because they’re some other guy’s property. Especially when they’re faced with an over-entitled dude who’s in a position to threaten their livelihood and thinks he’s owed something and won’t take no for an answer.
I think her employer was just annoyed that the au pair’s girlie hysterics about her - ahem - Bad Date - ahem - with Peter were harshing his vacation time, so he asked Peter to please kindly keep his raping of au pairs to some other building.

The interesting thing about Pete is that he seemed to show a glimmer of genuine remorse after being put in his place by his (male, naturally) neighbour. Although he doesn’t seem self-aware enough to learn the right lesson—i.e., raping women a shitty thing to do—as opposed to the lesson implied by his neighbour, which is to do your raping somewhere other than your own apartment building, so you won’t get found out.

Will he eventually realise that he’s stop feeling so fucking guilty all the time if he stopped being such a complete douchebag? Probably not.

Antigone Cerberus : I kind of thought him grabbing Trudy and going “Don’t leave me” was sort of a “I need you around to keep me from acting like a total douchebag”

I saw it that way too, and I thought it was something positive (although I’m not so sure Pete is feeling guilty about the rape per se; I’d argue he’s more worried about having cheated on his wife.), but I think Cerberus is right at the beginning of the thread :

And yes, on despairing for Trudy. Pete’s first response in all interactions is to limit her possibilities and deny her happiness and freedom. She will end up abused by his hands and certainly has been run through the emotional ringer several times already. She may be equally privileged, but it’s the sort of blind prejudice sort rather than a petulant exploitation of the top rung.

By asking Trudy to stay with him, yeah he’s acknowledging that acting like a douchebag is a bad thing, but he’s putting all the responsibility for his actions on Trudy’s shoulders. And he basically forbids her to have some alone time to boot.

I don’t dislike Pete; I did so at first just because he rubs me the wrong way (when Peggy let him in that first night, I was WTF PEGGY HE’S REPULSIVE ! Hey wait, I thought that about Duck too. What is it with her taste in men ?), but he’s grown on me as time passed. I think he’s clueless, not evil. So I hope that he’ll grow into a better man someday. But this episode was not a step in that direction.

Also : on Don and Betty in Rome. So much love for Sophisticate!Betty ! And Don was so jarringly country-bumpkin-american-touristy compared to her ! Which is interesting, because even though that’s where he came from, and how he still thinks of himself deep down, he’s usually the smoothest guy in town. And I don’t think it’s just in Rome : ISTM he’s been off his game ever since Conrad Hilton invited him to his hotel. The whole deal with the contract was more of this.

So what I’m wondering is, did Don feel as lost compared to Betty as he looked ? And did he secretly resent her for it ? Will this resentment, as well as feelings of powerlessness because of the contract and being bossed around by Hilton, come to a head and will he blame Betty when it does ?

It does seem to me that Trudy’s one of those “pick up the pieces” kind of wives.

More likely, Trudy can’t have a child of her own, and Pete is a good (if problematic) substitute.

Betty Draper is a better advertisement for reproductive choice than anything Planned Parenthood could concoct.  This is what compulsory motherhood looks like, folks, even in the most privileged of circumstances.  This is what the anti-choicers want to bring back.

This is what compulsory motherhood looks like, folks, even in the most privileged of circumstances.  This is what the anti-choicers want to bring back.
Oh god yes. When she first found out she was pregnant, I thought she was going to get an abortion. I would love to see Mad Men cover that story line!

Same here, pitbullgirl65.  I really want them to have one of their characters get an illegal abortion so some of these young, hip girls I meet all the time who are so blithely unconcerned about how imperiled their right to choose is will see what it used to be like and could be like in the near future.

She’s not a good mother, of course, and we’re seeing some more problems with Sally’s bad behavior and temper.

I’m a terrible person for saying this but Sally is the character I like the least, with her whiny twit of a little brother coming in a close second.  Betty clearly should never have been a mother in the first place but I can’t say I blame her for hating those particular kids.  Which is yet another testament to Matthew Weiner’s brilliance.

I like Sally. I think she’s just frustrated because her parents don’t treat her like a person. She’s had issues since Grandpa Gene died and she’s been shut out every time she’s tried to talk to somebody about it.
As a product of that ‘seen and not heard’ child-rearing philosophy, I can tell you a kid can internalize a heap-load of rage.

Oh definitely Sally is the victim of neglect and crappy parenting.  She’s still a bullying asshole.

I’m really unsure how to feel about Pete.

On the one hand, he actually seems to want to understand things.  For example, in terms of race, he did buy and read a copy of Ebony.  I believe the way he asked Hollis about his TV, he didn’t realize that the physical gestures he used, which would be read as emphatic when used with an equal, are threatening when used with a Black man who is not his social equal.  It’s like the guys who don’t understand why a man asking a bunch of questions to a woman on the subway is not just annoying, it can be frightening.

He kind of reminds me of the guy on The Sopranos who managed a lot of Black musical acts.  He was “one of the good White people” in that he didn’t hate Black people, hung out with them, appreciated their music and believed they were people, too, but he also made money off their backs with his privilege.

His rape of Gudrun (no question it was rape, to me) was horrific.  But somehow it seemed like he thought it was just going according to a script—“while the cat’s away the mouse will play.”

The Playboy generation was getting into full swing at this time.  The Playboy Philosophy, which was refreshing in some respects (atheist-friendly and pro-integration, for example) but totally male-centric, was being expounded by Hugh Hefner in a series of editorials in the magazine starting in 1962.  Playboy’s view of the modern urban male was a man who likes jazz, drinking, having fun and having NSA sex.  There was also a common belief about Swedish and German girls being “easy” and carefree about sex.  Many men bought into this whole thing eagerly and unapologetically.

He seems like someone who could actually have a conscience, but it’s never been called to action.  I can’t honestly tell if he really felt bad about his cheating; he also may have felt bad about the rape, since he didn’t do it until he was drunk.

The discussion about many first kisses has an even darker side.  Gudrun may have been a virgin.  Many women, when asked how many people they’ve had sex with, rightly do not count men who raped them.  If your “first” is non-consensual, then your real first hasn’t happened yet.

The discussion about many first kisses has an even darker side.  Gudrun may have been a virgin.

A soiled and/or tattered dress is pretty standard rape symbolism. And red wine is typically equated with blood, so I was thinking that too. But I’m not sure if we’re supposed to look that far into it. I think the writers of Mad Men are smart enough about women’s rights to know that Gudrun being a virgin doesn’t make her any more raped than if she was wildly promiscuous.