I think they made it clear that Betty even if she ends up trading one trap for another really doesn’t want to and will only do so because the options are so limited the way it is. Her sighing and surrender when Henry Francis tries to step in and rule the divorce proceeding really brought that home.

I also appreciated the scene for finally helping me understand the set up to Desert Hearts. I admit that I am too young to have known that Reno was the place everyone escaped to in order to get no-fault divorce and the intense pressure there was on women to keep perfectly clean the whole process at risk of losing everything. In short, I knew it was bad, but not exactly how bad and how late it was bad until.

And you’re absolutely right on the social contract. The elimination of the company’s loyalty to the employees made anyone who didn’t approach a job like someone using it as a springboard for a better job at a new company into a chump and unfortunately helped spread the “morals” of cutthroat capitalism down the ranks as “looking out for number one” was the only way to survive the traps of management. It’s why it’s hard to train people these days to trust and work together for things.

I also think it inevitable that Sal will be shortly added to the group. Peggy had hinted strongly at how much the Art department had been collapsing and how there was no one down there. Actually given how it was locked and the lock changed, it’s possible that Sal has already started his own advertising art studio. I think also the upbeat ending was sort of the dollop of hope on top of a rough season for all the characters, just like the Beatles were a dollop of hope after the bombings and the assassination of JFK. It’s a reward for getting through hell and a reminder that the positive change that came with this ugly time was positive, an important thing to remember as we have an ugly political climate now with some horrible tragedies this year.

And yeah, agree with Linnaeus, there was just too much going on in 1964 for them to skip ahead.

I will be interested to know when they plan on stopping, will they try and ride it to 1969 or will they stop at some earlier point?

ExpressionEngine

Fabulous episode. I loved seeing the transformations many of the characters went through, since they were building all season. Lane wasn’t happy and didn’t want to be transferred to India, which would happen eventually. He was ready. His wife, on the other hand, will be livid. He may be single by next season. Peggy’s been getting more and more confident, and after learning she’d likely be working for McCann unless she went to the new agency, still stood up to Don and made him respect her. When Roger asked her to get him a cup of coffee and simply said “No” I laughed out loud.

the pleasure of seeing Don kick in the door during the ransacking. Ain’t that the truth! They were stealing everything but the wallpaper, so why let a silly locked door stop them?

Why does Henry want Betty completely dependent on him? Why wouldn’t he want her to get some money from Don and the divorce? I assume she’s entitled to half of Don’s profit when SC was sold the first time, and I’m pretty sure that’s gonna come up in season 4.

I felt horrible for Sally and Bobby. Their father moved out & their mother took off for Reno. Carla’s great, but she’s not their mother. On the other hand, Sally’s so mad at both her parents, maybe she’s ok with it. In season 4, maybe Bobby can do something besides eat and say good bye/good night.

I don’t think the writers will skip ahead to 1965.  Remember that Henry Francis is closely involved in Nelson Rockefeller’s bid for the presidency in ‘64.  The arrival of the Beatles wasn’t the only turning point in 1964; the nomination of Barry Goldwater was the other.  A previous generation of ultra-conservative tea baggers overran the moderate, pro-business wing of the Republican Party (the Rockefeller wing) and changed the landscape of American politics forever.  Without Goldwater cracking open the solid Democratic South, there is no Nixonland.  Without the ‘64 election, Ronald Reagan doesn’t have his political coming out party two years before running for California governor (Reagan made a very well received televised appeal on Goldwater’s behalf late in the campaign).

As always, of course, the Mad Men will never see this coming.  Listen to their contempt for Lyndon Johnson in the last couple of episodes.  With Kennedy gone, they undoubtedly assume that Rocky will take down LBJ and pro-business Eisenhower Republicanism will return to its rightful place in the world.  I wouldn’t be surprised if SCDP lands the Rockefeller advertising account (or maybe they’ll be approached by Goldwater or Johnson).

It’s not just the election.  More than any other year in the decade, 1964 was the year we were forced to choose sides.  Beatles or Beach Boys.  Civil rights or apartheid.  War or peace.  The first major civil rights act passed in 1964; so did the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

And something tells me that the fate of Nelson Rockefeller’s candidacy might also presage the fate of the Betty-Henry marriage.  Draper/Draper in ‘64!

“Price especially comes by his revelation honestly.  He was never a genuine stooge, but a smart guy who reached the end of his rope.”

Price is a much deeper character than that, and it amazes me the richness of characters this show produces.  Price is the “company man”, and he has value (Don doesn’t know how to do what he does, and neither do Roger or Bert), but he’s been used and used again by PPL and he knows it, but the thing about Price is that he was too deeply invested in PPL to make a move away.  He epitomizes the guy who is too invested in the company to take the risk, and never realizes that he has something that a lot of company’s would find exceptionally valuable and for which he should get more.  Don is well aware of that fact, and Roger regards himself as indispensible to the sun coming up in the morning, and Bert is the old dog who had his day, but Price needed the exceptional energy of that breakaway, coupled with his “this is the limit” sense when he was the last to find out PPL was being sold and he, Price, was having the years invested in PPL pulled out from under him and he would have to prove his worth to a new set of masters, to get off his fundament and take a risk.  His joy at taking it was probably the happiness I most enjoyed seeing.

“I also think it inevitable that Sal will be shortly added to the group.”

Yes.  Mrs DBK mentioned Sal immediately.

I still don’t get Henry’s attachment to Betty.  He’s offering marriage and commitment but it seems like a barely formed relationship and he’s moving much too fast.  Don’s remark, when he was being a louse (like he’s got cause to call anyone a “whore”) about “building a life raft” may have been meant to sting, but it was insightful.  But why is Henry so desirous f springing the trap like that.  There’s something so suspicious about it.  Why do I feel like we’re going to learn about a motivation that is less than exemplary somewhere down the line?

The character I’ve found most confusing this season (in a good way) is Betty. What is it, really, that she wants?

Great analysis as usual.

Here is the season’s final meditation on change and how we handle it: when that awful truth slaps us in the face, when we realise there is no going back and the world we took for granted, we can choose to repeat old patterns or start new ones. Betty repeats hers because she feels (erroneously, though understandably) that she has no choices beyond latching on to yet another daddy. Don has (at long last) decided to make a break in his work situation.

But doing so isn’t without its costs. Making one change in the course of reacting to another requires an honest re-assessment: admitting that the old realities are gone, admitting that you were wrong and eating crow in the name of reconciliation, and acknowledging and accepting who you are (warts and all). That is the “shut the door and have a seat” moment, and every one of the characters goes through it in this episode in their own way.

What Don has discovered and accepted in this process is that you can’t do this sort of thing alone. Ever. He couldn’t have pulled off that coup and opened up his own shop unless he had Cooper (the wily “grey head”) and Roger (the Lewis to his Martin) and Pryce (who knows what cash flow is and has firing authority) co-owning the new shop with him—not to mention the competent and hungry core staff. Whether it’s a collaborative enterprise or a co-operative one (such as the one Archie ducked out of), you need your team. That’s especially true when the decision is made under duress (and drink)—you’re risking a horse hoof to the head in the process if you go it alone.

And so Don has his escape—not the one he anticipated, not by himself after all (as he secretly feared). He’s lost “all this,” but as he tells Roger it wasn’t what he really wanted: any more than the firm was really Roger’s; any more than Bert Cooper wanted to retire from what he built to play golf; any more than Pryce would ever have been valued by PPL. Don’s run away, only to find the others coming with him as a pre-condition. What comes next will be difficult—a start-up, a divorce and custodial parenting, major accounts lost and gained, partner conflicts. But the future is promising again, and after decades of building a cage for himself Don is now outside it, clinging to the bars and finding them not so objectionable from his new vantage point.

So what do you think?  When we come back, will it be months and maybe years into the transition to this new company?  Are we going to open to a SCDP in 1965?  Will Betty be remarried and living in Albany?  Will Don have a new girlfriend, or will he accept that monogamy isn’t really his thing?  Will Peggy start to gain fame outside of her offices, and will they start using her name as the marquee to bring in new clients?  Or will SCDP be a failure?

I’m thinking it’ll be about 6-9 months later—enough time for the skeleton staff to get out of the Pierre into an actual office space (probably in a grungier pre-war office building). Maybe one or two episodes where we see the old SC collapse inward on its gutted mid-century modern shell before Paul and Ken and Kurt and Smitty join the others.

One of the big arcs will also likely be the loss of the Lucky Strikes account and SCDP’s scramble to survive despite it—if only to provide a way to bring back Sal.

Peggy and Pete, now sharing a desk, will be the new agency’s youthful and forward-looking hooks, tapping into the trends and events of 1964 and onward. That should lead to some interesting generational conflict with the old boys whose names are on the SCDP marquee.

On the home front for Don and Betty, the focus will likely be on the aftermath of divorce in that era, with a special focus on Don’s relationship with Sally. Judging by the final montage sequence, I’m hoping that they’ll also give Carla some solid storylines, especially with regard to Sally. I’d imagine there’ll also be a nice study of the rapid rise and fall of Betty’s relationship with Henry, and perhaps (after that hard lesson) Betty finally shucking that victimhood and achieving her potential.

Don may have resolved his work situation for the moment, but he still has that twisted Madonna/Whore complex going on when it comes to women. I’m guessing that there will be more tough/independent/nuturing girlfriends with dark hair, and the occasional nostalgia for Betty, as he continues asking “where is love?”

Of course, Matt Weiner and his clever writers usually make these guesses moot. Can’t wait to continue the conversation with the insightful Pandagonians next year.

And you’re absolutely right on the social contract. The elimination of the company’s loyalty to the employees made anyone who didn’t approach a job like someone using it as a springboard for a better job at a new company into a chump and unfortunately helped spread the “morals” of cutthroat capitalism down the ranks as “looking out for number one” was the only way to survive the traps of management. It’s why it’s hard to train people these days to trust and work together for things.

The people who thrive here, the ones with the optimistic storylines in this episode, are opting out of the new workplace social compact, the 4th Purpose/HR Culture that rewards the “winners” in a game of “Fuck you, Buddy”. None of them wants to be a “mid-level cog” at McCann, because after PPL’s chainsaw tactics they all understand that no-one is safe or indispensible. In the end, I don’t think anyone appreciates this fact more than Pryce, which is why he takes special pleasure in opting out. “Very good, Happy Christmas” indeed.

By the same token, though, this ultra-competent core group of individuals, including lone-wolf Don and the Rand disciple Cooper and the class scion Roger, are going to have to learn to do exactly what you say: trust each-other and work together. And if those rockin’ women Joan or Peggy or Trudy can’t do it, then start-up hunger (if they’re not Archie Whitmans) will.

Betts is well on her way to becoming Cindy McCain.

...or F. Scott’s Daisy.

Also, all the Titanic references were kinda funny too. Deck chairs, ice float, building yourself a safety raft, body banging against the hull.

I’m glad everyone was optimistic about this episode.  I need to watch it again; it felt like a shark-jumping episode to me.  Waaaayyyy too much seemingly out-of-character things happening.  But the writers on this show have known what they’ve been doing all this time so I’m sure it’ll work out next season.

One minor point on contract. Depending on how the contract is written being fired does not have to negate the non-compete clause.  And Don, Rodger, Burt and Price all tend to half-ass things. Don suggested Price firing them in the spirit of “Hey kids, let’s put on a show”, which is what most felt like fan service.  And everyone jumped on it with not more than a few minutes of thought. If Joan had been let in on it from the beginning or Peggy, they would have checked things out. Maybe Petey too. But they were all brought in after the plot was underway, and took it for granted that the big boys knew what they are doing, ignoring how fucking careless all of them (including Don) really are about stuff like that. Of course PPL is also pretty damn sloppy about details, so it could take some time for them to notice.

It would be a good plot point for them all to find out that being fired does NOT negate their non-compete clause. Watching them squirm out of that one could be fun. Don’t know if the show will go there, but it certainly could…

One blogger compared this episode to a caper film, and the satisfaction of watching the Mad Men and Women pull a team together, each with their own expertise.

Exactly.

As for What Does Betty Wan?t—she doesn’t want a husband who has lied and cheated on her repeatedly, who didn’t value her, who gaslighted her, and so on and so forth.

Betty wants to be courted, wants the attention, wants the romance—we saw her smile for the first time in eons when Henry kissed her last week, the first warm smile from Betty—so different from the grimace smile she usually sports as to make her appear to be another woman.

This may not be realistic for a wife and mother of three, because Betty also suffers from what Betty Friedan will call the Problem With No Name, the boring suffication of an educated woman in a suburan prison, being forced to be a housewife, with no recourse to any other life—something that Henry will not be able to save her from.

Betty is a bad mother, too self-involved, but she’s also fenced off from the caper movie that those working mad men and women can share.

I also think it inevitable that Sal will be shortly added to the group.

I haven’t gotten a chance to sit down and watch the show yet—I missed the first season and everything’s rolled downhill since—but I’ve been following along and blogs and whatnot, and from what I understand, they probably can’t hire Sal because they brought the Lucky Strike account with them and that account’s the reason Sal got canned.

I still don’t get Henry’s attachment to Betty.  He’s offering marriage and commitment but it seems like a barely formed relationship and he’s moving much too fast.

I suppose he loves her (or at least the idea of whom he thinks she is, since he really doesn’t know her very well), but he’s offering marriage and commitment because that’s what a gentleman of that era would do in that situation. He is a conservative Republican, after all, who’s involved in the image-conscious world of politics. But it’s more than that. I don’t think Henry so much wants to snare her in a trap of his own, so much as he doesn’t even realize there might be a different way to pursue a relationship with Betty.

As far as alimony, no self-respecting man should want another man subsidizing his and his family’s living expenses if he can help it. And Henry can help it.

Lapow’s point above is an interesting one. If all one had to do to get out from under a non-competition clause was to get themselves fired, the restriction is essentially toothless. It would be a fun twist if the clause remained in effect and the new firm had to deal with the situation they’d overlooked.

And I’m probably missing something, but isn’t Don still vulnerable to being exposed as an impersonator and deserter? If so, it would seem that Betty has some vicious ammunition if she were forced to go into a scorced-earth mode.

On the Sal question, some background work and polaroids could be all it takes to convince the Lucky Strike fascist to back down. SCDP could cement both the account and Sal’s return.

“sn’t Don still vulnerable to being exposed as an impersonator and deserter? If so, it would seem that Betty has some vicious ammunition if she were forced to go into a scorced-earth mode. “

Yes, but Don could also argue, if that were exposed in court, that they were never legally married, so he wouldn’t owe her anything in the way of alimony…unless the divorce were taking place in a common law state.  That illegal name change opens a huge can of worms.  I’ll bet there’s legal precedent for it somewhere, too.  It would be interesting to know Don’s legal status vis-a-vis his name changing.

I agree DBK, it could well turn out to be a losing move in terms of alimony an so on. I guess I’m just imagining being Don and having that threat hanging above my head. If he were called out on his past shenanigans, and especially in his particular business where image is paramount, I’ve got to believe he’d be one toxic little monkey. Like I say, it would be the nuclear option for sure, but it seems like Betty could do some major damage to Don’s life and future if she so chose.

As a “madcap caper” sort of episode, it felt like a mid-60s *movie* (cf. “It’s a Mad Mad Mad… World” for adults of the era, “A Hard Day’s Night” for the youth). But maybe reality could be that giddy and fun for middle-class white people at the time.

If Lane basically telling his British superiors to go fuck themselves is fan service, then so be it. Having seen the English class system up close (I went to an American public high school for three years, but graduated from a very stuff and traditional English boarding school), I’ve been rooting for him to get the opportunity to do just that.

I don’t blame Betty at all for the divorce.  What she has found out about Don is appalling.  How could someone stay married to someone whose life is a charade or an act?  But I have been hoping for a long time that Betty would have a feminist awakening.  Instead, she seems to have doubled down on her “Daddy’s little princess” thing.  Some couples seem to be able to work this out.  However, it is not a storyline I am the least bit interested in.

Henry Francis took one look at Betty at Roger’s country club party and that was it. He is essentially marrying a stranger, as is Betty. This makes it the same kind of marriage she has with Don in that she did not know who Don is or was or the consequences.

There may be a story in Betty’s desire to be part of something bigger. Perhaps if she expects to be part of Henry’s political life, and finds that he doesn’t see her having a role in politics outside of being the perfect hostess, there may be a real assessment of her life desires.

I think the Betty storyline is extremely realistic…maybe more so than the others. She’s doing exactly what women like her in that time would be likely to do. She has no career options that would allow her to live in similar comfort to what she has, and with three kids to care for, that’s hardly trivial. She might in fact be in true poverty without a husband. And living alone, on Don’s alimony, is hardly secure. What if he doesn’t pay, or gets remarried, or pulls another disappearing act? She has zero trust in him. It’s not surprising that she is attracted to a man that, however boring, appears to at least be who he says he is and able to provide for her (and willing as well).  But to a woman in her position, just walking away into the unknown all by herself is completely terrifying.  I don’t think any of us, sitting here several decades later with established careers of our own, can really understand that. It’s different for Joan and Peggy. They’ve found places for themselves as single women, they know how to survive, and they have no kids to worry about.

Maybe she’ll marry Henry and later go back to school, or find something she can do that gives her satisfaction. Maybe she’ll cheat on him. Maybe she’ll simply be bitter and unhappy for the rest of her life. Lots of women in her position certainly were.

Maybe she’ll have the Great Feminist Epiphany we all want her to have and say no to him. But then what? Go back home, live on alimony, get treated the way her divorced neighbor was treated…and hope for the best.  She doesn’t even know who she is, or what she wants.

Henry Francis is presuming Betty’s his already, but she hasn’t told him that she’d marry him. And check the WTF face she gives him in the lawyer’s office when he says, in reponse to her seeking the settlement she’s entitled to, “I don’t want you owing him anything,” like he’s working to cut all ties between Betty and Don, though they have three kids together and could potentially work out an amicable relationship. (And what the hell is it Henry Francis’ business anyway? I don’t even get why he was in that office.) I don’t get the feeling Betty loves Henry Francis, and if she’ll leave her husband of 10 years and father of her kids because she doesn’t love him anymore, it’s hard to imagine she’d marry some new guy she doesn’t love in the first place. But then if she doesn’t marry him, what does she do? How does she earn a living with three kids to take care of and no work experience outside of modelling years ago.

“Henry Francis took one look at Betty at Roger’s country club party and that was it. He is essentially marrying a stranger, as is Betty.”

No way she marries Henry.  She’s leaning on him and allowing him to help her, but she’s essentially using him.  He is her life raft.  You use a life raft to get to land, you don’t marry it.

Also, since American Tobacco (aka Lucky Strike) is the lion’s share of SCDP’s income, and there’s the matter of Lee Gardner, how are they going to bring Sal back and keep their most lucrative client at the same time?

#23 emjaybee, it’s interesting to see how Joan deals with a bad marriage—she’s in charge as much as is possible every step of the way. She gets thrown into adversity by ending up with an incompetent surgeon as husband, but manages to find resources and gets to step right back into the kind of management she’s so good at. She manages to be larger than her situation, unlike Betty, who doesn’t even recognize her own situation.

#24 snobographer, I agree WTF is Henry Francis doing at Betty’s meeting with her lawyer? Could you see Joan letting the same thing happen? NOT!  Does anyone else see widowhood coming for Joan? I see hubby dying within a year of being in ‘Nam, and Joan either becoming a real business woman or getting Roger back from Jane, or both. After widowhood, she might be the stronger person in the relationship… oh wait, she was already.

#25 DBK, you may be right, but like so much of what Betty does, it’s subconscious. Once again, a Joan would know exactly how she was using Henry.

#26 snobo, by keeping Sal under wraps. At this point, with no offices, Draper can do all the presentations with the art work that Sal creates. Sal doesn’t have to be physically handy. They’re already stealing and rebelling—they don’t owe clients who bully anything but good work, certainly not control over who they get to employ.

Betty has Don by the balls on identity theft.  She could take half their assets and join it to her own inheritance.  Add that to alimony, and she is better off than most women in any age.  She has options to do whatever she wants.  If she is going to piss away her opportunities being some old guy’s trophy wife she deserves to be unhappy.  Mona seems to have done quite well for herself.

BTW, since it’s been referred to so often as a point of reference by the makers of Mad Men, I watched The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit for the first time this weekend. I highly recommend it to any Mad Men junkies. Of course, the women’s stories are cursory and neglected, as this was released in 1956, but as far as Peck’s character and Don Draper, there’s one parallel after another after another. Blew my mind.

#39jackspratt - Mona only had one kid, who was an adult when Roger left her, and she was left with a decent settlement. If you’re getting the impression that just because one divorced woman appears to have a decent place to live and clothes on her back then every divorced woman should have no troubles I’m afraid that’s a very shallow view of things.

Betty has Don by the balls on identity theft.  She could take half their assets and join it to her own inheritance.  Add that to alimony, and she is better off than most women in any age.  She has options to do whatever she wants.

Does anyone know whether the law in 1963 would favour her?  Don could argue that since he isn’t Don Draper, they were never really married, but on the other hand it’s a longstanding principle of common law that you shouldn’t be permitted to profit from your own wrongdoing, and as far as Betty knew or could reasonably have known, she and Don were legitimately married.

On the other hand, publicly revealing Don’s secret would probably destroy his career.  I hope that when Don told Betty he wasn’t going to fight her he meant that he would give her a financial settlement as well as consenting to the divorce.

#27 LCforevah - Greg could survive. It could be that Joan gets a serious career going in business operations at SCDP - she’s indispensible and on the ground floor; they should at least make her director if not VP - and simply decides to dump Greg’s whiny rapey ass before he knocks her up.
Your point about Sal in #28 makes sense too. They don’t have conference rooms, and even if they did, they could just send Sal out to lunch or something when Gardner comes by. I wonder if Sal’s situation will get run by Cooper. Since Coop’s sister’s a lesbian, I think he’d be remarkably cool about it, which would be kind of ironic, considering he’s the old codger of the bunch.

I don’t see non-compete clauses being a problem - they had no fear of being caught in a non-compete trap, and while Roger or Don or even Burt may not think about that, you know Pryce would.  That’s what price is there for - he’s a combination of CFO and HR Director. 

I very much doubt we’ll ever see Sal again.  I don’t see him being a part of the story anymore.  All the other minor characters at Sterling Cooper are, I believe, done.  I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of Ken or anyone else anymore.  They’ll be absorbed into the McCann machinery as mid-level cogs.  Perhaps Pryce was right about Ken’s value, and he’ll rise to a prominent position at McCann, but I doubt we’ll ever see.

I want to know what’s going to happen with Duck now that Peggy’s thrown her lot in with SCDP.  Will they continue their relationship despite the unlikelihood of her ever joining Grey?  Or will they go their separate ways?  Will we even find out - maybe Duck will just not show up again?

I’d like to think Betty is strong enough to avoid marrying Henry Francis, but I think one of two things will happen - Henry will sever the relationship because he’s worried about it damaging Rockefeller’s campaign, or they’ll get married and Betty will return to her depressed, stuck housewife phase. 

SCDP will be a big success, and will be a platform for greater things for Don Draper.  But he’ll get his comeuppance one of these days.  The truth about him will get out eventually, and it will have severe consequences for Don and SCDP.  Maybe not next season, maybe not for quite a while, but I figure that’s the end game for Don.  His lies, his schemes, they all come crashing down and he fails.

We got a sneak peak last episode.  But, this episode, he comes storming back.

I think it’s evidence that Don is very loosely based on Richard Nixon, at least his life story.  Starts out in a dirt poor family, goes off to the war, comes back and starts to make something of himself.  Always finds himself fighting against the elitists, while wishing to be accepted by the elitists.  He finally wins when he joins SC and marries Betty (not unlike Nixon’s rapid ascendency to the Vice-Presidency), but then gets kicked pretty hard by reality when SC starts going down and Betty finds out about him (not unlike Nixon’s first fall when he first lost to Kennedy, then lost the California Governor’s race - “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore” - that might as well have been Don’s final blowup with Connie). 

But, he claws back, begging Burt and Roger to help (as any Presidential aspirant must do, he needs some backers), pulling a few dirty tricks along the way (Pryce firing him, along with Burt & Roger, then ransacking SC’s offices), grovels at the feet of Pete (not unlike Nixon grovelling at the feet of Strom Thurmond in order to get the Conservative movement behind him - Pete’s priviledge and victim mentality are very clearly aligned with the coming rise of conservative backlash politics and Gov. Wallace), the stands triumphant, winning where Connie (and Burt) thought him to be too weak, getting his firm up and running (the look of pride and accomplishment on Don’s face seems to be what Nixon must have felt on inauguration day, not to mention the feeling that he had proved all his doubters wrong).  Don’s done running, he’s found his home.  Until his past catches up again, at least.

I think some people are underestimating the risk Don faces if Betty exposes. I was glad that threat was handled without comment on screen, which I think was a neat touch. Its hard to forget, but also not something likely to be talked about directly. Betty knows what she has, but I don’t see her being eager to lay her cards out either. Especially since Don knows damn well why Betty can back her demands. As angry as he was, he backed down because he has no choice.

Desertion is a very serious crime and I’m not inclined to think these circumstances would win him any sympathy. The maximum penalty is at least life imprisonment. He might even have faced the death penalty since it was a wartime desertion (though, we know no deserters would executed since World War II). Now, I’ll grant he still probably wouldn’t get more than a few years, but that is the danger Don is facing and I don’t think he’d take it lightly.

I could talk for weeks about this season of “Mad Men” (IMO, the best season), but for now I just wanted to mention Sally.  Kiernan Shipka has really progressed as an actor.  Her role was annoying for most of the first two seasons, but Shipka shined this season.  (And she’s right, Grampa Gene’s room is creepy.)

Thanks to Amanda and everyone who commented; it was fun.

I never believed what that first lawyer told Betty: that in the case of divorce, she’d be impoverished and Don could take the children.

In the early ‘60s for well-off couples, usually there was substantial alimony (and maybe a settlement), the wife kept the house (in which to raise the children) and the wife invariably got the children. The assumption was that a woman couldn’t support her family on whatever paltry salary she could find, and the husband was responsible for supporting his family in as near the style to which they were accustomed, as possible.

Watch the film Divorce American Style for those assumptions the above would always be the case: the husband was impoverished, forced to support his family well from afar, the wife couldn’t afford to remarry, if it were to be one of those semi-impoverished divorced men, because she’d also lose her alimony (which ended on remarriage.)

Don collected something like $250,000 with the sale of Sterling Cooper, it may make sense that Henry Francis distains his alimony, but Betty should get her house and a nice settlement, no matter what.

The laws of New York state allowing only for adultery and desertion might make that divorce difficult—and whoever was “at fault” would be punished financially, but Betty would be okay financially, if she could get that New York divorce.

It was the introduction of “No Fault” divorce that tended to impoverish women, especially those who had been life-long housewives, forced out of their homes with little or no skills with which to support their children, with the double whammy of perhaps having the children handed over to the father when they couldn’t suddenly find well-paying careers.

Let’s leave aside the infidelity for a moment ...

Maybe it’s just me, but I think Betty and some folks are being entirely too harsh on Don for “the big lie.” I don’t blame him for lying. Don is genius good at what he does for a living. And if he hadn’t lied, he’d probably have no opportunity to prove it.

Desertion is a very serious crime and I’m not inclined to think these circumstances would win him any sympathy.

I was wondering about this, but then it occurred to me that it would be almost impossible to prove. Don has his box back, all his relatives are dead, and the First Mrs Draper is on his side. I’m guessing that the Dick Whitman Saga will from now on have far less importance.

Just my opinion, but the discussion in this post would be a better read if I didn’t have to wade through all the armchair lawyering over things like contracts and identity theft.

@snobograher # 31.  What gave you the impression I’m talking about every woman?  I’m talking about two rich women.  I divorced under New York laws.  You don’t have to prove anything if both parties agree.  All Betty has to do is tell Don to agree to her terms or his ass goes to jail.  Problem solved.

Betty has Don by the balls on identity theft.

See, I’m not so sure about this.  It would appear that way, and certainly some problems could be caused for him if Betty or someone else wants to make trouble.  But we should also remember that Anna Draper exists and liked Don/Dick enough to go along with his assumption of the Don Draper identity.  So much so that she granted him a divorce under that name and is still a close friend and confidante.  “Dick Whitman” has no known living relatives or acquaintances, no one who can finger him as Dick rather than Don.  We’re talking about a death that occurred circa 1950: there is certainly no option of DNA testing, probably no fingerprints or dental records, or anything definitive to physically “tell” the difference between Don and Dick in 1963.  While Pete Campbell and Bert Cooper also know that Don is not who he says he is, they are certainly not (at least at present) in any position in which they would have any interest in “outing” the Whitman identity.  The Army is not likely to want to dig up old corpses (so to speak) unless they are forced to do it.

In short, Don could feasibly destroy the box of stuff that identifies him as Dick Whitman, keep the stuff that IDs him as Don Draper, insist he is in fact Don Draper and that he does not know what these people are talking about, and if Anna Draper goes along with it all (as I believe she probably would).....well, I just don’t think anyone will be able to prove he is anyone other than Don Draper.  In fact, it is possible that by trying to expose him as Dick Whitman, Betty (or Henry or whoever else might have an interest in doing it) might inadvertently cause legal proceedings that would actually *establish* his identity as Don Draper conclusively.

Just a thought.

>Just my opinion, but the discussion in this post would be a better read if I didn’t have to wade through all the armchair lawyering over things like contracts and identity theft.

Dude half the plot points in this episode turn on contracts, and divorce law and legal rights and such. Of course there is going to be armchair lawyering…

@jackspratt 41 - you’re talking about one woman with two small children and an infant and no recent or practical work experience striking out on her own compared to another wealthier woman with one adult daughter. And the writers of the show have established the difference between New York divorce laws and those of Nevada as of 1963, which is what we’re working with here.

@snobograher # 44-  Everything you are saying is true if Betty did not hold all the power.  With her own money from her family and money from Don, she would never have to work a day in her life.  New York divorce laws have not changed.  It took me ten years to get my divorce because I was the one committing adultery and not my wife.  I know all about being the party with no power.  Don’t ask me why I didn’t get on the plane to Reno.  I honestly don’t know.  Guess it was because I never had any intention of getting married again.

Felix you’re missing one point; the people in the real Don Draper’s life who knew him besides his wife. They would know that Dick wasn’t him, and any pre-war photos of the adult Don could also be used as evidence. Or of the adult Dick, if he was so identified.

But then, I don’t know how important the Don/Dick story is going to be; Betty may decide to use it, or she may worry enough about the fallout (she was suddenly “not really married”, her kids would have to learn the truth too, and just plain old shame and embarrassment) that she’d rather not go that route.

HK, you’re watching the wrong show/thread if the minutiae of life in the 60s is too tedious for you….

#45 - Betty hardly holds “all the power,” as has been explained repeatedly and at length above.

#47- then you’re only reading half the comments, since many of us see army desertion and identity theft as serious issues.

Felix you’re missing one point; the people in the real Don Draper’s life who knew him besides his wife.

Are there such people?  Has it been established that there is any family remaining for him?  The “real” Don Draper is supposed to have been significantly older than Dick Whitman (probably at least 5 years).  It’s entirely possible the real Don Draper’s parents are dead (Dick Whitman’s entire family is dead); entirely possible he had no siblings; entirely possible that there is no one around other than Anna who could be found to vouch for him.  Anna, after all, is the only person who actually bothered to find him, notwithstanding the fact “Don Draper” survived the Korean War and presumably never contacted anyone he knew prior to Korea.  The point is that we have no knowledge one way or another whether there are parents, brothers, sisters, or friends who can be found to insist that man is not Don Draper…and at least some reason to believe there may not be.  At minimum, it would seem Anna would have been complicit in “hiding” new Don from any such people (in fact, she could be considered an accessory to a few crimes).  And when your ex-wife shows up at some proceeding or another to testify that, yes, this is in fact the man named Don Draper who I was married to, who returned from Korea, and who I later divorced…well, that might create some difficulty for someone trying to prove he isn’t that person.

By the way, re: armchair lawyering: Would it help if I mentioned that I am a lawyer?

49: I’m with you, Felix. Anna Draper went looking for her husband, who, she knew, came home from the war. No one else did.

@emjaybee:

If it makes you feel better or superior to assume that it’s all going over my head, then well ... then you are in the right place, so enjoy yourself.

The minutiae of the life of the 60’s I’m fine with. But the quasi-legal discussion is tedious, frankly, because almost none of us know the first fucking thing about the law or the legal climate in 1963 New York. 
@ Felix

By the way, re: armchair lawyering: Would it help if I mentioned that I am a lawyer?

I’m sure that has a lot to do with why your comments have actually made sense.

But back to emjaybee, who was obviously getting something out of this season that I wasn’t:

[Betty]might in fact be in true poverty without a husband.

Betty comes from a wealthy family. She has a college education in a time where virtually no one else did. We don’t know how much money her family has squirreled away—maybe she won’t have enough money to hire a maid to raise her children this time around. But poverty? Come on.

It’s not surprising that she is attracted to a man that, however boring, appears to at least be who he says he is

Seriously? Betty doesn’t have any idea who the hell Henry Francis is, just like she didn’t really know Don. She’s exchanging one stranger for another.

But to a woman in her position, just walking away into the unknown all by herself is completely terrifying.

Alone? Good grief. She’s not going alone. She went to that lawyer with Henry. She’s going to Reno with Henry. She’s with Henry. Her new boo.

Look. I’m as pissed off as everyone else about Benjamin Schwartz types who project all of their women / mommy issues on to Betty and even January Jones. (The actress? Really? That’s just fucked up.) But the people who see Betty as on her way to becoming a proto-feminist anti-hero are doing a little projecting of their own.

@#48 And also possible grounds for Don to say he and Betty were never really married and that he owes her nothing, or a way for him to permanently establish his identity as Don Draper by painting her as a liar if she has no concrete evidence.
And then there’s the matter - again - of Betty being the mother of three small children and having no real work experience outside the home and dubious income potential outside of shacking up with some possessive asshole. There’s centuries of cultural and systemic reasons for Betty to be stuck and unhappy. You also may have noticed during last week’s episode the discussion about Mona’s new guy and his portfolio value. Clearly Betty’s not the only woman in Mad Men with limited opportunities for financial security beyond “trophy wife”-dom.

oudemia: Exactly.  I’m not saying there isn’t someone out there who can finger Don as an imposter, but Anna was able to and did find him.  No one else appears to have bothered for 13 or so years.  Still, he probably at least had college friends and others who would be able to say he isn’t Don Draper….but this assumes whoever wants to “out” Don can find these people so long after the fact, which was not nearly as easy to do before computerized record keeping, the intarwebs, and so forth.  (Don and Anna, one presumes, would just say he has no family left and no longtime friends…it might sound fishy, but again, when the ex-wife shows up and testifies he is Don Draper, I don’t see any court being able to gainsay that without some kind of compelling evidence to the contrary.)

Blue skying here (or, maybe dark skying for Don)—let’s not forget that Anna told Don to not lose Betty, and has an interest in his new marriage; with Reno and the 1964 Republican National Convention both being in the West, would one wife risk seeking the other out? Anna misinterpreting how to help Don, or Betty overwhelmed by curiosity over who she had been married to, and what divorcing him would entail? There’s a lot of story here to be explored without overworrying the niceties of mid-century law.

Also, I hope they don’t skip ‘64: I want it rammed home how relevant the conventions were back then, and how contentious—even when the outcome was foregone.

Sal returning to SCDP? Not with Roger and American Tobacco at the center of it, absolutely not. Let no one confuse Don’s giving Sal a break while his secret was intact with offering him a new chance once it’s near the surface. Stonewall is still years away, with decades of struggle to follow on. Don’t imagine this time as an early twentieth century for gay culture—think of it as a very late mediaeval. Britain will be culturally ahead of the curve, but that’s still years away, too.

But I’d like to see Sal resurface, possibly in a California story arc as a ‘flamboyant’ film director—or even as a still-closeted rival at another firm like Grey. Sal as a determined opponent would be interesting indeed!

As for Betty’s interest in Henry Francis? That’s a class issue: it’s where she feels she belongs. In fact, it’s quite a step up the class ladder for Betty, even before she knew she was really married to Dick Whitman. To marry Henry would launch her into the highest social circles in the world.

To compare: Conrad Hilton is a man who has made and remade himself a few times. He knows Don better than Don knows how to reinvent himself. He knows how stubborn a hoss a self-made man is, and knows Don needs a challenging push. Henry Francis works for Rockefeller, and thus represents Old Money—reinvention is largely unnecessary. In those circles, conformity is not just a class distinction, but a facet of elegance. This is the only thing I can explain for Henry’s interest in Betty Draper: she is effortlessly elegant. (Otherwise, I have been at a loss to understand his motivation toward Betty, when so much is at stake for him politically and socially.)

And note Rockefeller was a liberal Republican—another time warp for your minds to wrap around.

I also like Amanda’s observation of the show skirting the edge of “fan service”—in the day, it would have simply been seen as a “happy ending” to the hijinx of the “caper”. The show is aware of the tensions between times, ages and eras, which is why it is a masterpiece.

Hippie Killer: I appreciate the compliment.

As to Betty’s poverty, I doubt she would be in true poverty…but neither, I think, is she particularly wealthy via her family.  Upper-middle class, certainly, and it seems certain Betty never wanted for anything in particular growing up.  That being said, I am not at all sure she would have enough money independently to live on indefinitely with three children.  She is definitely concerned about having enough money: her remark (before Henry butted in to say he didn’t want her beholden to Don) that she wanted whatever she was entitled to made that pretty clear.

I agree with you on the proto-feminist projection onto Betty.  There is no indication whatsoever that she will somehow become an independent and empowered female: her tragedy is that despite some obvious intelligence and education, she is unable or unwilling to consider anything other than being a “daddy’s girl.”  Grandfather Gene saw how he had failed her far too late.

In fact, after having been on the fence about Betty for a long time, the season finale finally put me firmly into the anti-Betty camp.  Not to excuse Don’s behavior or the physical menacing, but Betty’s faint undercurrent of bourgeois elitism and snobbery (her people are Nordic!) was always there, and reared its ugly head particularly in her behavior the last few episodes and in the confrontation with Don.  And it would be another thing entirely if the Henry affair were really Betty just deciding that she wanted to have sex with other partners as Don did.  But the very notion offended her, struck her as tawdry and “low class.”

Betty now strikes me as someone carrying around a lot more illusions than most (even for a repressed 1950’s-style housewife), more than her share of snobbery, and a complete lack of self-awareness and consideration for others, absolutely no self-analytical ability.  By the by, I think January Jones has carried this off very well, and bravely, no criticism of her acting chops whatsoever.  It would have been very easy to write and play Betty as just a victim of circumstance, the poor-cheated-on-and-lied-to-sweet-little-lady.  I think Weiner and Jones have done an admirable job of showing that one can be both a victim of social and gender expectation and upbringing…and an annoying, inconsiderate, and self-absorbed prat.

“Alone? Good grief. She’s not going alone. She went to that lawyer with Henry. She’s going to Reno with Henry. She’s with Henry. Her new boo. “

You are arguing past me; what I was referring to is the widespread wish that Betty *not* marry Henry, and have a Great Feminist Epiphany about how she can go out an establish a real identity. My argument was, that for all her intelligence and potential, Betty was also a product of her time, which was extremely hostile to women who were unconventional.  She did not show much evidence of knowing how to handle money—did Don ever show her where the records are kept? Didn’t banks often refuse to let women have their own checking accounts? Does she know how much the mortgage is, or the car payment? Whether they have investments? Given Don’s love of secrecy, probably not.

Not that she’s not smart enough to do those things, but that a woman of her time and upbringing would feel unsure, intimidated, and very isolated in having to do them at all. Which again, makes Henry attractive.

Great post, lots of wonderful insights.  Felix I agree with you completley on the difficulty of really proving Don isn’t who he says he is or of even convincing someone to investigate. Why would anyone believe such an outlandish story from an estranged wife in the process of divorcing her husband?  What reason would the military have to investigate the allegation that a dead man charred beyond recognition isn’t dead and is pretending to be the dead mans CO?  Maybe if Betty got a P.I. who could do some serious background investigtion on both Don and Dick’s background find people willing to come forward and some serious military connections.  Also, even though Pete seemed to get info pretty quickly with his DoD connections,  how do we know that Henry has a similar connection?  Also,  generally you only have access to information in someone’s military service record on a need to know basis, so it might not have been as easy to get the “proof” that Pete claimed to have from his DoD hook-up.  I think Pete just put 2 and 2 together based on the contents of the box and checked some dates and that box is easily destroyed.  It just seems like it would be awfully hard to prove someone wasn’t who they said they were, especially if they have all of the authenticating paperwork proving it and a first wife who backs them up that they are who they say they are.  Plus, if some how someone in the military took the allegation seriously, decided to investigate it, and say had fingerprint or dental x-ray proof that Don isn’t who he claims to be, that takes time and Don could be long gone.  It just seems to hard to go there or to get someone that willing to go through all that trouble on the say of a soon to be ex-wife.  Too much he said/she said. 

As for Betty, especially now that Don isn’t fighting her, I don’t see him wanting his kids raised in poverty so I have no problem seeing her get the house.  Plus she is the executor of her father’s will and even though she’d have to duke it out with her bro, I see no reason why she couldn’t move into that big old Main Line House.  Her Dad had money, and she got some of it, and between alimony and child support, I think she’d do ok.

I was born in May of 1964 - so of course I’m hoping they pick up around then.

My mother lived in Wilkes Barre PA at the time, according to her version of things she first heard them on the radio on the day she went into labor with me. I always found that a great bit of family lore, even if her memory might have been a bit fuzzy.

Kitty: I can’t recall…what exactly did Pete get from his DoD connection?  I think it was just that “Dick Whitman” supposedly died in Korea, and Don Draper came back.  Using that information plus the box, Pete was indeed able to put two and two tegether and figure out that “Don” was actually Dick.  It’s not the type of thing that would stand up absent the “proof” of the box, and as you say, I think certainly not enough to get the Army to investigate.

A single dental x-ray or other medical record could be explained as being some kind of fluke, i.e., someone put the wrong x-ray in the file or something of that nature, so long as it’s one x-ray or record.  (A lifetime of records or something with a lot of information, on the other hand, would be a big problem.)  If any kind of record for Dick Whitman could be produced…an x-ray, his fingerprints, or whatever…and matched to “Don Draper,” ah, now there would be a problem which could not be written off as an error or fluke.

Anyone have any idea how thorough medical workups for people inducted into the Army around 1950 were?  Would there be dental x-rays or something which could definitely ID Don as Dick?  And what about vital statistics (age, height, hair color, eye color, blood type, etc.)?  That also might be enough to match Dick Whitman Army records to him, particularly to the extent Don Draper Army records differ.  Only if the military could be convinced to open the matter or release the records, of course.

Point being: it would be hard for someone to out Don if Anna cooperates with him, but not necessarily impossible.  And I suspect Weiner and the writers’ room can damn well do it if they decide to.

Betty’s faint undercurrent of bourgeois elitism and snobbery (her people are Nordic!) was always there, and reared its ugly head particularly in her behavior the last few episodes and in the confrontation with Don.

Interesting.  I reacted exactly the opposite way.  When Don manhandled her and then all but SAID he expected her to tolerate and forgive his affairs without having any of her own, and that he was going to ruin her for doing what he himself has done probably dozens of times (he’s had five on-screen affairs in three seasons, and Bobbie Barrett suggested there were a lot of others), he crossed the line in my head between “bad husband” and “abuser.”  Temporarily; I don’t think Don is ordinarily abusive.  But in that confrontation I thought he was.

So when he said “and now I’m not good enough for some spoiled Main Line brat?” and she snapped back “That’s RIGHT!”, it was pretty clear to me that HE thought it was about his background (because that’s all he can understand; he has ALWAYS dismissed her feelings and wishes as not real, right up to this episode where he told her she just needed a better shrink).

But it was equally clear that SHE was saying “No, I DON’T have to put up with your shit.”  And okay, her sense of her class superiority probably went into that—but Don has been humiliating her, gaslighting her (exactly, whoever said that up the thread) and putting her down for years.  I was happy to see her draw on ANYTHING she had over him to fight back.

I should say, he’s always dismissed Betty’s feelings and wishes about his BEHAVIOUR as not real, or not important.

Betty has a lot to lose by outing Don so long as he remains reasonable. But if he takes a scorched earth stance, then that would give her one of heck of a motive to do the same. That may be part of the reason he backed down. As to difficulty in proving it; she might or might not be able to.  But even the attempt would make for a really big stink.

As to Betty, you don’t have to sympathize with her to understand where she is coming from. No proto-feminist: she drank the koolaid. But the before being too harsh with her for that, koolaid was all that is one her menu from most of her life.  If someone was to offer her champagne at this point, how would she recognize it? Yeah, some women in her circumstances broke free. But they were exceptional.  You can dislike her but still recognize the wasted potential and the fact that the habit of wasting her potential was beaten into her figuratively (and maybe literally, there are very subtle indications).

Also: wherever the plotline takes us, I don’t think the show will move away from Don and Betty making themselves and one another miserable.  That precludes sensible solutions, but also total mutual destruction. Will the divorce go through? That would not neccesarily stop them from tormenting one another, but it might make it harder.

I kind of wonder if Roger was just waiting for the opportunity to use his info about Betty and Henry to direct Don’s energy towards this new agency rather than have him spend it trying to recoup a marriage that was going to fail anyway.  He apologized a little too much about it. 

But they were all brought in after the plot was underway, and took it for granted that the big boys knew what they are doing, ignoring how fucking careless all of them (including Don) really are about stuff like that. Of course PPL is also pretty damn sloppy about details, so it could take some time for them to notice.
Comment #13: Gar Lipow on 11/10 at 02:47 AM

That’s leadership.  It’s a quality that doesn’t always or even often coincide with good sense or competence.  Getting people to follow you doesn’t make you right, but it means other people are also following, and believing, and in the advertising business, that can be as good as being right, or maybe even better.

Sal doesn’t have to be physically handy. They’re already stealing and rebelling—they don’t owe clients who bully anything but good work, certainly not control over who they get to employ.
Comment #28: LCforevah on 11/10 at 02:27 PM

Actually, the clients do want to talk to everyone they work with and will go elsewhere if they don’t get what they like.  It’s a very touchy-feely environment, one where the clients are used to being massaged and told how smart and wonderful and right they are, no matter how stupid and horrible and wrong they might actually be.

Now to Betty’s situation.  She doesn’t inherit enough from her parents to live off of, at least not in the style to which she is accustomed.  Remember the lawyer saying the house would have to be sold if one party can’t buy out the other?

If she exposes Don, there’s a real danger that much of the money he made would be spent by him to defend himself from those accusations.  If he lost, he could be in jail and not be able to give her money; if he won, would probably be supported in the courts not to pay her any alimony because she’d been “vindictive.”  There would be child support, but that’s not enough to support her, too, and the children could well be taken away from her because, again, vindictive.

So she is in a tight spot which has to be negotiated carefully.  The power you use is the power you can no longer threaten with.  She seems to have handled it well.

In fact, after having been on the fence about Betty for a long time, the season finale finally put me firmly into the anti-Betty camp.
Comment #56: Felix Culpa on 11/10 at 06:54 PM

She has a good instinct for self-preservation, which makes it impossible for her to become one of those standard female heroes who doesn’t ask anything of men and does it all herself, sacrificing everything for her children and making their lives wonderful by refusing alimony and working two jobs and baking cookies and never letting them say anything bad about their father. 

While the men on the show kind of get a pass on their sexist (and racist, and classist) acts and assumptions as being just part of the age, Betty is given no such room.  Why? 

Even Joan gets her power not just from being smart, but playing on men’s sexual attraction to her.  I suspect she even calculated that, had she hit rapeyhusband on the head with the lamp hard enough to kill him, that it could be considered an accident, and she could weep her way to freedom.

Anyway.  Divorce was becoming more open, and the effects on society and the children were widespread.  I really felt for the kids when, basically, the floor dropped out from under them.  Close the door, have a seat, indeed.  I’m not saying divorce is more evil than being forced to continue a loveless sham of a marriage, just that kids do suffer.

Rockefeller is an interesting character we’re almost introduced to.  He was married but had many affairs, semi-openly as was the custom for men in those days.  He and his Philadelphia Main Line suburban upperclass wife Tod (descriptions of her sound quite a lot like Betty) got one of those Reno divorces in 1962, then married Happy in 1963 when *her* six-week divorce in Idaho came through.  The divorce probably kept him from the presidency in 1964.  He apparently didn’t stop the affairs and he was supposedly having sex with his much younger assistant when he died in 1979.  Also he was pro-ERA.  I wonder how much of that will be in the next season or two.

While the men on the show kind of get a pass on their sexist (and racist, and classist) acts and assumptions as being just part of the age, Betty is given no such room.  Why?

I’ve been amazed at some of the comments about Betty on the AV Club.  People are claiming that Betty up and left Don because someone richer and higher-status came along, that she only cared about what she found in the drawer because it turned out he came from poverty (as opposed to, you know, because he was lying to her about his ENTIRE IDENTITY), and saying Don was right to call her a whore.  The misogyny is getting thick in a way it usually doesn’t over there.

@61 killjoy - yeah and didn’t Betty say when she confronted Don about The Box that she knew he’d grown up poor? She married him knowing that - or at least continued to love him after she figured it out and up to just two episodes ago - so how bourgie and snobbish can she be exactly?

The point of this show isn’t to give us an unqualfied heroine in Betty Draper.  Mad Men deliberately goes out of its way to make any character an unvarnished saint who’s always in the right.  Betty is both horribly oppressed and long-suffering, and a racist/classist brat.

The point of this show isn’t to give us an unqualfied heroine in Betty Draper.

Never said it was.  Betty’s a highly unpleasant character in a number of ways.  For starters, she’s monumentally self-absorbed and a terrible parent.  But I still don’t understand anyone who doesn’t think she was justified in leaving Don, let alone calling her a bitch or a whore for doing it.

yeah and didn’t Betty say when she confronted Don about The Box that she knew he’d grown up poor?

She did.  And even if she didn’t know that when they got married, she did know he had “no people” and therefore no inherited status.  She’s snobbish, yes, but not snobbish enough to leave a good husband over that.  Don, however, is a very bad husband.

The answer is that Betty can be quite bourgeois and snobbish.  Yes, Betty said once she thought Don grew up poor.  I think it is also pretty clear that she romanticized it quite a bit…that Don probably grew up in a poor but respectable family, that he played football, and that he basically just “made something” of himself…classic American success story if you will.  She still looked down on him for it: the dismissive jab about him “not understanding money” (it’s very clear he “understands” it far better than she does) shows that clearly enough.  Boy, she was furious when Don had her figured out enough to know she’d leap at the Heineken display for the Crab Colson dinner: it showed he had insight into her as a consumer, and furthermore, that he knew how to target her social pretensions.  He also knew that she thought herself socially superior (and it seems pretty damn clear Grandpa Gene never missed an opportunity to let him and Betty know it), and it seems to me perfectly understandable that might make someone worry about their inadequacy…particularly someone with the upbringing of Dick Whitman lurking in the background.  All of this caused tension for a long time, and as far as classism in the Draper marriage goes, while there is blame to go around I think Betty is on balance the more guilty party.

The revelation of Don’s identity and true class status, however, seems to have changed the dynamic dramatically for Betty.  There was no pretending he’d been the handsome (albeit poor) high school football star who put himself through college and became a successful Manhattan businessman.  (Even though he continually proved he was something of a genius in his field.)  He was the unwanted child of a whore and a farmer, grew up mostly unloved and unwanted, fled to Korea to escape that, and switched identities while there and deserted.  That put him over the line from being a somewhat lower station but acceptable mate (particularly given his success) to being someone she could no longer tolerate as a mate.  She tried to process it all, couldn’t accept it, and her native classism and snobbery took over.

This is not to absolve Don in any way for his transgressions…which are many…or to suggest that male characters aren’t improperly tolerated for their classism, snobbery, or philandering…they clearly are.  Had Betty just decided she wanted to fuck, frankly, I wouldn’t have a problem in the world with that, and Don was clearly hypocritical in calling her a whore.  But you should also remember that Don had just found out (from Roger Sterling of all people!) that Betty was throwing him over for someone who, socially, highlights all of the negative aspects of his Dick Whitman identity…an identity he has been ashamed of and fleeing for years.  Don was momentarily weak and profoundly hurt, and he did and said some things he shouldn’t have.  Yes, he briefly crossed the line over to abuser.  Betty, however, decided “Dick Whitman” was not good enough for her, and coldly and consciously decided to cut him loose for this reason, and never mind the kids, the finances, or anything else.  She had some justification, but it doesn’t necessarily shower her with credit, nor does it necessarily mean Don is solely to blame.

And while he possibly “should” have told Betty he was really Dick Whitman, as Don said, when exactly was he supposed to do this?  He assumed that identity before he ever met her, had Anna’s blessing to do so, and it was only by the sheerest accident that the “box” came into his life and Betty ultimately found it.  I don’t consider him having assumed the Draper identity to have been a moral or ethical failing on his part.  Though obviously it was legally problematic, it harmed no one for him to do it.  (In fact, it seems to have rather assisted Anna Draper.)  To my mind, the fact he withheld the Dick Whitman identity from Betty was perfectly acceptable…though he probably should have told her he had been “married” before.

The brilliance of this show is that it does not give us easy answers: Betty is not solely responsible for her failures as a person any more than Don is.  And they both have them.  That being said Don/Dick is the protagonist of the show, and at root he is clearly both a good person (despite his philandering), a genius in his field, a truly extraordinary person.  Betty has, to my mind, time and again shown herself to be a shallow and completely self-centered person who has had the great advantages of great beauty, a pampered upbringing, and a first rate education.  She (wrongly) interprets this as innate superiority.  I think both of their tales will end as tragedy.

it’s very clear he “understands” it far better than she does

Is it?  I don’t think we’ve seen either of them handling money to the extent that we’d be able to make that call. 

Had Betty just decided she wanted to fuck, frankly, I wouldn’t have a problem in the world with that, and Don was clearly hypocritical in calling her a whore.

So the problem is that Betty wasn’t willing to stay in a sham marriage and fuck around on the side?

But you should also remember that Don had just found out (from Roger Sterling of all people!) that Betty was throwing him over for someone who, socially, highlights all of the negative aspects of his Dick Whitman identity…an identity he has been ashamed of and fleeing for years.

Or that she should have left Don for someone lower status to spare his feelings?

Don was momentarily weak and profoundly hurt, and he did and said some things he shouldn’t have.  Yes, he briefly crossed the line over to abuser.

I am really seeing a double standard here.  Don can physically assault, intimidate, insult, and threaten Betty out of “profound hurt” and “momentary weakness”, and that’s not so bad because, you know, she hurt his feelings.  But when we get to Betty, whom Don has humiliated and shut out time and time again (and her misery over this was made pretty darn clear in episodes 8 and 9 of Season 2), we get…well:

Betty, however, decided “Dick Whitman” was not good enough for her, and coldly and consciously decided to cut him loose for this reason, and never mind the kids, the finances, or anything else.

I don’t think her motives are nearly so clear-cut.  No matter how you look at it, the Dick Whitman reveal is also an example of his incredible dishonesty with her.  You can’t say it’s about the “whore child” aspect and not the dishonesty; it’s always going to be both.

As for “never mind the kids”, why is it her responsibility to maintain a marriage with someone who has disrespected that marriage again and again?  Why isn’t it Don’s responsibility not to treat the mother of his children like crap?  And leaving a marriage when this will financially disadvantage her and not Don makes Betty a cold, cruel person…but if Don had followed through on his threat to keep her from getting a nickel, what would that be?

And yeah, finding out he was a “whore child” probably spurred her to leave him and that was probably because of classism: she’s found a way to feel superior to him, a way she can hurt him, and yes, it’s ugly.  But it didn’t happen in isolation. 

I don’t consider him having assumed the Draper identity to have been a moral or ethical failing on his part.  Though obviously it was legally problematic, it harmed no one for him to do it.

It harmed Anna while she was searching for her husband, not knowing he was dead; it harmed Don’s brother, whom Don cut out of his life to protect his secret; and that’s just what we’ve seen on screen.

Killjoy: I just wrote a 7901 word response (a lot of that was quoting your response back in full and annotating it), was informed upon submission that 5000 words is the limit, and the browser went on to eat what I had written…

...and I am entirely too tired to reconstruct it fully.  So let me distill it to being only tediously long rather than intolerably long, no doubt much to everyone’s relief…;-)

You misrepresent a lot of things I said.  Don grew up poor, knows personally what poverty is, what having money means, so yes…Don definitely understands money far better than Betty, who has always had it provided for her and takes it completely for granted.

No, I am not saying she should stay in a sham marriage and just fuck other people….I am simply saying that if it were as simple as her leaving because she wanted to see other people or because she had caught Don out in another affair, it would be a different matter.  She left Don after she found out his upbringing came straight out of the Grapes of Wrath, she never knew about teacher lady.  I think Don was amply justified in fearing that his wife looked down on him socially; certainly, Grandpa Gene did and never let Don or Betty forget it. (And she is in fact leaving a sham marriage for what will obviously be another sham marriage…hardly honest or indicative of any level of thoughtful analysis.)

I don’t think the “profound hurt” and “momentary weakness” thing is a double standard at all, it’s a simple fact of life.  I congratulate you on never having been dumped for someone else (particularly someone custom designed to make you feel inadequate in some way)...it’s not an experience I recommend.

No, Betty’s motives are not clear cut, but again, I have to say I don’t consider the withholding of the Dick Whitman identity to be dishonest.  It all happened before he ever even knew Betty and I don’t think it “harms” Betty in any conceivable way…other than ruining her own class expectations…that Don was once Dick Whitman.  Don/Dick is who he is, and the fact of his former identity really makes no difference that I can see….it might be different if he had been a Nazi death camp guard, but then, he wasn’t.

On that note, she didn’t leave him for “disrespecting” the marriage.  If she had caught him with teacher lady, or something similar, ok.  She left him ultimately because it turned out he came from poor white trash.  Obviously, you think it was terrible to withhold this from her despite the fact it all occurred before she met him, and had been blessed by Anna Draper.  Your prerogative; I see it differently.  Still, perhaps we could consider disrespecting the kids for a few moments…if you remember, this episode happened in mid-December 1963.  The last we see of Betty is her on a plane to Reno with Gene II and Henry Francis, presumably for six weeks to obtain her quickie divorce.  Meanwhile, the kids old enough to know what is going on and be utterly devastated by it have been left at home for the holidays with the help.  I’m not one of those people that goes on and on about the “sanctity” of marriage…but I am a child of divorce, so that just kind of rubbed me the wrong way, and if you make the decision to have kids, it’s probably at least as important to “respect” them.  Betty could have waited a little while to do all that, but perhaps she and Henry are in too much of a hurry to get on with only having sex in wedlock.

As for you points about Anna and Don’s brother…those are good and I did not consider them sufficiently.  I will say a couple of things: Don had no idea the real Don had a wife (as I recall, he wasn’t wearing a ring and gave no indication he was married), and he certainly did right by Anna once she revealed herself.  As for the brother…Don treated him badly, yes.  I do not think Don appreciated how hurt his brother was until it was too late.  He may have figured that since his brother was actually his mother’s child (unlike Don), he had life easier and wouldn’t be affected too badly by the death of the whore son.  Certainly, Don feared (with some justification it turns out) that the revelation of his Joad-family upbringing would destroy his marriage.  Don gave him 5 grand (quite the sum then) and told him to forget him.  Callous, yes, but understandable I think.  I finally note that Don had some kind of change of heart: I guess we’ll never know what the letter Don tried to leave for his brother said or what Don would have ultimately done….but I find it hard to blame Don for not foreseeing his brother was going to hang himself.

Does it not occur to anyone that him being poor and marrying a rich girl, then fucking around on her, moving her to the burbs, taking her away from her rich family, putting her on an allowance, is his “fuck you” to the rich people, another way of pissing in their car trunks? 

If it’s okay to interpret her behavior towards him as classist, shouldn’t we look at his behavior that way, too?  Isn’t he working his aggression towards the upper classes out on her?  Isn’t it a standard macho aggressive play to fuck your enemy’s daughter?

The class difference isn’t the whole thing.  It’s not just about Don being the son of a whore.  Don had a big wad of money in that box.  He obviously meant it to be for him only.  And as a military deserter, he’s definitely morally and ethically compromised.  Her father was a military officer, for crissakes.

The night of the box is one of those scenes that really shows what it’s like to go through a crisis in a relationship.  It’s not rainbows after a tearful confession.  Repeated betrayals indicate a problem that won’t go away; in such cases, forgiveness is kind of a lie.

She felt bad about him losing his brother because of his lies.  That doesn’t blind her to reality.  She’s being judged for being realistic, for thinking about money and stability.  Women are supposed to be ruled by their squishy hearts, always forgive, always make up for the problems in a relationship!  But she refuses to play the victim in this. 

She can be empathetic without being a sucker.  This isn’t shallowness.  She’s guarded, armored, but she can love and care, even someone who has hurt her so badly.  Just not to her own detriment.  A pretty girl with social and financial advantages surely must have dealt with a lot of lying pricks who just wanted to conquer her for status.  Thinking she found someone who wasn’t playing that game, finding out he was a liar, is a punch in the gut.  How could she trust him after that?

Betty is careful not to financially jeopardize the future of her children.  She sees what happens to the children of single mothers and makes her moves accordingly.  While he was right that she was building a life raft before saying she wanted a divorce, wouldn’t she be excoriated if she did not, as not caring about the children? 

She’s got THREE people totally dependent on her, no chances at getting a decent job, and a husband who’s fucking around on her almost without caring if she knows.  How long can she depend on him?  Will he drop this identity and leave with the bundle of cash (*his* life raft!) and some pretty credulous brunette, leaving her high and dry?

She’s not a perfect person by any means.  But she’s not “the bitch” just because she and Don are at odds and he’s the protagonist. 

And when he decides not to fight her, that’s not him being all deep and magnanimous and superior though he had the right to screw her to the wall.  That’s him being realistic, not wanting more drama, and perhaps actually recognizing his part in the problem.

She’s being judged for being realistic, for thinking about money and stability.

While you make many good points, if you think Betty is being “realistic” about any of this, I just think that’s obviosly wrong.  There are so many implusive and dangerous aspects of just running off with Henry Francis that it’s frankly breathtaking.  And she immediately defers to Henry’s “I don’t want you to be beholden to him” line after the lawyer asks her what she wants financially…that’s neither hardnosed, realistic, or smart.

Betty is, in many ways, precisely a sucker.  This is in large part a function of her coddled upbringing, programming, and complete lack of self-awareness, but it is a fact.  Betty is not “evil” or “the bitch” and I don’t think anyone here said that.  I do think she is completely self-centered, a bad mother, and mistakes her numerous advantages (great beauty, coddled upbringing, first rate edication) as evidence of her innate superiority.  She is in fact angry that she has all of that “status” and yet is not to her mind treated well enough for it.  That’s at least as important a motivation here as your Don-married-the-rich-prom-queen-and-moved-her-to-Ossining-as-a-way-of-pissing-in-Gene’s-car-trunk theory….for which I find less evidence, by the way.  It’s an interesting point and could be offered as a valid unconscious motivation, but if you are suggesting Don structured his whole life to consciously do that….I disagree.

I congratulate you on never having been dumped for someone else (particularly someone custom designed to make you feel inadequate in some way)...it’s not an experience I recommend.

Don’t make patronizing assumptions about my personal life.  As it happens, you’re wrong.  But I did not physically assault my ex or threaten to destroy him financially or socially. 

You cut Don slack because he was feeling bad but don’t consider that the Dick Whitman revelation might be the last straw for Betty instead of the primary reason she left?  She was clearly unhappy in the marriage long before she opened that drawer.  Their reconciliation at the end of Season 2 was clearly at least partly motivated by her pregnancy, not a sincere desire to be with him. 

I am simply saying that if it were as simple as her leaving because she wanted to see other people or because she had caught Don out in another affair, it would be a different matter.

So you agree with Don that she should have fully forgiven him for the affair with Bobbie Barrett as well as the numerous affairs she knew about in less detail, and that her not forgiving him (which he and she both directly alluded to in the confrontation in this latest episode) is a character flaw on her part.

The character says in so many words: she can’t trust him because he’s lied to her so many times, she hates their life in the suburbs, and she doesn’t love him any more.  His roots are only part of that, and again, inseparable from the fact that he kept a potentially life-destroying secret from her for over a decade.

On that note, she didn’t leave him for “disrespecting” the marriage.

I didn’t say she did; I said YOU seem to expect that SHE should stay in that marriage for the sake of the kids, despite his repeatedly showing her that HE didn’t respect it or her.

Obviously, you think it was terrible to withhold this from her despite the fact it all occurred before she met him, and had been blessed by Anna Draper.

That he had stolen someone’s identity? Um yeah, I do think it was terrible to withhold that information.  Understandable, yes, but still terrible.

Furthermore, just because YOU think that the identity theft per se was no big deal does not mean that BETTY, the character, thinks the identity theft is no big deal and the only problem SHE has is finding out she married “poor white trash.”

Still, perhaps we could consider disrespecting the kids for a few moments…if you remember, this episode happened in mid-December 1963.  The last we see of Betty is her on a plane to Reno with Gene II and Henry Francis, presumably for six weeks to obtain her quickie divorce.  Meanwhile, the kids old enough to know what is going on and be utterly devastated by it have been left at home for the holidays with the help.

That is a separate issue from her leaving Don.  I never said that doing it in this way was good or appropriate, nor did I say her taking up with Henry Francis was a good idea.  Of course Betty isn’t written as a thoughtful or insightful character—her horizons are very limited.  But I think she was fully justified in leaving Don.

She is in fact angry that she has all of that “status” and yet is not to her mind treated well enough for it.

Sure.  But you know what, she’s right that she’s not treated well.  She does deserve better than a husband who cheats and lies and responds to her complaints with “you’re not well, go lie down” or “look, I brought you a shiny object”, who slut-shames her for transgressions that are a fraction of his, if they’re even transgressions (getting hit on by his boss, wearing a bathing suit).

Maybe her sense of entitlement comes from the wrong place, and maybe she’s terribly wrong in thinking Henry Francis will be any better for her, but believing she’s entitled to better treatment than she gets from Don?  That’s not wrong.

Killjoy: I was simply trying to make a point in a slightly (very slightly) humorous way.  I did not make any assumptions about your personal life, except perhaps assuming you actually had (like most people I know) had that unpleasant experience. Our respective senses of humor obviously diverge somewhat.  I certainly did not mean to kill any of your joy, if I did I apologize.

Let’s be clear about what I cut Don slack for: acting out in a moment of extreme emotional hurt.  Let’s not conflate that with the possibility of the “Dick Whitman revelation” being the last straw for Betty, that’s a different issue, and one upon which you are possibly correct.  I do not think Betty’s reason for leaving a bad marriage was as simple as the Great White Trash Revelation of October, 1963: she’s more complex than that.  But it is telling that…not any infidelity or bad behavior on Don’s part…appears to have been the flash point.

And while we’re at it, please stop putting words into my mouth: I never said anything remotely similar to, “I agree with Don that she should have fully forgiven him for the affair with Bobbie Barrett as well as the numerous affairs she knew about in less detail.”  She’s free to forgive him or not forgive him, and that and her misery…which by the way, is not even close to being entirely Don’s fault…are certainly adequate reasons for wanting out of the marriage.  It is the timing and her actions surrounding ending the marriage I question, as I have explained in perfect (and nauseating) detail.

I also didn’t say she should stay in the marriage for the sake of the kids, I said she should “respect” them.  A point you later go on to substantively agree with.  And her absolutely shoddy treatment of the kids is emphatically not a separate issue from her leaving Don: they are intimately and inextricably intertwined, and it’s a large part of the problem with the way Betty handled the matter.  Again, to be absolutely clear on what I have said: I have no problem with her leaving Don given Don’s transgressions and how miserable she was.  It was the timing, the execution, and her demonstrated complete lack of regard for her children that soured me.

We obviously disagree on the “terribleness” of stealing Don Draper’s identity, at least under these circumstances.  Fair enough.  I have nothing else to say on the matter.

Maybe her sense of entitlement comes from the wrong place, and maybe she’s terribly wrong in thinking Henry Francis will be any better for her, but believing she’s entitled to better treatment than she gets from Don?  That’s not wrong.

I wouldn’t disagree with any of that.  And that is one reason why Betty will end up being a tragic character if she isn’t already.

Yeah I don’t think Betty is any worse than Don, in many ways better. But selling is not a key part of her job, so she is not as charming in an argument as Don. But Don is not a better person with more excuses than Betty. He just is better at convincing himself and others that he is justified.

And yeah going with Francis is going to prove a big mistake.  By guess is that Don and Betty will make bad personal choices and torment each other as long the show lasts.  But what do I know?Maybe the actess will decide that she wants to drop the series to concentrate on her film career and they will need to write her out.

@oldfeminist

She’s got THREE people totally dependent on her

Oh for fuck’s sake. Betty’s full-time maid is raising those kids.

And yes, I do think that there is a DEFINITE class angle to Betty’s decision. As others have pointed out, it was one thing for her to be married to a poor boy who pulled himself up by his bootstraps. It’s another thing all together for her to be married to a man whose mother was a whore, and whose position in life was so dire that he had to steal a dead man’s name just to have a chance in the world. Princess Betty has her limits.

Noting that this is a fiction, an ending to the Dick Whitman story of “it never mattered because it can’t be proven” strikes me as extremely unsatisfying. Also, to a large degree, repetitive, since they already did the “so what” response with Bert Cooper. Which has been undercut significantly since. I’m not saying the show needs to end with Don being hauled off to a Federal Pen, but I see no way they could take all of this tension and close it with “it never mattered at all”. I also see no way to think Don is going to act that way. He called the bluff once, and I think he’s been shaken at the fact that Campbell followed through. He wasn’t emboldened by that at all. Irregardless of IF he’d be convicted, Don Draper clearly feels this is a significant risk.

And frankly, still with good reason. I mean, hasn’t the Army been fingerprinting troops since the turn of the last century?

Felix Culpa - “On that note, she didn’t leave him for “disrespecting” the marriage.  If she had caught him with teacher lady, or something similar, ok.  She left him ultimately because it turned out he came from poor white trash.”

I don’t agree with this evaluation at all.

First, there’s the money issue. The things I’ve seen in this are that Don wouldn’t get her an air conditioner when there was a heat wave and he’d just gotten a bonus, instead he gave that money to a prostitute. They sell the company, something she must have known he got a payoff from, and it seems pretty clear that she didn’t see any of that. The same episode where she opened the fateful lock, she asked him if there weren’t more than $200 in their account after she’d found that cash in the drawer, and she knew, *knew*, that he was lying when he said there wasn’t any more money.

The minute she opened that drawer, the simple fact of the money sitting there, even if it isn’t the sort of thing that requires a great deal of time to eyeball and take note of, was the sign of both a long-term lie and Don’s lack of trust in her. I feel confident guessing that the minute Betty saw that cash, she was reminded of the infidelity and disappearances. She’d already asked during the contract discussion ,and before the identity reveal, something like, “don’t you know where you’re going to be in 3 years,” specifically because he’s a man who acts like he doesn’t.

You underestimate significantly the betrayal implicit in the social contract between Don and Betty as a married couple in a time when they both saw his job as one of providing material resources in return for her management of the homestead. He was holding out on her and I’m guessing it mattered, being the first thing she tested him on after she found out.

Further, I dislike your suggestion that because she didn’t immediately leave in a fit of anger, because she didn’t act in haste in a moment of bad temper, that the infidelities didn’t matter to her. I’ve known many relationships, and been in some, where it takes a long time for cumulative problems to finally do it in. Like some invisible threshold that takes you unawares and, once you cross it, you’re not the same person anymore. It can be some tiny, stupid thing, or some big, horrible thing. Doesn’t matter.

Betty’s been on a slow simmer for a long time. She was raised to accept a world where most men cheated, where a wife was supposed to take a lot of crap for the sake of keeping the family together, and where there was a more distinct gender hierarchy within the blatant racial and class hierarchies. Men were the superiors of their wives, and all hierarchical relationships like that have a dampening and delaying effect on reactions to poor treatment, even between people of the same gender, such as between Pete Campbell and his superiors. Acting badly towards others is a privilege exercised in only one direction in a hierarchy; all piss flows downhill.

Maybe it’s shitty of her to think at least in part, ‘I don’t have to take this ... from *you*,’ rather than deciding that she didn’t have to take this at all, from anyone, but that’s not the world she lives in, nor does she really know at this point how to be anything besides a wife. She’s an adult woman with three children and no career history. She has met virtually no one in her life who could model or envision another role for her, except the divorced neighbor who ends up struggling to support a(n obviously troubled) child on her own with a crappy retail clerking position. I mean, criminy, we are still today arguing with people who insist that breaking the two parent, man and woman model of childraising creates an inherently damaging environment. Wtf is she supposed to do besides try to resume the only job anyone can picture her in, and the only one that will give her children what she understands to be a good environment?

I think the Cindy McCain comment about her upthread was spot on, not everyone can transcend their upbringing. She may come to more of an awakening later in life, or if the Henry Francis relationship comes to an unpleasant end, but she may also have been too stunted by her socialization to ever be more than she is now. Some people are too damaged to get happy endings, and that’s the monstrous truth of a society that produces damaged people as an operating feature.

Re the desertion: Did Don technically desert? He was still in the military as Draper, and was evidently too badly injured to be sent back to the front, or so it seemed. The fact of his injury isn’t in question. If he’d been Whitman, he’d still likely have been awarded a Purple Heart and sent home. Unless someone remembers something I don’t about whether Whitman would have been sent back to the front after that injury, instead of going home as well.

It seems likely they could have gotten him on something else, converted his discharge to dishonorable, perhaps there could have been trouble regarding any benefits he’d collected, but he doesn’t seem to have actually gone AWOL.

the dismissive jab about him “not understanding money” (it’s very clear he “understands” it far better than she does) shows that clearly enough

What’s clear is that they understand (i.e. regard) money in very different ways—always a harbinger of doom for a marriage. Betty regards it as a family’s social indicator, an indirect form of power and status. Don regards it more as a direct way to buy in (and buy out) of one’s momentary dreams and aspirations.

Compare then to Pete, whose old-money family still has the social status, but lost the money years ago thanks to his wastrel father. And Pryce, who comes from a system where family money no longer matters much at all when it comes to social class. And Roger, who’s until recently thought that the existence of family money made the name on the building (an indicator of success and talent) “his name” instead of his father’s. And Bert Cooper, the eccentric Randian business founder with no children or wife who’s adjusting to the new realities about money and the corporations that control it: “we took their money, and now we have to do what they say.”

The show brings together all these types, and asks us to consider their attitudes and ability to adjust successfully as the notions of class (and, given the empowerment of women and minorities, caste) are beginning to shift in America.

Worth reading in regard to all this is the great Paul Fussell’s Class, A Guide Through the American Status System, which is as wickedly funny and dark as Mad Men is. He wrote the book in the early 1980s, as the triumph of the corporate 4th Purpose/HR Culture was formalised and even legislated under Reagan, so in many ways it describes the world of class as it was before that point, rather than how it is now, some 20 years later.

To clarify re: Betty’s attitude toward money, it’s that she views it on two levels.

First, there’s the class-neutral “traditional marriage” social compact: husband earns money to support wife and kids in a style befitting the level of income, wife raises the kids and manages the household. Don has betrayed this by withholding money. Compare with the old employer-employee social compact, before the executives and shareholders decided to screw over the employees (sorry, the “human resources”).

Second, it’s an indicator of a family’s social class. Her family was Mainline upper middle class—Gene probably had as much money (if not more) as Pete’s family at this point, but Pete’s still enjoys more social capital. Similarly, she enjoys more social capital than Don, who has no people and came from what she thought was a “poor but respectable” background (which is also the assumption Roger made—it’s why he was so surprised that Don had what he automatically assumed was a “taste” for horsemeat). The betrayal of the marriage there was the fact that Don/Dick was a lot poorer than she believed—he makes this point in the penultimate episode, when he nods and says that, yes, “we were very poor.” And damn me if I don’t see a little smirk dance over his face as he says it.

I dislike your suggestion that because she didn’t immediately leave in a fit of anger, because she didn’t act in haste in a moment of bad temper, that the infidelities didn’t matter to her. I’ve known many relationships, and been in some, where it takes a long time for cumulative problems to finally do it in. Like some invisible threshold that takes you unawares and, once you cross it, you’re not the same person anymore. It can be some tiny, stupid thing, or some big, horrible thing. Doesn’t matter.

Natasha, exactly.  It’s been made excruciatingly clear in the last few episodes that she wasn’t over it.  The fact that they wrote it so, when rudely roused from sleep, the first thing she threw at him was “I’ve never been enough”, is significant to me.  There’s not a statute of limitations on feeling betrayed.

Felix:

he’s free to forgive him or not forgive him, and that and her misery…which by the way, is not even close to being entirely Don’s fault…are certainly adequate reasons for wanting out of the marriage.  It is the timing and her actions surrounding ending the marriage I question, as I have explained in perfect (and nauseating) detail.

Nonsense.  This is the first thing you said:

Betty, however, decided “Dick Whitman” was not good enough for her, and coldly and consciously decided to cut him loose for this reason, and never mind the kids, the finances, or anything else.

There’s nothing in that about packing off to Reno with Henry: it’s all about how cold and nasty she was to end the marriage and how she did it because of Don’s background and not his bad behaviour.  You may have meant to criticise her timing and methods rather than her decision to leave Don, but that’s not what you initially did.

Killjoy: Again, please stop parsing and re-parsing what I have said to make it what you want me to have said.  I grow tired of pointing out your penchant for assembling straw men out of my posts.

The flash point, the thing that finally drove her into making the decision to end the marriage was the Whitman revelation.  That was the “proximate cause” if you want to put it in legal terms.  Boldfacing three words in a far earlier post as if this proves I don’t understand there was much more dramatic nuance to the whole situation—which I think the body of my commentary amply shows—is simply disingenuous.  Betty’s class prejudices (as well as her family’s) have always been there, were intentionally written into the show, and it is absolutely no accident that the final impetus was when Betty found out she would never have even considered marrying Don/Dick if she knew what he came from.

Betty has had problems since episode 1.  To suggest those are entirely Don’s fault, as I take you to do, is intentionally obtuse.

Natasha: See above.  Of course Betty had been on a slow simmer; of course there were other (and completely legitimate) reasons for wanting out of the marriage.  And of course you can realize this gradually, I’ve done it myself.  I still think the final reason Betty ended it is because she couldn’t handle what she perceived to be Don’s actual class status…in other words, she felt she had subjugated herself and dealt with the shit of an inferior.  This is not to deny or miinmize the fact that she did deal with a lot of shit; she did, shit amply worth ending a marriage.  Betty was both a victim and a complete prat….which Killjoy should take note, is *actually* the first thing I said on the subject way back in post 56. The states of being are not mutually exclusive. 

BStu:

[A]n ending to the Dick Whitman story of “it never mattered because it can’t be proven” strikes me as extremely unsatisfying.

Oh, I agree, and I do think it will continue to matter right through to the end.  I have said elsewhere that I regard Don’s assumption of the Draper identity as a minor infraction, a victimless crime.  It has had some unintended and unforeseeable consequences, but I really don’t believe Don commited a serious moral or ethical breach by assuming that identity.

It was however a serious legal breach, and the threat of that being exposed drives a lot of the dramatic tension of the show.  At or close to the end, I think Don will be exposed as Dick Whitman to the entire world.  What that will ultimately mean for him I do not know, but again, I think Mad Men is being structured as a tragedy: an essentially good protagonist with huge potential ultimately done in by his own character flaws.  Though in the end, Don might possibly be saved by his demonstrated capacity for growth and change.  I think the office developments at the end of the season (his realization that he had treated Peggy badly and for granted, his decision to strike out on his own) particularly illustrate that Don is not a static character.  (And not to open the can of worms, or suggest that it is entirely her own fault, but Betty to me appears to be more or less precisely the same person she was in 1960….just more miserable and impulsive.  She’s certainly about to embark on making the same set of mistakes over again.)

Felix Culpa, When you wrote “I still think the final reason Betty ended it is because she couldn’t handle what she perceived to be Don’s actual class status…in other words, she felt she had subjugated herself and dealt with the shit of an inferior. ” I feel that you are missing an important scene that happened before Betty confronted Don in the Gypsy and the Hobo episode. She spoke to her father’s lawyer about her options. She seemed pretty close to wanting to divorce Don then and there without knowing about his lower class status, simply because it was “a lie so big”. While I don’t deny that class probably had something to do with the divorce, it wasn’t everything.  Do when know how much Betty has forgiven Don for his cheating? The main reason that she took him back at the end of season two is that she is pregnant with Gene II and didn’t have any other options. Remember that she threw him out for about half of the second season. She also said earlier in this episode that she’s had a tough year, showing that Don’s reveal was not the only thing that had upset her and made her want to get out of her marriage.

Blue Horse: Good point, and again, I am not suggesting Betty is an unmitigated harridan, “the Bitch,” or an evil and soulless monster hell-bent on destroying the noble Don Draper in any way she can.

I do think that the only character who shows less self-awareness is Harry Crane, and the only one to show more self-centeredness is Roger Sterling.  Betty was considering divorce prior to the full revelation of Dick Whitman…she probably eventually would have gone through with it anyway one way or another without the revelation, and it would have been a defensible position.  The class contempt thing played an important part in her making the final decision though, and in the way she went about things.  All I’m saying.

Betty has had problems since episode 1.  To suggest those are entirely Don’s fault, as I take you to do, is intentionally obtuse.

That’s a bigger straw man than anything you’ve accused me of (and honestly, if you don’t see how I could interpret what you wrote the way I did it is you, not I, who are being intentionally obtuse.  It is possible to clarify one’s statements without suggesting the person who challenged them in their original form is an idiot.  Believe it or not).  Obviously Betty has problems; while she’s had a cheating, emotionally unavailable husband since episode 1, her interactions with her family prove that a lot of her psychological problems pre-date her relationship with Don.  However, Don is more at fault for the end of the marriage than she is.  He deserved to be “coldly cut loose.”  I had sympathy for the character when she first told him she didn’t love him any more, but in the season finale he used up most of the sympathy I had left by articulating his misogynistic double standard and shoving her around.  He was a crap husband and his wife left him.  That other factors entered into her decision doesn’t really matter to me.

I still think the final reason Betty ended it is because she couldn’t handle what she perceived to be Don’s actual class status…in other words, she felt she had subjugated herself and dealt with the shit of an inferior.  This is not to deny or miinmize the fact that she did deal with a lot of shit; she did, shit amply worth ending a marriage.

Okay.  If this is your real opinion on the subject I think we basically agree with a difference of emphasis; however I did read your original statements as dripping with contempt for Betty and her sense that she’s entitled to better than a cheating skunk who shuts her out.  If, as you suggest, the character does indeed feel she would be obliged to put up with constant infidelity and disrespect if it just came from a more “respectable” man, that’s pretty sad for her. 

Betty to me appears to be more or less precisely the same person she was in 1960….just more miserable and impulsive.  She’s certainly about to embark on making the same set of mistakes over again.

I’ve enjoyed watching her grow a backbone, even if she’s used it in destructive ways.

Killjoy: I did not and do not think you are an idiot, and I didn’t say you were.  I think you are taking a blinkered look at this situation, and that you romaticize the notion of marriage.  I think Don’s action and intentional omissions do make him, on balance, the more “culpable” person for the breakdown of the marriage.  Betty came to it damaged however, and I wonder if she really would have been happy with anyone.  (I suppose she could have found and married a stolid, warm, caring, faithful and completely unthreatening daddy figure…but that wouldn’t have made for good drama, and I still don’t think she would have been happy in that theoretical marriage, even if both parties “respected” it.)

Remember: the social constraints and expectations she finds herself trapped in (and not by Don, though he has taken some advantage of them) are a large part…perhaps the largest part…of the ennui and misery in which she finds herself.  She is unfortunately unable or unwilling to see these constraints or imagine a way out of them.

And yes, dammit, that is my real opinion!  This would be much easier if you assumed good faith on my part, which I have done for you.  You did correctly detect some contempt for Betty, and that stems out of my opinion that (the growth of some amount of backbone notwithstanding), she is perhaps the only character who has not shown any personal growth, any real empathy or insight into other people (oddly, other than perhaps for a small emotionally disturbed child of divorce, an odd and telling situation to say the least), and who has repeatedly taken her own class and educational advantages for granted.  She is exactly Cindy McCain as some other people have said, and while I feel sorry for her too, I don’t like her at all.

Maybe Betty will defy expectations, show some growth, and become more of a realized person.  The sixties still have seven years left to go, and I would cheer her on if she managed to pull it off.  I sympathize with anyone in pain, as she definitely is.  But I do not like her, that much is correct.

Well, six years to go…I guess we can count 1963 as in the can, so to speak.

I think you are taking a blinkered look at this situation, and that you romaticize the notion of marriage.

Oh whatever.  I’m the one who started out saying Betty had every right and reason to leave the marriage and you’re the one who started out saying she was cold and cruel for leaving Don.

I said Don had disrespected the marriage in a particular context: that is, I said I didn’t see why she had any obligation to preserve a relationship that he’d already undermined repeatedly.  Saying it’s appropriate to leave a bad marriage is not “romanticizing” marriage. 

I suppose she could have found and married a stolid, warm, caring, faithful and completely unthreatening daddy figure…

Nice false dichotomy there.

but that wouldn’t have made for good drama

Irrelevant.  At no time did I say that this plotline doesn’t make for good drama.  Unpleasant, ugly, and downright evil characters often make for good drama; that doesn’t make them pleasant or good.

and I still don’t think she would have been happy in that theoretical marriage, even if both parties “respected” it.

The fact that someone might be unhappy even if you didn’t treat her badly does not justify or mitigate treating her badly.

#94 killjoy well said, thank you.

Felix Culpa, after having read all your remarks and excuses for both your arguments and the Draper character, your bottom line is that you forgive Don for being an asshole, and you don’t forgive Betty for being an asshole.

On that note, she didn’t leave him for “disrespecting” the marriage.  If she had caught him with teacher lady, or something similar, ok.  She left him ultimately because it turned out he came from poor white trash.

Felix Culpa, Betty originally tried to break away from Don and end the marriage—she told him to leave—in Season 2, when she found out about his unfaithfulness. “You humiliated me,” she said.  He thought it was over the Heineken thing, over using her as focus-group research, and told her (again) that she was a child.  But it was the betrayal, the knowledge that he’d broken their marriage by sleeping around.

If you go back even earlier, when asked what she wants, she tells the shrink in Season 1 that she just wants her husband to be faithful to her, and to love her.  In a moment of weakness, when her father took seriously ill, she slept with him again, which led to her getting pregnant.  She tried to seek an abortion, and was told to go home and have the baby like a good married woman of means—in other words, you’re stuck, lady.

She just wants her husband to be faithful to her, and to love her.

Which he wasn’t.  Ever.  When drunk, angry, projecting Don spits his bile all over Betty after dragging her out of bed and tells her she’s gotten *everything* she’d ever wanted, the irony was as bitter as Betty’s silence.  Why argue with a drunken, hypocritical, and quite possibly violent man whom you know to be a serial liar?  Perhaps you’ve never had anyone lie to you about Really Big Stuff, but when it happens, it tends to cast everything else he or she says and does into a different light.  You cannot trust the person any more.  What *else* is a lie?  There is always more where that came from.

Betty did not choose to be born into an upper-middle class family, and her affectations, I think, are more reflective of her very domineering mother than anything else—something you would only pick up on if you paid attention to certain throwaway comments she makes, as well as the more obvious memories woven into her childbirth Scopolamine hallucinations.  She certainly could have married “well”, had she so chosen (clearly her father had spoken to her about that).  But no!  Betty married for love: she was in love with Don, despite her not knowing “his people”, and clearly she desired him, as evidenced from the very beginning (epidsode 1 of Season One, which I watched yesterday with my teenage son who’s interested in the show).  In it, Don eventually comes home from NYC, after having spent considerable time both in the office as well as in the arms of his mistress Midge, and here is this beautiful, glowing woman so happy to see her hardworking husband, so in love with him she can’t keep her eyes or her hands off him.  Knowing where it was all eventually headed made this poignant to watch.

Killjoy: No, please start paying attention to what I say.  I did not ever blame Betty for leaving Don, I find fault in part of her motivation for doing so, and some of the actions surrounding it.  I have said this more times now than I can easily count, and you have twisted it every time.

And it’s not a false dichotomy, or a dichotomy at all.  I am suggesting, correctly, that Betty’s problems in many respects predate her marriage to Don and are not purely attributable to Don.  I doubt someone of her disposition would have ever been happy in a traditional marriage either to a bastard or a completely swell fellow.  It is quite important to note this since it bears directly on how and why Betty is unhappy: Don contributed, but was not the sole cause, and Betty was damaged from the get go…as, in fact, was Don.

Since it is a drama we are discussing and analyzing, dramatic choices and devices are completely relevant to the discussion.  The writers have been very careful to make it quite apparent that the “fault” is not solely attributable to Don or Betty.  If we were discussing a real marriage, and not one between actors on a television show, then I agree that any particular choice or character’s potential for drama (or lack thereof) would be irrelevant.

The fact that someone might be unhappy even if you didn’t treat her badly does not justify or mitigate treating her badly.

Who. Fucking. Said. That?

What I did say is that she would have been unhappy in any traditional marriage she could have entered into, and this is quite poignant evidence that the blame in some respect lies with her as well, or at the very least, not entirely with Don.  I have not from the beginning excused any particular aspect of Don’s bad behavior and actions.  Easy moral condemnation and failure to see the forest for trees, however, isn’t helpful (particularly when talking about fictional characters that have been intentionally written as nuanced people), any more than your continued attempts to put words in my mouth and/or excuse any and every bad aspect of Betty.

LCfprevah: No.  For precisely the reasons I just set forth, and have been setting forth at some length previously.

Litbrit: I was very clear that Don’s outburst and abusive behavior toward Betty were wrong.  Understanding the human motivations behind them is not, nor is it meant to excuse them.  I think you are reading a whole lot into Episode 1 (which I have watched about a dozen times, though not lately so I will go back and do it again), and certainly making a mistake by taking Betty’s statements about her own desires and motivations at face value.  She has proven time and again she has little self-awareness and no capacity for frank self-analysis.  I think she believes “She just wants her husband to be faithful to her, and to love her”: I think that is what has been programmed into her (by her admittedly non-intentional birth and upbringing in a snobbish mainline upper-middle clas family in that time period…when did I ever say that was her “fault?), and what she is desperately seeking because that’s the only option of which she has any conception.  Her actions and obvious dissatisfaction with the day-to-day life of a housewife and child rearing duties, her desire for something more which she unfortunately does not have the social or intellectual framework to articulate, and her childish desire for a fairytale life to boot…those things permeate practically every scene she has ever been in, her ten second appearance in episode 1 notwithstanding. Betty’s *only* appearance or even hint she exists in Ep 1 is right at that “idyllic” end scene when Don comes home.  That is very obviously played for dramatic effect, to surprise the viewer at the end that this man is a philanderer with a home in the suburbs.  Putting too much stock in the “adoring” look she gave him or such, particularly in such a brief scene that clearly has another dramatic purpose, is very unstable ground to make sweeping conclusions about Betty on.

By the by, litbrit, I don’t appreciate the implication that I have not been paying attention, a la “something you would only pick up on if you paid attention to certain throwaway comments she makes.”  So if I happen to disagree with your interpretation of Betty, it’s because I have not been paying attention?

Focusing on the JFK assassination was a way of saying, “Everything’s changed, and nothing will ever be the same.” If you say that and don’t follow it up with a massive change, then you’re playing to cheap sentimentality.  But by trashing Sterling Cooper and making it impossible to come back, they’ve legitimately raised the stakes.  It’s what Don told Peggy she understood better than everyone else.  Everything’s changed, and nothing will be the same again.

This was one of the rare errors in public mood readings of the time in this show.  I was just in 7th grade when JFK was killed but I didn’t perceive then or now that it was a watershed event of people’s change in self-perception.  It was more gradual, IMO, brought on mostly by LBJ’s credibility gap over Vietnam and the climbing casualties and resulting disillusionment with government and institutions. 

I’ve enjoyed the show, Amanda’s essays and everyone’s comments.  A feel good season ender may be intended as a lure to bring us back for next year. 

I’ve forgotten whether Henry Francis is divorced or widowed.  He did have a daughter at the wedding, didn’t he?  No doubt he sees the need to have an acceptable wife if he has an interest in running for office himself.  Henry seems to be a great device to get into the presidential campaign of 1964 and a way to keep some story line link between Don and Betty besides just the kids.  January Jones’ contract status and film ambitions might take her away, too. 

BTW the people who think Jones is a bad actress and too wooden are nuts.  They probably don’t recognize her and her comedy chops in “Love Actually”.

The trouble with the analogy of Don to Nixon is that no one ever considered Nixon to be suave or handsome. 

There are several ways to overcome the obstacle of the closet bound Lucky Strike guy.  Blackmail might be one way.  A gay-bashing murder might be another. 

Don’s school teacher mistress might be an entry into the anti-war movement, too.

As far as I can see, the only reason to think that Betty’s rejection of Don had anything to do with class is the fact that Don thinks it is. Yes, Don the Trunkpisser, the man with a chip on his shoulder so big it wouldn’t fit on Trudy Campbell’s serving dish. Sure, Don, it’s not the fact that you have a secret identity at all that bothers the wife you’ve been deceiving for a decade; it’s that your secret identity isn’t one she likes. That makes a ton of sense, buddy. *golf clap* If I hit you with a cheap baseball bat, will you be bothered more by the blow or by the fact that it wasn’t a Louisville Slugger?

But it is telling that…not any infidelity or bad behavior on Don’s part…appears to have been the flash point.
Comment #76: Felix Culpa on 11/11 at 12:50 AM

Just because we don’t see her having long dialogues with someone else about how she feeeeeels doesn’t mean she’s not considering everything.

It may not have been the nicest feminist-friendly solution.  Those didn’t exist, in large part, for women in 1963. 

Remember: the social constraints and expectations she finds herself trapped in (and not by Don, though he has taken some advantage of them) are a large part…perhaps the largest part…of the ennui and misery in which she finds herself.  She is unfortunately unable or unwilling to see these constraints or imagine a way out of them.

What way out do you imagine for her?

Your life as a woman and mother was highly dependent on the good graces of the men around you.  She had to build a life raft, bit by bit, and do it in private.  Do you think she should have drowned, on the basis of some equality principle she wasn’t yet even aware of and didn’t have a hope in hell of attaining?  Do you think she should have telegraphed her every move, so he could go hide all his money and get the jump on her by hiring the very best attorney? 

That’s why Henry was involved, in the meeting with the divorce attorney.  He knew who to get.  HE probably paid - her allowance wouldn’t cover divorce attorney money.

She demurred to Henry’s denial of getting money from Don not because she didn’t think she didn’t deserve it, but because as a well-bred young woman she would not argue with him about it.  And of course he was probably paying for it.  Her allowance probably wouldn’t cover divorce attorney visits.

The reason she said she noticed Don didn’t understand money but didn’t step in to handle it?  Same thing.  Married women didn’t interfere in their husbands’ affairs, which includes the larger financial issues of the household.  They got an allowance.  Her commenting on the allowance after she opened the box but before she confronted him with it was a direct challenge to Don, which he had the privilege of ignoring as if she hadn’t said anything.

Felix:

[Betty] is perhaps the only character who has not shown any personal growth, any real empathy or insight into other people

She showed real empathy for Don even in the middle of the argument when he broke down about his brother.

Her upbringing was unpleasant and cold, her mother had no empathy for her at all, her father discounted her.  She’s got an uphill road all the way to become the empathic mother figure you want her to be.  Her obstacles are real, her struggle is real, but you seem to think she should quickly “get it.”

While Don’s violent and philandering behavior is somehow…okay?  Though he’s been doing it for three seasons now and only stopped the fucking around a few weeks ago, because he’s, what, too busy to deal with it right now with the night of the box, more than because he wouldn’t do it again?

Don and Betty actually have a lot in common—they both have few or no good role models for compassionate and empathic behavior.  But as a woman, when she shows her difficulties with it, she gets raked over the coals, and any tiny movement in an empathic direction by him is lauded as if he put a man on the moon.

What I did say is that she would have been unhappy in any traditional marriage she could have entered into, and this is quite poignant evidence that the blame in some respect lies with her as well….I think that is what has been programmed into her (by her admittedly non-intentional birth and upbringing in a snobbish mainline upper-middle clas family in that time period…when did I ever say that was her “fault?),

Wow.  Right there, where you say the blame for the problems in the marriage lie in part with her.

You also seem to think she has some unrealistic expectations (fairytale was the word I believe) when she wants a husband who loves her and won’t cheat on her.  I guess I’m a Disney princess wannabe, too, then.

Similarly, she enjoys more social capital than Don, who has no people and came from what she thought was a “poor but respectable” background (which is also the assumption Roger made—it’s why he was so surprised that Don had what he automatically assumed was a “taste” for horsemeat).
Comment #85: Gracchus on 11/11 at 09:50 AM

Just occurs to me that that “taste” for horsemeat could be oral sadism against the horse that killed his father.  And that they probably didn’t have much to eat once his father died, and therefore that particular horse may have met its end as human cuisine rather than dog food.

“I knew you were poor,” Betty knew he’d come from a deprived background—what she didn’t know is that his whole life was a lie.

Also: I don’t remember Don ever adequately explaining his “first” marriage to Betty—another whopper of a lie of omission, that Don had been married before. And caught in another lie during his inadequate explanation, the timing of that divorce.

Betty has gone dead inside on Don from all his lies, not a surpise that she’d want another life and a husband without a backlog of falsehoods.

Just because we don’t see her having long dialogues with someone else about how she feeeeeels doesn’t mean she’s not considering everything.

No, but it’s pretty piss-poor evidence that she *is* considering everything, n’est ce pas?  Unlike in real life, we are talking about a work of fiction that needs to be addressed on what has been presented.

It may not have been the nicest feminist-friendly solution.  Those didn’t exist, in large part, for women in 1963.

Agreed.  And I have stated several times that if Betty had had the social or intellectual tools to interpret her situation, she would have had a “feminist friendly” solution.  That’s part of her tragedy.  Note, however, that Don Draper personally is not responsible for the lack of empowered options Betty Draper had in 1963, though he is responsible for more than his share of the problems in the marriage.

Wow.  Right there, where you say the blame for the problems in the marriage lie in part with her.

Are you suggesting Betty is 100 percent blameless?  I’m sorry, I find that hard to swallow as a matter of observation, and I’m pretty sure the writers of the show are not intending to present it that way.  Don and Betty are both flawed, damaged people, and both contributed to the breakdown in their marriage.  Are their proportions of blame equal? No…would it make everyone happy if I said I would peg it at roughly 70 percent Don and 30 percent Betty?  Maybe 75/25?

You also seem to think she has some unrealistic expectations (fairytale was the word I believe) when she wants a husband who loves her and won’t cheat on her.  I guess I’m a Disney princess wannabe, too, then.

This is again parsing and misrepresentation of what I said.  Let’s use the exact quote in context:

I think she believes “She just wants her husband to be faithful to her, and to love her”: I think that is what has been programmed into her (by her admittedly non-intentional birth and upbringing in a snobbish mainline upper-middle clas family in that time period…when did I ever say that was her “fault?), and what she is desperately seeking because that’s the only option of which she has any conception.  Her actions and obvious dissatisfaction with the day-to-day life of a housewife and child rearing duties, her desire for something more which she unfortunately does not have the social or intellectual framework to articulate, and her childish desire for a fairytale life to boot…those things permeate practically every scene she has ever been in, her ten second appearance in episode 1 notwithstanding.

I did not say that wanting a faithful and loving husband was a fairytale expectation.  The “fairytale” aspect for me comes in, to name examples, when she is disappointed (and more than a little biting) when, after the magical interlude of the Rome getaway she is clearly distressed and irate at the return to everyday life, or else in practically every interaction involving Henry Francis (especially including the “fainting couch” plotline).  In other words, Betty both thinks she wants a “faithful and loving” husband (and she actually does), AND she thinks that if only she gets that, her other problems (her disaffection with the reality of being a trophy housewife and mother circa 1963 and her desire for some fulfilling role in the larger world) will magically resolve.  They won’t, her problems run much much deeper than lack of a faithful and loving husband, and her expectations as to what obtaining one would do for her are fantasy.  Believing otherwise is childlike and unrealistic.  That is what I meant.  Parse away!

Also: I don’t remember Don ever adequately explaining his “first” marriage to Betty—another whopper of a lie of omission, that Don had been married before. And caught in another lie during his inadequate explanation, the timing of that divorce.

Betty has gone dead inside on Don from all his lies, not a surpise that she’d want another life and a husband without a backlog of falsehoods.

That’s fair.  I think Don should have explained at least that he was married to Anna Draper, that was a matter of public record that very well could have come to light.  I still don’t think the “whole life was a lie” thing is that big a deal, though it would be a shock, but I still think the evidence points to Betty being more concerned with the whole thing being “tawdry” rather than actually morally or ethically shocking.  Obviously, reasonable minds differ on this point.

Felix, comments #99, 100 and 101 have very nicely tried to demonstrate to you what I said in more short form—what Don does is okay and what Betty does is not okay. The fact that you have to explain your explanations should be a big clue of your bias.

His whole life was a lie is not a big deal? That is completely unreasonable and does not take into account the psychological damage to Betty. It just sounds like a Nice Guy™ point of view.

LCforevah: You have looked up the definitions of the terms “nicely” and “demonstrate” at some point in your life, yes?  I do not think they mean what they think you mean.  I think some people who clearly want to justify anything and everything Betty does as correct or perfectly justifiable just have a hard time even considering the legitimacy of the opposing point of view.

And catch phrases are neither clever nor a substitute for argument.  Nor have I ever said Don was a nice guy (whether trademarked or otherwise), and having read Amanda’s discussions of the concept as she uses it here, I fail to see how it even applies to this situation.  When you can come up with something to add to the discussion other than “I agree with those people who disagree with you” please let me know.  Or don’t, it’s entirely the same to me.

Felix:

her problems run much much deeper than lack of a faithful and loving husband, and her expectations as to what obtaining one would do for her are fantasy.

I don’t see evidence that she thinks a faithful and loving husband would result in a perfect fantasy life.  I don’t think being cranky coming home from Rome is evidence she’s out of touch with reality—she’s realizing that her reality doesn’t include fun like Rome, that even if she goes to visit every once in a while, it’s not the same as being free to go when she wants.  She’s an accessory, a suitcase that goes along sometimes.

If she had a faithful and loving husband who was actually emotionally interested in her, she might actually manage to deal with her other problems.  Trips to Rome don’t solve anything, and her unhappiness on returning home showed she UNDERSTANDS that, in a way she couldn’t if she hadn’t actually gone and experienced it.

In 1963, what a woman needed for happiness, according to not just advertising but society in general, sociology, psychology, religion, even government, was a good husband and kids.  It was a “fairy tale” that was widely accepted as truth (many still believe it). 

Your use of that phrase suggests she was silly and a real smart adult woman would know better.  The problem was, at that time, if you did figure out what you needed, you’d be discovering you needed something you weren’t allowed to have.

When you’ve been lied to all your life, it’s hard to figure out the truth.  She’s doing it now.  You seem unwilling to accept any instances where she is making progress—and limit “progress” to becoming more empathetic, because that’s her job as a woman.  Never mind she’s figuring out other things about reality, becoming more self-sufficient, speaking out about money, about her relationship with Don. 

Betty is showing little emotion, being calculating in relationships, just like men typically do, but as a woman it’s not expected.  Becoming “harder” is another part of growing up.  One women are discouraged from doing.  They’re supposed to stay home and be nice to everyone.  But of course protect themselves from those who would steal their sweet love from their families.  They’re essentially supposed to be a private fountain of love for their families.

Her life and options are so different from what women have today, it’s hard to understand it if you didn’t see it first hand.

Her life and options are so different from what women have today, it’s hard to understand it if you didn’t see it first hand.

Perhaps. It it hard to separate contemporary “enlightened” perspective from what the perspective was then for someone in a different situation: this is one of the central problems of standpoint epistemology. That being said, the show is being written and produced by people alive and operating now, many of whom were very small children or were not even alive at the relevant time.  Betty might be able to deal with her problems if she had a “faithful and loving husband” (I am still rather inclined to think the constrained role of a 1963 trophy housewife would never satisfy her, which is central to her character arc) but that still means of necessity that some of her problems lie outside her husband and are not atrributable to him.  Can we agree on that?

I think she believes “She just wants her husband to be faithful to her, and to love her”: I think that is what has been programmed into her

Really, Felix Culpa?  What about the part in Season 1 (unfortunately I forget which episode) where Betty tells Don how much she wants to fuck him while he’s at work all day?  Or the episode in Season 2 when he takes her out to a business dinner with the Barretts, and in the car on the way home she’s radiantly happy and tells him how excited she is when he deigns to involve her in his life?

There’s no question that Betty’s life was largely determined by social expectations.  But there’s also no question that she loved Don and lusted after him—desires that were made all the more intense by the fact that Don withheld himself both emotionally and sexually.

If it’s okay to interpret her behavior towards him as classist, shouldn’t we look at his behavior that way, too?  Isn’t he working his aggression towards the upper classes out on her?

oldfeminist,

Only in the sense that POC who harbor anti-White prejudices are racists as well in which case you’ve basically fell into the “reverse-isms” trap unless you choose to completely ignore the power differentials between Don Draper’s origins of extreme poverty and Betty Draper’s more genteel upper-middle class origins from a strictly socio-economic class context.  Calling him a classist for that behavior/resentments obscures the asymmetrical power dynamics involved in that context….

Moreover, there is a good case to be made that such resentments/anger is justified considering how those with greater socio-economic privilege often crap on their less privileged counterparts.

The damaging effects of classism perpetuated by the socio-economically privileged against their less privileged counterparts is IMO far less damaging than the reverse….especially considering recent history. 

That’s not to say Don Draper is completely blameless as his gender privileges and the greater experiences/social power that comes with them along with his atrocious behavior and lies more than provide justifications for Betty’s divorcing him.  One does not need to add the accusation of him being a “classist” to make a case for that….

But there’s also no question that she loved Don and lusted after him—desires that were made all the more intense by the fact that Don withheld himself both emotionally and sexually.

How is this inconsistent with the harmfulness of the notion that being preprogrammed and hemmed into finding a good and faithful provider is your only route to happiness?

I never said Betty didn’t like to fuck, and certainly not that she didn’t like to fuck Don Draper/Jon Hamm.  (In fact, a large percentage of the women I know who have considered the matter would also like to fuck Jon Hamm.)  And I agree Don’s emotional and sexual withdrawal aggravated the situation, no question.

I do question whether either Don or Betty ever “really” loved each other…there is significant evidence that they both initially projected certain desires and expectations onto each other, only to become disillusioned or dissatisfied with the reality as the years and kids came along.

thewhatfor:

Or the episode in Season 2 when he takes her out to a business dinner with the Barretts, and in the car on the way home she’s radiantly happy and tells him how excited she is when he deigns to involve her in his life?

Excellent point.  My take on that is that it gave Betty a taste of a life beyond the confines of her bored-Ossining-housewife routine…in other words, a hint of what it would be like to have a role actively engaged in the larger world of events from which she normally finds herself cut off, marginalized, or else just there as pretty window dressing.  It also helps explain why she crashes to such lows upon her return to the Ossining cocoon.

A housewife in Betty’s sitaution didn’t have many options, and the hint of the possibility of a different life can be both intoxicating…and the cause of despair when it slips back out of your grasp.  That’s partially Don’s fault…but it’s also the fault of forces larger than and external to the Draper marriage.

Uh, Felix, the Nice Guy™ is you.

oldfeminist, may I just say that I am in complete and utter agreement with what you’ve written.  Thank you.  What a relief to find some fellow MM fans who truly “get” Betty.  I wonder if my being born in 1960 and raised in a very similar way to Betty has a lot to do with my empathy for her?

Most of all, I think it bears stating that feminism is meant for us all—rich, poor, white, POC, American, foreign, all of us.  It does not exist solely for the benefit of poor or working class woman, or the woman of color, or as a leg-up to the bright-and-scrappy secretary who wasn’t able to marry yet (or marry well) though it can and should help all of them, and more so now than then, it does.  Rather, feminism is meant for all women, even the ones whom some people presume to be so privileged by birth or beauty as to not need it.  Feminism arises from the simple principle that women are people.

Note, however, that Don Draper personally is not responsible for the lack of empowered options Betty Draper had in 1963

But he is kinda responsible for putting her in a situation where she needs them.

A point, by the way, made much more directly when Joan got booted out of her script reading job.

LCforevah: Boy, you really got me there.

My take on that is that it gave Betty a taste of a life beyond the confines of her bored-Ossining-housewife routine…in other words, a hint of what it would be like to have a role actively engaged in the larger world of events

Jesus, Felix, give up already.  Betty didn’t get “a taste” when she went to Rome with Don—she’d already lived there, when she was single and worked as a model.  That’s how she learned to speak fluent Italian.

Returning to the suburbs, now as an older/wiser woman, now with the benefit of a few years of living the life she’d been groomed for—housewife—after being back in Rome briefly, led to her deepened awareness of how wrong it was for her.  In those days, that was the option—even career-girl Joan is all about the getting married, despite her obvious talents in so many fields that would guarantee her a successful career.  That’s what women were groomed for, talent and brains or not.  Betty should probably not have had children—certainly not that early in her life.

The damaging effects of classism perpetuated by the socio-economically privileged against their less privileged counterparts is IMO far less damaging than the reverse….especially considering recent history.

Agg….meant ot say:

The damaging effects of classism perpetuated by the socio-economically privileged against their less privileged counterparts is IMO far MORE damaging than the reverse….especially considering recent history.

My only dispute with oldfeminist’s point is her calling Don Draper/Whitman “classist” as that accusation is not only superfluous considering how his atrocious behavior and gender privilege already makes a strong case for divorce, but is too reminiscent of the “reverse-isms” arguments put forth by more privileged groups to dismiss/minimize their crapping on the less privilege and more importantly…obscuring the power dynamics in certain situations such as socio-economic class in the argument that Don’s class resentments is “classism”.

Litbrit: (a) I didn’t say Rome was a “taste” there, I was responding to the example of the dinner with the Barretts and the Utz Chips people.

(b) Even if I had said what I specifically did not say there: even on your interpretation, Rome was clearly a “taste,” “reminder,” “hint,” (use whatever adjective you please) of a time when she was not trapped in that particular set of expectations, and was in fact a happier person. So I fail to see how your point responds to mine, or frankly, what your point is.

This is a pattern with Betty: she is briefly happy upon escaping the cocoon in some way, only to be crushed by her return to the reaality of her life, in which she is not happy both because of Don Draper’s action, because of the societal expectations and restrictions she lives under, and even in some respects because of her own failings.  None of this is particularly controversial, but Jesus…you’re free to disagree.

And on that note, given this discussion ceased some time ago shedding any light (as opposed to heat) if anyone else wants the last word, take it.

My apologies, Felix, you were indeed referring to that dinner and not the return from Rome, to which you referred earlier and separately.  You said:

he “fairytale” aspect for me comes in, to name examples, when she is disappointed (and more than a little biting) when, after the magical interlude of the Rome getaway she is clearly distressed and irate at the return to everyday life,

More like, she was distressed, after easily and quickly re-assuming her earlier life, that it was now gone, and the only way she would get to travel now was, as oldfeminist described it, as an accessory,  a suitcase that goes along sometimes.  Who wouldn’t be distressed and disappointed after living and working abroad?  Well, maybe those who dislike novelty and travel and foreign languages and prefer domestic duties wouldn’t be disappointed, indeed, they would be relieved to be “home at last”, and there is nothing wrong with that.  That’s not Betty though.  Nor a number of us.

  “it’s very clear he understands” it far better than she does”

Is it?  I don’t think we’ve seen either of them handling money to the extent that we’d be able to make that call.

Well we’ve seen her discuss inheritances and real estate values with her family members and with attorneys and we’ve seen her correct Don’s misconceptions about U.S.-to-Italian exchange rates.
And we’ve seen Don ... store thousands of dollars in cash in his desk drawer. Clearly he’s more knowledgeable on the matter. Wait. What?

Betty is both horribly oppressed and long-suffering, and a racist/classist brat.

Every character on Mad Men is a racist, classist, and sexist brat - except, again, maybe Peggy; Worst I can pin on her is that she slept with Peter when she knew he was married. Most of the characters on Mad Men have demonstrated much more bigotry and brattiness than Betty ever has. For some reason, Peter’s and Kinsey’s and Roger’s and Don’s bigotry and brattiness is so much more rarely at issue than Betty’s. I venture that if Betty had snapped at Hollis for allowing a janitor to use the main elevator the way Peter has, or catapulted a balloon filled with ketchup across a room with no concern for who would have to clean it up, or came up empty-handed on a project because she’d spent all her time getting drunk and jerking off to her last halfway usable idea like Kinsey, we’d never hear the end of how bratty and childish and selfish her behavior was.

Felis Culpa #115: A point, by the way, made much more directly when Joan got booted out of her script reading job.

I’m not sure if you’re still in this thread but I’m also not sure what point you’re referring to. I may be wrong but it seems like you’re saying the incident with Joan being booted out of the script-reading job was when the point of women’s oppression or the necessity of feminism was made and that it was made better than with Betty’s storyline. The show’s made that point in various ways with various characters - including Betty - in practically every episode.

Snobographer: I am no longer substantively contributing to the thread, but to answer your question, that was an afterthought to my post at 111, and refers to that post.

Maybe I’m just tired, but what I’m getting from this thread is that everyone agrees that Betty is constrained in her marriage and society’s expectations of her, and that this is wrong, and that Don was a bad husband.

I’m not sure I remember what people are arguing about though.

exholt:

[oldfeminist] If it’s okay to interpret her behavior towards him as classist, shouldn’t we look at his behavior that way, too?  Isn’t he working his aggression towards the upper classes out on her?

oldfeminist,

Only in the sense that POC who harbor anti-White prejudices are racists as well in which case you’ve basically fell into the “reverse-isms” trap unless you choose to completely ignore the power differentials between Don Draper’s origins of extreme poverty and Betty Draper’s more genteel upper-middle class origins from a strictly socio-economic class context.  Calling him a classist for that behavior/resentments obscures the asymmetrical power dynamics involved in that context….

You make a good point, and I don’t mean to equate the two.  But I don’t think it’s wrong to note that some men mistreat, or dream of mistreating, rich women in part as a “get back” at their “owners.”  It’s like vandalism, only the thing you’re vandalizing is actually a person. 

I’m not in any way saying that Don has no reason to be angry at the class structure that exists in his day (and still today).  But it’s complicated when the oppressed is in a position to act as an oppressor, as Paulo Friere noted.

When you treat your own partner as a stand-in for a class or a sex or any other group, that’s a problem.  Even if that group is an oppressor group.

litbrit:

oldfeminist, may I just say that I am in complete and utter agreement with what you’ve written.  Thank you.  What a relief to find some fellow MM fans who truly “get” Betty.  I wonder if my being born in 1960 and raised in a very similar way to Betty has a lot to do with my empathy for her?

<blushes>

I was born in 1959.  There’s a lot I experienced and a lot that I saw had happened to my mother and other female relatives and friends’ mothers that looks so incredibly familiar to me every week on the screen.

Most of all, I think it bears stating that feminism is meant for us all—rich, poor, white, POC, American, foreign, all of us.  It does not exist solely for the benefit of poor or working class woman, or the woman of color, or as a leg-up to the bright-and-scrappy secretary who wasn’t able to marry yet (or marry well) though it can and should help all of them, and more so now than then, it does.  Rather, feminism is meant for all women, even the ones whom some people presume to be so privileged by birth or beauty as to not need it.  Feminism arises from the simple principle that women are people.
Comment #113: litbrit on 11/11 at 07:54 PM

Well said, and sometimes forgotten.  Misery is misery even in a gilded cage.

Felix, want me to concede that there are far better writers here than me? Done.

I suggest that you deal with the opinions of the better writers which have really torn your reasoning to pieces, than engage in snide remarks with me.

LCforevah: See comments 116, 120.

FWIW Felix, I get where you are coming from and have no idea why so many people are jumping on everything you say and either twisting it or picking out the most picayne things as examples of why you are so “wrong” and insulting you personally when you seem to be trying not to do the same thing.  Hang in there.

Kitty: I appreciate the sentiment.

It’s the internets, one fails to develop a thick skin at one’s peril.

Kitty, there is nothing picayune in Felix saying that Don’s lies are not a big deal—they’re huge, global lies of the kind that would hurt his children, and in that era, their possible futures should the lies be exposed.

Then, by contrast, taking issue with Betty’s so-called classist behavior, especially since she has no power in the relationship, is wrong. Her decision to leave is based on survival, Don’s decisions are based on shame for his past and envy of Betty’s roots. To favor Don over Betty doesn’t make sense.

Don never treated Betty as a human being, let alone an equal. The real classist problem is his.

But I don’t think it’s wrong to note that some men mistreat, or dream of mistreating, rich women in part as a “get back” at their “owners.” It’s like vandalism, only the thing you’re vandalizing is actually a person.

No denying that. 

However, calling anyone with less socio-economic privilege “classist” for resenting the more socio-economically privileged sounds really sketchy to me as it is too reminiscent of “reverse-isms” arguments covered online and from what I’ve seen IRL.  It completely obscures the power dynamics from a socio-economic context and gives the more socio-economic privileged ammunition to accuse their less privileged counterparts “classists” when the former group has a practical monopoly on power in that context. 

This obscuring really troubles me when I’ve seen such arguments used precisely to obscure/evade discussions about socio-economic privilege….especially at my college where this very issue was one factor in the horrid town-gown relations back then. 

Especially when it is so superfluous as Don Draper’s behaviors are covered so well by his gender privilege and his atrociously unethical behavior and abuse.