Intro: At first glance there is no reason why I should be a Betty apologist, but I have this insane amount of empathy for her. Speaking of insane, it always surprises me when people say, “wow, she’s kinda crazy,” as if that fact is random rather than a situation that was systematically brought into being.
Betty Draper gets told she looks like Grace Kelly a lot apparently and it was was a wonderful moment when we finally hear someone say it in Shoot. My reaction was, “thank you for making explicit what has been implicit from the beginning.” Sure, it was a guy trying to seduce Don, but the comparison was probably one of the truest things he’d said in a while. Later on in the episode, Francine tells Betty that Carlton has commented on it as well, and, okay, that was once too many for the episode. The itch had been scratched by that point. But the point remains that Betty looks like Grace Kelly right down to the way she wears her hair to remind people that she looks like Grace Kelly, dammit!
I have to imagine that the reference is intended to resonate on an even deeper level, that we’re supposed to understand that Betty more than looks like Grace Kelly, she’s living a Grace Kelly life.
Grace Kelly was a beautiful woman who modeled before becoming an actress. At one point she was engaged to Oleg Cassini and she gave up a very successful career to marry a prince. In the world of 1962, she is the mother of a daughter and a son.
Alfred Hitchcock’s response to her engagement to Rainier was that he was “very happy that Grace has found herself such a good part.” Cute remark, sour grapes, or astute commentary?
Betty couldn’t fill half a page with what she knows about Don’s past. Don couldn’t fill a quarter of a page with what Betty really wants. But they both look exactly right for their respective parts. They are the couple on the wedding cake. Matthew Weiner says they look like they belong together and they do. If you were friends with Don and Betty before they’d met, you’d play matchmaker and get them together, because these are people that on the surface should be combining their genes.
Grace Kelly once told Hedda Hopper, “I hate to drive a car . . . I am not a good driver.” Betty reminded Don, “you hate the way I drive.” And in Ladies Room she, of course, gets into a car accident. And while Betty has no way of knowing it, Grace Kelly will die in a car accident while driving with her daughter on the same road she drove down in To Catch a Thief.
Of course, Grace Kelly was one of Hitchcock’s favorite actresses and Hitchcock was a man notoriously fixated on the flaxen-haired, blue-eyes, ice-on-the-surface, but smoldering-fires-underneath flavor of woman. Ice can do two things when heat is applied: melt or crack.
“Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints,” he said, perhaps because it was a good line more than because he believed it. He also once said “Those sultry Mediterranean types are too obvious. A lot of dark, brooding sexuality, yes, but it’s all up front for everyone to see. Blondes, though, are different – on the outside they seem cool, even icy, but you sense that beneath the surface a fire, a passion, is burning. I find that much more intriguing,” and that I imagine he meant, because he just described Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren and Kim Novak and…
I don’t think D. Draper and A. Hitchcock would have a meeting of the minds on the ideal woman.
Lisa J. points out in the thread for For Those Who Think Young that Betty in the horse-riding scenes looks very Tippi Hedren in Marnie and states she doubts that’s a coincidence. I’m right with her. Tippi was also the heroine in The Birds and we’ve discussed more than once all the bird symbolism.
(Hitchcock, for the record, seems to have been rooting for the birds.)
This means that in one episode, Shoot, Betty evoked two Hitchcock Blondes. Nice work!
Why don’t you like me
Why don’t you like yourself?
Should I bend over?
Should I look older just to be put on the shelf?
~Grace Kelly, Mika
Roberta also allegedly, note I wasn’t there, said about Betty’s coming down the stairs in FTWTY, “Jesus, that entrance was so Hitchcock it was practically Brian De Palma.” Heh, well-said.
Someone else, somewhere else, mentioned that they were reminded of Grace Kelly in Rear Window. Sorry, can’t find it to attribute. But check it out. Not to switch movies, but I think it’s fair to say she was saddened that his train didn’t… well, you know.
And let me say it’s probably difficult to be Eva Marie Not-So-Saintly while still keeping one foot clearly planted in Monaco, but Betty tries.
Eve Kendall: I’m a big girl.
Roger Thornhill: Yeah, and in all the right places, too.
~North by Northwest
The thing is that none of Hitchcock’s blondes that I can recall were wimps. They weren’t fodder for Dumb jokes and they weren’t bimbos. Of course they were rewarded by being hung from Mount Rushmore, stabbed in the shower, attacked by birds, and having to sing Que Sera Sera. Okay, the last one isn’t so bad, but Doris was way too approachable to be a true Hitchcock Blonde anyhow.
Betty Draper isn’t a wimp either, but you probably won’t notice that unless you take a closer look. The neighbor threatens the dog and she threatens what matters to the neighbor in a case of An Eye For An Eye. She can no longer deny her husband’s infidelities so she makes sure he gets the message. There is more there than Princess Betty of Ossining. If many people are to be believed, there was more to Grace Kelly, too. (The only member of the British Royal Family to attend the funeral was Diana.)
Betty hasn’t been tested yet, she hasn’t allowed herself to really get angry, but it’s coming. She isn’t melting, she’s cracking. Betty was a stout girl who became a model. Betty was a model who met a handsome prince. Betty was a newlywed who became a mother. Betty was a wife and mother with a philandering husband, believed happiness was a matter of his being faithful. And now Betty’s husband is home every night, but he doesn’t want her, I imagine that at every significant moment in her life she felt that if she could just get to the next level she would be content, but you can only play that game for so long.
A recent Entertainment Weekly article got it right: Betty, who shrilly fought to maintain her dollhouse version of reality in season 1, had a cooler, almost cruel edge in the premiere. She looks like if pushed too hard, she might toss a match to her world.
Maybe then she’ll allow herself to melt.
89 Responses to “Hitchcock Blonde!”
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Betty is not a wimp by any measure. I quite like her. She shows basic decency much of the time. Was it in Marriage of Figaro where Francine made an anti-Semitic comment and Betty called her on it? I think so. On the surface she fits in. Inside, she is smarter than that.
Another similarity with Grace Kelly — apparently the latter was rather, er, *socially active* prior to her marriage, including with many of her married leading men. I suspect the inverse will happen with Betty. She is getting frustrated and angry and that damned Betty Friedan book is going to come out soon (1963)!
I totally agree with the above assessments of Betty's character. I feel so bad for her, it's like she's constantly trying to be what everyone else expects her to be, so she has lost herself and it is starting to piss her off.
I like her.
At the stables, Betty gets into her car and her friend says, "Don't you hate getting manure inside there?" Betty says, "I have small children. What's the difference?" Don comes home and Robert is sad because he doesn't like what the maid cooked for dinner. Don eats his leftovers. Mommy isn't cooking ham dinners anymore. Even when she's there, she's not really there.
Poor Birdie, beating her pretty wings against the bars. When the birdcage door opens (and it will), she isn't going to curl her little feet around Don's finger, tilt her head and coo. She's probably going to fly straight into the picture window.
Let me preface this with 2 things….First, I do not have the analytical skills that so many of you all have regarding Mad Men. It's why there's so much enjoyment in reading the commentary from the Basketcases! Guess the gestalt that is the show keeps me watching….Second, I can't stand the Betty character due to her ultra-shallowness! Everytime she utters a dig at another woman, dissing her jewelry or makeup or other surface concerns, I roll my eyes! And because of that, I have no empathy, sympathy or any other word ending in "-pathy" for this character!
This is what I really can't understand (and I posed this question on IMDb) is why on Earth Betty insists that women are jealous of her? Season one, Helen Bishop was jealous. WTF? Helen Bishop, who rocked IMHO, was bad-ass enough to get out of an unhappy marriage, face down the "hens" at the birthday party, confront Betty about inappropriate behavior towards Glen, and managed to be politically aware. Helen was doing her own thing! Season two, Juanita, the ex-roomie/"party girl" Betty assessed was "jealous" of her. I'll not encourage any woman to be a "party girl" but Juanita was also doing her own thing (decorating?) and dripping in diamonds doing it! I don't really understand this presumption of jealousy…..
Kay, I think the presumption of jealousy is simply Betty trying to rationalize her life choices. And of course, she is rationalizing them because she is not happy. She is figuring it out.
Further, in regards Betty giving Glenn a lock of her hair, I have to say, I think Helen was unfair there. She bullied Betty into babysitting for her, and then when her soon-to-be-serial-killer-son also bullied Betty, she (Helen) blamed someone else, instead of taking some responsibility for what a weirdo her kid is. I was pleased when Betty smacked her in the produce section! Okay, Betty should have been tougher with Glenn, but the bottom line is, Glenn is disturbed. And that has nothing to do with Betty.
The observation about Bobby's meal is really smart—I hadn't caught that, as is the observation (I think Roberta made it as well, in another thread) that she's equating her kids with manure. And when she makes that manure remark, it's very creepy…there's a loooong moment before she smiles to show she's being amusing.
There was also her strange remark to Juanita about "I have a little girl" and then oh, yeah, a boy, total afterthought. What does that mean? It's kind of like, "I have replicated myself ha ha" and then "oh, yeah, and this shithead husband too, whatever."
The jealousy, I'm sure, is something her mother taught her, anytime she was challenged in life, or confronted, or had trouble making friends, mom was there saying "They're just jealous." So when dealing with problems, that's Betty's go-to.
See, because of my career background (I won't get into it!), but I'll always have a BIG problem with some grown person visiting their adult issues on a child, as Betty did with Glen. Glen may have some issues but he's still a little boy.
If the genders had been reversed, I doubt if there'd be so much tolerance for a grown-@ss man "reaching out" for comfort from a 9-year-old girl!
I'm simply sick of the the exemptions Betty gets for her bad behavior. As much as I like Don as a character he's still a (sexy) bastard! His depressive family background, tour of duty in Korea, and whatever else negative occurred in his young life will never be excuses for his tacky actions!
Understanding and excusing are two different things, Kay. We're watching these people and are fascinated by them; I wouldn't want my sister to marry one of 'em!
Deb, I've read too many posts (not only here on this blog!) thinking it was OK for Betty to slap Helen. It's beyond me how putting one's hands on another person, no matter how weak the slap, is ever OK.
When you all gave me more insight into what fueled Betty's presumption of jealousy, I got that. I better understood her motivations. And that's what is so wonderful about this blog….
I think the stairs scene really reminded me more of Vertigo. But maybe b/c I've taken a couple of film classes on that film. Don is looking at her in much the same way Jimmy Stewart is looking at Kim Novak attempting to recreate an image that he wants in his life rather than seeing her for who she really is. And in some ways Betty is a lot like the Kim Novak character playing a part for the Jimmy Stewart character that he falls in love with. Then when she's herself the disappointment ensues b/c he can't love her for who she really is. Not to mention Barbara Bel Geddes plays a character named Midge who's able to see things for what they really are and who is in love with the Jimmy Stewart character but knows she has to hold him at arm's length b/c he's not in love with her. But I've always liked Midge both in Man Men and Vertigo.
Wait… which one can’t I marry?
I’ve always said that Betty is kind. She gently admonishes Francine for saying anti-Semitic remarks, as well as for knocking Helen Bishop (until the slap, when Betty stops defending her). She was quite kind to Helen in general; the ‘I think it should be Christmas all year’ in response to her inappropriately wrapped birthday gift was lovely.
Kay, it’s possible that people were jealous of her for much of her life. She was beautiful and sweet, she did seem perfect, and finally married what appeared to be the perfect man. However, she seems quite attached to the idea of people being jealous of her… as was pointed out in another thread, she may well have seen the jealousy as the entire point of collecting valentines in school. (And I also had the same thought as Deb, that it was something her mother said to comfort her.) And no, Helen’s not jealous of her; you’re completely right about that. That was definitely her own projection.
I’d forgotten Midge’s name was Midge! Great call.
Roberta — exactly. Helen was completely ungrateful to Betty (and remember, Betty babysat for her in a crunch), and did not give her a chance to explain. That's why I was glad for the smack in the produce section!
As for saying Glenn "may have some issues" — hmm…If I may make a movie reference, which are popular here, he is *so* growing up to be Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs!
Latenac — good call on Vertigo. I had thought of Kim Novak in regards Betty last season as well.
Latenac, I agree with you about Vertigo. Actually, influences and themes from Vertigo are all over Mad Men. Now this is from memory only, but as I recall Midge in Vertigo is also an illustrator who works out of her own apartment in San Francisco. Scotty (Jimmy Stewart) treats her as his intellectual equal. Midge is shown wearing a tailored men's style white shirt and is working on an illustration of a new bra. They used to be engaged but broke it off. Later when Scotty is recovering in some sort of rehab after his breakdown she has him listening to Mozart, and she refers to herself as "Mother". Don paid his Midge off when he realized she was in love with someone else. Don's mother got paid too. Kim Novak's role is an ideal woman when pretending to be the blonde, but when she's herself, Judy, the brunette, she's sort of a fallen woman. Scotty tries to recreate Judy as his ideal. People pretending to be someone else. See Vertigo if you can find it. Love how Mad Men has so many layers to explore. Love how there are people on this blog who want to share their explorations.
Yes both Midge's are illustrators and intellectual equals to their men. I have to admit I never really liked Don with Rachel, I preferred him with Midge. Not a popular opinion I know.
I do think Betty is stronger than Judy was but they both play dangerous games.
Makes me want to dig up some Lacanian film analysis about seeing and reflections, etc. even though I don't like Freud. However, there's certainly plenty of fodder for that sort of analysis from Mad Men.
latenac and Patti, yes. Vertigo was exactly the reference I got too — throughout that whole long staircase shot. The slow motion, the look on Don's face ("this is the woman I made … is this the woman I made?"), and the music. Especially the music.
Many here have called that music beautiful, and it was. I also found it a touch ominous.
From a lot of what I've read about this season, I believe that all the Hitchcock references are deliberate. I think we're going to see a lot of tension between what people seem and what they are — and the first place we'll see this (though I hope not the last) is in Betty. She has the most to gain from doing a deep dive into some kind of introspection.
Or walk on the wild side, which seems to be where she's going first.
Just to be clear on what I saw of Betty's reactions to her home life in FTWTY: from the stable scenes to the closing shots of Sally's ballet poses, one thing was obvious. Betty is tired of her life. She wishes she could pack it all up in a box and give it away, as she was doing with those baby clothes.
It is one thing to be told all your life that you are pretty, that you should feel lucky, that others are jealous of you. It is entirely another to want the life you have. Betty is in the classic mid-20th-century female bind: the girl who has been prepared from childhood for a certain kind of life, and suddenly finds herself waking up to the reality of living that life and no longer wanting it.
Great program. Too bad my mom isn't watching it.
Great comments.
Kay: I don't think you're going to like Betty if you don't by now, there might be moments when you think she's okay, but I think the ship has sailed on anything more. That's really okay.
In order to like Betty you have to buy into how much she is a product her of her time and how much pain and confusion there is underneath the surface and if you buy that most of her actions are those of a woman doing the best she can with what she's been given.
I agree with others on why she either thinks people are jealous of her or wants to make them jealous. Her self-worth is very much in her looks or in the way her life appears to others. But she, unlike Pete's idea for direct marketing, didn't arrive at this point independently.
Every clue about Betty's childhood and her relationship with her mother says that the parenting "skills" she uses with Sally are very similar to the way she was raised. Every comment about Sally's weight or how she would rather her daughter die than be scarred says something about what Betty was made to value, what was expected for her, and tells us that she operates with the best intentions for her daughter.
No argument that the results of that are pretty appalling.
If Betty's mother hadn't hammered home the point enough, Betty's only independence and sense of freedom was when she modeled. Her looks afforded her the only choices she ever had other than deciding who she'd marry.
Her looks are the thing that imprisoned her and freed her.
I think we all have friends who can't stop apologizing for how messy their house is, and we look and wish we could be that together. Or maybe we are that person. Is it because they're shallow or horrible? More likely they were raised to value a clean house. Most of us have also had friends that kept their marriage issues so well hidden that we were surprised to find out they were divorcing. (I saw her last week…she never said…) Then there are the friends who volunteer too much information.
Don tells her that he would have done anything to have a mother like her. "Beautiful, and kind, filled with love like an angel." Aside from the focus being on looks, as it had been that whole episode (Shoot) this is actually a sweet moment. When Don says she's filled with love, I don't think he's coo-coo bananas. I think that she is a good mother by the standards of her time, and I think she loves her children a lot. By the twisted values of the time, you can say that if she didn't love Sally, she wouldn't worry about her so much.
Joan implies to Peggy she needs to lose weight and it almost becomes a fight until Peggy realizes Joan is trying to be helpful. Joan is making a false assumption that Peggy wants what most of the women there want. Betty is laboring under a simillar delusiuon with her daughter.
With a few exceptions, the only thing to which a woman could aspire was wife and mother and the envy of her neighbors, and I want to say there is nothing wrong with that choice even today. Here's the thing though, today it's a choice, then it was the most reasonable goal.
Betty wasn't born in 1960. Matthew Weiner made a point with the set design to say that there needed to be details from the 50s and earlier, because that's realism. People don't just live in their now, they bring along the objects and beliefs of their pasts. Betty therefore is a product of the thirties, the forties, and the fifties, and before, because she is also a product of the people who raised her.
Betty's frame of reference for women working would include Rosie the Riveter. These are women who worked hard and did a hell of a job, and most of them willingly left their jobs in order to make room for the men coming home. It says a hell of a lot about what a woman can do, but it also sends a clear message about where society felt she really belonged.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVtgEgw15mQ&fe…
Betty could be a model, but there was no option to stay a model and maybe open her own agency and then… There had to be a Don Draper. Betty was shaped by her time and her environment and she is the norm. Peggy, well, she is a dog playing a piano.
Every Christmas they play "It's a Wonderful Life," and every year we see that the worst imagined fate for Mary is to be an unmarried librarian… with glasses!
The thing that makes Betty interesting is that she really is showing the strain of the expectations on her, she's getting angry that she was lied to, she is realizing she was sold a bullshit bill of goods, and she's an important part of the evolution of women in our society.
We don't get where we are today without Betty Draper's frustration.
Damn, Ms. D. I'm a writer, and I wish I'd written that.
Tipping my nonexistent hat to you. You get it … all of it.
You know what? I don't think I like Betty either. Not in the sense of, I'd like to meet her and be friends with her. I have no tolerance for people like that in real life; people obsessed with looks and weight and status, people who neglect their children, people who believe they have no choices.
But, because it's a TV show, I get to view Betty in a different way. I get to watch her unfold, see her suffer and long and try to break free and fail to even try. It's fascinating, and yes, I care.
When we started Basket of Kisses, Roberta was always saying how fascinated she was by Betty, and I was like, whatever. I'm fascinated by Don.
But in truth, I think a well-written, well-acted character is always fascinating, whether we "like" them or not. "Like" is kind of immaterial.
I don't think Betty would have liked *me,* or more accurately, I don't think she would have understood me. If I stepped into the Delorean and ended up moving to her block, even if I tried to conform I would make Helen pale in comparison. A woman who opted not to have kids? A house filled with toppling piles of books. A woman who only really cooks on Sundays?
If I'd been born in the time, I would probably be one of the women who wanted to be Betty. Maybe I'd go over for coffee and we would lie to each other. I probably would like her, because she is kind underneath it all, and clever enough when she wants to be, and because my life would have been filled with women much like Betty.
BTW, I might lie about my Valentine's Day, too. Even today. Not to make Francine feel worse, but because it would be easier and hurt less.
The majority of the times we saw Francine, she was not as polished as Betty. Of course, she was pregnant and nursing, but I think even while expecting Betty wouldn't let anyone see her as anything less than glowing mother-to-be. But here's the thing: Betty loves Francine and that says that she is more than Ice Queen Judging others. She's not intentionally mean even to her daughter.
The difference between a woman blaming her life on lack of choices today is that it's more likely to be *poor* choices. I can have sympathy for Betty's few choices, because I really believe she had limited options.
Ms. Darkly, love all your posts! However, I disagree with Betty's options. How am I going to explain this? Life dealt Betty a better hand than all the women on Mad Men. She wouldn't face the anti-Semitism Rachel Menken faced. She wouldn't face the racism her housekeeper Carla faced. She wouldn't face the just plain ignorance that Peggy faces because Peggy's "plain" (While Elisabeth Moss is pretty, her looks are played down!) and comes from a humble background. It's like Rachel, Carla and Peggy were all dealt a "worse" hand, with the decks stacked against them, but they know how to play it better.
Ms. Darkly, I do agree with you on one point, though! I'll never "like" the Betty character! Just like some viewers will defend Betty even if she kicked an old lady down a flight of stairs!
It's all good!
For the record, I would *never* defend Betty if she kicked an old lady down a flight of stairs. Even if that old lady's soon-to-be-serial-killer son had asked Betty for a lock of her hair! (o:
And boy, if y'all think Betty's a crap mother now, wait till 1963, when she gets her hands on The Feminine Mystique!
Kay, adversity is a great teacher. I think Rachel and Peggy and Carla have all developed resources that Betty hasn't, because she's sheltered. Not that she doesn't have responsibility for who and what she is; part of the fascination and frustration is watching her choose this miserable life.
But Betty and Trudy are of a kind, too spoiled to know what else to do but be spoiled.
Would I defend Betty for kicking an old lady down the stairs? Depends on who the old broad was. Anita Bryant's still alive, I believe.
Deborah, on adversity being a great teacher: second that. Also, beauty is no blessing. Certainly not an unmixed one. My friends who have been models (and tried afterward to be something — anything — else) told me all about that.
As for whether Betty would like me: I have no idea. She is the kind of woman I could know for years, see on a weekly basis, and never really know. I would not consider her a friend.
Betty has neighbors. I know that she thinks they're her friends, but they don't know who the hell she is. Measured by that standard — does Betty have any friends? Does Don?
Does anyone know who these people are?
I was a stay-at-home mom and I thought I was going to die. Really. Just explode. I lasted 3 years.
And I agree that Betty isn't a crap mom. I bet she does some good things. But the overall impression is that she's going to raise children as neurotic, enraged, confused, and locked up as herself.
I think the stairs scene really reminded me more of Vertigo. But maybe b/c I’ve taken a couple of film classes on that film. Don is looking at her in much the same way Jimmy Stewart is looking at Kim Novak attempting to recreate an image that he wants in his life rather than seeing her for who she really is. And in some ways Betty is a lot like the Kim Novak character playing a part for the Jimmy Stewart character that he falls in love with. Then when she’s herself the disappointment ensues b/c he can’t love her for who she really is.
Great comparison, latenac. The only difference is that where Scotty (Stewart) and Judy (Novak) are doing it consciously, Scotty creepily asking her to embody the image of his fantasy woman while Judy pathetically agrees to it as a way of holding onto him, Don and Betty are doing the same thing unconsciously, acting out the social roles expected of them.
Vertigo is a Hitchcock thriller, ending in madness and death.
Mad Men is a tragicomedy of manners, ending in discontent and unhappiness.
If Betty kicks an old lady down the stairs she's so off my Christmas card list. Wait, what Christmas card list? Well, I always mean to have one of those.
I know Betty was born with a lot of outward advantages, but I don't think she had that many more choices than women of lower social class. I would agree with a ticket to a better quality of life as defined as material possessions.
Women have traditionally had limited choices that varied slightly by social class. What feminism was supposed to do was open the choices, but in many cases we see today that it just changes the menu — different choices is not the same thing is more choices. Betty was offered a different menu than Peggy or Joan or Carla. Her menu would be considered by most to be preferable. I think Betty knows that, too, which would make her feel even more guilty for not being happy.
But a gilded cage is still a cage.
Most of the women at Sterling Cooper are women who want to be wives, because of a variety of reasons, but a major one being societal expectations. Betty, because she is beautiful rather than a good typist, was a model who wanted to be a wife, and she became a model as a form of rebellion.
The women at SC could have perhaps opted to be teachers or nannies. Betty could have also opted for that for a time, but would have probably been called an Au Pair. I'm not seeing a lot more choices between the two groups.
Rachel is certainly a part of a oppressed group, there will be people who won't accept her, but I don't buy her as being less privileged than Betty — to the contrary. Betty would love to have a department store be her closet and there was no option for Betty to run her daddy's business. Rachel is fortunate to have a father who would allow that, because she certainly didn't build it from the ground up. There is much to admire about Rachel, including her strong will and self-confidence, but she had some good breaks along the way.
In fact, Rachel has something Betty doesn't have. Eff you money. Betty and Francine have to worry about being Helen. What if Carlton or Don leaves? And with Don, you know it could happen. Sure Betty would get help from her dad, but he isn't the head of Menken's. Rachel can go tell Don to pee up a rope. Even if Rachel married Don, she could tell him to pee up a rope, because she never has to worry about being the divorced mother working at the jewelry counter.
She owns the jewelry counter.
Rachel suffers anti-Semitism, but she doesn't suffer it as a from a ghetto in Poland, but as a woman in New York City which is one of the better places in the world to be Jewish. She would find snide remarks and prejudice if she moved to Betty's block, although not necessarily from Betty, but the reverse is also the case.
I'm not one to say, "Boo hoo, beautiful blonde women have it so tough," but I think in 1960 all women were coming from a place that was restrictive by today's standards.
And I still acknowledge you don't have to like Betty, because you should connect with the characters that work for you. This is what you watch in your leisure time and so should be the experience you want.
Eff you money is a woman's ultimate power, weapon and protection. A woman who can leave a man and still be okay financially usually has a more equitable relationship.
In a way Pete is girl with no eff you money. You can easily see how his life choices are being affected by his wife's parents.
Betty is in a challenging situation because she is boxed in financially, emotionally and culturally. Her mother didn't give/teach her an emotional toolbox of survival skills. And her father didn't give/teach her a financial toolbox of skills. We already know that Don is controlling and vindictive. How does Betty grow emotionally while at the same time not having that growth undermined by Don. Don impresses me as the type of person who will try to destroy someone if they "leave" him, but at the same time will simply discard a person once he is one with them.
As a counterpoint to Betty's limited options for changing her current situation, look at Joan or Peggy. Lots of choices available.
correction:
Don impresses me as the type of person who will try to destroy someone if they “leave†him, but at the same time will simply discard a person once he is DONE with them.
I think Betty is a sucktastic mom by 2008 standards, hands down, but in the context of the time she was nearly ideal. It wasn't that people expected more of less of mothers then or now, it's that there are different expectations. She was parenting by the check-list of her time, just as people today parent with a different set of expectations.
We think it's horrible that Betty obsesses on Sally's weight, but she wants the best for Sally. We still want the best for our kids, but what that entails and how we get there is very different.
Betty's is overly concerned with appearances, but I'm eliminating that from my comments to also point out that women believed an orderly home was a happy and safe home. It was love.
Today a parent is possibly going to allow a few more cobwebs in order to interact more with her children, maybe not cringe if the fingerpainting gets out of hand, but it doesn't mean they love their children more.
We also are the daughters and granddaughters of the Bettys, so we get to see how they messed up their kids, we get that hindsight. Just like the kids of today are going to grow to adulthood and see the cracks in todays child-rearing standards.
The history of raising kids is a series of periods where we ignore them and worship them, expect them to grow up too fast and then expect them to stay children too long, and we tend to keep over-correcting the past philosophy.
The women in Victorian times who saw their kids for 10 minutes at dinner time before having the nanny shuffle them off to eat a meal away from teh adults? They totally thought they were doing the right thing.
There is nothing at all in Betty's demeanor that says she wants to hurt her children even if that is the net result. So I would say she uses the tools at her disposal to do her best. To quote Oprah, oh gawd, I'm quoting Oprah, "You do the best you can using what you know, and when you know better, you do better." Betty would do better if she knew better.
And so would we.
Francine is Betty’s friend. I think that is a true friendship. Francine showed up at her worst, her absolute worst, and Betty didn’t punish her for it. (At least, I assume she didn’t; they’re still hanging out.)
Deb, I’m so glad you understood my “card” analogy! I was so hesitant to type something that…cheesy! LOL!
I’d love to see more of Carla. Her experiences can give a different, new perspective to the whole world of Mad Men.
Kay, I've been looking into EEO law to see how it might affect Peggy, and although the law passed in 1962, I don't believe it went into effect until '63.
Perhaps this is redundant, but in Vertigo, the contrived reason for Jimmy Stewart to follow Madeleine around is because of her obsession with Carlotta Valdes, a woman who committed suicide a century earlier. In Mad Men, Betty is obsessed with her mother – and now in the second season, this obsession is being transferred onto the raising of her children. Of course, Betty's mother didn't commit suicide – she died of cancer *or some other ailment, I may have this wrong*. But it is interesting that the character of Madeline dies – twice. Could we be heading toward the death of "Betty", the character she and everyone in her culture has created? Or could we also be headed toward her actual death – a suicide (or a suicide attempt)? She seems to be getting stronger, but what has been continually pointed out in these comments is that she really does not have many other options available to her…yet.
I hope this sort of makes some sense.
I personally don’t think I can judge Betty as a “crap mother.”
If people saw some of my interactions with my children out of context, I am sure they’d think I was a bad mom too. Although I know I have my faults, I think I am overall a pretty good mom, and I have wonderful kids in spite of my not-so-pretty moments.
Being a stay-at-home mom is a really hard and stressful job. I don’t think people acknowledged that much in 1962! I think it’s much easier now for us to admit our weaknesses and dissatisfactions and seek help/support from a myriad of resources that weren’t available back then.
Sorry, but I am just feeling the need to defend Betty a bit here!
I think the job description of “mom” is a tough one … maybe the toughest. You have to be just incredible, and enjoy every moment of it (no resentment allowed). You have to love your kids without descending to their level, and still move swimmingly through the world of other adults. And when it’s time, you have to let the kids go: with just the right amount of emotion and lack of clinginess.
To be a good dad, what do you have to do? Show up.
Granted, my husband does a lot more, and always has. I’ve tried to be a good stepmom, and the kids tell me that I am. But I’ve had lots of room in that role, because their mom is both good at her job and imperfect. Everyone is. That’s what being human means.
My parents had a bunch of us and my mom almost went nuts, until she started working. We tried to help her, but we knew we were what was driving her insane. It was that stay-at-home job: she hated it. She’s not a kid person. Some people just aren’t. It wasn’t her fault.
I think that women of Betty’s time recognized their constraints, saw what they had to lose, and made do with the day-to-day tedium of the home and family. My mother was in a more transitional time, and she had more power over my dad. She could bargain for more, and she did.
Watching Betty begin to push against the boundaries of her very limiting role is exciting because it’s so unexpected — and she’s doing it 15 full years before my mom did. It’s not just unexpected from “that kind of woman” (Republican wife of very successful businessman in the suburbs), it’s not what Betty would expect of herself. It’s thrilling.
Finally, Kay — I saw nothing cheesy in your metaphor of the cards. I was impressed with it. This idea is very much an image of that time: my grandmother was a contract bridge player in her neighborhood.
I think she even played poker.
Ms. Darkly…we cool!;-)
I mentioned Carla specifically because she truly had limited choices. While I agree that all women were facing the battle against sexism (and still!), Carla still had to face racial discrimination (and still!). In 1960, first season setting, just passed a Civil Rights Law about voting. Then in 1962, the law about not discriminating due to color, race, gender, etc. was passed. The acts were on the books but not necessarily being enforced, even in a progressive place like New York state. (Can you all tell I’m a total history nerd!?) I’m in no way dissing domestic workers, but that is one of the jobs black ladies could rely on for steady work.
The women in my family would be in the same situation as Carla back in the day, so I’m interested in how Mad Men would tackle, if at all, the Civil Rights Movement.
Also, I wonder how an “old fogey” place like Sterling Cooper would handle a black lady joining the secretarial pool….
Speaking of Rachel…I miss her!!!!! She rocked! Loved how she told the truth, wore Chanel suits and did something to Don that left him too outta breath for a cigarette after sofa sex!
I can’t help but wonder if Don will find Betty more sexy once she starts to come out of her little world. I mean, Midge was the Anti Betty. Rachel was also very Anti Betty. It seems that Don has been drawn to strong women.
Maybe a little “Feminine Mystique” will help their relationship. Of course next week’s sneak peek seems to indicate that Don develops a taster for something a little more “exotic”.
I don’t think anyone has come out and said this directly, but forgive me if I repeat or state the obvious.
I think Don suffers from a Madonna-whore complex.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna-whore_complex
There's another image from the time perhaps more in line with the Betty theme of proper beautiful wife – the Breck Girl, descending the stairs at the Savoy on Valentine's Day after a hard day of housewifely duties and riding lessons. The McCall's perfect image of the perfect trophy wife. It is Madison Avenue 1960, that begins to crumble when Betty's old roommate shows up and she's the other side of the Madonna….It seems a perfect allegory to the Weiner myth of advertising building the stereotypical images that have only just begun to understand and overcome….
First off, such astute comments, I feel like everyone has articulated what I’ve been thinking.
As a unmarried librarian with glasses (gasp!), I want to say that I agree very much with Deborah’s assessment – I wouldn’t want to be friends with Betty IRL, but as a character on a show (whose writing often feels like that of a good short story, to me), her story fascinates me. There’s a dichotomy to her, the whole facade thing that is almost at a subconscious level; she’s so used to painting the pretty picture ‘without brush strokes’ that she doesn’t allow herself to know what she knows or feel what she really feels a lot of the time. For some reason – maybe the aforementioned dichotomy (that’s for my future therapist to discern), her story resonates a lot with me.
And I do find it interesting that she corrected Francine after Francine had made the anti-Semitic remarks, and her sympathetic behavior toward Helen – on the one hand, she’s the picture of conformity, but on the other hand, she does play with dissent in her own way.
Anne, yes, let’s please get together and kick Anita Bryant down some stairs.
Wisefish, excellent points. I think being a stay-at-home mom is one of the most important and least valued jobs. I for one, don’t think Betty is a bad mom — I was referencing some of the other comments.
And as you can see from my comments, I like her! I loved it when she stuck it to Don last season, with those criticisms from her analyst’s couch! I just hope her frustration and fascination with “party” girls don’t lead her to trouble.
I am laughing at the fact that I am a librarian, and then in my post, I went ahead and wrote ‘As a unmarried librarian,’ when it should have been ‘As AN unmarried librarian’. Ah well. Nobody’s perfect (except Betty, of course!).
Laura,
You’ve lost for Librarian Street Cred.
I think we’ll see more of Carla. Last season she was mentioned and seen briefly, but with Betty getting out of the house more, and having her be in two separate scenes in FTWTY, I think we might get more of her story.
First, these are very articulate comments but, at the same time, many of you may be overanalyzing.
I see Don and Betty Draper as archetypes for a particular worldview held by both MM's writers and, by extension, the American entertainment industry itself. MM could never present these characters–most notably Don Draper–as heroes. Rather, they give the outward impression of being heroes but the fascination comes from watching their feet of clay being exposed with each passing episode. Why is that? Is it because such a thing is ripe for dramatic exposition? Or is it because, inwardly, the mindset of those in show business today are anti-hero, anti-business, anti-capitalism and, ultimately, anti-American.
Your comments, articulate though they may be, failed to mention the references to Ayn Rand and 'Atlas Shrugged' by Don Draper's boss during seaon one. My take is that the Randian hero (think of a mentally healthy Don Draper as ubermensch Howard Roark), or Gregory Peck in 'The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit' have no place in MM's universe. Instead, people are NEVER what they appear to be and the process of watching MM is the process by which we lift the rock of American life to see the insects beneath. In that sense, MM has more in common with the works of someone like David Lynch rather than Alfred Hitchcock.
Second, lay off the Anita Bryant gibes. They're unworthy of people as intelligent as all of you seem to be.
I saw you guys made the IMDb Hit List today! Nice work… Good article too btw, I hate is when people only fuss about Hitchcock's blondes and how powerless, victimized, etc they are. They must be watching something of his I haven't…
Gilliat, what is your real purpose in posting that Mad Men is anti-American?
Also, Gilliat, are you the 'net nanny? Intelligent people, such as the Basketcases, can express a dislike for a purveyor of homophobia like Anita Bryant! She's ridiculous!
On a semi-related note, the opening of the pilot (the introductory scene between Don and Midge) was lifted almost directly from the opening of Hitchcock's Vertigo, complete with the artist girlfriend named Midge.
Maybe that just goes to show Betty isn't the only Hitchcockian character in Mad Men. Hitchcock's bread and butter, especially in movies like Vertigo and Rear Window, was twisting and warping the lives of affluent, good looking postwar Americans to show the madness lurking below the surface. Mad Men accomplishes basically the same goal, albeit with less espionage and murder. Perhaps these throwbacks to Hitchcock movies are meant to acknowledge the Hitchcockian nature of the characters' reality.
Kay, don't worry about net nannies. If anyone gets out of hand, Roberta and I reserve the absolute right to delete comments, and we've done so in the past.
I think, so far, we've only used our absolute totalitarian authority to remove comments with real names and spoilers, but nastiness is not allowed.
I like free-ranging commentary, and it's fine if things get heated, but our backyard, our baseball, our rules. Anything posted here goes under the name "Lipp Sisters" and we will preserve the standards of our name.
Gilliat, while I agree that much (not all) of Hollywood is anti-American, I do not see that in Mad Men. What I see is a portrait of real people, with good and bad qualities. None of us are exactly as we seem, and few of us are simply "bad" or "good".
What I find most refreshing about this show is that none of the characters are villains and none are saints. You can see why they do the less palatable things they do. For example, for all his weasellishness, Pete generates empathy from me when I see him being routinely emasculated by his in-laws, his parents and people at work. That doesn't mean I like how he treats certain people — but I see where he is coming from. Same for all of them, really. And if we all look honestly at our friends, colleagues, et cetera, we can see that in them, as well. It's rare to find a show that reflects that.
I think there's actually a good chance that Don Draper will end up being a Randian type hero. I think reading Meditations in an Emergency despite his disdain for Youth proves he can still be a chameleon and change as needed.
I hardly think being anti-business, anti-capitalism and/or anti-hero means being anti-American. Unless we're defining American as a crude stereotype. Not to mention I would hardly categorize Hollywood that way it's all about the business and capitalism.
Latenac — I completely agree about Don Draper being Randian. I think those references last season were not gratuitous. I would also suggest that heroes can be very flawed! The important thing is people trying to learn and be better. When Don found out his brother killed himself, he tried to correct his own mistakes, in regards not appreciating his family, et cetera.
IMO, Mad Men celebrates midcentury American capitalism as much as it shows us its underbelly. Everything has an up side and a down side, and damned if I don;t find myself actually tearing up from the beauty of it during some of Don's presentations.
As for Joan, she may be having fun on the way to being Betty, but there's no doubt that Betty's life is the one she's aiming for. As she said to Peggy in the pilot, "If you play your cards right, you'll be living in the country, and not working at all."
My mother was an office worker in the early 1960's, and the way she described her workplace and colleagues when she would talk about it, it's uncanny how this show has captured that dynamic. Betty has every reason to imagine other women being jealous of her, because her life is the one every little girl in the forties and fifties was raised to aspire to. Sure, there were women who didn't or couldn't set that goal for themselves, but they were a minority.
Education in the forties and fifties placed a ridiculously high value on conformity. You can see it in the educational films from that era, and according to my parents it was reinforced at every opportunity. A girl who found herself wanting a different kind of life would first have to have a huge internal struggle to overcome that conditioning.
That's why tranquilizer prescriptions were handed out like cheap Valentines to the Bettys and Francines of suburban America. Even when I was a kid in the late 1970's it was common – heck, it was a status symbol – for an upper-middle-class homemaker to take daily Valium. It was called "Mother's Little Helper."
These vintage drug ads: http://community.livejournal.com/vintage_ads/8817… are worthy of Sterling-Cooper, and you see that several of them target "overemotional" housewives!
TUM, those ads are intense.
Excellent site! Those ads are scary. Especially how they are hawking drugs that are now considered highly addictive. My hospital just stopped using Demerol. If you get too much in your system, you get toxicity. You start to twitch and will lapse into seizures if you get too much.
We used to use Compazine for Nausea, not sleep.
Loved the add of the lady yelling at the kid with the vaccum. Some of these ads aim at the "1960 Angry Mom" some of us have been talking about.
1. Yeah, I think most people get Rand would put a big poster of Don Draper over her bed.
2. No such thing as overanalyzing. Joss Whedon said "bring your own subtext," and everything he says is true and factual.
Seriously, it means that our minds always make connections, some intended by the creators, some that were unintended, but clearly there when pointed out, and some entirely in the minds of individual viewers. The cure for overanalysis is to not connect with the show, to only view at at the most surface level.
Right you are, Ellelque. Compazine is big pharma's answer to nausea, although it works by making you too sleepy to feel sick.
There are better treatments for nausea, but you don't get them from your doctor. Here in California, you might start there.
Underpants Monster, great site! I'd seen it before — being a fan of the retro as well as the dark underside of the retro, people tend to send me these things. Have you seen this? http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.htm…
Check out the links to the right. I plan to post a sister site to this — the Weight Watchers Diet Cards from the 1970's — over on the Swingtown thread.
Finally, when Coop mentioned Ayn Rand to Don last season, it kind of died on the vine. You never saw our man reading Atlas Shrugged — not the way he read Exodus, or The Best of Everything, or even the bar guy's Meditations In An Emergency. I have a theory about this. I think it's because that book doesn't work with Don's idea of who he is.
Like everyone else, Don's a product of everything he has seen and lived through, all eras of his life past and present. He's among the last of the Greatest Generation guys: an After-You man, not a Me-Firster like Pete. Although some of his choices have been selfish (Midge, Rachel), they have also been self-protective and palliative. In general, he lives with an acute curiosity about and sensitivity to life as it is lived by others.
Or maybe we never saw Don reading Atlas because it just wasn't any good, having been rejected by a ton of publishers before it was finally picked up. And wasn't Roark in The Fountainhead, anyway?
Whatever. Everything that woman wrote sort of blurred together …
Anne B.
You touched on what was so cool about Don; his ability to see, so to speak, things from another person's perspective. He sought knowledge from the people actually living that experience. I really enjoyed that about his character.
Thanks, Kay. And by the way — you are a class act. Maybe the classiest on this site.
I haven't been all that well lately, and besides I wanted to annoy my kid … so I watched FTWTY the other night. (My God. This works so well, especially when they want to watch something like "From G's to Gents". Which has its own merits — but I digress.) Peggy really is Don's protege, isn't she?
I can't believe it took me this long to notice this. Slow? Me? Yeeessss.
So we've come a long way from the man who stormed out of a meeting because a woman spoke to him in a direct manner.
I watched my own dad struggle, and finally succeed, in changing … but he did this when he was in his 60's, and the great risks of his life were behind him. Don is moving through his own changes and trying on others' perspectives at a time when the rewards for doing that are minimal to nonexistent — at least for a man in his position.
Thanks again, Kay. Thou art awesome.
Blink, blink, blink. I'm confused.
@Gilliat: Just what does it mean to be "anti-hero, anti-business, anti-capitalism and, ultimately, anti-American?" For that matter, what does it mean to be the opposite–that is, a hero, a business, a capitalist, an American? Who defined those things? And who said there was only one definition for them?
Back to Ayn Rand, I think what soured Don on it was when Cooper recommended it to Pete.
Thanks, Anne B.!;-)
Betty Draper is a very pretty young woman. But have any of you actually seen Grace Kelly? Apart from being white and blond, there's no resemblance between the two.
I disagree. I think the resemblance is compelling.
Really Scaramouche? You don't think this woman ( http://bp0.blogger.com/_OAh4Xl94vrU/Rw-d5I9rs5I/A… ) looks like Betty Draper? Now, look at this picture of January ( http://blogs.amctv.com/mad_men_photo_gallery/ep10… ). They could be sisters.
Yes, I've seen Grace Kelly. I think I speak for many here in my affection for her — and I understand why she was Hitchcock's first-choice blonde. (My favorite line of hers from Rear Window: "Jeff, if you're squeamish, just don't look.")
Many things separate Grace Kelly and January Jones, not the least of which are a matter of many decades and a huge difference in upbringing. But I take your point, Scaramouche. I think Jones has grown into her role very well, and I'm impressed with where she's taking it.
Remember, she is playing a very young woman who is childlike even by the standards of her time: the Grace Kelly resemblance ends with her appearance, and the resemblance is one Betty cultivates. Kelly had an innate maturity that Betty's character does not share. January Jones understands this, and she is doing a good job portraying it.
Best to all of you. I'm going to see that new documentary, American Teen, tonight!
I think Hitchcock might have preferred Tippi Hedren until they had a legendary falling out. Something happened in her trailer and allegedly it ended with Hedren making a comment on his non-svelteness. He kept her under contract for 2 years, paying her every week but never using her. When her contract was up she wasn't the same hot commodity. So, yeah, he screwed over her career.
Hedren won't say exactly what happened in the trailer, but acknowledges the rest, as well as feeling the director was unusually attached to her. He once sent a realistic looking Tippi doll in a pine box, and it traumatized Melanie Griffith because it looked like her mother… in a casket.
Hitchcock was a very neurotic man with serious problems with women, and he exorcised those problems on film. In the best of his films (Notorious, Vertigo, Psycho), he examines and works with his neuroses, inquiring, exploring: What is the nature of this madness? How far can it go? How can it be healed?
I despise The Birds, which is brilliantly, BRILLIANTLY made, to no end other than to have nature rise up and destroy all women. Not what I'd call an examination or exploration.
Yeah, they told Hedren they would use mechanical birds for the attic scene and didn't. She doesn't think that he ever had any intention of doing so. She finally refused to film any longer when one of the birds wounded her just under her eye.
Definite issues.
And allegedly impotent most of the time.
There were a series of books he put out for tweens though, before tweens were a word, and I adored them. A lot of classic writers, and a really sneaky way to get kids to read some well-written stuff. Each book had a theme like Spellbinders in Suspense or Haunted Houseful.
Anne, I must respectfully disagree about Atlas Shrugged. I think it was quite good. Rand was not a great writer in the literary sense, but she was a great thinker, and had very important things to say. Therein lies the importance of her novels.
And yes, Howard Roark was from The Fountainhead.
"Back to Ayn Rand, I think what soured Don on it was when Cooper recommended it to Pete."
Ooooooh, Deb, you so stole my thunder with that … if Don was ever contemplating reading Atlas, it disappeared when he realized Cooper was just generally proselytizing.
I'm not an expert on Rand, but I think it remains to be seen whether the entire show is a true Randian commentary or if it was just a S1 trial balloon.
**the Grace Kelly resemblance ends with her appearance, and the resemblance is one Betty cultivates. Kelly had an innate maturity that Betty’s character does not share.
I think I disagree with this statement. As a princess, Grace Kelly had maturity, but when she was an actress? I thought she was kind of…let's just say flimsy. The only thing mature about her were the men with whom she was paired. As I understand it, she was the Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan of her day. In fact, I think we even discussed that here: http://www.lippsisters.com/2008/03/20/betty-as-gr…
As Hitchcock femmes go, I think Bergman was the best. Yes, Grace Kelly was beautiful and stylish, but I never felt a great deal of depth or gravity from her, as I did with Ingrid Bergman's characters. Bergman could be cool and distant, but also vulnerable, warm, and sensuous. Plus, she (and maybe Eva Marie Saint) had the acting chops to carry her roles. Tippi Hedren, Kim Novak, Grace Kelly? Umm, not so much. But they looked the part, and were greatly assisted by fabulous location shots, beautiful fashions, lush, technicolor photography, and cool leading men like Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, and Sean Connery. Bergman could be in a scene without her leading man, and you'd still be interested in her character. With the others, I just kind of dug their clothes and marveled at the technical beauty of the shot.
@hullaballo I agree that Ingrid was the best of the actresses Hitchcock ever regularly worked with, even though I only liked one of their movies (Notorious, of course, I could not stand the simplified psycho-analysis in Spellbound and Under Caprica was pretty muddled) But her greatness is so great that she surpasses any of those roles. One is more likely to thing Casablanca, Impromptu, Gas Light, etc. for Bergman, but for Grace Kelly, Kim Novak or Tippi Hedren their work with Hitchcock dominated their careers. Ingrid Bergman has an in-imitable version of herself, that is brought to all the roles, not roles that define her.
On a side note I read that Hitchcock never forgave Bergman for running away with another director (Roberto Rossellini). He did want to work with Grace Kelly again after she married. Given the quotes brought here about Hitchcock's thoughts on blondes vs. brunettes he would have probably been aghast by the Italianate versions herself Ingrid produced in Isabella and Isotta.
Ms. Darkly, you're right, my librarian street cred has diminished – then again, librarians don't really have much street cred lol… (though the many articles in the NYT in the last year show that we're apparently getting 'cooler'.)
About Betty and Grace, I do think there's a physical resemblance there, though if you were to put a picture of January/Betty next to a picture of Grace, they probably wouldn't look so alike. But in my mind, Betty evokes a certain physicality, the features are similar to those of Grace Kelly and there's a certain, well, grace there (and I'm referring to a societal 'ideal' of what is appealing and attractive, not an ideal in which I believe).
As Anne B. eloquently said, I do think it's something that Betty cultivates. It's interesting how the projection of that idea on to Betty by others is something that has happened to her throughout her adult life (evidently), and something that she has incorporated into her identity.
Laura, I don't see the Grace Kelly thing as much either… to me the shape of the face is so different. I get the Hitchcock blonde thing though, but I more see Tippi Hendren.
But take a look at this, which Deborah put together several months ago.
And Tippi Hendren was left-handed, just like January/Betty. Ok, non-sequitor and not really meaningful, but as a lefty myself, I can't help but notice when others are!
Many thanks, Roberta, for the link to the 'Betty as Grace Kelly' post. Eagerly headed there right now…
Sorry, it's actually Hedren. And I used the past tense in my last post. Tippi is still very much alive.
Laura,
Hedren is not only alive, she is a great animal rights advocate, something for which I admire her greatly. An interesting aside, having to do with Hitchcock, is that it was on the set of The Man Who Knew Too Much that Doris Day decided to become involved in animal welfare. She was disgusted with how some of the animals used in one of the scenes were being treated.
My husband would toss me over in a second for Doris Day in her prime. That's okay, I would toss him over for Cary Grant at an age.
I can't believe it's Hedren. I have said, written and typed Hendren for my entire life.
You live, you learn.
Doris Day was, and is, a beautiful woman and a greatly underrated singer and actress. (And Ms. Darkly, I would throw over my boyfriend for William Holden at any age!)
Cary Grant…(**eyes mist over**) **sigh**
I strive for that wonder urban look and attitude…
I thought it was Hendren as well, Roberta! Until I looked it up to make sure that she was still with us. Ms. Darkly said it best, you live, you learn.
Rondi, very interesting, thanks for the tidbit. I didn't know about Hedren's animal rights work, very admirable!
I don't see Mad Men as offering a Randian commentary… or did you mean a commentary on Randism?
I see it as documenting all the forces at play in the early 1960s, and while Midge's beatnik pals were clamoring for a socialist utopia, Rand's Objectivism was a serious counterweight to that. The movement has stalled and is quite weak in modern times, but at the time was very strong and seemingly getting stronger. Aside from pure spitefulness
there's a reason Rand's books were in Dirty Dancing– which took place in about the same timeframe and was nowhere near as stellar as Mad Men.
(But wasn't trying to be, of course– if Don and Betty burst into song or an impromptu group dance number at some point that is not a dream sequence, I will have to stop watching the show.)
Nobody puts Ayn Rand in the corner.
Ms. D, that is sig-worthy.
Ayn Rand carries nobody's watermelon.
Hah! Ayn Rand just became our very own Chuck Norris!
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/