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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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/