Deborah’s post about Bobbie and Don inspired today’s entry. It got me thinking about something that I was already processing in my sleep and that was: sacrifice and love. Now, I don’t know if this is all going to cohere into a clear entry since a) I just woke up from a bad night’s sleep and b) I just forgot what b was. But anyway, bear with me.
I don’t think I’m the only one who has the notion that sacrifice is somehow GOOD, especially when it comes to love. You give up what you want in order to please your beloved or you work long hours in order to put your children through college, etc. But I’m here to explore worthless sacrifices, the ones that not only don’t get you anywhere but, in fact, end up jeopardizing everything you hold dear. And in Don’s case what he has sacrificed is his own real self.
As a result of his abusive childhood, Don has grown up believing that the person he IS, Dick Whitman, is intrinsically unlovable. This is common in victims of abuse; in order to survive childhood, we have to uphold the idea that their parents are GOOD. After all, if their parents are bad, that doesn’t bode well for the child’s physical or psychological survival. So, of course, if Mom and Dad keep punishing the kid, then it follows that the kid deserves it somehow. “If these powerful people keep punishing me, I MUST be a terrible person.”
In our culture, we like to believe that the strong just get over these things automatically somehow. “Put it behind you.” “Let it go.” And, my favorite, “Get over it already!” Here’s the problem, though, when we talk about psychological wounds, forgetting is not a cure. You can’t just move past them, anymore than you can expect a broken leg to heal on its own. But when it comes to abuse, our culture expects complete recovery without having to face the pain. In fact, it DEMANDS it–it’s not just manly but the American way. Except that it doesn’t work and, if anything, these expectations make it much much harder for victims of trauma and abuse to heal and get on with their lives.
Given the culture and the times, Dick Whitman tried hard as hell to get the hell over it –the abuse, the hatred, the contempt, the neglect– and his method was to run away. In fact, he ran away into a different identity. Since he couldn’t find love as Dick because Dick was bad, he was going to make the ultimate sacrifice: he was going to kill Dick Whitman and find love, power and success as Don Draper.
Now, impostors abound in love stories, particularly in Hollywood movies. The nice but poor guy (or untalented or unsuccessful or uncool, etc.) adopts a different persona in order to get the girl. Hijinks ensue until, at the very end, his masquerade is discovered and it turns out that the girl loves him ANYWAY. Somehow these chicks are never disgusted or pissed off or shocked or, as I would imagine, even slightly creeped out. (I mean, I would be, even if the guy looks like Don Draper. If you could lie to me for so long, what else are you capable of and also, who ARE you?) But either way, at heart the “masquerade” is both self-hatred and the fantasy of escaping into a different life. And certainly I can totally relate with the latter fantasy, I would even say that escape it’s *the* American fantasy par excellence.
In MM, however, this same theme is explored in full and as such, it depicts the real pain of sacrificing your real self. Don Draper is unhappy with Betty because he can never be his authentic self; rather, he believes that his princess will never love Dick Whitman, the bastard son of a whore who grew up on a farm and wore a bowl cut. Not only is Don unhappy when he’s good, he’s dimmer, less of a vibrant human being. He’s emasculated and, really, he did it himself. He is being “good” at the expense of his integrity as a human being.
Here’s the irony: When Don is “bad,” when, in a way, he lets Dick out, he comes alive. Bad Dick sleeps around. Bad Dick seduces a client. Bad Dick sets up Roger for humiliation. Bad Dick is even a bit of a thug (witness his methods of persuasion with Bobbie). And, yes, I’ll admit it I’m disturbed by my reaction but I found myself rooting when Dick manhandled Bobbie and not because I found it sexy but because he drew some boundaries. He didn’t let Bobbie bully him.
So, what gives? In order to be true, does Don have to be bad? Is it either/or?
Well, not exactly. After all, he sleeps with Bobbie as if he were sleepwalking. I think the difference is that when he’s genuinely himself, he has a sense of agency, if you will. The difference is that in Season 1, Bad Dick rebelled against self-imposed values and in the case of Bobbie, he’s not rebelling, really. He’s thrown in the towel, almost as if to punish himself, like Deborah astutely points out. Bobbie is bad and Dick is bad, so he deserves her.
In order for Don to be true to himself, he might have to reconsider whether the life he’s made is really what he needs. As Peggy must confront whether she’s really cut out for motherhood, Don has to face whether he’s really meant to live in the suburbs in a house with the white picket fence. The kind of love he’s bought has come at the huge cost of losing himself. By choosing it, not only has he harmed himself but he’s causing a tremendous amount of pain to everyone involved. You could even argue that Don has never been as bad as when he tries to be good.
65 Responses to “Love and the Ultimate Sacrifice”
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I do like this blog. People can disagree or just discuss things respectfully. Yay, us.
Next time I participate I might use an alias but I'll let you know it's me. I want to think up something cool.
@ Ellelque #50
“You’ll have to believe that I will forget this. I don’t want you treating me badly because I remind you of it. This can be fixed.â€
Thank you! Very interesting, as it relates to both the hospital flashback and the later office scene.
Maybe Matt should have titled this episode, "This can be fixed." It would have been easier to understand than the cryptic "New Girl"
Did anyone else see the video of Matt explaining this episode? He insinuated that the reason that Don went with Bobbie to Stoneybrook was he was upset about Rachel.
Of course, sometimes he gives in to his demons.
Ooh! Ooh! New thought!
He might have taken an extra swipe at Peggy because he's angry that she saw him at his worst. He's only used to being seen behaving badly by participants in the behavior… and let's face it, this went lower than his norm.
Fair? Of course not. He called her, and after all, he's also seen her at her worst. But if I'm right, it's not exactly conscious on his part…
And CW, welcome. We love straight men.
Robin Veith was Weiner's writing assistant through much of last season, and she got made a writer. This may (I don't feel like checking) be her first writing credit as a solo act. Robin brought the story of her mother shooting pigeons to the table, which Weiner evolved into Shoot.
“You’ll have to believe that I will forget this. I don’t want you treating me badly because I remind you of it. This can be fixed.”
I use CC
Ellelque, I haven't seen Weiner discuss this episode, but I definitely thought that this bit of acting out with Bobbie, getting really drunk–"I don't feel anything"–and getting into an accident had everything to do with Don's being upset about Rachel.
I don't think Don likes Bobbie, or is even particularly attracted to her, and I agree that his dalliances with her are self-destructive, but I like Bobbie a lot more after her scenes with Peggy. That really humanized her for me, softened some of her crass edges.
Marly, I think your post is awesome. I don't think that Don is being Don when he's being "good" (i.e. living up to some ideal that isn't him) and is being Dick when he's being "bad" (i.e. being his "real" self)–or that, like Ellelque suggests, Dick is the id and Don is the super-ego. "Dick=bad Don and Don=good Don" seems like an oversimplification to me. But then I wondered if I was oversimplifying what you wrote.
I'm inclined to think that Dick has become the repository, if you will, for Don's shadow. Dick isn't "the real Don," whoever that is; rather, Dick is Don's shadow, his dark side. Don has subconsciously assigned all the "bad" behavior to Dick, and Dick is thus the shadow-side who acts out. When is Don more himself, more authentic? When he's having affairs or when he's defending a lady's honor in an elevator? Arguably in neither case. When is Don most authentic? When he's with Rachel, for one thing. Maybe when he's looking out for Peggy, or being honest with little Bobby. (Here I must pause to gush over Jon Hamm's amazing, amazing performance. Gush.)
I agree that Don is a highly fragmented person, and that those pieces have to fly apart before he can become an integrated person. Again, I think of Weiner's comment–I think it was his–from the NYT Magazine story that Don might end up at Esalen in the 1970s.
Hi all,
Blogging at last after a long week of medical … stuff.
What I thought for the first time, two weeks ago — and what hit me again tis week — is exactly how much pressure is on these men (perhaps I mean, this particular man?) that modern men do not currently have to face.
In today's world, where the two-income family is the default, there is no threshold of manhood. There are multiple thresholds to womanhood: multiple places where we can know within ourselves that we have made it or are still waiting to make it. For men: not so much. With the double advent of the all-volunteer army and the two-income family, men have sort of become … I don't know. Tire-changers?
But were the 60's the good old days? Look at Don: childhood abuse survivor, war veteran, and STILL fighting for every last step up that corporate ladder. All the pressure is on him, everywhere. Now he's sleeping with the wife of a client — not because he likes her, but just to keep the damn peace. He's a snow leopard: he is working all. The. Time!
And Betty has no idea. She's gonna take away the man's salt, now? One more tiny window closes in Don's puny citadel of happiness. That scene made me feel like crying — and not just because meatloaf-with-ketchup was what my own annoyed mother used to make for us, when I was a kid.
Poor Don. This is all I kept thinking. Also: you had to be a real man to sit and eat a hearts-of-palm salad without letting your fake girlfriend see that your real girlfriend and her new husband had shattered your heart into a billion pieces and scattered it around the restaurant. Don's a real man.
Finally: my favorite line of the episode was Peggy saying to Don, "This can be fixed."
"This can be fixed." This, from someone who knows all about the things that can't. My God, she's a woman of the future, isn't she?
Thanks to people who think like that, procedures like the one I had on Monday morning (laparascopic supracervical hysterectomy, or partial hysterectomy — ending 20 years of reproductive torment for me) are possible for women like me.
I love, love, LOVE the modern world.
Anne….Wishing you a full and speedy recovery!!
Thanks, Kay. I'm well on my way … this blog is terrific medicine!
and not just because meatloaf-with-ketchup was what my own annoyed mother used to make for us, when I was a kid.
My son saw the meatloaf and pointed out it was a "real meal." Not grilled cheese. Not something Carla whipped up. Which is perhaps why I think there's real affection in it.
Anne, I too wish you a speedy recovery. I had an ablation two years ago and it ended 35 years of torment. I do love modern medicine.
Inanna: I think you bring up some excellent points. When I wrote about Don being authentic, I didn't mean to imply that his Don persona was not the real him. After all, he was the one who worked his way up the ladder; undoubtedly, the aspects of Don that make him Don were already part of Dick Whitman. (Are you confused yet?) The thing is, I get the feeling that on some level, Don doesn't know this. And so he's ultra-guarded and being in a constant state of guardedness is apt to make one less authentic since one's emotions and reactions are less organic.
And that constant state of watchfulness might be a reenactment of the state of high anxiety that abused kids live in. He walks on eggshells all the time, worrying about what he says, how he comes off, etc. And living like that can finally be so unbearable that he self-sabotages, in the fashion of those who after a while figure, "Hey, what's the use, I'm going to be punished anyway and I can't do anything right so I might as well do what I want!!" The self-sabotage, in turn, leads to trouble which leads to others getting angry, which leads to him feeling horribly guilty and thus feeling bad, etc. This is what I mean about Don sacrificing his real self; as you astutely pointed out, the fragmentation of his identity. The problem is that people with a history of abuse often think in black and white which might lead someone like Don to think of his own self as Bad Dick and Good Don. (Not that I have any clues as to that AT ALL, obviously, since it's not in any of the scripts.) The point being, that Don FEELS like a fake and is always worried about being found out. And for someone who is, at heart, a pretty moral human being, that's a helluva deal to make in order to leave your past behind. Ya know?
As an aside, I have a good friend who also came from an abusive childhood and she told me that for years, she hated it when the phone rang because she thought it was someone calling to tell her she'd been bad. And this is one of the sweetest people I've ever met! I kept thinking about that when I wrote that post because I think that this is what Don is living with. I mean, Don is reduced to feeling utterly powerless when a squirt like Pete threatens to tell on him. When you don't live authentically, anyone can manipulate you emotionally.
Also, Anne: Get well soon and a speedy recovery!
I haven’t seen Weiner discuss this episode, but I definitely thought that this bit of acting out with Bobbie, getting really drunk–â€I don’t feel anythingâ€â€“and getting into an accident had everything to do with Don’s being upset about Rachel.
I think seeing Rachel was the final straw. There’s been a lot of Don not feeling, and of Don not wanting to feel, going on.
Also, after each episode is aired, I run straight to the AMC website to see the “Inside Mad Men†for that episode. Weiner always shines a bright light.
I’m inclined to think that Dick has become the repository, if you will, for Don’s shadow. Dick isn’t “the real Don,†whoever that is; rather, Dick is Don’s shadow, his dark side. Don has subconsciously assigned all the “bad†behavior to Dick, and Dick is thus the shadow-side who acts out. When is Don more himself, more authentic?
Reminds me of the Buffy with the Xander split. All your best traits in one part; all your worst in the other. Don doesn't think he needs to learn to integrate (like the rest of us do) because he is afraid to contaminate Don Draper.
Anne B, heal well; we’re happy to be your medicine!
The aspects of Don that make him Don were already part of Dick Whitman. The thing is, I get the feeling that on some level, Don doesn’t know this. And so he’s ultra-guarded and being in a constant state of guardedness is apt to make one less authentic since one’s emotions and reactions are less organic.
And that constant state of watchfulness might be a reenactment of the state of high anxiety that abused kids live in.
I think this is analysis is really insightful. I'm curious whether (or how) Weiner and/or Hamm take into account Don's abusive childhood when thinking about characterization. I mean, it's a pretty sophisticated show when this level of analysis is possible. (But this whole blog shows that, doesn't it?)
I just finished a book, Widdershins by Charles DeLint, where the adult protagonist is a childhood abuse survivor. As a child, in order to cope, she attributed all her "bad behavior" and the attendant "punishment" to a character in one of her storybooks. The abuse was happening not to her, but to that girl. That was how she disassociated enough to survive. As an adult, she learns that there is an Otherworld or dreamspace in which that little girl from the book is real, with those things really happening to her, continually. The adult has to act to save the little girl and thereby free herself from harms done to her in the past. The book is ultimately about healing all the parts of ourselves. It's a harrowing and incredibly powerful read.
crazy for b of kisses. pretty wild for MM.
beggin' the writers to keep us loving Don & the gang thru all their bad behavior ~ not let 'em slide into caricatures. Let us like, disagree,
laugh, cry… about each of them while they smoothly capture our heart.
Sometimes i find nothing interesting about one of the gals or guys which
ain't good for such a stupendous cast & show.
please writers: put something laudable within each of them:
Don showing genuine tenderness toward Betty or Peggy exhibiting
love toward someone (like her mom or a friend), give her more heart.
Make us fall in love with all these folks over and over again.
thank you for listening.