Mother's Little Helper
Francine to Betty in the beauty parlor:
Do you want a Miltown? It’s the only thing that’s keeping me from chewing my nails off.
At the close of S1, Francine was losing her shit in a pretty serious way. She was talking about killing her whole family. Anyone who knows your basic Psychosis 101 knows that talk like that is an indicator of something seriously not being right.
And so here she is, end of S2, with a solution in her purse.
Who knows what brought it on, the initial crazies? She might have been getting crispy on amphetamines, to help lose that baby weight and keep her husband. So tranquilizers are the perfect next step.
This is such a subtle line of dialogue, I almost missed it. But what a way to give us a little preview of the meatier sixties, yes?
Basket of Kisses: The unofficial blog of AMC's Mad Men. Where all the cool kids meet & greet to talk about Don Draper, Janie Bryant, Christina Hendricks, Jon Hamm, Matthew Weiner, & subtexty things.
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June 26th, 2009 at 6:06 am
It was the late '70's when I was a little girl, so Valium was the drug of choice by then, but it really struck me. My parents were upwardly mobile,so Mom had two circles of women friends: one working-class, and the other, the older wives of Dad's upper-middle-class colleagues. I guess they were Francine and Betty, ten years along. Aside from their speech and dress, one thing that distinguished them from the other group is that they were all taking Valium. It came up in discussion every time there was a large group, comparing doses, side effects, etc.
June 26th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Long time lurker, first time poster! I also said "holy shit" when Francine was talking about Miltown.
It reminded me of the book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood – the abusive 1960s mother, Vivi Walker, was on Dexamyl (half Dexedrine,
half Miltown) before she beat her children. Bad stuff.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:43 am
I totally noticed it, and put it in the Cultural References. It’s super significant; an entire generation of sedated housewives.
We discussed maybe post-partum psychosis with Francine back at the end of S1; somehow she had to find a way to get it back together.
June 26th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
A friend's mother confided that in the '50s, isolated with small children in a suburb without a car (which her husband took to work), no money of her own (on an "allowance" which her husband doled out as he saw fit, right up thru the early '70s) she made the mistake of crying on her doctor's shoulder, and he doled out the "tranquilizers" (barbituates).
Which kept her sedated enough to complain less to her husband (which may have been the point), but she was bitter still in the early '70s "I can't remember my children's childhood. They took that away from me."
My own mother was clinically depressed (which I'm sure was described differently in the '50s), which may have been genetic in her family, but her father had also been an abusive alcoholic.
My mother saw a psychiatrist, unusual enough in our lower middle-class community, and I'm told checked herself into the local mental hospital at least once, but her downfall may have been the barbituates the psychiatrist prescribed.
Described as "tranquilizers" then, it's now known that barbituates can have a depressing effect, which increased my mother's depression to the point that she killed herself in 1960.
So much for the "mothers little helpers" the Rolling Stones sang about in '66.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
When Betty was initially introduced in season 1 I expected to see a scene where she was washing down some pills with her wine. Obviously she was never medicated, which I kind of like about her.
As far as Francine’s craziness, that scene where she talks about killing everyone was scary. I remeber my mom telling me that after her pregnancies, she and her friends would all go to this doctor who specialized in weight loss. He basically gave them speed, as much as they wanted. I was shocked at the time. LOL
June 28th, 2009 at 1:57 am
Yep, I caught that too, but I wasn’t familiar with the brand-name “Milltown”; I just gleaned the meaning from the context of the scene. Thank you for explaining further! This is really interesting to know.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Wow, I missed this completely! I'm youngest of 8, but I don't think my Mom took anything back in the day. (Thank God!)
Also, the other night when Kodak announced that they were dropping Kodachrome, ABC News did a news bit on it, and they included a scene from "The Carousel" when Don is describing the slide projector!
June 29th, 2009 at 8:59 am
So sorry to hear about your mother, Judy.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Thanks, Melissa.
My mother's problems also included the housewife malaise described by Betty Friedan, a husband taking full advantage of the '50s "head of the household" ethos to control her, and the repercussions in her adult life from a childhood with an abusive father.
But barbituates prescribed as "tranquilizers" may well have been the tipping point in her suicide.
After initial testing that indicated barbituates helped sedate agitated and agressive patients in mental hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry decided to widen the market, with 1950s ads directed at doctors recommending them as a cure for unhappy housewives, so there were bound to be casaulties.
Of course, the actual cure for "unhappy housewives" was the women's movement, but that's another story.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Mom had trouble sleeping when she was expecting me, and her doctor offered her tranquilizers. She was a medical technologist and knew enough to say no. Later on, another doctor offered her “diet pills” which were of course, speed. The more we find out about medication and its side effects, the more I feel sorry for people who popped pills without being able to research them.