There’s been a great deal of discussion in comments about Betty calling herself her father’s “little girl,” and behaving like one, even eating the peach that had been bought for the real little girl. And Basketcases are asking, What happened to the Betty of the latter half of Season 2? The Betty that stood up against Don’s relentless denial, kicked him out, and told him things weren’t that different with him gone?
I don’t think Betty has regressed because of pregnancy. I think she chose. Helen Bishop told her, “The hardest part is realizing you’re in charge,” and ultimately, Betty couldn’t take it.
Francine (come back, Anne Dudek!) knew of a doctor in Albany; that’s only a two-hour drive. Betty seemed ready to go. Instead, she had her fling in the back of a bar, ate some chicken, and invited Don back home. She placed a cap on her flirtation with freedom and went back to the way life had been. She told Helen “Sometimes I feel like I’ll float away, if Don isn’t holding me down.” She chose not to float away and now she clings to that, just as she clings to being Gene’s “little girl” while he tries to pry her grip loose long enough to show her that folder.
77 Responses to “Betty made this little girl choice”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I second your praise, j-smad. As usual, by the time I get here and read all the comments, most of my thoughts have been covered, so I have little to add. One thing though, as j-smad mentioned, I can relate to both Peggy and Betty. I think they have some similarities regarding the sheltered upbringing thing. Mine was that way as well. I didn’t grow up to be the mom but to be the “career girl” as my parents would put it. I was expected to be the the other, however. Regardless, I can see the break coming for both of them. Peggy through her wall of doubt about her own sexuality and place in the world; and Betty once this third child is born and perhaps even with some of Daddy’s money as her very own nest egg.
One other note, way off topic: I was thinking about Sally’s driving in “The Arrangements.” She seemed to relish in the power of that skill and control. In season one, Betty’s hands gave out while she was driving. Then later that season, I believe it was in “The Long Weekend” Betty and Don are arguing about when he’ll head up to Cape May and Betty said to him: “You hate the way I drive? My father taught me.” It seems he started to teach Sally as well.
Just an off the wall observation. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
I really love this idea of Betty as the underachiever too. It opens so many excuses for me to rewatch the series!
About Betty’s choice to stay with Don: I think we saw the very moment she made that choice at the end of S2 when the words “I’m pregnant” catch in her throat at the dinner table. I’ve always read that scene as though she intended to tell Don that she’d had that tryst and wanted out: “I … [clears throat] Iii’m pregnant.” She had that moment that so many of us have — the words she wanted and needed to say just wouldn’t come out. Betty’s scene contrasts so starkly with Peggy’s with Pete, where Peggy tells him about her own pregnancy and his “lost” child. Peggy follows through; Betty falters. Peggy moves ahead in S3; Betty stagnates. I think her disappointment with herself (contempt for herself?) within that moment at the table with Don is the seed for her indifference or cruelty to everyone around her, especially Gene and Sally.
I do think, though, that in S3, we see Don and Betty working together in a way that we hadn’t before. To me, Betty seems more powerful, but in an uncomfortable, blunt, grumpy way. Maybe the reason so many find it hard to watch her this season is that she’s tapping into a disillusioned, bitter place we’ve all been in (or seen our mothers and fathers in) but don’t want to recognize.
I find Betty really interesting and so emblematic of the Age of Anxiety, maybe because I just recently watched Revolutionary Road (to be honest, I preferred the book to the movie). She also reminds me of the unhappy mother in The Hours (who had a _good_ husband, but nevertheless went off the rails), and the Julia Stiles character in Mona Lisa Smile (who gave up going to law school at Yale to be a housewife). Truly, the problem that has no name. But I can't say I'm on board with the "Betty is an underachiever" theory, not that it's not interesting. But underachieving in comparison to what standard? By all accounts for that time period, she did very well–she had a fun early 20s going to Rome, modeling, etc., and then she settled down in the country with a beautiful house, two kids, and a successful husband. Remember Juanita's remark to her update "of course you do." I don't think she's dumb–I think she's emotionally numb (her conversion disorder is numb hands). Maybe it's just the book snob in me, but her reading choices–F. Scott Fitzgerald (Three Sundays) and Katherine Anne Porter (some other episode) are quite good, and with KAP, she's really up to date with the contemporary fiction of her time. It's Don who's told "you wouldn't like it" when he sees a Frank O'Hara book, and we hardly see him read anything but newspapers.
She may have a very enigmatic interior life, but she has an intellectual life–we just don't see it expressed much. Who would she talk to about her books and thoughts? Don, her similarly emotionally repressed husband? Francine, her gossipy friend? (I hope Francine is more developed as a character). I wish she had become friends with Helen Bishop. Both are cosmopolitan, well traveled, interesting women. But we only see her emotional, interior life in distress, so we see her reach out to boys and men who seem to see the sadness within (Glenn and Arthur) rather than her intellectual abilities. I do wish she was less curt with the children (and this curtness has increased steadily from S1 to S2 to S3), but now that I've watched other examples of motherhood from the Age of Anxiety, Betty seems to have the most to deal with, and yet is actually the least monstrous. Well, until she explodes. Which I am kind of waiting for. I hope for happy endings. But right now, they're not very likeable people, but they are sympathetic and interesting.
Belle Lettre, you make a good case for Betty having an intellectual life. Good catch. Thanks for pointing out her reading habits. But then you go on to ask who would Betty talk about books with? Um. . .how about her husband? Husbands and wives, in good marriages, are companions to one another, sharing interests. I have decided that Don's affairs are primarily motivated by two strands: in one, he'll have sex when it's offered and/or easy but in the other, he is attracted to powerful, intelligent women. He likes women. He likes women with spark. I think he spotted Peggy, in the secretarial pool, because he spotted spark in her. I think he'd love to have an intellectually exciting relationship with Betty. I think he checked out because as he gradually realized he ahd married a girl-woman, he drifted away. What does Betty care about? People ahve to take responsibilty for their own expereinces in life. Other people can't make us happy. We have to decided what we want for ourselves and then go about creating it. Don wanted a financilaly successful, stimulating career, a beautiful wife, a happy family (at least I think so) . . and he is wondering now why he has the externals but his life is not coming together and there is a big gaping hole where his life compainion could be. Betty makes no effort, that we see, to engage Don on any level other than having Don admire her appearance, treat her like a princess. . . I have never seen her ask for intellectual exchange with Don. I guess I haven't seen Don turn to Betty for intellgent company . . . but I have decided they have long since checked out of trying to relate to one another. . .
I think it is just fine that Betty is querulous while she is pregnant, raising a family, tending to her senile/then dead father, trying to trust her unfaithful man once more . .not all women have smooth pregnancies. Some pregnancies really suck.
I like how Don is nice to Betty, letting the dad move in, offering to run out for the chicken, going to the party even ethough he didn't want to because Betty wanted to .. these are small, floundering steps to be a good husband. .
sometimes marriages have been too wounded and couples can't find their way back to one another. Sometimes couples find that they never had the kind of connection they thought they had. I think this might be the case with the Drapers. They chose their life mates for wrong reasons. Neither of them began the marriage with the foundation of having seen a happy marriage. .
a comment about Betty's mother being a draftsman. . . Lots of women had short careers before marrying and/or starting to have children, even if they only worked professionally a few years. I don't htink the fact that Betty's mother had a job that required some professional skill made her a feminist. My grandmother graduated from college in 1922, she worked a few years, then married my grandpa and had my mom in 1929. . . my grandmother had a professional 'career' but she never worked outside thehome once she married. Lots of women worked like Betty's mom. My grandma's baby sister? She got a Masters degree in the 1920's, married, never got pregnant but wanted to and because of the no babies, she worked in the world, as aprofesisonal, until she retired at 65. But my great aunt effie would have become a homemaker if she had gotten pregnant. She liked working and my great grandparents sent aoo their nine kids to college . but the women never expected to work. . . . some of them did. . another great aunt quite work, had kids, but when divorced, she was forced to work and then she did. . .
women have always made choices that were not ALWAYS homemaker. . . women always worked some if they wished and needed to . . . but we can't draw a lot of specific meaning from Betty's mom having worked. . . working then staying home was a very normal pattern for Betty's mom's generation.
In general, people did not encourage girls to pursue lifelong paid employment. Gosh, I graduated collge in 1975, law school in 1979. . . then I had a kid in 1982 and . . stayed home with her. I was raised to think I would go to school, then work . . . UNTIL i decided to stay home. . .and I was raised in Sally Draper's generation. I was born in 1953, Sally probably born in 1954. I am confused when so many people nowadays seem to think at some point all women changed and stopped wanting to stay home.
I think women still want to be home with their kids and they work because they need the money. I know few mothers who place more importance on their professional job than their mothering job. I don't understand why in discussions about Mad Men people seem to think all women want to work now. They don't. The ones that do are just about as rare as Peggy Olson seems to be. . if anything has changed, it is that women aren't assumed to make the homemaker choice. . .
Deborah, I don't want to get banned from this site after just having discovered it . . . tonight, the past hour or so, is my first exposure to this wonderful blog about MM. . but when I read your observation, explicitly directed at Mary Lou, suggesting she was overwrought, I was taken aback. that seems a little heavyhanded to me. I did not get, at all, that Mary Lou had cross some kind of line. She said what she was thinking and apparently you have different thoughts: how does that add up to overwrought?
I have not read Rosie's past history on this blog but you mention that she had been warned about talking about Betty being perfect and now she was banned. Does this mean if I talk about Betty being perfect that I would be banned? or if I share thoughts that you disagree with, that I would be banned? I like it when blogs are monitored and disruptive people, flamers, are banned . . but I did not experince Rosie's comments in this conversational thread as the least big flaming.
So now I am on edge, wondering what kind of environment this blog is. I guess I'll find out. My habit, when posting on blogs which I do a lot, is to speak politely but to feel that I am free to disagree so long as I do not attack other commentators when I voice divergent opinions. But your comments here sounded like, maybe, I'm not sure, I guess I'm asking, that people whose ideas are different form yours are overwrought and should be banished. Am I understanding you? This blog looks fun and if you are getting thousands in your traffic counts, you are doing something right. . . but this your comments in this one thread make me uneasy. Am I free to say what I think?
tizzie, as I stated, we have banned very few of the thousands who post here. Rosie continued to as "why you all" (always accusatory, always "you") thought Betty had to be a perfect mother. We had a long discussion about it. She asked again. I counted a total of 10 posts in 2 days asking the same question, no matter how many times we discussed it. (She did this with other topics as well.) I told her to drop the subject. She didn't.
If you're worried about how strict the moderation is, even after all that, all I did was warn her a second time. She left voluntarily.
"About" has our comment policy.
tizzielish: Just an somebody who posts here, I'd like to mention that (1) nobody was banned yesterday and (2) the person who was chastised (and her sidekick) had repeatedly (and boy, do I mean repeatedly) complained about the ideas that other people were "allowed" to post. Using the same phrases, over & over, she complained about other posters' opinions–not the excellent show most of us are here to discuss at this very friendly site.
The main offender threatened to cause trouble for this site at other sites as she flounced off. I doubt she'll find allies since, under other user names, she has posted identical criticism of other posters' ideas on several Mad Men sites. Again, using identical words, posted repeatedly! In fact, a mod at TwoP asked her to "discuss the show, not the Boards."
If we had official mods here besides the estimable Lipp Sisters–who are very busy–I might be accused of Junior Modding. I'd like to repeat that these are just my personal observations.
Please, do read some of that history!
not_Bridget, I didn't know that about TWoP. I kind of feel better now.
tizzielish: No, women do NOT really want to give up their careers at some point and stay home with their kids. Some women like their kids and their careers and don't want to give up either for the other, just like men. I love my kids. Truly I do. As much or more than moms who stay home. But if I were cooped up in the house with them 24/7, just to prove a point that I am a *good mom*, I would be stark raving nuts within a few weeks. I'm sorry but the intellectual life of the suburban stay-at-home moms is about as stimulating as brick. I HATE going to neighborhood parties where all the guys hang out around the beer ball and all the women sit in the living room around the most newly delivered mother and talk about labor stories and menstrual periods. Like there is nothing else going on in the world. And god help you if you cross the line of demarcation of the sexes. This is the 21st century and the suburbs have not changed substantially from Betty and Francine's days. Well, except for the chain smoking and plastic bags. I take that back. Now, we do give these women something to do. We make them obsess over every physical threat to their children from playground equipment to abduction. No hypothetical scenario is too remote or improbable. He have a nation of stressed out women looking for the predator and danger in every encounter and product. That's what suburban women spend their time doing. They out rival each other in the safety area. What a colossal waste of college educated career women and lawyers.
You couldn't pay me enough money to spend time with them. And I'm sorry if that offends anyone on this blog but I do not envy your lives one single iota. I do more in my day that you guys do in a week and I cherish my kid. But she doesn't need me to be home and miserable when she is in school and, happily, I have no reason to be home.
@59: I'm not sure that Don would ever have sought intellectual companionship from Betty. Remember what he tells the first Mrs. Draper about Betty: "I like how she looks at me." He wins this model with a fur coat, after all. I don't get the impression that Betty ever presented herself as intelligent, nor does Don look for it under the surface.
@62: I'm a single woman without kids, but I moved recently from a university town neighboring a major metropolitan area to a medium-sized city smack in the Bible Belt for a job. The thing I miss more than anything else — family, non-chain restaurants, a living music and arts scene — is someone to chat with about the media and literature we're consuming on a level beyond "I liked it." (So, thanks to this blog for making up for a little of my brain-drought!)
This is the best site on Mad Men & its only problem is the lack of an Edit button. (Which is probably expensive…notes "Donate" button….)
If I could, I'd edit the last sentence in my note to tizzielish thus:
Please, do read some of that history if you want to understand the recent dustup. Or be glad you missed it and just tell us more about what you think about our favorite show.
I have no idea how to allow users to edit comments. I don't think this software allows for it.
yikes portia. tell us how you really feel.
If you ask me, that other site takes the modding a bit too far. After the episode where Greg and Joan try to work out the etiquette for the dinner party, they quashed a discussion on the history and purpose of etiquette because they only want discussion of what was on the screen. They quashed a discussion comparing and contrasting Betty to real-life mothers for the same reason. If they disallow context being brought into the discussion, it dooms it to superficialities.
There are times when I'm of the minority opinion here, and times when I truly don't understand where other commenters are coming from. But I've always done my best to be respectful and have always received the same and more, in return. I absolutely treasure that atmosphere.
I was treated quite rudely simply for expressing my opinion, which opinion admittedly is in the minority. I am not a "side kick" of anyone, nor do I even personally know anyone on this site. And I have not posted much at all, being quite busy with work, usually reading and NOT posting. Despite personally disagreeing with much of the opinion, including Deborah's, I have been polite and quite supportive and happy for the Lipp Sisters' success with this blog, even congratulating Deborah just yesterday on her news paper article. Only to be called names and insulted for having a strong opinion that differs from the majority.
In looking for other blogs, hopefully to find a place where views that differ can be expressed, I came upon an article highlighting this very issue of fan hatred toward the Betty character. I am not computer savvy and cannot do a link, so the web address is below. Others have noticed the misogynistic Betty hatred and the vitriol directed at fans who question that.
http://ashmh.livejournal.com/96254.html
Marylou, you said you left. Yet you are here. You are welcome to be here, but please don't create a lot of drama on the boards by complaining about how you are treated. We are all here to discuss Mad Men, its events, characters, plots, and subtexts. We are not here to bitch about the rest of the Internet, including other Mad Men discussions.
I have not called you any names, nor do I think I was rude. I may have been snarky. I'm pretty confused as to how anyone can read this blog and expect a Lipp Sister not to be snarky. I called you "overwrought," which you disliked, yet you were clearly using strongly emotional language: "malicious," "wretched," "practically committing child abuse" — this is not "upset, excited"?
You were also upset that I said "may or may not imagine" in response to a comment that began "I don’t imagine."
You will be very happy here discussing the show, and considerably less happy complaining about how other people discuss the show. I very much like what they said at TWoP — discuss the show, not the boards — and I will be incorporating something like it into our own comment policy.
The Internet is a great place. People can post about TV shows they love. Or go elsewhere & post about fans of those TV shows.
Freedom of choice!
Thinking about Betty, I recalled two movie characters, Laura Brown from "The Hours," and Elena Hood from "The Ice Storm." Laura Brown was played by Julianne Moore. She was an unhappy '50s housewife, pregnant with her second child. Eventually, after she had her second baby, she left her husband and both kids. I suppose it's unlikely that Betty Draper, after baby #3 comes, would do this — I still think she is in her bubble and likes the financial security Don provides — but with Betty, there is an element of the unpredictable where you just never know what she might do. Then, in the Ice Storm, Joan Allen plays Elena Hood, a bored '70s housewife. The movie is set in 1973, so ten years past where we are now in Mad Men. In some ways, I think Elena Hood is just like Betty Draper, just ten years older — a very attractive woman with an education and alot of potential that seems not to have been used, uncertain about her identity and place in the world, and in a not great marriage. Elena's husband, played by Kevin Kline, is a philanderer like Don Draper, and Elena "gets even" by having a quickie fling with a neighbor. The story is set in the Connecticut suburbs, so not too dissimilar to Ossining.
Where is Francine, anyway? Four episodes and we haven't even heard her name, let alone seen her? Is she going to be the new Dale?
Would Betty have taken Don back if she hadn't gotten pregnant? Probably — that note was pretty persuasive. But now she knows she's pretty much stuck, and thanks to the stick pin, she probably knows he's still screwing around, and she can't do much but stew (sorry) about it. Betty probably could have gotten divorced because infidelity was considered "fault," but having to come up with enough evidence in court (would the stick pin be enough?), putting the kids through all that, getting snubbed by her friends — I don't think she could have gone through with it. She probably wouldn't have to work, since Don is loaded, but it's entirely possible she doesn't know that, and pictures herself with some dreary retail job like Helen Bishop's.
There is also the way that pregnancy makes you feel so vulnerable. I never felt so in need of help and protection than when I was teetering around with a giant belly (and then with a tiny fragile infant). That in and of itself can make you feel like you want to retreat to the safety of being a little girl, with men who will love you and take care of things for you.
I think not_bridget has great insights.
Wow, also find Portia's comments a little too intense and personal for this blog. And hurtful to women who are not in fact dumb and boring but do stay at home with their kids.
jeesh.
I am always late to the party, especially when it concerns Betty!!
Betty is my favourite character. She strikes me like an invisible queen, looking over her realm and silently furious at Don's consistent infidelity.
I hope I am not the only one who wants Betty to have an affair with the bloke from 3×03.
And 100% co-sign with #55 who talks about how Betty isn't dumn. CO-SIGN!