We received a comment from Byron (yonder in the About section) asking for our take on how it was that Don came to marry Betty.
Betty seems so simple and he is unsatisfied by her. I think it’s because he fabricated his post Korea life and she fit the stereotype of the perfect late 50s housewife.
I think he fell in love with her. Yes, she is, on paper, the perfect wife, but I don’t think it was calculated or deliberately cold. She is gorgeous, she is kind, and she would make a good mother. And she would make him feel safe and mothered, something he always craved. Of course he couldn’t understand that piece of the appeal.
From Shoot:
You’re a mother to those two little people and you are better at it than anyone else in the world… I would have given anything to have had a mother like you. Beautiful and kind, and filled with love like an angel.
Here’s the thing. Everyone talks about this couple like they have no marriage. The actors commented to that effect. (I don’t recall hearing Weiner speak on it.) I disagree. I think there is a marriage. One that was based on love and affection and sure, filling each other’s holes (like so many love stories). I don’t know if it’s one that can be saved anymore because they’re both becoming so angry and their communication skills are for shit. But it’s a marriage.
They play together. The banter. She keeps up. They drink, they laugh, they have lots of sex.
Sexually she is probably an alluring combination of innocent (likely a virgin when they met, though who knows what might have happened in Europe) (okay probably nothing if the man she was closest with was a gay designer) and submissive but also ferocious and insatiable.
She doesn’t really know Don in Manhattan, but I think that’s typical–I think it’s still common. My ex whatever-he-was barely had a glimpse of who I am at work. So Betty is perhaps a bit enamored of that side of Don, but she is I think a bit enamored of him in general, and also of the elusive New York City/man’s world.
And here’s a key to her appeal for Don; Betty doesn’t ask questions.
Don, as we see, goes for some pretty amazing women. And I think he’s failed to notice that Betty is pretty amazing because of her subservience. What a trick. Why he chose her is how he finds her lacking. She is certainly not living like she’s that kind of amazing, the way that the self-sufficient brunette women who continue to captivate him live.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of Betty on the other side of this depression. Maybe this marriage will end; at least pause. (Maybe it already has.) And then perhaps Don will find her attractive in ways he hadn’t to this point.
Midge doen’t ask questions either, but that’s the nature of their relationship, and also, it’s her preference. But Midge wouldn’t put up with that in a primary, committed relationship; someone who wouldn’t allow her to poke and prod. Rachel reaches him in such a different place; idenifies from the beginnning his alienation. And she’s the one he finally opens up to. (About his past. Not so much about his present.)
Betty has never recognized that in him; the alienation or his oddnesses; never noticed that she is married to a guy with a secret identity. She is too consumed by her own inferiority and her own sense of being an outsider, though she can’t even identify that in herself; can’t feel it cause it doesn’t make sense. She should completely fit. Of course she fits. She fits the best. She’s perfect. That is the cloud that Betty exists in; the fog of not understanding why it confuses and hurts her to put one foot in front of the other when it’s just walking. And the cloud keeps her from seeing Don.
In Season One the cloud lifts. She starts to recognize that Don keeps secrets. And that his behavior is not totally normal. And that he’s not cool about family. And that the questions she hasn’t been asking deserve answers.
Basket of Kisses 
February 14, 2008 at 9:41 am
Season 1 opens with Betty’s mother very recently dead. In Ladies Room she tells us her mother died three months ago. Three months! And Don is already telling her not to grieve.
I suspect that Don cannot handle fragility at all, and that their marriage (but not his infidelity) may have been different before her mother died.
February 14, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Doesn’t Betty say in therapy that she and Don got pregnant before they got married? I’m not suggesting there was no love there, but it might have made them hurried in their decision.
February 14, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Deb, his infidelity was different, though unrelated to Betty’s changing. He adored Midge, and Midge was awesome, but he’s really moved by Rachel in a way that no woman has moved him.
And Max, you kill me. I have to look into that.
February 14, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I do recall Betty telling the therapist that she and Don became engaged and THEN she got pregnant. I assumed their nuptials were moved up a few months and they had a shotgun wedding. I’m unsure which specific episode it was where she mentioned those facts….
I’ll preface this by saying I am a full-on Rachel Menken fan, so I loved watching her on-screen with Dapper Don. However, IMO, Don cheated with his women for different reasons. With Rachel, they was more of an “intimate connection.” Midge was an ol’ skool booty call! Either way, I liked Don’s man-whore tendencies! (LOL!)
February 14, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Okay, Deb and I just got off the phone, and I was telling her how I rewatched the scene in Shoot (where I pulled the quote from). I love that scene, and that deserves a whole separate post. But Deborah brings up that Don’s saying that to Betty is a complete opening to her… basically saying, My childhood was so awful I can’t even talk about it. (And, btw, you are my haven.)
It is in the very next episode, Long Weekend, that he goes to Rachel and spills.
So is Rachel softening him? Or is it Adam’s re-entry?
February 14, 2008 at 3:04 pm
In the Long Weekend Don phoned Betty, sounding upset and shaken, telling her about Roger’s heart attack. Yet Betty flaked out and rambled on about pot roasts and ketchup. That happened prior to his landing at Rachel’s door. It just seemed like Don was attempting to be a better hubby, opening up to Betty, but she was too self-centered to “get it.”
February 14, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Betty’s too threatened by Gloria and the idea that her beloved father is “replacing” (her idea) her mother with her to listen to Don.
February 14, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Betty, whose dearly departed mother taught her, “You’re creating a masterpiece, remember to hide the brushstrokes,” is now wondering what her father really wants in a woman–a woman who makes pot roasts with ketchup?
Daddy’s little girl is deeply disturbed!
February 16, 2008 at 2:33 am
Betty and Don have sex, but it’s never enough sex for Betty. But being a slave to the little-girl-angel-in-the-home image she thinks she has to keep up, she doesn’t demand more from Don. In “Babylon”, when she’s acknowledging to Don in bed how much she wants him all the time, I get the feeling this may be the first time she’s really articulating this and may be the result of her therapy with Dr. Wayne as much as openly remembering her mother on Mother’s Day. The next night, Don’s reading Exodus in bed for and totally brushes off her meager advances. What happened to “You have me” ?
It makes me wonder, when is Betty going to start asserting her sexual needs? When is she going to start giving Don booty calls at the office just like Midge? When will she say, “Read about the Jews some other time, I need you to boff me now” ?
I remember seeing “5G” for the first time, when Don and Betty are coming home drunk from the awards dinner and Betty starts getting undressed. I thought, “I don’t care if Don sees 50 women outside of marriage, why isn’t he tappin’ that every day?” As much as it could be written off to being marital familiarity blahs, mutually sucking communication, Betty’s infantilized concern with domestic trivialities, none of that really cancells out pure lust.
I suspect that Don is spoiled. He’s spoiled by his good looks and easy charm. Even as Dick-Whitman-turned-Don-Draper-home-from-Korea, he has women hitting on him. I suspect he thinks that is always going to be there for him. I suspect he thinks that Betty is always going to be there–even if he feels he has to chastise her for flirting with Roger or letting air-conditioning salesmen into the house.
February 16, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Don isn’t spoiled in general, but yes he is, in the way you think. I’ve dated ultra-attractive men; they have no idea that everyone else actually wonders if an offer will result in a yes or a no, and stresses about it. They just don’t get what everyone else is worried about.
Watch the sex scene in Babylon again. Betty says she wants Don constantly, but while she’s saying that, watch her arms; she doesn’t grab, reach, clutch—she has none of the body language of intense desire. All she allows herself is this tiny bit of intimate articulation, and laying there wanting.
February 16, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I wonder what exactly is Don Draper “swinging” that has Betty horny 24/7, Midge making midday booty calls and Rachel opening up her door in the middle of the night, clad in elaborate robes and tousled hair. What is Draper doing to these women?! Details? Ha!
As for body language, both Rachel and Midge were all over him in bed. (I thought Rachel’s red nails on Don’s back was a sexy as hell image!) Those 2 ladies made it known they wanted him to “handle business!”
February 17, 2008 at 2:08 am
As fans, should we demand “full frontal” from Don Draper’s character for the next season? All who say “Aye!” . . .
February 17, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Or at the very least have him build a couple more playhouses.
February 18, 2008 at 9:02 pm
I had to add something, having looked at “Red In the Face” once more. The scene where Don and Betty fight after Roger has made his moves on Betty and then leaves:
Betty: Would you like to bounce me off the walls? Would that make you feel better?
Don: (Pause) Sometimes I feel like I’m living with a little girl.
It’s a really curious exchange, because there is nothing “little girl” about Betty’s suggestion. It’s a supercharged provocation to Don, with all its violent and sexual connotations intact. So if Don is so fired up and jealously territorial, why doesn’t he bounce (sexually, please) Betty off the walls and reclaim her that way? The thrill is gone? He’d rather play relationship one-upsmanship?
It’s a mysterious little moment to me–not Don’s jealousy, but his desire to remain in control of the argument even if not giving Betty attention makes her more susceptible to attention from other men.
Curiouser and curiouser: the next episode, after the meeting with the Belle Jolie people:
Don: Ken, you’ll realize in your private life that at a certain point, seduction is over and force is actually being requested.
Is he thinking of Betty when he makes this statement? It seems like he is taking this notion of requested force, which gave him pause with Betty, and turned it into a triumphant masculine moment in the office.
February 18, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Max, you’re re-watching faster than me. But I remember those lines. I definitely remember thinking that Don said that to Betty because Dr. Wayne had planted the thought, and though it is often the case (her being a little girl), this moment was NOT that, and it was an extremely inappropriate thing to say.
I’m sure I’ll get back to you on the rest.
February 19, 2008 at 1:59 pm
You’re right, he is in part reacting to his recent conversation with Dr. Wayne. Therapy helping or hurting–and who is it helping/hurting?
There’s the obvious double-standard: Don boffs the women he wants, but Betty cannot flirt with another guy. But there is a quieter double-standard: Roger is sharing with Betty (and Don on the sidelines) stories from his past, something that Don has chosen, for obvious reasons, not to do with Betty. Roger brushes dangerously close to Don’s past: “I thought from the way you dropped your g’s that you grew up on a farm.” Don excuses himself to get more booze rather than confirm or deny.
So Roger gets Betty’s attention by sharing bits of himself, even if the sharing’s got a strong element of yarn, and Don begins to feel the attention-deficit from Betty. It seems Don is almost unconscious of the choices he’s made that lead to this situation.
You could go round and round with chicken-and-egg scenarios with this couple–who started acting like a child first? who started withholding themselves first (because Betty also does not share everything going on with her–part of her own denial)?
February 22, 2008 at 1:44 pm
You know, now I’m taking Don’s side: to his credit, he does not want a Stepford Wife. Betty comes back from McCann-Erikson, burned from being used by them, and retreats into Stepford mode–totally human and understandable but it’s the wrong move. Don does not need or want that. Making Betty happy is foremost in his purpose and probably forms a large part of his confidence in himself as a husband. Don might not end his infidelities, but he would probably show more sexual interest in a Happy Betty than a Perfect Betty.
February 22, 2008 at 1:58 pm
It’s an interesting point. And, as I counter it, I want to say that it’s not just about taking anyone’s side, nor about playing devil’s advocate. I really believe that on this show, as in life, there is never one absolutely inpenetrable truth. (Was my last relationship healthy or unhealthy? Yes. Do I believe in magic or science? Yes. Was Don being kind to Betty or indifferent? What was Don thinking by the train?)
But I want to point out that in Red in the Face, when Betty tried her hand at being happy and at being some kind of independent thinking person, (having sacrificed her dinner, to boot), Don punished her for it.
February 22, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Hmmm . . . I guess it just seems to me that the flirtation between Roger and Betty is tolerable to Don until he comes back into the kitchen after Roger has made his pass at Betty and they are both tellingly silent. Then Don is upset and applies all that he has seen at the dinner table between them and exaggerating it a bit–alcohol!–to justify himself, since he can’t say that he actually saw the pass itself. He takes it out on Betty because she’s the one left to take it out on after Roger is gone and because he dare not directly take it out on his boss. Without the pass taking place, I can see Don feeling intimidated by Roger’s charm, but I doubt he would even say anything to Betty about it. Okay, maybe a little remark before heading to bed.
The most egregious culprit is Roger, but it’s fascinating that he is not, immediately at least, called on the carpet for what he’s done. Betty doesn’t push Roger away or slap him in part because Roger is Don’s boss–it isn’t all about charm! And she’s throughly indoctrinated with being nice: “I’ll make more coffee.” Don’s frustration is as much about not being able to directly confront his boss as it is any suspicions about Betty. We may even throw in a little guilty self-recrimination on Don’s part since he knows Roger and he’s the one who brought him home.
Yes, Don is unfair and he does not automatically trust Betty–because of his own infidelities? because of his own self-imposed incapacity to share himself? because of his own imperfect, limited notions of happiness? Sure. But Betty still does not assert herself enough–whether it’s pushing off Roger or retreating into “Nothing happened,” which Don cannot buy.
February 23, 2008 at 9:47 am
Interesting thoughts about Don and Betty’s marriage. I’ve been lurking for the past week and really enjoying this blog.
Re: Betty asserting herself when Roger comes on to her. Betty’s self-esteem is largely dependent on her looks and her attractiveness to men. She has also just lost a job that she enjoyed and that also reaffirmed her attractiveness independent of Don. Yes, the modeling job was rigged but it’s also true that the McCann-Erickson guy wouldn’t have even thought of it as a way of pressuring Don if Betty were not beautiful to begin with. So losing it and realizing that she can’t keep it on her own is a blow to her ego. Don has been neglecting her and she’s sexually starved; not only does she feel abandoned, her husband is not validating her self-image. Then Roger, an attractive and urbane older man, begins paying attention to her. She may not like him and of course she’s been taught to be nice but also, I can’t help but think that Betty is flattered by his attention. I haven’t rewatched the episode but I remember thinking that Betty did look a bit tempted. Being seen as sexy can be, in and of itself, pretty darned HOT. She doesn’t assert herself with Roger because she doesn’t want to–she NEEDS to be seen as beautiful. Also, by flirting with Don’s boss, Betty is taking her own shots at Don’s masculinity. The comment about bouncing her against the wall is not just a sexual one, but it’s also displacing her own anger at Don unto him. I read it as a comment about class, ie, “You’re so low class, you’d hit a woman.” I think, if anything, that was the one time in which she asserted herself successfully because after she said this, didn’t Don back off? (Again, I haven’t rewatched it.)
Roger too has his own emotional stake in making Don feel sexually insecure; the scene right before the dinner scene takes place in the bar where the beautiful young women are clearly attracted to Don and ignore Roger completely. What better way to take down a hot-shot than to seduce his wife?
One of the wonderful things about the show is that it’s a terrific exploration of sexual ego in American culture, both men’s and women’s. It’s an in-depth comment on our present obsession with looks, sexuality and happiness, ie, the idea that beautiful people are automatically happy and fulfilled on all grounds. Peggy’s relaxicizer recording session encapsulates Betty’s trap. Peggy simply can’t believe that a beautiful woman isn’t confident and happy–therefore she can’t take the poor actress’ anguish seriously. If you have everything, the husband, the looks, the family, how DARE you not be happy and confident? Yet Ken clearly understands the correlation between beauty and insecurity, “the juiciest gazelle is the easiest to catch.” If Ken ever meets Betty, boy, watch out, Don.
February 23, 2008 at 10:39 am
Max, I honestly don’t believe Don would ever have accepted Betty’s version of the story, or allowed himself to blame Roger, if Roger hadn’t confessed the next day.
Eme, welcome. Keep your insightful comments coming!
Betty views her beauty as the coin she brings to her marriage. “As long as I keep my looks, I’m earning my keep” she tells Francine. So yes, I think she was enjoying Roger’s attention, but I also think she was whoring herself a little on Don’s behalf.
February 23, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Everyone is fleshing this scene out so well that I just wanted to add: Alcohol is practically an unspeaking 4th character in this episode, more than all the rest of the time when folks are drinking. Do we really think that these characters would be transgressing all these boundaries with each other on this evening if they weren’t so tanked?
Whoring on Don’s behalf–that matches up with Pete whoring out his wife to get his story published–only Pete is an outright cad who makes no bones about what he’s asking Trudy to do.
February 23, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Whoring on Don’s behalf–that matches up with Pete whoring out his wife to get his story published–only Pete is an outright cad who makes no bones about what he’s asking Trudy to do.
I don’t think it’s ever something Don would ask or want Betty to do; that’s Betty’s issues, not Don’s. But Pete is worse than a cad; I wanted to strangle him.
February 24, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Oh, definitely–there’s a huge dif between Betty choosing a little socialwhoringlite to entertain the boss and Pete pimping Trudy.
March 13, 2008 at 12:56 pm
[…] though I believe he has love for Betty, it’s never been that kind of love. So in the ongoing question of why did Don marry Betty, I really don’t think he saw it as selling out or settling. It is not even a matter of […]
March 14, 2008 at 10:51 am
*Don might not end his infidelities, but he would probably show more sexual interest in a Happy Betty than a Perfect Betty.*
Which he did in “Shoot” after Betty’s first day back on the job. She was eccstatic about getting the gig with McCann Ericson, and to celebrate, they did it right there on the living room floor, with the kids upstairs. Pretty risque. For me, that was only the second time that I sensed any chemistry between Betty and Don. The first time was in 5G, when they arrived home from the banquet, all dolled up and flirtatious–but then they just collapsed and fell asleep from their drunkeness. Not much of a pay-off
Their other sexual interludes have left me cold. They’re uncomfortable and strained. Betty says she desires him–wants him all the time, but then is all “turn off the lights first.” Why stop the momentum? Why hide in the dark? Don’s mistresses do it with the lights on–whether they’re in bed, up against a wall, or on a couch. They go with the flow.
March 14, 2008 at 11:10 am
Watching the “I want you all the time” scene, I notice that all Betty does is say she wants him. She doesn’t grab or reach or stroke or pull. She just says she wants him and waits. It’s so disturbing. And I don’t think it’s an accident, I think it’s a very specific acting and/or directing choice.
March 14, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Whether it’s director’s or actor’s choice, don’t you think it could indicate a fearfulness or paralyzation in the face of tremendous desire? Sometimes longing is so intense that it renders us speechless and immobile. I think this is a breakthrough moment for Betty just to even say that she wants Don so much, so perpetually. I think she’s really vulnerable at this moment.
March 14, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Yes, she’s vulnerable. She’s also intensely passive. Her only possible expression of desire is to plead in her baby voice.
March 14, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Max, I totally agree. Thank you for articulating it. It’s like when you’re trying to tell someone something really hard to tell them and so you say it but you stammer and can’t look at them.
And, if I am recalling correctly, though her body language is practically limp, she is looking directly at him when she speaks. And that’s huge, IMO.
March 14, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Except it’s not just that once. In Bablyon it’s “Are you coming to bed?” and then “Oh, okay.” And I know, it’s 1960 and people are more obedient to gender roles, but I bet Rachel touches him when she wants some nookie.
March 14, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Oh, I’m not blaming 1960. The woman is repressed.
She chose a man about whom she knows nothing and is forbidden to ask!
March 14, 2008 at 12:45 pm
But I bet he’s a stevedore in bed.
March 14, 2008 at 12:50 pm
“Oh, I’m not blaming 1960. The woman is repressed.”
Totally agree.
March 14, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Well, I’m not blaming the 1960 either — Betty’s personality was formed long before that. 🙂
I think Betty likes the lights off because she is another one of those insecure gazelles that Ken mentioned. If I looked like January Jones I would make excuses to be naked, but Betty has no real confidence in her looks. She is a young woman, but already looking for signs of aging. The reason that a woman wants the lights out isn’t because she doesn’t like sex, but because she doesn’t like her physical appearance.
Betty is naturally beautiful, but she obviously spends a lot of time on her looks — and retaking family portraits.
While Don’s other women may be more up for wilder, spontaneous luuurve, that makes his infidelities no less wrong. I’m not saying they aren’t understandable, just not excusable. If Betty wanted to swing naked from the chandelier in broad daylight, Don would still cheat.
My grandmother says Spitzer probably cheated because his wife wasn’t doing something kinky that he wanted, and I think that kinda throws the blame on the most innocent party.
Betty likes the lights out and Don would tell her about his childhood — both have issues with intimacy. Only one is a serial cheater at this point.
I also think Don wants different things from his wife than he wants from his mistresses. Even Rachel.
March 14, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Stevedore in bed … lol … just noticed that. You ARE a Joss fan.
March 14, 2008 at 4:19 pm
To me, Don stepped out on Betty the 2 times we viewers know about for different reasons. Midge seemed like side action more than anything. She was there for him so they could simply get their freak on!! And I don’t blame Betty for that affair. But I do blame Betty for pushing Don toward Rachel. When he phoned Betty, upset about Roger’s heart attack, Betty paid no attention to his emotions and focused on her father’s GF’s pot roast. WTF? She was self-centered once again! Rachel actually listened to Don and seemed to give a damn about his emotions!
Having typed all that…Don’s a manwhore! And fingers crossed he remains as such next season!
March 14, 2008 at 6:54 pm
“paralyzation in the face of tremendous desire? Sometimes longing is so intense that it renders us speechless and immobile. ”
Oh, yes. Been there, done that. Oops, but we weren’t talking about me… 😉 Such a great description, though…
We know that buried deep inside Betty is a freak (as in sexual beast) of major proportions. I wonder if she ever feels comfortable–or even reckless–enough with Don to ever let that out? Those times when they’re having sex, and it’s clearly “what she wants” as she told the psychiatrist, does she ever just yell out, “oh, yes, big daddy, bring it on home!” Or whatever the 1960 equivalent was. Because if he is a stevedore in bed (gawd, I want one of those!) how could she not respond? Is she really that afraid of him–of what he’ll think or do?
Believe me, I’m not excusing Don’s bad behavior. But I do like Betty when she asserts her feelings, which we know she’s done. I’d like to see her do it more ofen. I bet Don would treat her better if she bitched it up a little, occasionally calling him on his sh*t the way Midge and Rachel always do.
March 14, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Betty knows nothing about Don’s emotional life. The viewers know his reaction to Don’s heart attack and Rachel knows it, because he shares with her, but Betty hasn’t a clue as to what makes him tick.
Not holding his hand over Roger does not give him permission to cheat. If it did, Betty should have boffed the air conditioner guy since she can’t get any assistance from her husband in mourning the loss of her mother.
Friend with heart attack and wife wants to talk about pot roast or dead mother and spouse’s emotional disconnect and own mommy issues makes him no help. I know which one seems a more glaring reason to seek support from someone else.
Don wanted Rachel. If it wasn’t this incident, it would have been something else — anything else. Nothing else, but willingness on her part.
Sometimes a roast is not just a roast. Sometimes a roast is a way of saying, “Hey, I miss my mother, and there’s nobody to tell that to, and my father is boffing a woman I don’t like.” If Betty is supposed to sense that Roger’s heart attack is a big deal then he should have just as easily decoded her message.
Perhaps if Don would have said, “It could be me. Some day I might punch the clock in the arms of someone who’s perfume you’ll recognize,” she would have paid closer attention. As much as he likes Roger, some of his concern had to be, “there but for the Grace of God.”
Don and Betty don’t have a good marriage, but most marriages have moments of neglect or disconnect. In a better marriage, you communicate — “that hurt me,” or “this is important.” Neither one of these people knows how to do that, but only one of them uses that as a reason to cheat.
I like Don. His cheating doesn’t change that, but I don’t believe he is at all *justified.* If the excuse is the not-too-unique “my wife doesn’t understand me,” my response is that a good start would be to tell her who you are. You can’t understand someone you don’t know, and while he doesn’t know Betty that well, he certainly has a lot more clues as to who she is. Beyond having access to her family, and her willingness to discuss her past, he also talks to her therapist.
March 14, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Don cheats in part because he divides himself up into so many people, and has for so long, that he probably isn’t even fully aware that he is wronging his wife. It’s a “different person” with Midge than with Betty. The very definition of compartmentalization.
And he cheats because he was so utterly unloved that no amount of love or intimacy is ever enough.
This doesn’t excuse him, but I do believe his cheating comes from longing, not from being a slut.
March 15, 2008 at 3:03 pm
When Don calls Betty right after Roger’s heart attack, he is fresh in the midst of confronting his own mortality. Roger looks like death itself and is asking questions about whether there is a soul, etc. He embraces his wife and daughter as if it were for the last time. Such a confront makes all the issues Don has repressed come up–about his past, his identity, his love for Rachel. In the face of all that significance, Betty’s obsession with Gloria and her pot roast really does seem vapid and self-absorbed.
But consider that Betty has been dealing with her own mortality and identity issues for the past 3+ months without much support from Don, who cannot tolerate her mourning too openly. Even the therapist Betty sees does not say much to her in the way of comfort and it’s not clear how much Betty really divulges to Francine about her mourning besides talking about how beautiful her mother was. Betty is quite out there on her own, questioning all the things she has built her life on. Add to the mix that now, her father, not even a full year after her mother’s death, is taking up with a woman who is so clearly not perfect.
Betty has modeled her wife/mother/woman identity upon her mother, who taught her to “hide the brushstrokes” and now it seems to her that her father is abandoning that ideal womanhood–it has to freak out Betty about her own identity and whether her father’s love for her is lasting. Betty’s hands started freezing up whenever confronted with the symbols of being left–Helen Bishop, Don not coming back to the birthday party with the cake. So the fear of being left by Dad is very real for Daddy’s little girl.
Betty hides all her issues behind trivialities. Ketchup on pot roast–read: What is it all for? What meaning does my life have? How do I hang on?
As for her inability to be present for Don in the midst of his mortality crisis–both of them seem rather self-absorbed and in their own worlds. They are talking at cross-purposes with each other, no one is getting anyone. That is terribly human and terribly reminiscent of relationships we’ve been in and couples we’ve known.
March 15, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Absolutely, Max … the point being that Don and Betty each try to reach out in different ways at different times.
It’s a mark of their lack of empathy for one another that they cannot get the hint when the other needs support. This is a big part of marriage – sensing what the other needs, and providing it without judgment or qualification.
For some couples this can be hard to do as the years go on, especially if one party feels the other will not be there for them when the tables are turned. This seems to be Betty and Don’s problem (one of them, anyway) … I don’t think either of them have given the other much in the way of unqualified support, or reason to think it will be there for them if/when the time comes that they need to open up.
Certainly women in 1960 felt freer to open up than men did, but D&B seem an extreme case. Betty hardly knows anything about Don’s past (we know why, she doesn’t), and I personally don’t think Don cares too much about what makes Betty tick. So long as she looks the part he hired, er – married her for. For the most part, she’s willing to be the porcelain doll, but is realizing that’s a double-edged sword.
It’s only been 9 months that we’ve had this peek into their marriage, so what we don’t know greatly outweighs what we do.
March 15, 2008 at 9:50 pm
The thing that kills me, the one thing about Betty that I always come back to, is her saying that as long as she’s pretty “I’m earning my keep.”
She has to earn her keep. She isn’t there because she’s loved or adored or trusted or needed. She’s earning it.
That’s heartbreaking.
March 15, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Well, she learned that from her mother. She never thought to expect more from a marriage.
March 20, 2008 at 11:39 am
[…] comes home from therapy knowing that. She’s excited, animated, and ultimately, aroused. Now, I’ve talked about how passive Betty’s sexuality is, but after a day of modeling, after a day of power and acknowledgement, […]
April 14, 2009 at 4:09 pm
[…] Weiner and all of the production team and the Janet Maslins and Stuart Elliotts and Joe Buas and genius commenters and AMC fucking TV themselves. And it was ‘we’ all together, not we over here and them […]
May 24, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I just lurked in. Seems like lot of interesting stuff in here.
Hallo everybody