Lay Off Betty Draper-Francis
I feel like one of the few who cheered when Betty decided to leave Don for Henry Francis.
Some reviewers are judging Betty's decision through their own liberated glasses. Alas, the Betty Drapers of America needed to build a life raft because they were completely dependent upon the patriarch to provide for them and their children. Betty's parents are dead and it's a good guess that moving in with her brother's family is less appealing than a Henry Francis union. Sure, we'd love to see her grow a liberated backbone and strike out on her own, but as Bert Cooper said about those who love risk -- they can't imagine the consequences. Betty is not just a wife, but a mother. Beyond her wants, she has three needs to literally feed. Her new man, so far, seems to have responsibility ingrained at a molecular level. This may make Henry boring, but the dashing and exciting bad boy ended up being a sh*t husband. Good for Betty. As far as other fans speculating that Henry wants control over Betty, it's too soon to tell for me. But how many options would come to a woman in the small town of Ossining?
One of the wonderful aspects of Mad Men is the show's blunt portrayal of women as second class citizens both in the work force and at home. Most housewives were brought up to be the passive arm charms and babymakers that their husbands wanted. The very old-school husband didn't even want his wife to work because it would make him appear that he couldn't provide for his family. The wife stayed home, compromising her pride for her husband's. Should the husband divorce or die, a wife was left with little to no means of support. In the Draper residence, it's hard to imagine that Don wouldn't have eventually left home through another woman or self-destruction. What would Betty do for money? Her only marketable skill was being young and pretty -- and that modeling ship has sailed.
Sure, she could have hired a private detective to catch Don in all his sloppy liaisons, thus granting a tidy divorce with sweet alimony. But she's no divorcee. Circumstances and conditioning have led her to be a compliant wife. Opportunity knocked for Mrs. Draper to become Mrs. Francis. Not all women were on the road towards equality and Betty certainly doesn't have the mindset of an independent, liberated woman. A colleague of mine (and fellow Mad Men addict) brought up Phyllis Schlafly. As recently as 1982, the Equal Rights Amendment failed to be ratified because of Schlafly's campaign against it. Women's identities have come a longer way than a Virginia Slim.
I like that Betty has found a provider that shows her the attention and affection that Don didn't. Maybe this will finally be a laxative for her emotional constipation. Now, if only the old man could stay awake on a plane en route to their marriage.
William Bradley: Mad Men's Sensational Season Finale -- HuffPost Review
It's action-packed, and not just for Mad Men, a show whose pace can sometimes be exceedingly deliberate. And it's fun, especially in contrast to the two shattering episodes which precede it.
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I think Betty loved Don and look at what that got her. I don't think she loves Henry but she will be up on the pedestal and be able to do what she wants, like Don, cheat.
Betty left Don for Henry because he was a more convincing father figure. To her, not her kids. She's always been daddy's little princess.
Don't think she left because she was out of love or because she felt abused. The trip to Rome proved none of those things were true. She left because she wants to be married to her father; a great provider who exists only (ironically) on TV. Henry Francis's blanket offers of providing for her and her children - who he has never met - are desperate and unrealistic. Of course, so is Betty.
I'm not saying she shouldn't have left Don. That was the right thing for her to do. I'm saying she didn't do it for good reasons, and it proves more that she's weak than she's strong, given she's jumping into Henry's arms because it's the easy thing to do.
If you think Betty will get divorced and ride off into the sunset with Henry Francis, you don't know Mad Men. She will either get close to the edge and back down or Henry Francis will turn out to be a worse slug than Don and she will realize her mistake. In either case, Don and Betty will be back together half way through next season.
No chance. Zero. As far as the Mad Men writers are concerned, that marriage is belly up and pushing up daisies. It was built on a lie, the lie was exposed, and Betty's dream of what she thought Don was has been shattered. That was the real end of the marriage, more than the infidelities on both their parts.
I think audiences WANT them to find their way back to each other. At one moment in time, maybe they really were in love. But I think it's more to do with individual viewers' own experiences of losing someone dear that makes us want to see Don and Betty have a fairy tale ending.
Don has closed the book when he called to say he wouldn't fight her. She has closed the book by flying off to Reno. They'll see each other - they do have kids - but there is no second act for them.
Sad to say, but I'd bet on it.
You seem to think "many many women before feminism" got divorced. They didn't. Before the "women's lib" movement and the widespread use of the birth control pill, women stayed with their husbands no matter what. If a woman was divorced, it was something to be ashamed of (although not so much among the upper classes). If you were watching the series early on, remember how the Drapers and their neighbors reacted when a divorcee moved into their neighborhood. She was shunned by most. That was a realistic portrayal. Things began to change in the 1970s.
As far as Betty's decision to take up with another man, it's understandable, but not for financial reasons. At his income level, Don would have paid through the nose. In those days, because most women didn't work, alimony was figured on the basis of maintaining the wife at the level to which she was accustomed, and could cost as much as child support.
Notice that Roger Sterling's ex-wife is not remarried, and she's doing fine. What Henry Francis said about Betty not taking support was very unusual, and not a good omen. It means he'll have ultimate control over both Betty and her children, especially now that her father is dead.
The comments on this post show that most of the responding viewers are too young to remember those days. You all have no idea what it was like for women, thank goodness. Take care that you don't find yourselves back there one day.
Sorry... I messed up in replying, this post belongs as a response to a later comment.
Let's also not forget a couple of other things - speaking of bad omens. Betty got advice from her own family attorney and was advised against it. It was Henry Francis who led her down the divorce trail, step-by-step. He wanted her to "come to him" because she was married. (Message: Get a divorce.) He wanted to marry her after having seen her all of three times or so. (Message: Get a divorce.) He led Betty into his own attorney's office where he and his lawyer colluded to push her into a quickie Reno divorce. Left on her own, Betty would still be with Don - suffering, certainly.
Remember season 1 - Don tells Rachel he wants to marry her? And she was even serious about him for a while until she (more quickly than Betty) came to her senses.
No, Henry Francis is not good news for Betty, at least in the longer run.
Let's not forget that Betty's recent discovery of Don/Dick's duplicity hit her much harder than his earlier "indiscretions."
After all, she allowed him to come back home after the revelation of his affair(s) indicating that she had reached some type of compromise, at least temporarily.
But now, she is facing nothing less than an earth shattering betrayal. Her brief, almost throwaway, line to Henry, "He has been lying to me for years," belies the depth of her shock. She is like a person involved in an auto accident who in a moment of profound confusion decides to race away from the scene.
On the other hand, Betts always knew that Don had a shady past and was well aware of the secrets he kept locked away ~ never far from her fingertips. She chose to live with these secrets until meeting up with Henry.
Remember divorce is still very taboo in the early '60s. For Betts, a bored, dissatisfied housewife desperate to break free, this revelation provides her with cover.
Yes, I think Betty liked that Don was a mystery. One episode, she told him straight out that she loved sex, and that's what it was all about for her. Now that Don is open, and vulnerable, she's no longer attracted to him. Henry is something new, something exciting. After Rome, when she realized that even when she gets to go on a foreign business trip, she still has to come home and cook breakfast for her kids, she was peevish.
I still remember when they came home from a big to-do, all dressed in formalwear, drunk, and passed out fully-clothed on their bed. It was such a beautiful shot, the cinematographer on that show is amazing. Praise to AMC for putting the budget behind this show, its ratings are low, but they hire excellent behind-the-scenes artists, and really wonderful actors to speak the very stylized dialogue. Not every TV show gets that kind of support - I wish they did!
Remember how Grandpa Gene didn't like Don because he "had no people?" Wonder what he'd think of Henry?
I certainly don't blame Betty for what she's doing - sure, she's wrong. it's a bad decision. It was not the most "honorable" way to deal with her dysfunctional marriage. It might take a while for her to crash and burn - after all, there probably will be a honeymoon period with Henry (whether they actually marry or not remains to be seen). But crash and burn she will.
Sadly, she and Don were well suited for each other. Both came from childhoods that were abusive and loveless. She was emotionally abused, by her father for being fat, among other things. The real difference between them is this: Don has learned to survive by thinking outside the box. Betty is in her own box and hasn't a clue - yet - how to think outside of it. Henry is jgoing to turn out to be worse than Don, though not in the same ways.
If Betty COULD think outside the box, she'd be Betty Friedan. But she's too wrapped up in her own world. Even in that last phone call from Don, that he hadn't yet settled into a living arrangement was normal - but that he was WORKING from a hotel was abnormal and strange yet it sailed right over her head.
She'll get a clue eventually, if the writers continue their brilliant work, but it will be a very painful process, I think.
I have been hoping that Betty would be the embodiment of Betty Friendan's archetype in The Feminine Mystique, a well-educated woman left to wilt in the suburbs with nothing to do but tend house. She showed her spark in Rome and I think she may want to shine as a political wife. I just don't want this move to Henry to be her moving from one cage to another.
You're excusing a lot of Betty's horrible, but, slightly hidden qualities beyond having been cheated on.
If you recall, she has had a few indiscreet interactions on her own. When she said to Carla, the maid, that "maybe it is not the right time for integration" reveals how scary someone like her is for social progress.
I am torn because January nails this role so well that I would hate to see her reduce to an ocassional guest star. I had not considered the darker sides of Henry Francis personality that some have intuitively noted......time will tell, but, he certainly isn't everything he appears to be on the surface.
I for one was easy on Betty's maternal instincts. However, a friend of mine said early on that Betty is the worse mother on a show in a long time. I reluctantly agree. Again, tributes to Miss Jones. (I also like the real life fact that Ashton Kutcher did not support her acting pursuits.....she gets the last laugh here considering that his last movie, "Spread" did a whopping $250,000 since release).
Betty gets as good as she gives......which isn't much in the way of building a healthy family.
As for worst mother on a TV show, I agree. What mother takes off for 6 weeks in Reno right before Christmas, leaving her children with the maid? Sally won't get two Christmases like Betty said, she'll be lucky if she gets one. No wonder the kids instinctively side with their dad.
Your assessment of the way the Draper marriage would have eventually ended is right on. And I too am happy that Betty thinks she has found someone for whom she is "enough". That one sentence in her fight with Don when he confronted her about her divorce demands said it all. She is running from one supposed caretaker to another. This one might do a better job of it on the romantic side but unless Betty has an outlet for her disgust with being a suburban wife and mother she'll be Francis' problem and he'll be seeking a shrink for his new wife.
The Don Draper character's a pretty parcel of trouble. Guys like him are great for dirty weekends and kicks but a realtionship? Hell to the n.o.
Love it! You are sooooo correct. But if a girl don' get her kicks, she DRINKS, like Deborah Kerr in From Here To Eternity. Been there. Won't go again.
The key to Betty's problem was revealed when she off-handedly remarked that she "just wants everything to be perfect." That's not a simple request. In fact, it is an impossible one. She has traded life with a man who loves her for a fairy tale with a "prince" she doesn't even know.
There's a term for people whose happiness depends on everything being perfect, and that term is "unhappy."
I rent this from Netflix (no TV set) a year after everybody else has seen it, so I am surprised that Betty is taking up with yet another man who will likely disappoint her. I think she should take Don's money and make a different kind of life for herself, not just be somebody's wife once again.
Side bar, without a television set, how does Netflix assist you in viewing the series?
computer?
Please. You *know* there's going to be more to Henry--Mr. Milquetoast personified--than met the eye this season...Betty barely knows him, having met him just a handful of times. He'll probably be one of those "be careful what you wish for" situations: I think Betty's just hurled herself out of the frying pan right into the Hibachi.
I'm with you. She is putting all her hopes in a virtual stranger. I'm waiting to see the reaction of the children, I doubt they'll like it one bit.
Absolutely! I suspect Henry will turn out to be VERY controlling. His not wanting Betty to have alimony or support from Don looked like a dead giveaway. He doesn't want her to have any money of her own, so she'll be completely dependent on him. And I'm afraid Betty couldn't care less what it will do to the two older children, probably because nobody cared about her feelings as a child. She's only interested in that baby, either because she plans to perfect her relationship with her father through him, or just because he's still too small to have a mind of his own and talk back to her.
It is refreshing to read your article. I feel like you are not clouded with all the "Don Draper is king" talk out there. That doesn't mean I don't like Don. Each character is a mix of redeeming qualities and jaw dropping qualities. You have given Betty's situation a good look and I agree with what you have said. The only thing I question is the "old man". I don't see it that way and I am in my early 30's. Dick is 34-35, Don is 37-38 but people think of him in his early 40's. Roger is mid to late 40's but people think of him in his 50's. Henry would be in his 40's most likely. He has a daughter around margaret's age and people had children in their early to mid 20's. Matt casts men that look more like men did at that time. They look like real men and not the overly primped men of today.
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I agree about the fascination with these morally ambiguous characters. All major characters on this show have their flaws and virtues. They make for compelling conflict... who wants to watch a show about a bunch of goodie two-shoes that never make mistakes?
I do, from time to time. Heroic ideals us something to shoot for, even if we must necessarily come up short.
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