Betty please don’t go
Matthew Weiner and AMC just can’t seem to work things out, and these are darks days for Mad Men.
If we ever get a glimpse at it, the fifth season promises more change and oddness. Don’s new marriage, SCDP without Lucky Strike, the Draper/Francis home no more, motherhood for Joan and I know not what for Peggy but I cannot wait.
I’ve been trying not to get all that caught up in the drama of the fate of the fifth season, but I admit I am antsy. This talk of cutting minutes, cutting characters, and how readily the show’s fans are offering Betty as the first to go. Maybe they’d keep her if she sunk her teeth into some real deal second wave feminism or had a full on “ Valley of the Dolls downward spiral”.
I cannot, I will not imagine Mad Men without Betty Draper, or Betty Francis.
Betty is in many ways unlovable to the audience. Sure we’ve felt sympathy for her, but in their mutual dysfunction Don was always our hero. Yes, he fucked her over, that is plain. We’ve been with Don this long (he is the star, isn’t he?) that we couldn’t help but root for him more than we root for Betty. She’s so lovely, yet our affection for her can recede into the background. And in the time since Betty Draper has become Betty Francis her story has been quieter, tense and strange. In a new marriage she is still the same Betty - perhaps with slightly less charm. Maybe Betty cannot make the choice that will change her life in a way that would satisfy her, that would satisfy us, but maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s why we watch this show.
One of the places where Mad Men excels is in telling womens’ stories in a man’s world. Peggy, Joan and Betty have been our holy trinity, three very different entry points into the spectrum of female experience within the limited scope of the show’s universe. Peggy is strong and young and changing, we want everything for her, we trust her and we are willing to let her make mistakes. Joan is so rich that she just carries us with her, she has made choices and many of them aren’t what we want for her, but we accept them just has she has.
Betty is neither of these, and she is hard to watch. She challenges us in a way that feels very flat. We sit with her in yesterday’s party dress, unshowered, smoking cigs and drinking daytime wine. It doesn’t get us anywhere.
I don’t care if Betty ever reads the Feminine Mystique.
10 months ago • Notes