Don Draper’s Fresh Start
I just have to comment on the last episode of Mad Men.
A curious side-effect to the episode is that it has put me at playful odds with my friends. Many of us have our favorite characters, and we’ve all taken sides and preferences with different characters in the show. In my small circle of Mad-Men-watching-friends, we have a Roger Sterling, a Betty Draper, a Peggy Olsen, 2 Joan Holloways, and a Don Draper. I’m Don Draper.
Alcohol dependence included.
In this circle the sense of identification with the characters doesn’t come from an acknowledgement of superficial parallels or personal idealism. All the characters have terrible faults and have made harmful decisions throughout the show, so it’s hard to idealize someone with others who consistently err as humans do. Rather, the identification comes from an understanding of how the character views the world around him, based on circumstances of the present.
As a Don empathizer, I’m glad the divorce between Betty and Don came through. I honestly am. And I’m glad Don finally does, too. I don’t deny that there was once love between the characters, but even that love was built on delusions of grandeur from both parties. Don met her not long after he returned to the states from the war, and he picked Betty (a young, beautiful, professional model with a Grace Kelly mug) more as a compliment to the idealized character he was building, and less as a romantic partner.
Betty, on the other hand, is completely complacent with her place as a visual object, and much like the modeling life she knows (and misses), she expects to be continually worshipped for her looks. It’s no secret she values aesthetic appearance most in herself and others (her daughter surviving the car accident with a scar is “worse” than death, she’s constantly worried her daughter looks fat, etc) and that blatant narcissism blocks her from any sense of mental depth or sympathy towards others.
And people like that piss me off. I’m glad Don called her out on being a terrible wife and mother, though it’s a shame it didn’t hit another nerve within her. In the closing scenes, she was off to Reno with a man she hardly knows, leaving her older kids with the nanny for 6 week. Mother-of-the-year, ladies and gentlemen. But, really, who just stands up and does that? Don cheated on her before, and she didn’t leave. Is it because she finds out he used to be poor and her picture-perfect social status doesn’t exist anymore? (“I’ve seen how you are with money. You don’t know what to do with it.” Bitch, didn’t seem to be a problem before!)
Say what now?
Kudos to Henry for stepping up, though, I didn’t think he would. If he’s willing to commit to worshipping her for the rest of his life maybe that partnership can work in the long run. For Don’s sake, good riddance. He can and should (and finally, wants to) do better.
With the changes at Sterling-Cooper (or Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price-Campbell? How do you fit that shit on a masthead?) and a pending divorce, Don stands at the eve of personal redefinition. Since the beginning of the series, Don has served as a mask for Dick Whitman, that scared little kid who never went away (made apparent by using rolling flashbacks to his youth). The man is not “jaded,” but how else can a mask feel emotion? It’s why he performs harmful acts like he does (has affairs, leaves his job for weeks without notice, etc) without repercussions. Yet, as he looked upon the hotel room where everyone has followed him out, he realizes he can create something better from scratch. Hence, he immediately walks into the bedroom and tells Betty to piss off to Reno, and to take the kids with her. Until now, Dick has paraded Don as a costume, but I sense the beginning of a final fuse of the man and the mask. I cannot wait to see what comes of it.
Now, off to hear the points of view from the other characters. Will my Betty Draper friends care to speak up?
Am I a Betty? I really don’t think so, but I have to say that I did side with her a little more. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Don, flaws and all. But the way he reacted to Betty finally telling him off got to me. I don’t think she wants to leave him because she discovered about his past. I think she really did love him and I think she’s been in denial about his lack of loyalty for a long time. The lies about his past broke her because not only has he been completely unfaithful to her, he’s basically been pretending to be someone else the entire time. He’s never trusted her enough to really let her be a part of his life… she’s always been the pretty trophy wife there to please clients and entertain guests. Henry definitely helped her stand up for herself against Don, because she’s still pretty weak and she needed someone to go to after she left Don.
I’m not saying Betty is without flaws, I hate her self-righteous, shallow outlook on life… but COME ON Don, you’re gonna call her a whore?! Really?! After banging a billion and one women, you’re calling BETTY a WHORE? Because of one man who, btw, she has only barely kissed. For fuck’s sake, that made me a little disappointed in him. I’ll just say he was drunk and angry, but DRAGGING HER OUT OF BED, pushing her around and calling her a whore… I don’t know, you don’t do that to someone you care about.
Oh and PS. Maybe I’m more of a Roger… I like that cynical but humorous attitude toward life. He puts on a devil may care front, but underneath that spoiled womanizing bastard, there’s a smart and compassionate man.
The season finale is about one thing in my mind, fresh starts. We see all the old ties being torn apart and from them new life will emerge. I believe that everyone is going to be a lot more happier with the new lives they have chosen. Don is finally free from the obligations he had as a husband towards Betty, he may not realize it now but I think he is going to be a lot more content on his own. He no longer has to wear the false facade as the loyal husband married to his trophy wife, instead I believe this is a rebirth for him and the persona he has established for himself. I think he is going to start a new life with the teacher he’s attracted to who is a complete opposite of Betty. While Betty is a conservative, hard-headed, self-absorbed individual who pines to be worshiped and values beauty above intellect and free-thinking (how I hate people like that) the teacher is unlike her at all, shes very free, liberal, passionate, and kind and contrasts Betty well. It is no surprise how Betty immediately fell for Henry, the one man who gave her the atention she only craved from Don. When Betty found about about her husband’s past she was secretly happy, because she finally had an excuse to leave him instead of relying on suspicion of infidelity. Like I said before, the show is about new beginnings and the changes at Sterling-Cooper are the physical manifestation of the theme of the show which is to pick up the pieces of your shattered past and use them to build a new, better future and enterprise for yourself. Out of the ashes, the phoenix will rise and Don knows this, you can see it in his eye when he looks at the empty office of Sterling Cooper and says we can do better.
Agree to some extent with an earlier post but I think that the characters should be seen within the context of what was happening in the early sixties. The world was slowly opening up to minority groups – Women were staring to think about their options – (Betty is seen in an earlier episode reading Mary MacArthy’s The Group) although unfortunately in Betty’s case she goes form one man to a safe father figure. She is surely hurt by the fact that Don hasn’t trusted her enough to tell her the truth. In a way Don is everything her father warned her about. The conflictual relationship that Don had with Gene, Betty’s father is also a complicating factor. Betty is likely to be coming to terms with her father’s death – although it’s hard to tell with her stoic appearance. The back drop to this episode is the brutal assassination of JKF. Te effects of the death of Kennedy can’t be ignored. It created a sense of panic & unease, the President of the United States (who like Don & Betty had the “perfect family”) was vulnerable and nothing would be the same.