Mad Men - all about Betty

So, I've watched this last weekend's newest Mad Men episode twice already, and I'll probably watch it a couple more times, but I wanted to at least start to get my thoughts put into words.

First of all, I love Dawn. I love that she seems to perform her job very well, but that people (like Harry) keep making it awkward. She just wants to be a good secretary, but other people want to keep reminding her about her difference.

But the issue most people have been talking about is Betty's appearance. Which surprises me, really. Every blog I've read has either been blatantly offensive with phrases like "the elephant in the room, literally!" Or otherwise making fat jokes with her as the punch line. Each one feels like a punch in my own gut.

Other posts are mad at the writers for using Betty's weight as a way of making her more sympathetic or "redeeming" her, which I think is kinda weird. I've always thought Betty was sympathetic.

Also, why can't Betty grow and change in her new relationship? Don can become a better father and boss because of his relationship with Megan. I think we're finally going to see who Betty is without the voltile Don-Betty dynamic, and the truly loving adoration with Henry. She can still be a bitch, and I'm sure once her fear of death disappears, she'll return to her old self.

But the other issue I think is interesting, and I haven't read anything about, is the whole issue around being fat in the late-60s, when diet pills were considered so normal your mother-in-law would recommend them. Yes, the scene of Sally and Bobby trying to zip up her dress was juxtaposed with Don neatly zipping up Megan's dress, but I think it's more complex that just a "hey, look, Betty's fat now" thing. Remember last week, when Don was making breakfast for the kids? He asked Megan if she wanted anything, and her response was, "just black coffee for me." And Sally looked at her with admiration. Already, even then, I suspected that Sally was picking up on the notion that women need to be thin to be considered worthy. And, that was reinforced by the ending scene where Betty and Sally were having ice cream, and Sally stopped halfway through.

Several bloggers accused Betty of "stealing" Sally's ice cream. I totally didn't see it that way. Instead, I see Sally's walking away from the table as a kind of rebellion against her mother. Not only is she still angry at her for being a bitch, which I think Betty is actually trying to overcome, but she's adding some fat-shaming in there too. "I'm full." Really? What kid is ever too full to eat ice cream? No, this is more complicated that just Betty being fat. This is about Betty, Megan, Sally and women in general in the late-60s.

Interestingly, the doctor insisted on an exam for the diet pills and even gave Betty some pushback. Of course, as someone who wasn't alive (ex-utero, at least) in the 60s, I don't really know how easy it was to get diet pills at the time. But Pauline, Henry's mother seems to think they're easy to come by. Even the Rolling Stones, who were also an off-camera feature of this episode, had a song about "Mother's Little Helper," that came out in 1966. While the drug in the song is a barbiturate, it seems like getting prescriptions should have been easier than it was for Betty.

But, then again, it's good that the doctor did the exam. And, who knows, maybe after finding nothing physically wrong with her, he would have given in and given her a prescription to give her "a little jump start."

I don't think the show was written to humiliate Betty, although she was certainly well and truly humiliated throughout the show. First, she had to beg off from yet another function. And I'm sure it was because she felt ugly and fat, and not easily fitting into her dress just made it worse. Even Pauline commented on it, saying, "you've missed a bunch of these, Betty."

Heck, just having Pauline come by to talk with her was humiliating. "I know how it happens. You get comfortable and you give up a little bit, and then it just gets out of control." As though her fatness is a moral failure, like she's just being lazy. For a split second, we even got to see the old Betty, when she snapped back, "Why haven't you taken them?" But Pauline takes it in stride, and brings it back around to how Betty isn't pleasing her husband.

When Betty shows up at the doctor's office, she's not her old self, demanding what she's there for. She's contrite. "Well... it's just that I'm wondering... I've put on a few pounds, and I haven't had much luck reducing on my own for some reason." She's hedging. She's trying to be brave, but you can tell she's worried he's going to judge her too. And he does. "Mrs. Francis, when a housewife has rapid weight gain, the cause is usually psychological -- unhappiness, anxiety, boredom, things that cause us to lose our self-control." See, even he is bringing it back around to something she's likely doing wrong.

Of course, it's not her fault. It's a tumor on her thyroid. Which explains the tiredness and lack of regular-Betty behavior. As someone with a thyroid condition, I can totally relate to both the weigh gain and the weird behavior. If I miss taking my replacement thyroid pills for two days in a row, I can totally feel it. That Betty is sitting on the couch in her housecoat eating Bugles is no surprise. And she's not doing it because she's lazy. And I guarantee when her tumor is removed and her thyroid is acting normally again, we'll see more of the old Betty we know and love to hate.

But, even so, it's kinda interesting to me how this show set in the past is trying to tell a story about being fat in the 60s, and people are jumping all over it in the present, totally missing the point. Or, more likely, proving that very little has changed in the last 46 years. Women can't get fat without it being some kind of humiliation or moral failure. Whether it's about how disgusting Betty is now, or how sad it is that they made Betty fat, or how the writers made Betty fat to mock fat women, I think most people have missed the point. She's fat, and she's tired. But, at the end, she's also relieved to still be alive, and adored by a loving husband who doesn't care if she's fat, so maybe she's eating the rest of Sally's ice cream because she wants it and she can. Sally didn't want it. It's not like she pushed Sally down and took it from her. She really wanted Sally to enjoy the ice cream as much as she was so they could share a nice mother-daughter moment (which was a nice juxtaposition with the scene of the new guy Michael and his father), but she is rebuffed.

I'm curious why Betty turned to Don during her moment of fear when she returned home from the doctor's office and Henry wasn't home. I think this really says more about how she feels about Henry. Like maybe she's confused by how he reacts to her. Don was firm, authoritarian with her when they were married. Henry is kind and understanding. But even during the phone call, we can see how Don has changed. She has to tell him, "say what you always say." Meaning she called him for a brisk talking-to to help her calm down. She needed someone to be in charge.

There's a whole lot more going on in this episode, but I don't really have time to give it an in-depth treatment. I love the image of Roger Sterling juxtaposed with all the young kids in the office. Heck, seeing Don and Harry backstage at the Rolling Stones concert with those kids. Or even Don compared to Megan. "You're so square you have corners!" Lots of scenes showing the whirlwind of change everyone is facing. Don's 40, but he may as well be 60.

What about Pete and his power play? He's the new face of advertising and he's rubbing Roger's nose in it. And likely justifiably, considering how Roger was acting in the previous episode.

And Peggy hiring the new guy, Michael. Some claim that Michael is the "new Peggy" but I don't see it that way. He's brash and creative, and I expect there will be fireworks, but I trust Peggy to remain in control of the situation. She's not fooled by him for one second.

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Mad Men - It's all about the women

I watched the season premier of Mad Men yesterday afternoon, and haven't stopped thinking about it since. So I re-watched it this afternoon (it's Spring Break, and it's raining, perfect TV-watching time), to maybe sort out some of my thoughts.

The first thing that strikes me, of course, is the political protests in the opening scene. I'm sure it's no coincidence that the handwritten signs in the windows are so similar to the same signs that were places in windows during the early days of the Occupy Wall Street protests last year.

The fact that Don and Roger are laughing about the trouble the folks at Y&R got into for dropping water bombs on the black protestors is quite telling. They're not laughing because their competition is being called out for being discriminatory. They are giddy about the negative attention, but only because they're mad that Y&R stole one of their accounts, not for the actions behind the negative attention. They run an ad claiming they're an equal opportunity employer whose "windows don't open." But instead of running it in the job ads, they run it in the advertising column, with the sole intent of further humiliating their competition. This, of course, comes back to bite them in the butt.

This is not the first time Mad Men has addressed the racial issues of the day, but it is the first time we see it actually in the context of Madison Avenue. Before, it was Betty's interactions with her housekeeper Carla, self-congratulatory politically-liberal Paul Kinsey's girlfriend and their talk about going on the Freedom Rides, and the episode where Lane Pryce was infatuated with the black Playboy bunny, and... well... that's all I can think of. Frankly, I'm curious to see where they go with this. I know there are lots of folks watching, carefully, to see if they treat the subject of race relations in the 60s with the carefulness that other issues have been addressed.

Speaking of the 60s, this is the first episode that really, truly feels like I would expect the 60s to feel like. It's finally feeling like the 60s as I think of them based on my very limited knowledge of the era. The home decor is starting to look eerily familiar to what I grew up in.

Aside from this first peek at what's in store for this season in terms of character lines and cultural stories, this episode felt like it was mainly about the women.

We started out with Sally and Megan. Even if the scene was more about the new-found domesticity of Don, the attention paid to Sally's curiosity about Megan and her father is what stuck me most about this scene. She's curious about Megan in bed with her father, but she's also aware of how his relationship with Megan has turned him into a more caring and attentive father. She genuinely seem to glow when Megan compliments the gift of a shaving brush, as though getting Megan's approval of the gift was as important as her father's.

Then we have Joan and her mother. Actually, we get lots of Joan and her mother. What a great insight into Joan's character through her relationship with her mother. We see them several times throughout the episode and their relationship seems to be a volatile one, with underlying resentments and accusations. We see where Joan gets her wit and ferocity. But by the end of the episode, we also see the caring side of the relationship as well. The scene of them in the elevator is one of the sweetest scenes I've seen in a while. It speaks volumes.

Joan's fight to return to work is a very promising peek into where I hope they continue to explore the role of work as a source of identity in women's lives. Joan is Joan. She needs to be Joan in the office to feel like herself. Her worry about the stability of her job and her tears in Lane Pryce's office are the first real signs of weakness we see in Joan's tough exterior, and they not about her role as a mother or wife, but about her role as an important part of the running of the office. Her self worth is reliant on her position at work, just like many of the men. "I'm sorry, I've been like this since the baby. It's not him. I just keep thinking about what's going on here and I missed it too much." Lane puts it perfectly, "It's home, but it's not everything."

Speaking of women at work, there's lots of snark about Mrs. Draper's work, and totally inappropriate comments about her sexual life with Don. "She should have just rolled over and said, 'Don, what do you think of this?" "I'll bet she says that every morning." This is some of the mildest forms of frat boy humor in the episode, setting up the tension between Megan and everyone else in the office, but also creating extra tension for Peggy and the other women, either pitting them against Megan for attention, or putting them in the uncomfortable position of having to stand up to the boys. Only Peggy really has the guts to do so.

I'm curious to see how the interactions with Peggy and Megan go. Their relationship seems tense, but also a bit companionable.  And how much of the tension is really between Peggy and Don, and only played out with Megan? Peggy's anger about Don's uncharacteristic response to the Heinz folks who aren't impressed with her Bean Ballet idea is telling. She wanted the old Don to open fire in her defense, and say "what he usually says, 'Hey buddy, if you got such great ideas, why don't you open your own agency.' The clients are right all of a sudden? I don't recognize that man. He's kind, and patient." "And it galls you." "No, it concerns me."

At the same time, I see Megan trying to find and use her power, a lot of which lies in her sexuality. Which, of course, is what all those jokes in the office are about. Her song and dance for Don's birthday party is definitely feeding the fire of talk in the office. The scene in the kitchen with Harry and Stan, with Megan hearing what Harry is saying, was painful. How many times has something similar been played out in offices over the years? At least in this case, Harry was ashamed of himself.

What, or who, is she trying to exert her power over? The work she's doing is clearly something she wants to do and to take pride in. But she's also exerting power over Don, who is clearly unused to being in that position. She predicts that after the party, "everyone will have sex." But she and Don don't. He's mad, and sulking. The scene where she's cleaning up in her lacy underwear is clearly a power play. She's goading him. At least this time it worked.

Sure, there were interesting scenes with men, and about men, but the best were about the men in relation to the women in their lives. The men-only business scenes are just more of the same. They're still wonderful Mad Men scenes, but they pale in comparison with everything else happening -- Pete and Roger bickering, the running gag with Bert Cooper not knowing what's going on around him -- those scenes are in black in white compared to the vibrancy of the scenes with Joan, Megan, and Peggy.

Case in point, the scene on the train with Pete and the other man, Howard, isn't about work, but about their dissatisfaction with their married lives. "They don't understand." I love how this shows how little the wives understand about being a working man who needs time with his thoughts, but this lack of understanding goes both ways. Pete had just finished complaining about how Trudy is finally "getting back to herself." He goes on to say, "There was a time when she wouldn't leave the house in a robe."

Later, when Pete comes home late from work (to a house that is far too similar to Don and Betty's old home to be mere coincidence, I might add), he tries to complain to Trudy, saying, "There's no fruit to my labor." She replies with, "I guess none of this counts, an acre of land, a wife, a child." But, in his mind, "That has nothing to do with work."

The husbands don't understand the concerns and problems of the wives, and the wives don't understand the husbands' pressures at work. Each is trying to live up to some ideal set by society, which is a recipe for disaster. I really hope we see more of this discussion of gender roles and how they started to shift in the 1960s.

Also, can I just say: Peggy with the baby and Pete walking in?! Roger holding the baby?! And what's with Lane and the photo of Dolores? Do you think the guy with the wallet knows that Lane kept the photo? 

And, then, in the final scene, the juvenile ad prank on Y&R comes back around and takes a big old chomp. I can't wait until next week!

 

All photos from AMC's website.

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