there are parks employees to clean up trash, etc. it's along the same lines as leaving a stack of dirty dishes for carla to clean up.

Tina, I was waiting for someone to notice the trash that the Drapers left behind at the picnic, also Don just throwing his (beer can?) in the woods - obviously he and Betty are on the same wavelength.
Actions like this are very telling of the time and of the people involved.

I am trying to figure Betty out. Betty would be exactly my mother's age now and I would have been very close to the daughter Polly's age. I remember also having my parents ask me to make cocktails for them and I also took ballet and music lessons just like Polly - to my embarrassment I was also asked to "perform" when "company" came to the house!

Thanks for noticing the picnic --I thought I was the only one!

You mean their daughter "Sally". Polly is the dog.

Thanks for noticing the picnic --I thought I was the only one!

You two were not the only ones. That was last episode ("The Gold Violin") and if you check out comments made about that episode you'll see a great many about the trash left behind at the picnic.

The "Don't Litter" campaign was started up in the mid-50's and picked up steam in the 60's for this very reason. That with new affluence and disposability (paper plates and such) people were littering with careless abandon. But it's quite clear the Draper's litter, focused on by the camera, is more than just a reality of those times. It's also a powerful symbol of how their life--Don's in particular--while looking clean on the outside, leaves behind a lot of garbage. He can ignore it, but it's not going away.

A person can't have affairs and assume there's not going to be any mess, or that the mess can be dumped and forgotten. If the litter at the picnic didn't make that clear, Betty vomiting in the car did.

Actually, in those days, the litter would disappear. They probably had nothing plastic and by definition, all the plates, etc were biodegradable. I don't know if they had any plastic tableware but I doubt it. The one thing that would last the longest is Don's beer can that he pitched away.

So (and this was probably not intended by M. Weiner & Co.), with time, all that detritus disappears into the mists of time.

This was my childhood. The littering behavior accurately depicts what I recall. But to see those actions replayed was as shocking as anything I have seen on TV. Which reminds me; my generation became indoctrinated during the early 60s by an advertising campaign which had at its core an ugly bug and a slogan; "Don't be a litter bug!" Those darn ad men.

I was also shocked by them littering and Don throwing the can like he was throwing a baseball. I was born in 1970 so I remember the anti-littering campaigns too. It was a big dichotomy with them making sure their hands were not dirty for the new car, and then leaving the garbage there on the grass.

When did the anti-littering really take hold? If I remember correctly, it was during the Kennedy and Johnson years. I remember Lady Bird had her America the Beautiful campaign and encouraged planting flowers by the highways, etc., and cutting back on billboards.

That commercial with the Indian chief on his horse looking out at the litter on the land with the tear running down his cheek is what I remember about the anti-litter campaign, but I can't remember what year it first ran.

The Drapers' behavior was very typical of the times.

The littering scene after the idyllic picnic was glaringly honest; genuine to the era, but even worse, genuine to Don's obsession to keep the new Cadillac clean and the understanding that Betty will follow suit to please him.
Typical guy behavior to throw the beer can -
But aren't people still throwing their trash out of the cars in every town in America (especially at on and off ramps where they think no one will see them doing it) because a.) they don't want it in their car ! and b.) they're f **cking lazy.
The depth of this show is beautifully subtle, and it goes beyond authentic potrayal of the period; the characters are slowly revealed to us and to themselves, more naked than anyone living in that era would want anyone to see them, ever.

Don't you remember the campaign "every litter bit hurts"? And what about the public service ad with the native american with the tear running down his face from seeing trash and pollution?. I was pretty young then but I'm guessing it was early- mid- 60s.

I wonder if the trash was designed to help define what the Drapers might be deep down-- a lower demographic, or as we say here in the south.. trailer trash.

SEPT1959---That's what I thought...trailer trash! Is it possible Betty and Don are both from a "lower demographic"? I was shocked at first when Betty shook that blanket out. I grew up in that era and Iwasn't raised that way.
The "Keep America Beautiful" campaign started with Lady Bird Johnson. And my car is often full of trash because I can't throw it out of the window.

And what about the public service ad with the native american with the tear running down his face from seeing trash and pollution?. I was pretty young then but I'm guessing it was early- mid- 60s.

It was 1971, and that commercial was the commercial that really did it for the "Keep America Beautiful" campaign. There were all kinds of anti-littering campaigns up till then, but none of them hit so hard, was so well remembered or did so good at job at getting the message across till that one. It stopped more Americans from being litter bugs than just about anything else.

It's pretty much thanks to that commercial that all of us here and now are more horrified by the litter Don's family leaves behind than just about anything else we've seen on this show. Interesting, no?

nmkay:
Is it possible Betty and Don are both from a "lower demographic"?

Don, definitely. Hard-scrabble farm in Pennsylvania as I recall.

Betty, definitely not. Her father was wealthy enough to send her to Bryn Mawr and they weren't handing out scholarships in those days to bring in the "lower demographic." Besides, her father has a vacation house at Cape May(?) and I think she's mentioned going to the country club when she was younger. Which made her an ideal for Don to marry. Remember all the comparisons with Grace Kelly? She was from a Main-Line family in Philadelphia.

I thought the picnic scene helped emphasize how meticulous Don was about that car. Just made it all the sweeter when Betty hurled in it.

Did make it sweeter when Betty hurled - though I still see people throwing litter out of their car everyday and I cringe. It is indicative of the ME first attitude that is prevalant in our sociuety today. Makes me sick

Did make it sweeter when Betty hurled - though I still see people throwing litter out of their car everyday and I cringe. It is indicative of the ME first attitude that is prevalant in our sociuety today. Makes me sick

The director was only depicting the way people felt about littering during the era of the 60's.

That scene was jaw-dropping. How times have changed.

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