1. Isn't the Draper tv in the den, not the living room?
2. Most of the women you talk to are apparently geniuses.
3. Betty should kiss DON'S ass????? Are you nuts?
4. I agree, I would love to see more about the secondary characters. But I guess that would make the show way too complicated and long.

Yes..Kiss his behind. Had Don stayed out of the house, she would have folded like a house of cards. Betty is a head-case with a spectrum of problems.

I am not so sure Betty would have folded as you say, Gavin. I have never been a Betty fan, and I agree she has a lot of emotional problems. After watching the last few episodes, however, I would have liked to see her make it on her own. Of course, she had to go and get herself pregnant, which pretty much assured that she would take Don back, but if she had not, it is fascinating to think what decisions she might have made about her life.

Hmmmmmm...

Betty makes a home for Don and takes care of their children.

He comes home if and when he feels like it, or when his mistresses are busy. He cheats on her like an alley cat, lies about it and nearly everything else, gives her a name that isn't even his----and she should "kiss his ass"????????

Betty definitely does have emotional problems...but at least she isn't a fraud.

Betty has a maid....and as far as taking "care" of her children....I haven't seen it yet. She wants the boy, who never seems to speak, spanked. The little girl, when not in the closet or being pulled by her pony-tail, isn't exactly bonding. They made cookies once.
Betty is a BAD friend,has very few interest or hobbies. She could at least do the Junior League.

Don's sexuality is his socialisation, although his choices are getting really stupid.

I am a woman and think Don is a good husband and father-I dislike Betty-she's way too scary around the kids and should have never had any.

If you mean by "his choices are getting really stupid" his "choice" of Bobbie Barrett...well, that's sure the truth. What a skank.

inspiron, let's face it, neither Betty nor Don would win the Parent of the Year...

@Gavin H, having just rewatched Three Sundays and seeing how Betty seems to wait to pounce on Bobby every time he even looks the wrong way I have to agree that her mothering could use a major rehaul...the kid is so intimidated he's scared to breathe. She also has no love in her voice (a kid can tell love--- even in an angry voice--- if it's there) just annoyance and resentment.

I guess she is the best mother she knows how to be given what major emotional problems she has. I always have felt sorry for her kids when she reprimands them in that hate filled voice.

Who knows? Maybe Don wouldn't cheat if Betty was more mature and interesting and maybe Betty could be more mature and interesting if she felt like her husband respected their marriage enough to at least attempt to be faithful....they are one messed up pair. No doubt about that.

Hi, can you please tell me when the next season
will start, this is the very best show on tv, but for a while it was not on the air, now it's back but only re-runs are showing?????? what's going on
this show won lot's of AWARDS why the stand still ???? can someone explain to me ????
are the writers on strike or what ????????

I 'am so ready for the new season to start, but whennnnnnnnnnnnnnn??????

Betty's son is no more a baby. She certainly doesn't know anymore how to do with him, because she is not a man. In monotheist societies, a child is supposed to need a model to grow up (1). This model can not be his mother, according Betty's education. So she asks Don to spank his son "as your father has done with you, and that's why you are the man you are today (the man I love)".
Betty's daughter imitates her (she tries to smoke, she wants to ride on horse), but the boy seems lost. He doesn't have any model to imitate. and he doesn't have any friends, apparently.
I think in the next season Don will work less to stay more at home, with his son, his familly (think he is in trouble at work).

______________
(1) That's why most of the Hollywood movies have on ly one guest star (nowadays a co-neofeminist-guest star). Hollywood characters are some kind of gods to imitate. See the interesting documentary "Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream (1998)"

Don will always be a cheater.

I think Betty has some real male-resentment problems. Her relationship with her father creeped me out!

My own mother had another life going on for years, so maybe I cut Don a little more slack.

It seems though, that every character on the show has a public life, and another personal life going on simultaniously.

Don't we all have public and personal and private lives?

Anybody think about what Betty's mom must have been like? Betty misses her but her only clear memories seem to be about looking desirable. I suspect Mom spent a lot of time in front of the dressing room mirror when Dad wasn't at home.

No wonder Betty's feels so comfortable with Viola and with Carla taking care of the kids. It's the way she grew up.

Well, it wouldn't be much of a show if everyone sat around drinking milk and cookies and then lived happily ever after, would it? I can't remember if it was on the DVD of the first season, or on the tv special at the end of the season that Matt Weiner said MM was about the price women pay for men's desires. And one of the major themes of the show is the public/private dichotomy of life and keeping secrets.

I'm not sure what to think of Betty. She probably shouldn't have had children, but that was what women did then. Her emotional problems are also magnified by Don's inability to be a decent husband. He's as weak in his own way as Betty is in hers. Remember Rachel, who is probably the most well-adjusted character on the show, and how repulsed she was when Don came begging to her to run away with him? When she refused, he had to go back to Betty; he had no where else to go. Unfortunately, they bring out the worst in each other.

I find it interesting that there are two characters on the show with dementia, Betty's father and Bert.

I meant to say too that Don would cheat even if he was married to Marilyn Monroe/Betty Crocker.

Yep...our Don will cheat until the end...looks have nothing to do with it (he screwed Bobbie, didn't he?)

The man just feels compelled to continue to dip his banana in new fruit bowls (to paraphrase Rod Stewart on why he's been divorced so many times) to stroke his broken spirit from growing up a "whore child" and being beaten by his father.

Yessiree, Mambo...how boring it would be if all the Mad Men and Mad Women were well adjusted and constantly smiling and enjoying life....yeck! Give me a bunch of maladjusted looney toons any day...

hee

.....You rang?

Yeah, Dry...that's why you and me get along so well....

"...they're coming to take me away, ha ha hee hee ho ho......they're coming to take me away...."

"Aint' it great to be cra-zeeee? Silly and foolish the whole day through...boom boom....ain't it great to be cra-zeeeee?!"

= - D

Yes, yes it is....

My apologies to the relatively few sane Maddicts...I had a sudden unfortunate outburst...

....."Where life is beautiful, ALL the time....."

Thank you, Dr. Demento.

Behave, Dry, or you'll be sent to "the box" again....(Cool Hand Luke)

I'm sorry, Gavin....Fric and Frac will now attempt to conduct themselves with dignity.

Snort...uh, I mean, yeah, SCfan and Dry M gots lots of dignity....

.....Why, thank you!

Dignity....Dignity!!!!!

We don't gots to show you no sh-tinkin' Dignity!!!

As I just posted on FrenchFan's thread, I apologize for any aggravation I may have caused on Gavin's thread here, also...I get carried away sometimes...

: - \

Stop it! You are just paranoid 'cause of the recent ruckus. Getting carried away and off topic is what makes this joint a fun and happening place to be. Being all upright and dignified ain't all it is it cracked up to be, ya know.

Paranoid is right...I must put all that unfortunateness out of my mind.

Now you've gone and done it, you've encouraged me...

Upright and dignified? What's that?

Here's another clip from MST3K that's totally off-topic and utterly hilarious...

And awaaaay we go!...

http://ww.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hh4M4vipAo

oops, link was a dud...

try this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_THYVh9AhtLk

sorry...the links are screwed up--- one more try, if this one doesn't work just search Mystery Science Theater 3000 on YouTube and it should be in the first set of results: "A Date With Your Family"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UV4Gsle7Kvw

Its 5 o clock somewhere!

"The Draper television needs to leave the livingroom. Nothing defined status in the 50's and 60's like tv placement. Growing up, my and my friends families televisions were in the den or even the basement. Living rooms were anything BUT about living. They were for entertaining...and I can still hear mothers all over the neighborhood shouting..."Get OUT of that livingroom!""

Our first TV, in its very nice wooden cabinet, was in our living room but soon moved to what we called the play room, where the kids watched TV within earshot of mom fixing dinner in the kitchen. Our basement was not finished, so no TV there, and we didn't have a den.

In many homes like my Grandmother's, there was the front parlor (for guests and special occasions and which could be closed off with French doors) and the back parlor for family, which is where the TV was.

I think MAD MEN is pointing up the way marriages were in the 1960's. People just didn't divorce at the drop of a hat the way they do today... Their parents (the Depression generation) would have told them to "stick it out", whether happy or not.

Think of the gossip the neighbor women showed over that "liberal" divorcee who moved onto their block. They all agreed never to talk to her again nor invite her to any of their affairs...

Betty is just a "princess", as her father called her, who was just not ready for kids. But that was just what one did in those days. If a middle-class girl was not married by 23, they thought something was wrong with her (like, she might be lesbian or sterile! Horrors!)

I love the way Don tells the kids not to watch the TV set so closely, or they'll ruin their eyes. Did every parent tell their kids that in those days? haha.