"I really want to get a picture of her crying one day."

[lizbee]

It was published in 2010, but I only found it today:  an insightful, intelligent article about Betty Draper, what she represents and why people who hate her are kind of missing the point.  I want to print it out and cuddle it and maybe marry it, or at least have a brief fling that ends with the occasional amicable lunch date.

Comments

[chocolatepot]

I agree with a lot of it, but at the same time ... I think Betty got less sympathetic as the show went on. I used to be a big Betty fan during the first two (?) seasons, when she really was about dissatisfaction and frustration and being messed up by society, and the bad parenting was balanced out by moments of understanding. But post-divorce (fourth season, anyway) I don't connect with her anymore - it's possible that I'm more critical of divorced parents and how they ought to act because of my own parents' divorce, but it just seemed like everything Betty did in the fourth season was motivated by pettiness. Like Amanda Dunn points out, characters are complex and do a balance of good and bad things in the same episode - but when I marathonned S4 on Netflix I don't think I saw anything but her trying to punish Don through the kids or taking out her anger on Sally. I was actually kind of annoyed with the writers for what seemed like simplifying her character.