In a world of mad men

“And who are you supposed to be?” a neighbor asks Don and Betty Draper after he hands their children Halloween candy. The question is seemingly innocent, but damning as well, because this one question finally voices Don Draper’s struggle over the past three seasons.

One is left to admire once again the genius of Mad Men’s team, because after the question is asked, almost accusingly, the camera shifts to not just Don Draper, but to a very uncomfortable Betty Draper as well.

I, like most avid Mad Men watchers, have been expecting the inevitable: when Betty finally discovers Don’s secret and accuses him, and we see the king dethroned (I must admit, my heart went out to the broken Don when his usually suave fingers betray him as he pulls out a cigarette). But I didn’t expect to feel sorry for Betty during this entire incident – feel sorry for her not because she is a trapped housewife, but because she, like Don, is looking at her life from the outside in.

Let’s face it: both male and female viewers get drawn into the machismo of the world of misogynist money-loving alcoholics. It is difficult not to love the moments when Don boldly brushes off anyone who talks to him. And I’m not entirely sure if it’s because of his troubled past, or because of the fact that his affairs occur as often as he pulls out a cigarette, but I always forgive Don’s extra-marital affairs. Thus I am ashamed to admit that when Betty clumsily slept with a stranger in the back room of a bar during the Drapers’ brief separation, I was disgusted with her and her disregard for her husband and children who spent the night in a hotel room awaiting the impending doom of nuclear war.

So I was surprised by my own realization while I watched this last episode of Mad Men: Betty makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know her anymore. I want her to be either a submissive and naïve housewife, or a carefree girl breaking lines of acceptability of the 1960s. But she’s teetering.

Although I knew Betty Draper was as “damaged” as the rest of them from the first season when her psychiatrist visits foreshadowed some instability, she remained boring: her suffocated life predictably led her to frequently yell at her kids, and frankly, she had nothing interesting to say to keep Don’s sole attention. After all, wasn’t it she who once explained her flawless housekeeping with, “My mother always said, ‘You’re painting a masterpiece, make sure to hide brush strokes”?

Betty Draper has always been in the margin of the world of Mad Men, and predictably so. But the beauty of this show is that her transformation from a perfect Stepford wife to a frustrated and lost woman has occurred in the margins as well, slowly and surprisingly. Anyone who closely watches this show realizes from her fledgling affair and her unexplainable episode after the Drapers come back home from Rome, that Don’s now unveiled secret affects Betty as much as it affects him, maybe even more so.

And she realizes it, too. I had to admire her sass when Don defends himself by pointing out that many people change their names:

Don: “You changed your name too.”
Betty: “Yes. I took your name.”

What Betty is afraid of is her identity being based on a man who doesn’t even know who he is, who claims to be someone else all together. And in that simple retort, she accuses Don: changing her name was never her choice, and now she doesn’t know who her name even belongs to.

Betty Draper is no longer going to be the perfect housewife blind to her husband’s vices, nor is she going to break all boundaries and define the new woman of the era. Instead, she teeters on that point of non-clarity and doubt that is not unlike those experienced by women now. While Joan and Peggy represent the struggle of choosing between career and family, and advancing in the workplace as a female, it is Betty that begins to scratch at the fundamental question that is no longer reserved for just men: who am I?

While the neighbor smiles expectantly at the Drapers as he holds his bowl of candy, we come to realize that both Don and Betty struggle to answer this question. We trust that Don will be able to arrive at some answer, because he has the confidence to be a good liar. But Betty, well, I don’t know her. But I’m expecting this woman on the margins to continue surprising me.

What class?

Six months of the health care debate have left Americans tired of the constant bickering. The debate has been difficult to follow, as both Republicans and Democrats spew out facts and figures that are hardly trustworthy. From accusations of government-funded death panels to exaggerations of how much a public option will save in the next ten years, the health care debate has proved to be frustrating enough to find an end to the verbal war between the two parties, regardless of the outcome. Sadly enough, most Americans recognize that some reform in the health care system is necessary.

So where is the outraged public that is quick to call out its congressmen? Perhaps more importantly, where is this public that has often pointed out injustices in the country? Ultimately, the health care debate boils down to class lines, an obvious fact that has been layered on with other issues such as efficiency, access to care, Medicare fraud, insurance companies and holding hospitals accountable. But class is an issue that transcends partisan lines, and class is also a topic that Americans find difficult to broach within their own society. Perhaps at times not effectively, but American society has dealt with, and at least spoken about, race, immigration, and gay rights in this country. Yet, speaking about class differences is uncomfortable, and often coated with discussions of race. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, for example, the recognition of blatant class differences in the south fused with conversations about racism alive in the country.

Part of the reason for this lack of dialogue is precisely due to the fact that race and poverty are often companions, and racism is one of the most complex topics of the day. Yet, without separating the glaring issues in our society (that is, separating racism from class differences), neither dialogue will be effective. Class is a taboo topic - in public schools kids often try to hide these differences through clothes and accessories. In my college, the dialogue was effectively missing from the school's otherwise politically-aware chatter. Essentially, what results are students and practitioners invested in social, political and economic justice in developing countries, who are just not interested in the social injustice that plagues this country.

Perhaps if class differences became a discussion worth having, at least an issue that is recognized as a leading problem in this country, the health care debate wouldn't be much of a debate at all.