Women Who Make Us Ask WTF?: Betty Draper

Posted at 4:00 PM Oct 07, 2008

By Jennifer Mathieu

As a crazy-ass fan of the television show Mad Men, I am in love with all of the characters on this AMC drama set in early 1960s New York. Note for note, the set design, the writing, and the wardrobe all transport us back in time to a world both stylish and repressive.

My favorite character has to be Betty Draper, the bored, neglected housewife of star executive (and philanderer) Don Draper. Played by the drop dead gorgeous January Jones, Betty Draper is in serious need of Betty Friedan, like, pronto. She is trapped in the suburbs, her identity reduced to that of wife and mother. Since the first episode, we’ve been used to her despondent glances at Don over the chicken and her apathetic chit-chat with the other ladies who lunch.

Lately, however, Betty has taken a turn toward the cuckoo. Her upper middle class problem-that-has-no-name has recently caused her to stumble around the house for three days wearing a party dress, guzzle gallons of wine, and set up her best friend with a man she is either too shy or too nervous to have an affair with herself. Plus, she shot at her neighbor's birds for no obvious reason and seems to be developing a weird connection with the pre-teen kid down the street. Huh?

Watching her is like watching a tightrope artist. She is one step away from completely losing it. Seriously, am I the only one who thinks that were it not for the maid, Betty and the kids would all be overdosing on Valium?

For her freaky-deaky meltdowns, for her unexplainable actions, for her suburban anomie that has run rampant, Betty Draper is definitely a woman who makes us ask WTF?