deuxoiseaux | lissomelle | madmendaily | fyeahjanuary:

“I don’t have a lot in common with Betty, but I’m very protective of her. I just feel like she’s trying really hard to make her life good, and make her marriage work, and it just seems hypocritical that when she slips up, people get mad. Because Don does it all the fucking time.” - January Jones

#betty draper will shoot your pigeons and slap you in the supermarket 

 #i don’t defend her abusive mothering but i hate how almost no one ever acknowledges how much she’s BEEN abused as well

ten days of tv » day two: nine characters i love › peggy olson

(Source: notaudreyparker, via dallowayward)

(Source: dissolutes, via ohvienna)

peaceintheshadows:

(Source: comealongsong, via possibilityofmagic)

“I love the fact that Elisabeth imbues Peggy with a little earnest self-righteousness. Peggy’s not a political person. She just wants to be measured for her work. And you really feel with Elisabeth that it’s coming from a place that’s both virtuous and selfish. She’s not a symbol. She’s just a person who’s doing what she wants to do and it just happens that a lot of what she’s doing is groundbreaking.” (x)

(via thallydraper)

foxholed:

Mad Men: 1x01 - “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”

(Source: detoulouse, via dallowayward)

vetica:

betty draper - (time - hans zimmer)

(via transponsters)

(via monkeyknifefight)

blueboxed:

You can’t take a picture of this –- it’s already gone.

QUOTES MEME → Six Feet Under, suggested by @scallawag.

(via thallydraper)

On the topic of Pete Campbell 

squintyoureyes | shyandmighty | heroics | aeraspais:

It is obviously no secret he is one of my fav characters in Mad Men but can I just mention how much I seriously dislike the majority of his fanbase during the season?  I mean, I admit he has a lot of sense when it comes to the progression of the Civil Rights movement and he was the first and pretty much only person who wanted to tap into the black market and, unlike a certain Don Draper, he has manage to grow as a person/character.  Whenever I rewatch series one, I am sort of shocked he is the same person he is in series four.  He was the type of character you hated because he lacked the charm of Draper and Sterling but sort of grew on you like a fungus.

But, uh, he is definitely not the tragic hero that people sometimes want to make him out to me.  Like, damn.  Yes I know he had an empty home life etc but he is also a rapist, and yeah.  Yeah, he showed “remorse” but urgh.  There is no gray area when it came to his actions in series three, and I feel so many people are so willing to overlook at moment because Vincent Kartheiser has an adorable face.  To me, it’s okay to like characters like Pete Campbell or Don Draper or any man on the series basically.  It only becomes problematic when people start romancing and whitewashing their actions while giving grieve to the women for their minor flaws¹.  See Betty Draper².

¹I sound like I am calling committing rape a “minor flaw” but believe me.  I am not.
²I still think part of Betty Draper’s criticism during series four also steams from the poor writing she received.  I WILL ARGUE THIS TO THE DEATH.  MATT DROPPED THE BALL WITH BETTY DRAPER.  Fuck.

The writing for Betty was so heinous.  Honestly, I think her writing started slipping in season 3, because she went from a completely sympathetic character to a — well.  And then that was amped up in season 4.  Horrible writing.  Let us remind you all how horrible and childish she is and completely terrible when compared to Don!

I think it’s fine for Betty to be a tragic, unpleasant character at times (that’s how I usually feel about Don) but she swerved into Mommy Dearest territory so fast.  Meanwhile fans think Don, who started an affair with his daughter’s teacher right after her beloved grandfather died (not to mention that time he took off and was totally unreachable for months, or the time he tried to get his new girlfriend to run away and start an entirely new life, or…this could go on for a while), is the more fit parent.

I really don’t agree that Betty was poorly written in S4. I think fandom didn’t get the arc they wanted or expected for her, but that’s not the same thing as badly written. And she certainly wasn’t any more unlikable to me than Don or Pete. It’s just the narrative shows so many more sides of their lives, Don especially, because it privileges the men and it always has.

Betty didn’t get the redemptive, empowerment arc I think fans were expecting/hoping for, something that would make it more comfortable to like or relate to her—like Peggy’s career and flawed feminism or Joan’s cathartic verbal smackdowns—but that was never the point or trajectory of Betty’s story. She’s as fucked up as Don, has been fucked up by Don and the whole world she’s been trapped in her whole life, and season 4 outlined unflinchingly how. And it’s crushingly sad, but I don’t agree that it was badly written.

This is wonderful, Heather. My only beef with Betty in season four is just that the writers seemingly didn’t know what to do with her. It came off that way at different points, but overall, I have no qualms with the arc of her character because I almost feel like she’s the most realistic character. She grew up with a terrible mother who basically taught her that her sole purpose in life was to find a man, and then when she found that man, he treated her like crap. She was infantilized in many ways and she was never allowed to be angry. I think there was a part of us that wanted her to find a copy of The Feminine Mystique and liberalize herself, but that didn’t happen. She just got angry. In a weird Freudian manner, she almost became her own mother to her own daughter. She was spiteful and mean and ill-tempered, but we still see in her quieter moments that she’s just a child. Just a child in a woman’s body. I like that she’s human. I like that we’re allowed to hate her a little bit. It’s sort of what makes her special amidst the Joans and the Peggys who range within their own weird type of flawed perfection, where we see their humanity and yet still find ourselves cheering them on when they go for what they want in life. We don’t get that with Betty. I feel like she’s one of the more tragic figures in this story because she just reeks of white privilege, but she’s also trapped.

(Source: formerlyaeraspais)