#don/betty

[idonthaveacontract]

YOU ARE COMING DOWN WITH ME

[a--stranger--world]

Sally is annoying. Barry kills people. 

Sally Reed and Bary Berkman, Barry (2018-2023) || “‘Barry’: Bill Hader and Alec Berg on Season 3’s Themes and Why Sally Deserves Better” (May 22, 2022, Indiewire) || Skyler White and Walter White, Breaking Bad (2008-2013) || “Barry Star Sarah Goldberg on Unlikeable Women, Murderous Men, and 'Mensch' Bill Hader” (April 25, 2016, Elle) || Betty Draper, Megan Draper and Don Draper, Mad Men (2007-2015) || “Bill Hader on HBO's 'Barry'” (April 15, 2023, NPR)

[frivolette]

It's all I think about every day. Your car coming down the driveway. I put the kids to bed early. I make a grocery list. I cook butterscotch pudding. I never let my hands idle. Brushing my hair, drinking my milk...and it's all in a kind of fog because I can't stop thinking about this. I want you so badly.

[screenshotingmonstertv]

[madmensideblog]

Betty looking at Don

[frenchnewwaves]

Mad Men (2013)

[bettyhofstadtdraper]

don and sally draper - kyoto by phoebe bridgers

[ladysophiebeckett]

This post is super long and idk who will read it but if there's anything I love to do on the internet its post aimlessly to no one. (anyway)

It gets said a lot that Betty was naïve in how she entered her relationship with Armando, but we fail to take into account how desperate Betty was to live her own life. From the beginning of her character arc she talks about needing a change.

It starts with Roman's invitation, saying he has a guy for Betty but she needs to ask permission (at her 25 yrs of age). Don Hermes says no.

Betty argues back. Don Hermes' excuse is 'you can't go out with strangers'. But Betty isn't really fighting about going out with some guy. Deep down she knows Roman and his neighborhood troublemaking annoying friends are up to no good. It's not about them. It's about her wanting something, asking for it and being denied.

The scene ends like this:

He says the world is dangerous for women and she doesn't understand that. She claims that she can defend herself and he says the above. Betty runs off crying. Dona Julia goes after her and when she returns Don Hermes asks if she's calmed down. From that question alone, it seems as if this isn't the first time Betty has fought with her dad about the rules he imposes upon her. Nor is it the first time that Betty has ran out of a room crying bc she fought with him and lost.

This has happened before.

I don't want to assume that everyone feels the way I feel about Don Hermes, which is that he's annoying. (I'm using 'annoying' as a broad term to describe his overprotection and the traditional\patriarchal way he runs his household, fyi, I know its there. I see it. But I'm not going to delve in that direction).

But there's a reason he's annoying (overprotective). Everything he does for Betty is laced with good intentions, but those good intentions are a double edged sword. At this stage in the story he appears overprotective and suffocating. It's when Dona Julia is pleading with him to let Betty go out that we hear a mention about Miguel (whose original name was 'Juan Ramon' but gets changed to 'Miguel' later on)--a guy who Betty cared about but 'disappeared'.

Let's backtrack to Betty running out of the room when Don Hermes says no. She cries to her mother about how overprotective and controlling her dad is. It's one of the few times Betty is open with someone about how she feels about the way he treats her. We get brief information about how he decided her education, about how she was sent to catholic school, how she wasn't allowed to hang out with the other girls bc she was too young, that the only male friend she was allowed to have was Nicolas and it was bc they were 'practically raised together' (and bc they knew his mother).

She continues to say ‘how is a man going to see me as a normal woman if you keep me treating me like a child? When the only thing I do is stay locked away in this room with only books and stuffed animals?’ The Miguel Situation gets its first mention and its foreshadowed that it hurt Don Hermes and Dona Julia to see their daughter suffer, but Betty says that one bad experience shouldn’t be a reason why she stays that way the rest of her life (which is very brave of her to say considering we know later how afraid she is of letting herself fall deeper in love with Armando).

The last thing she says to Dona Julia is key,

Betty's running theme is change. The eagerness of something to change. Either she needs to change or her dad needs to change. Something needs to change bc she knows she can't keep living the way she's living. She's desperate for something, anything to happen in her life. She goes on to say:

'Queira la major estudiante, la tuvo. La queria graduada con honores, especialiaziones, la tuvo. La queira trabajando en un gran empresa, la tiene trabajando en un a gran empresa. Yo ya les cumpli. Ahora quiero cumplir con mi vida.’

Again, it's not only about going out with some guy. It's about Betty living her own life now that she's done all the things that have been asked of her. From Betty's pov, she's played by the rules, so at what point is she free to do what she wants?

She is the quintessential good daughter, quintessential good student, and later on the quintessential loyal employee that becomes the quintessential loyal clandestine girlfriend--bc those were the rules she was told to play by. But she's at a point in her life where that's not enough to sustain her.

After hearing this, Dona Julia goes back to Don Hermes to plead on behalf of her daughter, however she says something concerning:

Dona Julia is afraid that if Don Hermes doesn't loosen his restrictions, that Betty will have a nervous breakdown and fall into a depression that will cause her to move out of the house.

Sidestepping the 'what if our daughter moves out' comment---

When Betty confides in Armando about her relationship with Miguel and how it ended, she doesn't call it 'depression'--however the way she describes it is very intune with what depression is.

She didn't want to live, she cried many nights, she missed classes at university. She lost the motivation to do anything. This is more than just a 'break up'. It's a traumatic experience and its aftermath is a period of depression that Betty almost didn't survive. Her parents watched her go through this, helplessly and Betty claims it's why her dad protects her so much.

Here we see her showing that she understands Don Hermes and why he does what he does. However, when we see Betty's childhood flashbacks post letter, we see that Don Hermes has always been this way as a consequence of how the world treats his daughter. We see that Betty gets bullied, marginalized--no loving parent wants their child to suffer. So he isolates her from that world so that nothing bad can ever touch her. He tries to provide her with everything he can--books and stuffed animals. Things to fill a void with.

No one can blame him for wanting to protect his daughter, but by isolating her he inadvertently teaches Betty that the solution to when things get hard is to lock yourself away and internalize everything.

In Don Hermes' defense his child rearing is mostly focused on ethics and math. A parent does what they can. So it's no surprise that after the Miguel Incident, he became even more tightly reigned over Betty's life. But again, it does more harm than good.

After Betty's ghosted by Roman and his sketchy loser friend, she's disappointed and cries. Don Hermes has no idea how to comfort or understand a 25 year old woman as he does not see her as one. He assuages her like a father would a child. He says 'We'll go do something together as a family. We'll go see a movie on Friday, champ'. (Not a literal translation). Then he says to Dona Julia, 'If I hadn't given her permission to begin with, then she wouldn't be upset about being (plantada\ghosted)'. He has no problem being seen as the bad guy in Betty's eyes if it means she avoids getting hurt in a worse way.

A couple days later, Don Hermes insists on driving her to work instead of her walking to her bus stop bc he fears she'll run into Roman and his current loser friends.

Betty says to him:

'Let me handle it' she says. Don Hermes doesn't look convinced. And then immediately Nicolas shows up at her door:

Dona Julia is also looking out for Betty and off screen took it upon herself to have Nicolas walk her to the bus stop that morning. She knows Betty needs some kind independence but using Nicolas as an intermediary gives her reassurance.

Betty rejects both options and rushes out the door. Don Hermes, pulling a Dona Julia, takes Nicolas with him and follows Betty on her way to her stop just in case something happens. What they see is Betty doing what she said she would do--handle it.

When left to her own devices Betty can and will handle things on her own, but both her parents insist in their own ways, to keep her in a protective bubble.

As the series progresses we see Betty become friends with el curatel, more specifically Aura Maria. We can all recall when AM has Betty join her on a double date and said date doesn't end well for Betty. Her date is uninterested, rude--despite Betty's best efforts. She gets home late and her dad is not happy. He calls her a 'descarda' when he sees the car dropping her off and then claims she didn't ask permission, to which Betty says 'Well I called my mom and let her know bc you weren't home'. Which leads to this:

Betty becomes the sole breadwinner of her household at some point but Don Hermes reminds her that that doesn't give her any right to decide what she can do with her free time or what time she can come home at. He then makes claims about AM and the men AM is associated with. Betty then defends her and the men (even tho they were lame):

Betty's face here is trying to contain herself but you can tell she's upset. Especially bc it wasn't the best evening, so to be getting yelled at over it doesn't feel worth it. But also, you can see Betty has a fire in her eyes; quiet frustration and inner rebelliousness bc she has been reminded yet again, that she has no freedom despite having a job in a 'great company' and having all the graduation merits and on top of that, now financially supporting her family. It's not enough. And might never be enough.

Despite this, Betty reigns her anger in and goes back to being the quintessential good daughter:

Don Hermes is not fully convinced but he appears to calm down after that.

A lighter altercation between them happens when he takes Betty home after a lanaziamento. He accuses her of taking too many liberties bc of the job that she has, criticizes her being out too much, criticizes her friends. His main worry is that she forgets her traditional values (Betty: Yo sigo siendo de las casa).

As we know, all Betty does is work and get caught in whatever mess el curatel gets her into. Regardless, Don Hermes doesn't like it. He doesn't like the women Betty surrounds herself with and he doesn't like her work or its events:

'The (fashion) world is too much, it's not for you'\'I know it's not my world, it's my job'.

I don't think Don Hermes is trying to be cruel when he says this, rather, I think he fears Betty will one day throw away the values and ethics he's taught her. (She kinda sorta does) Before she leaves for Cartagena, he insists she take a picture of him and Dona Julia, which gives weight to another inner fear of his; that Betty will forget her family and where she came from.

He stubbornly refuses to see (and accept) that Betty is an adult woman who wants to act like an adult woman. She does want to go out with her friends and dance and have the occasional drink. She does wants to date and meet someone, fall in love and in return show the love she's capable of giving.

She's desperate for the opportunity but believes it will never happen for her, so she decides to only dedicate herself to work and by doing so--and out of loneliness, she embraces her fantasies of (an) Armando that we know doesn't exist bc he's the only one that sees her value as a person and a professional. But when Mariana reads her the tarot cards---

Key word here: Change. Both of your lives are going to change.

Betty has been seeking a change in her life. This feeds into her illusions but she doesn't truly start to believe anything could happen until Armando begins to start acting differently around her.

We know it's the plan taking its course but for Betty this is a dream come true. But even in the beginning she's cautious, she doesn't know if the kiss they shared was a mistake and would rather not mention it to him in order to continue keeping the work relationship they already have (and she's happy to maintain if it means to being in his life).

But because Armando seeks her out, it's difficult for her to resist despite the type of relationship he's offering her. In a similar vein to Armando post letter, when he mentally refuses to put the clues together about why she's acting differently--Betty doesn't put together the recent embargo with his sudden interest in her. Where Armando chooses to be blind; Betty's inner frustrations and illusions of having something in her life that's not just work and an over controlled life, speak louder.

There is naiveté in play. It's true that she doesn't know a lot about the world but it's at the result of the overprotectiveness of Don Hermes that Betty doesn't read the signs as clearly until she reads the letter and is cruelly brought down back to earth.

Betty thought that Armando was the change she had been yearning for and her desperation for that change, for that dream to come true---is why she accepts the relationship he's offering her. He's trusted her implicitly until then, so why would she doubt him now?

The Letter happens and Betty's first instinct, the first action she wants to take is to run away. She doesn't want to go back to work, but Catalina reminds her of her responsibilities, that she can't just jump ship when people like Armando are depending on her. Betty especially can't leave as her parents are also depending on her and to quit suddenly with no warning would raise suspicions.

TW: for brief mentions of ED.

(I talk briefly about Betty skipping meals. I don't think the character has an eating disorder per say, but if you gotten this far and this makes the reader uncomfortable, count 5 paragraphs down to skip).

Betty enters the Gaslighting Arc depressed and dead inside. She's no longer a student, she can't afford to take days off to lay comatose in her bed. She also can't let her parents find out that something like Miguel (only worse) has happened to her again.

Post letter on, the series makes a habit of showing Betty either skipping breakfast or skipping dinner. Usually this is just done to show that a character is in a rush and usually bears no importance.

But this happens multiple times. At El Meson she orders vodka and they never get dinner. At Le Noir, despite Nicolas saying they make great eggs, she has him order wine. The night of Armando's last lanzamiento, Armando knows she hasn't eaten and offers to bring her dinner which she rejects. And lastly her diary entry\ voice over from the night she buys the mercedes\rejects Armando's call:

'Desvanezco' is to 'fade'\'vanish'. '...I am fading away before him while he only cares about his company' (rough translation).

Betty acknowledges here that she's not taking care of herself. In the first entry Post Letter she states that she doesn't have the strength to resuscitate herself again. She's metaphorically dead but the reality is that she's depressed and the only thing sustaining her during this period is her anger. (and alcohol). And once the Junta Directiva happens and everything is revealed, Betty in only left with the hurt.

(TW: End of ED mention)

Audience members get annoyed with Betty in the first half of the Cartagena Arc bc she continues to put herself down--Catalina is almost the audience insert with how put off she is with Betty's self deprecation.

It's not healthy or helpful for Betty to view herself this way and yes, it's a learned behavior that she needs to break desperately. But what the audience forgets is that Betty is tired. This is a woman that has tried to change things in her life and she always gets it wrong. Her first foray into love is a failure bc he used her, her attempts at dating are another failure, when she tries to change her look it's another failure; she put all her love and hope into Armando and then he betrays her.

She's been beaten down so much by those attempts, on top of society's view of her--that of course once in Cartagena she immediately feels out of place. Of course her first instinct, yet again, is to run back to the safe haven her dad has always provided for her.

'This isn't my world' which harkens back to Don Hermes telling her a similar thing, '...That's not for you'. It's not helpful and fuels Betty's fight or flight. And she's always picking flight.

This is Betty's first time away from home. This is the first time she has ever been away from her parents. That's why the airport scene with them is so dramatic. She's never slept a night away that's not in her house. A 'niña de la casa' no more. This is the opportunity that she's been waiting for but she doesn't see that yet amid the heartbreak.

Catalina has to guide her and essentially push her out of her comfort zone; and challenge her way of thinking and seeing the world and herself. Betty's always wanted changes in her life but she never knew that in order to embrace new things into your life, you have to be open about it mentally. You can't hide and internalize everything in your entire life. It's damaging to oneself.

In the middle of her trip she tells Nicolas, "No. I can't leave. I'm living something very important here. They (the board) can wait'. Betty is finally putting herself first and putting her foot down. Had they insisted on her presence at the beginning of her trip, she would have gone back.

Betty didn't just need to get away from Armando, she needed to get away from her family, specifically her dad. The internal and external changes that Betty goes through in Cartagena would not have been possible in Bogota. Not with Don Hermes breathing down her neck and Dona Julia flustered in the background. It wouldn't have happened as he wouldn't have allowed it.

Betty needed to leave the protective bubble of her family to learn that she can put herself together, that she can handle it and come back stronger.

Don Hermes' goodbye at the airport consists of giving Catalina instructions of things Betty isn't allowed to do (she doesn't drink, she doesn't party). He, again, refuses to see her as an adult woman. But he is forced to when she comes back from Cartagena:

He goes on to say, 'I feel like I'm lecturing another person, not my daughter'.

But that doesn't stop him as he lectures her into the night:

This is inadvertently what he's taught her to do tho--run away from a situation bc it became hard.

However Betty defends herself and says she came back to deal with issue at hand and take responsibility for her part in it. She's not proud of what she did.

'Don't think I did all of that and then went on vacation. I needed a change in my life'.

This is the change Betty truly needed, the one she's been waiting for and the one that sticks. She needed to learn to see the value in herself, realize that she's not the only one who has ever suffered and more importantly learning not to abandon herself as soon she gets hurt.

No one else was ever going to give her that. Not a relationship, not her family, not her friends. Those people (specifically her family) may love her but in certain instances their love and affection is a blind spot for them and can inadvertently hold her back bc of their insistence on protecting her from the world.

My personal feelings for Don Hermes aside, he loves his daughter and everything he does is well intentioned. He's not necessarily a bad person or bad father, but his over protection is suffocating and his refusal to see that his daughter is no longer a child plays a part in Betty's arc about wanting people to see her as she is--A person that is smart and capable and deserving of respect.

He plays a big part in why Betty does what she does, her inner rebelliousness, her frustrations come from the restrictions he imposes on her. He's not wrong about certain things but he's not 100% right about how he goes about them when it comes to Betty.

As a husband...well.

Anyway.

Betty becomes more independent Post Cartagena and her dad kind of slowly accepts it, especially when it's said in passing that she as a midnight curfew. He's still annoying, but that is simply his character trait.

If you made it this far, thank you. There is no prize except for the inner satisfaction of finishing this post.

[catherrrrrine]

Mad Men - Looking For America

yt link

[aerionbrightflamed]

succession / mad men / the godfather 2

[idonthaveacontract]

I'd rather burn my whole life down.

[spacevixenmusic]

[frivolette]

[screenshotingmonstertv]

[madmensideblog]

Mad Men + The Major Arcana (Part 2)

[armando-triplepapito]

Don Hermes being happy about Betty returning to her old outfit melts my heart❤️ he’s so cute!