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On Liking the Unlikeable: The Case of Betty Draper

JA November 03

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Amid all this hype about Franzen’s Freedom (seriously, is there anyone out there not in the midst of reading, finishing or starting this novel?), there’s been a splinter discussion concerning one of the central characters, Patty, or, more specifically, concerning her likability. This from Kate Bittman of the New Yorker Book Club:

My biggest problem, though, is that I find Patty almost unbearable. Maybe Franzen meant it to be this way, but she’s so difficult to stomach that I find hardly any enjoyment in reading the sections of “Freedom” that are devoted to her (and of which there are many). Go to therapy!, I want to scream at her. But then I feel guilty for being judgmental—it’s pretty obvious (and this is not a spoiler) that poor Patty suffers from a raging case of clinical depression.

These sorts of sentiments have been repeated in relation to all sorts of fictional characters over the years. As both The Millions and the Guardian point out, ‘I just didn’t like any of the characters’ is a common refrain among readers. And while there’s nothing wrong with loathing a character per say, I do wonder if these discussions about ‘likeability’ are travelling on broken rails, so to speak. Fiction has always been littered with ‘unlikeable’ personalities – I mean can anyone really say they like Humbert Humbert, or Patrick Batemen, or Bill Sykes, or Iago and co? Surely niceness, or some kind of moral compass, is only part of the equation (and, in my mind, a pretty boring part at that). Personally, I’m a fan of unlikeable characters – especially the ones the rile you, challenge you, confront you and, just maybe, allow you to recognise some of your own flaws in their fictive reflections.

One of the things I enjoyed most about Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap, for example, was the way each chapter invited you to form perspectives and sympathies in relation to the characters, only to play havoc with both as you entered yet another strand of the multiple narrative. Any empathy you felt for Harry in slapping bratty Hugo is soon dispelled by his own awful selfishness, his racism, his violence and misogyny. Everyone is soon revealed to be a baser version of their earlier selves – like them, no, but be challenged and absorbed by the, yes.

Which, all in all, brings me to Betty Draper of TV’s Mad Men, who is, in my opinion, one of the most likeable unlikeable characters out there. Now, superficially, it’s easy to see why Betty inspires such ire (and, believe me, there’s plenty of it out there on the net). For one, she is ice-block cool – even when she wants to scream, she can’t – and, for all her immaculate appearance, she displays none of the emotional warmth or range of say Peggy or Joan. We are always, for example, quietly cheering for Peggy as she seeks to carve out a career in a chauvinistic, male-dominated workforce, or for Joan with her wit, capability, verve and frankly fabulous charm. Betty, on the other hand, comes off spoilt and petulant, unaware of her privilege and cruel to Carla and her children, especially Sally.

Yet, despite all this, I am on Betty Draper’s side, if only because, as Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown points out, she is brutally, uncomfortably, true. To me, Betty is a powerful, disquieting consequence of the sexism and silence of her era. In the first few seasons, she is married to man who goes behind her back to hear reports about her therapy sessions, cheats on her repeatedly and lies about it, and then goes on to call her a whore and blame her for Roger Sterling’s drunken advances one night when he comes over for dinner. (On a side note, isn’t it odd then that we can hate Betty so much, yet are constantly charmed by Don?). Her education (fluent in Italian, a degree in anthropology) has come to nothing and is valued as such. As Laura Tanenbaum writes:

[T]here’s a particular poignancy in the double displacement Betty faces: she dutifully channels her learning and culture through her husband, only to find the European salon of her imagination transformed into a dinner party where Don’s colleagues chuckle over the way she’s fallen for Heineken’s marketing strategy at the Ossining grocery store.

She has also been raised to put her stake entirely on appearances, and as a result is unable to disengage herself from a world that looks so perfect on the outside yet is so damaged within, because to her, looks are what matters. It’s also hinted that her mother was just as cruel to her during her childhood as she is to Sally, a cruelty which she later experiences again in Don. She is, in the words of Jace Lacob of the Daily Beast, ‘a woman who can’t express her emotions in healthy ways and who instead acts out when the repression becomes too much to bear’.

Yet the real power of her character, and her ‘unlikeability’, is what this says about her times, and our own reaction to it. Again from Sady:

We wanted Betty to read ‘The Feminine Mystique’ and get her mind blown and rise above; or, we wanted her to stay a victim, so we could relate to her better, or at least keep feeling sorry for her. But sometimes, people just get damaged until they start damaging. Sometimes, people are lost. We hate Betty now because she’s not going to stay a victim, but the truth is, she’s also not going to be saved.


 

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