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What (Or Who) Would Don Draper Do?


Don Draper is an interesting character. Probably portrayed as one of the scummiest men in the world, he manipulates the world around him to be as he sees it. He has had a countless number of affairs, he's an alcoholic, he doesn't really take care of his kids, he's cocky, and he's just not a nice person. Every time you think he's getting his life in order, something else comes up. So, why does Don sleep with the people he chooses to sleep with, and why are some people able to get to him while some of the people he spends most of his time with, can't? Also, does his treatment of women have anything to do with his past? Well, let's find out.

Dick Whitman was what you would call a bastard child in the 40s, 50s, 60s era. Born to a prostitute with a low-life as a father, his life started as a mess. With his birth mother dying in childbirth, his dad (which was just one of his mother's customers) took him into his family. Nice, right? Not even. The guy barely even acknowledged him and called him all these awful things. It's evident that his father didn't care for him or this situation at all. Throughout his childhood, he experienced sexual and physical abuse, while working non-stop in unfair conditions on his father's farm. Long story short, he barely had a childhood at all. Eventually Dick got drafted in the war, and he found a way to escape the confines of his illegitimate bastard life. Long story short, when Dick was on duty, he got the opportunity to kill off his past and a life he hated and create a whole new life for himself, thus the creation of Don Draper. If you're curious, he fakes his own death and takes the identity of a member of his platoon that was killed (switched dog tags), and Dick Whitman was no more.

Anyways, so is his awful past in part to blame for his womanizing? Oh I'm sure! This isn't a psychological evaluation of the guy, but I'm curious to see why he does what he does especially with the women who chooses to do it with. I'm sure this goes back to his long forgotten past and his lack of a decent home life. So, the elaborate, why does Don Draper sleep with so many women? How does he treat them, does it depend on their social status, we shall see.

Ok, so let's talk about what we see with Don so far. Obviously he can't commit to anyone or anything unless its work related. Something interesting that was brought up in the book, Mad Men Unzipped, is that Once the fantasy of the affair is over for him, he loses interest (p. 136). This fantasy could end once someone finds out about the affair, or once it becomes too real and he realizes he can't become that vulnerable with someone without him revealing his true identity. Another thing is that the affairs he has, are all with women who are more independent. They have a job, a house, they're settled down, and they have motivation to strive. Once he marries that type of woman (Megan Draper), he can't handle it. The one time we do see him hooking up with a housewife was when he lived with Megan, but even then he still was able to control the situation by giving the woman an allowance of sorts to help her get through her son's death (p. 136). Even though he's an independent person himself, he likes having some control over women in one way or another, whether that's giving them money, or having different expectations for them (p. 136). For example, with Megan, at first she needed him for money and other resources. But once she decided she wanted to get back into acting and move to L.A, problems started to arise. He could no longer control what was going on in his life, and that was a HUGE problem for him. This could be due to the fact that in his childhood he had no control. He couldn't handle his mom dying when he was so young and not knowing her, he couldn't handle all the backlash that came with his place as an illegitimate child to a prostitute, and he definitely couldn't control everything that happened to him during that time. The minute he decided to erase his past as Dick Whitman and embrace a new identity of Don Draper, that's when he knew he couldn't let anything out of his control again.

Something that I talked about in another post on this blog is his manufacture or creation of the ideal family image. Again, something he could control. He wanted what he never had, which was a upper class, all-American family life. So, he picked out the right woman who could carry out this dream of his no questions asked, and the rest is history. Betty was a model, so she knows exactly how to make things look picture perfect. With her losing her parents at a young age as well, she could relate to Don, and they could build up what they never had, together. As an aspiring ad man, Don knew all the right things to say in order to sell himself to Betty, and it worked. We later find out that eventually the picture perfect family scene doesn't work out in the long run, because Betty does find out about an affair of Don's and she has her own issues to deal with as well.

In talking about all the women does HAS slept with, what about the ones that he doesn't? In the entirety of the show, the only characters that Don doesn't sleep with are Joan, Peggy and Anna. Now, I didn't mention Anna because she's not a very popular character, but she is arguably one of the most important. Anna is the real Don Draper's widow. She is one of the only people that Don can truly be himself around, and he does love her as a sister or a mother, because he knew that he had nothing to hide from her. They were very close, and he continued to send her money throughout her life. Unfortunately she passed away from cancer, and again, Don found himself in a situation he couldn't control.

Anyways, fans believe the reason he doesn't sleep with Joan or Peggy is because he sees a sense of himself in them. They're driven, independent, and they don't follow the rules all the time, which is something we KNOW Don does continuously. An interesting take on this, is the idea that Don isn't attracted to the people he likes and respects (p.137). In a sense, he sees himself as a train wreck as Dick Whitman. He's incredibly insecure deep down, and he knows he has no right to bring that to the surface with women who already "have their life figured out" (for lack of a better phrase). All these women have done for him is be all they want to be. He wants that. However, he knows he can't because the person he wants to be isn't actually him, and even that guy sucks.

Another reason why he may not sleep with these women (at least Peggy and Joan), is because he can physically leave his wife and mistress where they're at; they aren't a part of his Madison avenue reality. However, Peggy and Joan are. They're also professional women, whereas all the secretaries he's slept with aren't, so they have nothing to do with his reality. The one professional woman he slept with was Dr. Faye Miller, and he ended up telling her the truth about who he is, and that's not ideal in his mind. She knew too much, so they broke it off. Therefore, Peggy and Joan defy his classification, which forces him to see them as real people and not just objects of affection (p.135). Because the women of Madison avenue are his reality and they are a part of his ideal self, he can't sleep with them because that would mean his ideal self as SCDP is just as corrupt as every other reality he's created for himself; He'd have no escape.

Although we loathe Don Draper for all that he's done to women, we can't help but try to figure him out. "Don Draper" is not who he is, and although he tries so hard to be THAT guy, he can't fully do it without becoming vulnerable. He surrounds himself with women because they're a comfort that he can control. When he can't he just doesn't go there or breaks it off and plays out his fantasy elsewhere. At the end of the series we see Don escaping his manufactured reality as Don Draper, no women or booze, and he's at peace. The womanizing side of him, I believe, is just a way to cope with all the hurt he's had in his life, and he wants something to go his way for once, and unfortunately, his way is canoodling with a multitude of different women.

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