I like the symbolism of Mad Men more when it is more subtle (but not too subtle, because then there is debate as to whether or not it exists).

Case in point: At the beginning of Episode 11, Sally and Bobby declare how they want to dress for Halloween. Sally wants to be Minnie Mouse. Bobby wants to be an astronaut. By the end of the episode, Sally is a gypsy and Bobby is a hobo. Call be Captain Obvious, but they became hippies!

At the beginning of the 60's, much of the youth had traditional and conventional preferences about "what they want to be". By the time the 60's were done with them, however, their wold views had changed radically. By '69, many were "wearing costumes" that they probably never thought they would wear a few years earlier.

Well, Captain Obvious, aren't the Gypsy and the Hobo Don's costumes as well?

Not everything is a symbol.

It would be easy for Betts to make the hobo and gypsy costume at home, and hard to do the others, esp. an astronaut. As someone said somewhere out there or in here, the hobo costume at least was popular at the time.

Yours,
Capt. Cold Shower

No--Dick Whitman really *is* a gypsy and a hobo! His costume is Don Draper: High-Powered Ad Man (as established by the last line of the show).

Somehow Don said at first he didn't want to spend 29 cents for a Minnie Mouse mask from Woolworth's, which was parroting Betty, since he then whispered that Sally could get one "in Philly," which means the Hofstader house was in suburban N.J. outside of Philadelphia. Only then the family returns and Betty, most uncharacteristically, has out her sewing machine and patterns and has homemade the gypsy and hobo costumes. So they were Betty's choice of costumes for her kids, probably all along. A lot of mixed-up whatever just to get to that Trick or Treat moment.

I think Betty was the Gypsy in this episode. Note the actual costume Sally was wearing. She was dressed like the then-conventional image of a gypsy -- a fortune teller. She even has a crystal ball in her hand!

And with her crystal ball, she now knows all.

Someone out there on the internet said that Carlton said that to both Don and Betty, and my mom thought that it was meant specifically for Betty. It can certainly apply to both.

If you look at the costumes, they are really quite elaborate. I simply don't see Betty laboring over a sewing machine to make that gypsy costume. It seems they would have gotten off cheap with the Minnie mouse costume from Woolworths.

In the 1960s (and '50s), women of Betty's class would not want their children seen in cheesy, commercial Woolworths costumes. Even the least maternal non-homebodies among them would have whipped up decent costumes on the Singer. Women of that era who considered cleaning and cooking beneath them were often very adept at the sewing machine.