What should Fat Betty do? From the baby formula diet to safflower oil shots …
By
Tamara Abraham
16:02 EST, 16 April 2013
|
16:51 EST, 16 April 2013
Though she may no longer be quite so ‘Fat Betty’, Mad Men’s Mrs Francis is still trying to ‘reduce’ in the newest episodes.
And it seems that in the late Sixties, when the current season is set, there were some bizarre ways of doing so.
‘Reducing’ – Sixties-style: Though she may no longer be quite so ‘Fat Betty’, Mad Men’s Mrs Francis is still trying to cut back on calories in the newest episodes
Other diets required dieters to drink nothing but buttermilk or only eat a half-pound of meat a day – both formed part of a series of diets by Brooklyn-based doctor Irwin Maxwell Stillman.
Equally extreme was Dr Stillman’s ‘semi-starvation diet’, which is much as it sounds with a daily intake of just one
hard-boiled egg, 8oz milk, 3.5oz salad without dressing and
eight glasses of water ‘for as long as you could take it.’
The ‘baby formula diet’, though, was by far and away the most popular. The Slim Fast of its day, Metrecal was originally developed as baby formula, though when dieters started drinking it to drop pounds, it was repackaged as a weight-loss formula in 300-calorie cans.
Eat your heart out, Don: A Sixties ad for Metrecal – a diet of shakes based on baby formula that became a hugely popular means of dropping pounds
Steak substitute: Metrecal, seen in a 1969 ad, was so popular, even the White House lunch room served it
‘It caught on tremendously. It became one of the biggest diet crazes of all time,’ Susan Yager, author of The Hundred Year Diet, told Today.
‘What’s
interesting about the Sixties is dieting was a solution without a
problem, because Americans weren’t very heavy’
‘The White
House lunch room served it, and Trader Vic’s offered a 325-calorie
“lunch,” which was 1.5 ounces of rum mixed with nutmeg, and Metrecal.’
One Sixties diet certainly would have appealed to real-life Don Drapers with a title like The Drinking Man’s Diet – it was hugely popular, selling 2.4million copies when it was released in 1964.
‘The deal with the Drinking Man’s
Diet is as long as you have no carbs, you can have all the alcohol you
want,’ Ms Yager said. ‘Alcohol has calories, but, he said, they’re not bad
calories, they’re good calories. And that was wildly popular. I wouldn’t be
surprised if Betty did start that.’
Extreme: The Drinking Man’s Diet would have appealed to real-life Don Drapers (left). Doctor Irwin Maxwell Stillman wrote the Quick Weight Loss Diet (right), as well as the ‘semi-starvation diet’ and the buttermilk diet
Other diets were more familiar. Groups such as Weight Watchers and its ilk (one was called Overeaters Anonymous) became more popular. Indeed, in Mad Men we even see Betty attend a Weight Watchers meeting after realizing her eating habits were spiraling out of control when she ate whipped cream from the can.
One weight-loss trend that was
experiencing a dip in the Sixties was that for amphetamine-based diet
pills. Ms Yaeger explains that they had been prescribed by doctors since
the Thirties, but due to a number of related deaths, popularity had
waned.
Guilty pleasure: In Mad Men season five we see Betty attend a Weight Watchers meeting after realizing her overeating was spiraling out of control when she squirted a can of whipped cream into her mouth
But
with America’s obesity rate at about 13per cent (compared with today’s
37.5per cent), the Sixties diet plan had a limited market.
‘What’s
interesting about the ’60s is dieting was kind of a solution without a
problem, because Americans weren’t very heavy,’ Ms Yaeger said.
‘Poor “fat Betty” . . . she didn’t have a
lot of company. Someone like Betty, especially this
beautiful former model . . . would’ve been very unusual in suburban
America.’
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That looks oddly delicious… but I couldn’t live off of it. I’d probably have it as a side drink to my plate of steak, potatoes, peas and carrots.
Jaryd
,
Northampton, United Kingdom,
17/4/2013 03:50
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‘eat ONLY half pound of meat a day’ surely they mean half an OUNCE
shar
,
manchester, United Kingdom,
17/4/2013 02:55
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I have no doubt all of these diets would have worked- however, as soon as the person stopped dieting and started eating normally (even for a person of a healthy weight) they would have gained the weight back straight away.
Bec
,
Melbourne,
17/4/2013 01:37
Report abuse
that would kill me, a liquid diet sounds like my worst nightmare
- yandlek, London, United Kingdom, 16/04/2013 i have done liquid fasting before – you will be surprised at how hungry you aren’t when you are fully hydrated.
truth
,
glasgow,
17/4/2013 01:36
Report abuse
Don’t forget Tab diet cola – full of saccharin and tasted like poison.
June
,
Toronto,
17/4/2013 00:47
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I still remember the Metrecal jingle: There’s been a change in the weather, there’s been a change in the scene/and with Metrecal there’s been a change in me! As for Stillman’s Semi diets, my dad treasured that book and the weird low-cal diets really worked! Like buttermilk and baked potatoes w/o butter or sour cream, in unlimited quantity. Or the Steak Diet, one steak and eight glasses of water per day. No doubt all quite unhealthy, but diet science has grown since then in tandem with soft drinks, fast food, and obesity.
The Western Breed
,
California, United States,
17/4/2013 00:43
Report abuse
The diet requiring you to drink safflower oil before meals really did work! Calories don’t count, actually worked because it was a no carb way of eating. You could eat as much as you wanted of protein and fat, but absolutely NO bread, potatoes, pastry etc. Much like the Atkins really. Anyway, it worked, and it worked fast!
cassandra
,
nottingham,
16/4/2013 23:59
Report abuse
that would kill me, a liquid diet sounds like my worst nightmare
yandlek
,
London, United Kingdom,
16/4/2013 23:38
Report abuse
Paint in a bowl.
Pearla from the Moon
,
Liverpool, United Kingdom,
16/4/2013 23:22
Report abuse
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Article source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2309653/What-Fat-Betty-From-baby-formula-diet-safflower-oil-shots-women-kept-weight-Sixties.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Fat Betty, PUBLISHED, United Kingdom, UPDATED
Fat Betty: In ‘Mad Men’ Season 6, Why Are We Still Commenting On Her Weight …
Attention “Mad Men” fans: It’s time to leave Betty (Draper) Francis’ body alone.
Last night “Mad Men” returned — and along with Don’s cheating ways, Megan’s excellent sartorial choices and Peggy’s badass lady boss demeanor, we were subjected to a deluge of fat-shaming comments about Betty. For some reason, people seemed genuinely crushed that Betty hadn’t dropped every pound of her gained weight during the hiatus between “Mad Men” season 5 and season 6:
@jennregen
Jen Regen
![Vanita =] ♥](http://www.fatlossdiary.info/wp-content/plugins/rss-poster/cache/c4c8a_2af001b3c586df630d3cae314f244e2b_normal.jpeg){kind=small}
@LahmChop
Vanita =] ♥
When Betty’s weight gain first appeared last season, it was depressing but unsurprising how much negative commentary it elicited. After all, it was a change for the previously trim character who constantly reminisced about her model days. But it seems that after 13 episodes of “Fat Betty” in incredible muumuus, many viewers still can’t get past the fact that she is no longer skinny. Somehow this fact warranted more attention from a lot of people watching than did her shocking and off-color rape joke about Sally’s 15-year-old violinist friend or her adventure through a rundown house in the Village.
@simplysimone
Simone Sampson
@Jennymoves
Jenny Allan
@leetje
Leonie
Betty is a divisive character, one that fans and critics alike love to hate. She is consistently cold, fails to connect with her daughter — who makes an excellent sullen teenager, by the way — and is stuck in the often uninteresting role of malcontent suburban housewife. But besides one comment about how she’s trying to “reduce,” none of last night’s Betty story line had anything to do with her body. The consistent obsession over this character’s size says much more about our own weight anxieties than it does about Betty Francis. Here’s hoping that as this season progresses, we start to have a more interesting conversation.
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Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-gray/fat-betty-mad-men-season-6_b_3038582.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Betty Francis, Fat Betty, Peggy Olson, Pete Campbell
The ‘Mad Men’ Season 6 Premiere: ‘Fat Betty’ Has Become ‘WTF Betty’
Every week for the sixth season of AMC’s acclaimed series Mad Men, our roundtable of Eleanor Barkhorn (Sexes editor, TheAtlantic.com), Ashley Fetters (editorial fellow for TheAtlantic.com’s Entertainment and Sexes channels), and Amy Sullivan (National Journal correspondent) will discuss the latest happenings at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.
Barkhorn: Don’s cheating on Megan. Don’s cheating on Megan. Don’s cheating on Megan.
Whenever I thought about Mad Men in the 10 months since the Season Five finale aired, the first thing that came to mind was, “I really hope they don’t have Don cheat on Megan.” An overarching question that Mad Men has posed throughout its run is, Can a person change? Don’s fifth-season transformation from miserable, lying, cheating husband of Betty to happy, forthright, faithful husband of Megan seemed to maybe, possibly answer this question in the affirmative. But the season’s closing scene—Don at a bar, “You Only Live Twice” playing in the background, about to answer a pretty blonde who’s asked if he’s alone—was a reminder of just how fragile Don’s transformation is. One word, and he’s back to the old Don.
I wanted season six to show us Don hadn’t said yes, that he remained committed to his reformed self. Mad Men has already demonstrated how low Don can go. How much more interesting would it be to see what it takes for him to be happy long-term? So many shows right now are obsessed with the depths of human darkness—Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Game of Thrones—that happy Don seemed like a compelling way to break the mold.
But but but, as we find out toward the end of the season six premiere, Don is back to his old ways. He’s having an affair with a neighbor. Who’s also married. To the really nice doctor Don has become friends with. Such good friends that both the mistress and the doctor husband celebrated New Year’s Eve with Don and Megan. Sigh.
But he’s not the old Don—not entirely, anyway. He expresses guilt for his transgressions, something he never did when he cheated on Betty. When his mistress asks what his New Year’s resolution is, he responds, “I want to stop doing this.” She says, “I know,” implying that he’s expressed the desire to cut off the affair before. This guilt-wracked Don is different from first-season Don, who was so in denial about the fact that he already had a wife, he tells his mistress, “We should get married.” Don’s guilt shows he sees Megan as a person who’s capable of being hurt. He never got there with Betty. So, progress?
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Otherwise, Don seems in even worse shape than he was in the pre-Megan era. The season opens with the two of them on a trip to Hawaii, and as the episode follows them from the beach to the bedroom to the dinner table, Megan does all the talking and Don is silent. The first words we hear him speak (other than a voiceover of him reading Dante’s Inferno at the very beginning) is at the hotel bar, where he’s gone to escape in the middle of the night. It’s not quite clear why Don’s shutting Megan out. Maybe it’s guilt over the affair, or perhaps he’s jealous of her professional quasi-success. She has a minor but growing role on a soap opera, and one day she unexpectedly gets called in to work, leaving Don to his own devices. He gets so drunk he throws up at Roger’s mother’s funeral, in front of an aghast (and entirely sober) group of mourners.
The most dramatic sign of his unhappiness is the ad campaign he pitches to the Hawaiian resort: the image of a man who’s leapt out of his clothes, with the tagline “Hawaii—the jumping-off point.” It makes everyone in the room think of suicide. The baffled client stammers, “I think, and I think people might think, that he died.”
Are we viewers supposed to think Don is headed for a similar fate? It seems too obvious, and yet… Ashley, what did you think of Don’s lapse back into cheating and darkness? And what about the other parts of the episode?
Fetters: Yep, Don’s cheating on Megan. I wish I were surprised.
Andy Greenwald at Grantland wrote a terrific piece this week asserting that what makes Mad Men great is its sense of dread, of tragic inevitability. Its drama doesn’t come from will-they-or-won’t-they arcs, he wrote, but rather from the agonizing wait for the other shoe to drop; in other words, Mad Men is a show about when, not a show about if.
I couldn’t agree with Greenwald more, especially on the sad topic of Don’s aborted change of heart. For me, his stint as a loyal husband felt like the prelude to an inevitable relapse into his trademark Don Draper ways.
If last season brought us Fat Betty, thus far it looks like this season’s incarnation might be Lonesome and/or Weird Betty
But let’s not pretend that phase was a complete transformation on Don’s part, either. Just because Don’s refrained from sleeping around doesn’t mean he and Megan have a good marriage—they’re kinda dysfunctional even without Don cheating. And their union, let’s remember, resulted from a rash decision that smelled like disaster from the start. (You’re sexy and free-spirited and a good babysitter who taught my kids to sing in French! Let’s get married! … No.) The last season’s worth of things working out surprisingly OK for Don and Megan has felt to me like a long-drawn-out honeymoon phase before the real consequences materialize: the consequences for Megan of marrying a closed-off, controlling guy like Don who doesn’t think the rules apply to him, and the consequences for Don of impulsively marrying a younger, more forward-thinking woman he never knew that well in the first place.
Out in Westchester County, meanwhile, Betty remains awful. Not in the deliciously hateable way of seasons past, though: If last season brought us Fat Betty, thus far it looks like this season’s incarnation might be Lonesome and/or Weird Betty.
Without her prized good looks, Don’s ex-wife has become a more melancholy figure overall—almost to the point where, when she makes misguided attempts to reach out and be a caring mother to someone (not to her own children, naturally, but to her daughter’s friend Sandy and then to a couple of teenage urban squatters), it almost tugs on a sympathetic heartstring or two. When she makes an equally misguided, off-color remark to her husband about willingly assisting him if he ever wants to rape Sandy, of course, it’s tougher to feel sorry for her. But that remark, coupled with Henry’s troubled reaction to it and her odd guerrilla mothering elsewhere in the episode, also hints that Betty’s interpersonal-relations calibration might be off—seriously, alarmingly off.
One relationship I’m thrilled to see has survived, though, is the unemphasized, totally delightful rapport between Peggy and Stan. (Did that scene on the phone remind you guys of that scene from the third season of The Office where Jim and Pam stay late into the night in their respective offices chatting on the phone about what Jim’s missed since transferring to Stamford?) The bickering “work-spouse” dynamic they’ve enjoyed ever since that pivotal “Let’s get liberated” naked brainstorm in the fourth season is a refreshingly uncomplicated man-woman relationship by Mad Men standards, and in an episode full of heavy-duty symbolism (but what did that soldier’s lighter resurrecting from the trash mean?) and multi-layered subtext (“jumping-off point”?!), their telephone banter was a cute, funny palate cleanse.
Amy, what’s your takeaway on this moody season premiere? How do you feel about the newly sorta-sad twist on Betty Francis’s awfulness? And are Megan and Don doomed?
Sullivan: Can we agree that Matthew Weiner was most likely deeply traumatized as a child by a Mean Girl named Betty? At this point, the character really only makes sense if she is the product of some elaborate, protracted revenge fantasy. Yes, Ashley, we’ve gone from Awful Betty to Fat Betty to WTF Betty. (I think Henry Francis spoke for all of us when he responded to the world’s worst attempt at dirty talk with, “Betty! What the hell?!”)
I’m with Maureen Ryan: Enough. We get it. Betty is and always will be a spoiled yet desperately sad adolescent with a few misfiring synapses. When Betty encourages Sally’s friend Sandy to play a song for the family, her phrasing is typically awkward: “I love to hear you play the violin. It makes me feel so much.” I was immediately reminded of her weird comment at the Thanksgiving table last season: “I’m thankful that I have everything I want and no one else has anything better.” So untrue and also so weird.
Is it too much to hope that the scene in which Betty gets pulled over for reckless driving is foreshadowing for some deadly, fiery crash several episodes hence? It’s not that her character deserves such a fate, but I’m tired of watching her manipulated into a bizarre figure who doesn’t fit in the Mad Men universe. Also, I think I may be permanently scarred by that bedroom scene. I want to wash my ears out with soap.
For my money, that was the episode’s biggest revelation: Don has a friend!
Betty did, however, give us the first of several fun callbacks in this episode. During the late-night talk with Sandy in the kitchen, when the girl admits that she didn’t get into Juilliard, Betty immediately suggests she elide the truth by telling people she wanted to finish high school first. Even the jaded teenager is surprised by how easily Betty supplies the response. “It’s incredible how fast some people come up with lies,” she says, which is almost exactly what Betty said to Don in season two when he came up with a cover story on the fly for her to give their kids to hide the fact that she had asked him to move out.
Other callbacks:
- Don running the slideshow of his Hawaiian vacation with Megan—a very different set of memories than the one he presented at the end of the first season for the Kodak “carousel” presentation.
- Don tossing his cookies at Roger’s mother’s funeral brought back memories of Roger hurling in the old Sterling Cooper offices after the famous oysters and martini lunch.
- Don’s pitch for the Royal Hawaiian Hotel campaign had to have been at least somewhat inspired by that walk into the Pacific Ocean he took in season two after going AWOL from work and family for a few days. Some early reviews of this episode suggested that the underwhelming hotel ad pitch was a sign that Don’s talent is slipping. I suspect that it was more an honest instance of the cracks showing between how normal people think and who Don is. This is a man who believes he killed off his earlier self and started over, who craves being able to do that again and again. And he doesn’t truly understand that most people don’t want that.
Overall, although I enjoyed the episode, it felt like one of Weiner’s more heavy-handed outings—an episode that will make more sense only after we’ve watched the next four or five. There was PFC Dinkins’s line to Don: “I believe that what goes around comes around.” (Don had better hope that’s not true.) And Don’s completely unhelpful report back to his colleagues on the Royal Hawaiian experience: “I don’t know how to put it into words.” (Unfortunately, as that’s precisely what he’s paid to do.) The photographer’s instructions to Don were hardly subtle: “I just want you to be yourself.” And Don’s protest about the oven cleaner campaign—”Why are we contributing to the trivialization of the word ['love']?”—is rich coming from the man sleeping with his friend’s wife.
For my money, that was the episode’s biggest revelation: Don has a friend! At least until the good Dr. Rosen gets out of another surgery early and finds his neighbor in his bed.
Are you both as eager as I am for an appearance by young master Harris? If I’m calculating the dates correctly, this season starts not quite two years after the previous one ended, which means Joan and Roger’s son is a toddler now. With that lineage, I expect this kid to be the most dashing, wise-cracking preschooler on the eastern seaboard.
Article source: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/04/the-mad-men-season-6-premiere-fat-betty-has-become-wtf-betty/274746/
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Breaking Bad, Fat Betty, Mad Men, National Journal
Fat Betty, Peggy, And Slimy Pete Will All Stick Around For Two More Years Of …
According to Deadline, January Jones, Elisabeth Moss, and Vincent Karthheiser have all finalized deals — with significant salary bumps — to continue on Mad Men through the seventh, and likely final, season of the Matthew Weiner drama.
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
Well, it means that Peggy Olson isn’t going anywhere, which we already knew from recent comments from Matthew Weiner. If she’s going to be around for two more years, it seems almost certain that she will eventually be brought back into the Sterling, Cooper, Draper, and Harris fold, and more likely than not, they’ll add Olson to the firm name to get her back. Hopefully, she won’t have to sleep with Pete to get the job.
I don’t know anyone who is that excited to see Betty Francis return for the final two seasons, as she only seems to exist on the show 1) because of Sally Draper, 2) occasional comic relief, and 3) to provide a frame of reference for Megan Draper. Betty is the “After” picture, if you will, in Don and Megan’s marriage.
Pete Campbell, well, he has to be around to be creepy. Also, as long as Pete is on the show, there’s always the tiny fear that he may wake up one morning and decide to murder a hooker or a client’s wife because she looked at him funny. There’s some real psychopathic tendencies buried underneath that receding hairline (plus, by the seventh season, we’ll get to see full-on bald Pete Campbell!).
It should be noted that Christina Hendricks is also negotiating to stick around for the final two seasons. She is also looking for a significant pay hike, but negotations with Hendricks are more complicated. She and her breasts are working out separate deals, and it my understanding that her boobs are asking for more, as they are being called upon by Matthew Weiner to DEFY GRAVITY.
(Source)
Article source: http://www.uproxx.com/tv/2012/08/mad-men-signs-moss-jones-2-more-years/
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Fat Betty, Matthew Weiner, Peggy Olson, Pete Campbell
Fat Betty Was Mad Men’s Most Genius Idea
Just when I was getting used to having that dreamy, complex bastard, Don Draper, back in my life, he’s gone again. I confess that when Mad Men finally returned, I was underwhelmed. It seemed slow; we had to put so many pieces back together after so long. It was like seeing your very best friends from high school 20 years later, then realizing that, once you got through the “Oh. My. God.” hello’s and hugfest, you didn’t have much to say to each other anymore because too much time had passed. Reworking the connections is taxing, and who needs that with a TV show?
Right out of the gate, the “Zou Bisou Bisou” debacle concerned me. I was worried that Megan and Don would turn into a cliched plot, another standard midlife-crisis-relationship-gone-wrong story with a predictable outcome. It turns out that their dysfunction transcends cliche. Thank god. I should know better than to expect cliche from the man who also helped birth Tony Soprano.
So, let’s discuss. I’ll tell you what I think, and then you clog up the comments section with what you think. Feel free to disagree. This is only one woman’s opinion.
1. I can’t be the only one who sees Tony Soprano in Don Draper. Though Don exists in a different walk of life, he’s a white-collar gangster. Are they not two of the most malignantly immoral protagonists in the history of protagonists? Sometimes they go into remission, but most of the time they’re terminally depraved. A very Sopranoesque sequence was when Don dismissively threw money in Peggy’s face and told her to go to Paris, even though she was the one who saved the account and deserved to go to Paris. An episode later she resigns, and he takes her hand and kisses it. Can anyone describe the kiss? My take: not exactly paternal, not exactly romantic, perhaps remorseful because he’s losing one of the few people who grounds him.
2. Cool Joan is a hot mess. There isn’t a bra with enough hooks to contain all of her new foibles. Awkward Moment of the Season Award is her staying in the partners’ meeting as a partner, not a secretary. Even the extraneous characters are impeccably played against her, like Herb, the hairy Jaguar douche. Couldn’t you feel his wormy fingers when he put the emerald necklace on her? Joan’s mother, also a peripheral character, is perfectly and superbly annoying and dumb. The placement of her in this season subtly reveals more about Joan; her mother is who Joan doesn’t want to become, a woman who depends on the attention of men for her survival.
3. Fat Betty was genius. She could have easily been written in as pregnant, since January Jones really was. Betty’s bossy husband, Henry, would be all for having her barefoot and tied down, but wasn’t it better to see her cheat on her cigarette diet and binge her way right under her covers?
4. Roger is supposed to be the cliche, and isn’t he the best? Only a man-hack like Roger could trip on acid and manipulate his wife at the same time. His interlude with Megan’s mother at the advertising awards dinner (as seen by Sally) is classic man whore. Can you think of a better-played player than Roger?
5. Sally under the settee. The best example yet of why the self-absorbed Drapers should’ve remained childless is their daughter snowed on sleeping pills and passed out under a piece of furniture. Poor Sally became a woman, just as she was learning that most of the adults in her life are crackpots.
6. Peter is a prick. This isn’t a revelation. He’s been an arrogant, condescending, frat boy since season one, but this season he’s outdone himself. It’s not just the pimping, the hookers, and his general failure to take responsibility for his my-life-isn’t-what-I-thought-it-would-be crisis, but the true declaration of his cowardice was when he left Lane’s body in the noose. Peter is best at making everything about him.
Sort of like the premiere, the finale was vague and loose, and I think this was intentional. Mad Men doesn’t subscribe to a formula plot that’s always leaving us on the edge of our seats. Instead, the story is told through finely nuanced characters and how they constantly grapple with their insecurities and disappointments with themselves and others.
What now on Sunday nights? Definitely not summer TV. I’d rather play Bananagrams with my dog.
Article source: http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2012/06/12/fat-betty-mad-mens-genius-idea/
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Don Draper, Fat Betty, Mad Men, Tony Soprano
'Mad Men' Recap: Fat Betty's Thanksgiving Spectacular
Yes, I just love Fat Betty so much, because she is the ultimate villain on the show and this is her ultimate punishment. She is a woman who puts so much stock in appearance, in the pristine shellack that has coated her entire life, that when that is taken away, she has absolutely nothing left. An ugly Betty (not the TV show) is a Betty that has no reason to live, that has absolutely nothing to aspire to. The outside ugliness finally matches the grossness inside. She might weigh out her little cubes of cheese and count her bites with tiny head tilts, she might go to Weight Watchers and squeeze her fat ass into a tiny school room chair, but it’s not helping. The reason is, as we hear in Weight Watchers, that the dieters should fill themselves up with their children, their husbands, their happiness, and their wonderful lives instead of food. But Betty has none of that. Her husband has backed the wrong candidate for President and will probably head on to a path of political and professional irrelevance, her daughter hates her and would rather spend time with her step mother, and her happiness — it has always been as elusive as trying to catch a sunbeam in your hand. What Fat Betty is left with is an intense longing. When she goes to Don’s house to pick up the kids she sees a gorgeous, expensive apartment that could have been hers. She looks out at the city and she imagines how her life with Don could have been different. How they could have been young and beautiful in the city if everything about their lives hadn’t told them to get married and live the Dick and Jane life in the suburbs. She could have had it all and instead, she’s fat and living in the Munster’s house with some rich dilettante. Then, to make it even worse, Fat Betty catches Skinny Megan in just her bra and sees everything that she used to be, everything she wants to be again, and she hates it. That’s what makes her gobble down that whip cream like she’s Demi Moore looking for her next Whip-It hit. She’s trying to fill that longing inside of her with the closest thing at hand (too bad it wasn’t Bugles). She does spit it out, but she’s already sabotaging herself. That’s what this episode was all about, people screwing over other people and screwing themselves over in the process. As Roger says, it’s every man (or fat housewife) for himself. Betty is trying to lose a half pound every week, but she’s still scarfing down that whipped cream. Her husband is supportive, but cooking steaks in the middle of the night. When he cuts off a little piece of steak for her, she eats it, but she cries inside because she knows that he doesn’t care if she’s a little fat, just like he doesn’t care if he’s successful at his job. He has given up, and she wants to fight again, to get back what she had. She wants Don with his destructive ambition and firm hand keeping her in check. In order to get her old life back, she has a bit of sabotage of her own. After seeing Skinny Megan and her fabulous apartment and finding a love note Don left her on the back of a drawing that Bobby did, Fat Betty tells Sally about Anna, Don’s first wife. We all know that Dick Whitman never married Anna, but he had to pretend to be married to her so that his Don Draper facade could keep going and so that he wouldn’t be arrested for deserting the army. This is the secret that tore Don and Betty apart for good and Betty thinks that Don won’t have told Megan, so if she has Sally tell Megan then Megan will get mad at Don and then they’ll break up. Not only does this ruin Sally’s relationship with Megan (who Sally calls a “phony” for lying to her and trying to be her friend) but it causes exactly the fight that Betty was hoping for when Megan tells Don what Sally asked. But Megan is too smart for Betty and keeps Don from calling her. Sally hears nothing but their fighting, something that gives Betty and her tactic power in her mind, but it is a power that Don strips away the next morning. He tells Sally, in that gruff and caring way that will scare you into a loving compliance, about Anna and sets the record straight. He doesn’t give her all the details (she’s still a kid, of course) but sketches it out enough that she won’t be too curious. It seems like Don Draper is finally integrated with Dick Whitman, at least as far as letting his wife and family know that he’s not the glamorous man from nowhere that he used to paint himself as. He is no longer the man that Betty knew. The one question I have about the whole thing is if, after the camera cut away, Don and Megan really sat Sally down and showed her pictures of Anna and talked about it like she told Betty they did or if that was Sally’s revenge on her mother. Is there was something we didn’t see or if Sally has learned the art of subtle cruelty at her mother’s knee so well that she made up a story that would infuriate Betty in just the right way. Is that what she learned in the hall, that being deceitful was power? Questions abound and I hate to think of Sally as evil, but Fat Betty deserves it.
I’m sorry, everyone, but I love Fat Betty. I love her like I love watching the Hulk rip off an alien’s head, like I love watching King Joffrey get hit with shit in the face, like I love watching the continued cultural irrelevance of Taylor Hicks. I love it like all of those things and even more. Then she goes and takes a big mouth-full of Readi-Whip and spits it out in the sink and there I am, sitting in my living room, giggling with glee. If only Don and Megan would let her know about Cool-Whip, she might be back to her old fighting weight.
Next: Roger’s Charm Offensive
Article source: http://www.hollywood.com/news/Mad_Men_Recap_Fat_Bettys_Thanksgiving_Spectacular/27360030
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Dick Whitman, Don Draper, Fat Betty, Skinny Megan
‘Fat Betty’: A musical tribute to ‘Mad Men’s’ Betty Francis
January Jones, in her non-Fat Betty mode.
(Frazer Harrison – Getty Images)
Last night’s “Mad Men” gave us plenty of fist fights, inappropriate kisses and the far-too-rare opportunity to hear actor Jared Harris use the term “grimy little pimp.”
What it didn’t give us is another peek into the life of the sad, overweight Betty Francis.
Fortunately, the Internet — in all its digital altruism — has come forward to deliver the gift of “Fat Betty.”
In case you haven’t already seen it or inferred what it might be, “Fat Betty” is a YouTube clip that pairs images of the now larger Betty Francis with a lyrically altered version of the bluesy classic “Black Betty.”
The video is ridiculous. The audio sounds vaguely like it was recorded by Brak from “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast.” And the whole thing is potentially offensive to women, particularly Betty Francis. It’s also pretty funny. Take a look if you need a giggle while enjoying an afternoon snack of Bugles and ice cream sundaes.
Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/celebritology/post/fat-betty-a-musical-tribute-to-mad-mens-betty-francis/2012/04/16/gIQAZbbtLT_blog.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Betty Francis, Black Betty, Fat Betty, Jared Harris
‘Fat Betty’: A musical tribute to ‘Mad Men’s’ Betty Francis
January Jones, in her non-Fat Betty mode.
(Frazer Harrison – Getty Images)
Last night’s “Mad Men” gave us plenty of fist fights, inappropriate kisses and the far-too-rare opportunity to hear actor Jared Harris use the term “grimy little pimp.”
What it didn’t give us is another peek into the life of the sad, overweight Betty Francis.
Fortunately, the Internet — in all its digital altruism — has come forward to deliver the gift of “Fat Betty.”
In case you haven’t already seen it or inferred what it might be, “Fat Betty” is a YouTube clip that pairs images of the now larger Betty Francis with a lyrically altered version of the bluesy classic “Black Betty.”
The video is ridiculous. The audio sounds vaguely like it was recorded by Brak from “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast.” And the whole thing is potentially offensive to women, particularly Betty Francis. It’s also pretty funny. Take a look if you need a giggle while enjoying an afternoon snack of Bugles and ice cream sundaes.
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Betty Francis, Black Betty, Fat Betty, Jared Harris
‘Mad Men’s Fat Betty Francis: Yay or nay?
April 6, 2012 5:18 PM ET
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January Jones’ return to “Mad Men” as Fat Betty Francis (she even inspired a Twitter meme) divided fans of the show down the middle. Some love the new, blunt Betty, some not so much. Both camps were amply represented at Zap2it and the topic marks the maiden voyage for one of our new recurring features, RANT! RAVE!
RANT! Fat Betty Francis must go
Here’s the thing: If Betty didn’t mind her weight, I wouldn’t either.
It makes sense that the show went there and it makes the icy January Jones a touch more likeable that she was willing to become Fat Betty. Especially considering the high Norbit-ing risk factor. She was willing to suit up in prosthetics and makeup to become the embodiment of an unhappy middle-aged woman; that’s a brave thing for any actress to do. But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. We already knew Jones was brave — after all, she eats her baby’s placenta in capsule form.
But the fact that some people see Betty as somehow “liberated” since she made Bugles her new BFF and put on 60 pounds is just wrongheaded, no matter how sassy she may be when deflecting advice from her interfering mother-in-law.
I’m all for self-confidence and self-esteem — and deflecting interfering mothers-in-law, but Betty is not unapologetically doing her own thing. She’s so embarrassed by her size that she won’t join her new husband at public functions, which is kind of a no-no for a politician’s wife. She also doesn’t want Henry looking at her nude — she made him turn around when she stood to get out of the tub — which is a massive red flag for body issues.
What bugged me the most was the tableau of Betty and daughter Sally (Kiernan Shipka) — with whom she’s always had a strained relationship — eating ice cream sundaes together. Sally asks to get up and leave and Betty asks her why she doesn’t want to finish her ice cream sundae. “I’m full,” says Sally, who leaves while mom finishes off her sundae, too.
Betty has already done her utmost to give Sally some serious issues in just about every major department — her sexuality, her relationship with her dad, her interactions with other kids — and now she’s probably going to add food to the list of things that her daughter is unable to approach with a healthy outlook. Which sort of mirrors Betty’s own past — she was a fat child whose mother controlled every bite she took but blossomed into a slender model in her late teens.
Slender or not, Betty’s never been happy — so being fat is more of a symptom than the actual problem. She may have been the picture of happiness with a hot husband (Don) and three rosy-cheeked children, but now we can see her unhappiness. She’s wearing it as armor.
– Liz Kelly Nelson
RAVE! Another helping, please
Betty Draper Francis has maintained her air of mystery throughout “Mad Men’s” previous four seasons — whether that’s because of the character’s writing or January Jones’ limited acting skills was unclear until Fat Betty came along.
The character is fat, insecure, unsure, emotional and I feel like I learned more about her in one episode than I had in any other time we’ve seen her on screen before (aside from maybe the shotgun/cigarette scene in Season 1). Before, Betty was icy and cold — now she’s vulnerable and even sympathetic.
As pointed out in a lovely defense on Vulture, Betty is not dumb — she was educated at Bryn Mawr, yet nobody expected her to do anything worthwhile with her life aside from model and then become a housewife. She hasn’t had any actual options in life (privilege, sure — but no choices have been her own), and pride in her appearance was one thing she could always count on.
Now that her conventional beauty, which she’s always connected with her self-worth, is gone, she doesn’t know how to function. Of course she’s embarrassed to reveal herself to her husband — she has been taught throughout her entire life that she was only lovable because of her looks. She doesn’t want to be seen in public because she’s afraid people will treat her differently. Which they will.
This is evident when she runs into a friend from years ago in the doctor’s office — she’s shocked and embarrassed to be seen, but clearly still desperate for human contact. She leads a lonely life in that big house, and ultimately decides to catch up and socialize instead of following her instinct of running away.
I saw Betty trying to get Sally to finish her ice cream as a need for company, desperately wanting to not be alone. It wasn’t as a vindictive attempt to sabotage her daughter’s life. Yes, being fat is a symptom of her problems, but now I actually care. She’s wearing her fat as armor, and I’ll happily watch her fight.
– Jean Bentley
Article source: http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/04/mad-mens-fat-betty-francis-yay-or-nay.html
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Categories: Fat Loss Diary Tags: Fat Betty, January Jones, Mad Men, Sally Kiernan Shipka