[Marxism] ABC's Not-So-Ugly Betty

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Most of us have been in situations in life or in work where we've
observed quieter but more competent people holding a situation
together but not receiving acknowledgement or compensation and
in some cases being surrounded by goof-offs who are able to get
by based on the work of the quietly competent. This is like that.

Undocumented immigrants enter the cultural mainstream through this
television comedy series about the daughter of an immigrant who 
doesn't fit into the dominant cultural paradigm. She's short, she
wears big black eyeglasses and braces on her teeth. She's quiet,
a bit shy, principled and competent, and is surrounded by people
at her underpaying job who try to use her to cover up their own
mistakes and mis-behaviors. Her dad, I learned from this review,
is an undocumented immigrant. I've only watched a bit of this as
it's filled with so many commercial distractions it's hard to
follow the narrative, but makes a number of important points
through the vehicle of comedy. We can all recognize people like
this whom we've known, or in whose place we may well have been.

This series is also produced by Mexican actress Salma Hayek and
it may, hopefully, contribute to a better understanding of the
world of the immigrant worker, as A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN did.


Walter
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WIKIPEDIA entry (excerpt)
Ugly Betty follows the daily life of Betty Suarez, a young woman from
a struggling Latino family, who works as an executive assistant at
MODE fashion magazine. The name MODE comes from the original series,
Yo soy Betty, la fea, where the company is named Ecomoda. Most of her
female co-workers are more attractive than she is; they often
humiliate and insult her because of her appearance (her only friend
is Christina). Suarez is not very interested in fashion and is
sometimes clueless about the company's motives and organizations. 
Her boss, the womanizing Daniel Meade (who initially turned her away
because of her appearance), has a lack of fashion experience too, but
both are intent on performing well at their jobs, even at the expense
of those trying to stop them. The program includes a serialized plot
involving Meade's predecessor Fey Sommers, who supposedly was killed
in a fiery hit-and-run accident, but her named was actually the
backdrop for a plot to take over the company, thanks to a hospital
patient swathed in facial bandages who turned out to be Daniel's
transgendered brother, who engineered the scheme, as well as a
storyline involving Betty's father, Ignacio Suarez, whose admission
to coming to the United States as an illegal immigrant could put his
family in a legal bind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_Betty

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AmericaFerrera_UglyBetty.jpg
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ABC's Not-So-Ugly Betty
By Yeidy M. Rivero, Ms. Magazine
Posted on January 20, 2007, 
http://www.alternet.org/story/46928/

This article is excerpted from the article "Beautiful Betty" in the
winter 2007 issue of Ms. magazine, available on newsstands now.

A colleague recently asked me to compare Betty Suárez, the leading
character of ABC's new hit Ugly Betty, to Ally McBeal. "Well, they
probably both have vaginas," I replied. Gender is about the only
identity that Betty shares with previous and contemporary women
television characters. How many working-class, Mexican American,
clumsy, allegedly "ugly," intelligent women with an illegal-immigrant
father have been portrayed on U.S. television? Until Betty's arrival,
none.

In Ugly Betty, a first-generation, college-educated woman (played by
America Ferrara of Real Women Have Curves and The Sisterhood of the
Traveling Pants fame) lives with her father, sister and nephew in
working-class and ethnically diverse Queens. Contrary to the Sex and
the City troupe, Betty and her single-mother sister can't enjoy the
wonders of New York City's nightlife, as they are the family's
primary financial providers and have to worry about their father's
health plan and the legal expenses related to his illegal status.

As an assistant for fashion magazine Mode, Betty has been labeled
ugly, fat and classless, and suffers numerous humiliations from
co-workers. But while Betty has apparently internalized the pain of
being categorized as ugly, she does not seem concerned about her
weight. As an intelligent and ambitious woman, Betty wants to succeed
at her job, yet her distance from upper-crust culture has thus far
been an obstacle at class- and image-conscious Mode.

The idea for Betty came from a Colombian telenovela (soap opera), 
Yo soy Betty la fea (I am Betty, the Ugly One), which narrated the 
story of a single, physically awkward, working-class, brilliant and
hard-working woman in her late 20s who was employed as a secretary at
high-fashion company EcoModa. Following the conventions of Latin
American telenovelas, which typically portray the complexities of an
almost impossible love between two people from different social
classes, Betty fell in love with Armando, the company's president.

Yet, Yo soy Betty la fea was more than a highly improbable match
between a poor, "ugly" woman and a rich man. Upper-class codes of
conduct and appearance usually defined who was considered ugly or
beautiful within the narrative. Therefore, the central message in the
Colombian version was that women's beauty is defined by those who
possess economic power.

The telenovela was an instant hit across Latin America and, according
to a Variety report, either the original Colombian version or the
concept alone have been sold to more than 70 countries. India,
Germany, Mexico, Russia, Spain and others have each produced versions
of Yo soy Betty la fea.

I am an avid Ugly Betty viewer, but initially I was partial to the
telenovela. Yo soy Betty la fea has a harsher, more direct approach
to women's self-esteem issues, and I appreciated the inclusion of
Betty's six "ugly" girlfriends-a support network, who loved her and
admired her deeply. Through Betty and the cuartel de las feas (the
cartel of ugly women), the narrative created a space for gender and
working-class solidarity.

That said, Ugly Betty is an important and timely show. It brings
forth a complex assortment of U.S. women's issues, interconnecting
gender, ethnicity, race, class and, of course, dominant beauty norms.
Significantly, the show also addresses the thorny migration question,
indirectly confronting the anti-Mexican sentiment that prevails in
the U.S.

For my part, I will continue to welcome Betty into my home as long as
the show's creators keep pushing the envelope regarding what
constitutes ugliness in contemporary U.S. society. Am I expecting too
much from a network television show? Maybe so, but I will dream on.

Yeidy M. Rivero is associate professor of communication and culture
at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of Tuning Out
Blackness: Race and Nation in the History of Puerto Rican Television
(Duke University Press, 2005).

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/46928/


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