Blurring the Boundaries in Betty

Blurring the Boundaries in Betty

I have to begin by confessing that I have not yet watched the last few episodes of Ugly Betty; with the craziness of the end of the semester, they’re still sitting on my DVR. While this analysis relies on a more general view of the show, one that’s not necessarily dependent on the specific narrative developments of the last few episodes, I just felt that I should point that out as a reason why I may not use the very latest examples.

In my first post on SmuTube, I attributed Ugly Betty’s success on American television to it’s successful blending of telenovela qualities and elements of American comedy. In thinking more about that assessment over the course of the semester while watching the “fresh” episodes of this spring, it struck me that it is not just in format that Ugly Betty blurs the lines – it also does it in characters, setting, and aesthetic style. In blending these areas and “borrowing” elements of narrative and style from different types of television, Ugly Betty is a fascinating example of the postmodern “pastiche” on American primetime television.

While some characters on Ugly Betty are for the most part clearly defined “good” or “evil,” such as Betty (good) and Wilhelmina (evil), more than shows like The Sopranos, lines are blurred along several other axes. Take Betty, for example. As the title of the show blatantly claims, she is “ugly,” although merely in terms of her physical appearance. But the show is constantly reminding her and viewers that she is “beautiful” on the inside. And viewers are arguably very aware that the actress that plays her, America Ferrerra, is beautiful in real life.1 This sense of obvious “acting” for Betty alludes to elements of camp within the show, although not necessarily playing with the lines of gender. That does happen with other characters very clearly, however. As discussed briefly in my last post, other characters on the show are presented along blurred gender lines as well, notably Marc, the teenage boy who likes musicals and high fashion. In addition, Alexis (formerly Alex), who underwent a sex change operation to become a woman, also presents several blurred lines of gender both within the diegetic world of the show and in real life. Characters in the show, especially Daniel, struggle with ways to accept Alexis’ change, not knowing how to react or relate to her. Other characters in the show, such as Betty, constantly confuse the pronouns of “he/she” and “him/her” when referring to Alexis, presenting the diegetic struggle with the lines of gender in Alexis. However, Alexis is played by an actress, Rebecca Romijn – a woman pretending to be a woman who used to be a man. Talk about queering. But does the fact that this former man is played by a woman, one that America has previously accepted as a beautiful woman even before her role on the show, make it easier to accept the character as a woman?2 Does that actually serve to lessen the blur of gender lines? I’m not sure of the answer, but it is definitely a great example of questionable categories.

The physical world within the show is also breaking down certain lines as well. In the offices of Mode magazine, walls are made of clear glass, serving to visually open up lines and barriers in the office. Betty’s post outside of Daniel’s office contains no walls, and and allows her a perfect view into Alex’s office at all times. Even Wilhelmina’s office is made of clear glass walls. The locations in the New York setting of the show also embody breaking down of lines. Betty is constantly identified hailing from Queens, denoted as the working class location, while working and spending time in Manhattan, identified as high-class. The characters venturing back and forth between Queens and Manhattan presents not only crossing lines of location but also of class. However, in some cases, these lines are sometimes not presented as blurred as much as they are crossed by some of the characters awareness of the stark definitions of these lines. For instance, when Daniel comes to the Suarez house for Christmas, Marc points out the irony in Daniel spending Christmas in Queens, which in some cases serves more to point out the fact that Daniel is out of place in the working class location.

Ugly Betty also plays with this blurring in its aesthetics and style. The opening montage of the show, with the face split into three sections that move between different people’s eyes, nose, and mouth, quite literally serves to blur lines in sense of beauty and overtonally in terms of identity. This part of the opening montage, along with the loud colors and large font taking up the whole screen seems to be an example of postmodern pastiche as well, borrowing from other genre styles outside of the United States. However, for younger audiences (myself included), it’s sort of a simulacra, because I know I’ve seen that loud style with big font before, but I just can’t put my finger on exactly when or where. Clearer versions of pastiche within the show are brought in other ways that not only “borrow” from other genres, but also serve to blur lines between media texts. In Ugly Betty, the Suarez family is always watching a telenovela on television, one that exhibits the prototypical elements of the genre in Latin America, including dialogue in Spanish, dramatic music, and overdramatic acting and narrative. In another interesting blur, Salma Hayek, Ugly Betty’s producer, actually plays a character in the telenovela, appearing as an actress in a tv show within the show that she’s producing. In addition, there’s also a “FashionTV” show that the characters watch within the show, namely Justin, whose content comments on events going on at Mode magazine. In this way, Ugly Betty not only “borrows” this element of high fashion tv (with a queered tv host presenting celebrity news), but this pastiche also serves to progress the narrative of the show by providing narration for actual events within the show (like Alexis’ return and Bradford’s arrest). These are both fascinating examples of postmodern pastiche and concurrent boundary blurring in terms of television texts.

It is this constant blurring of lines and playing with definitions of beauty and identity that keeps bringing me back to this show. Despite the fact that Ugly Betty presents somewhat conflicting ideas of ideology (another postmodern characteristic) in that while presenting alternative ideas of beauty and identity in Betty and other characters, it also at the same glamorizes high fashion magazines and life within the world of material beauty, I am still drawn to watching the show and rooting for Betty. These overlapping ideas, definitions, and locations, to me at least, are indicative of our real lives, where we women are constantly negotiating several different lines and categories at once.
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1 - Ferrerra’s appearance on the Emmy’s and the SAG awards presented her as dressed up and beautiful, not to mention the wealth of coverage in the popular media about Ferrerra’s process to become “ugly” on the show.
2- Rebecca Romijn is a well-known model in America, who’s been featured in Sports Illustrated Swim Suit issues (2006), and has been identified by FHM magazine as one of the “100 Sexiest Women.”