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.”

Boy oh Boy: Masculinity and Fatherhood on Ugly Betty

ABC’s hour-long dramedy Ugly Betty has garnered exceptional acclaim in its first season, as critics hail it as a healthy new portrayal of women and beauty on the small screen. Featuring the Cinderella story of a physically awkward and unattractive protagonist (America Fererra) trying to make it on her work ethic and positive attitude in the world high fashion, Ugly Betty has struck a chord with American viewers, pulling in solid ratings[1]. Even the industry is rooting for Betty, exemplified by Fererra’s wins at both the Golden Globe’s and the Screen Actor’s Guild awards, where her acceptance speeches extol the show’s new portrayal of Hispanic women on television.

But what about the men on Ugly Betty? Portrayals of men on Ugly Betty run the gamut from the recovering manwhore in Alex, the stereotypical flamboyant gay man in Marc and even Justin, and the stoic, wealthy white man in Bradford Meade. These different characterizations of men and fatherhood in particular on Ugly Betty actually interact in ways that create an interesting commentary on cultural norms.

For example, the show has attracted quite a bit of attention from the gay community and the popular media for its portrayal of Justin, the pre-pubescent boy who exhibits cultural markers of homosexuality, including being a fan of musicals and high fashion. This “queering of Justin,” as Hector Amaya writes about on FLOW, brings up several questions about representations of and assumptions about sexuality in children. However, despite the fascinating debate about whether representations of sexuality on television are built on dangerous assumptions of attraction to others or pubescent hormonal rushes (i.e. Justin isn’t gay because he’s prepubescent, or he is gay, but isn’t identified as such because he isn’t old enough to be attracted to another man), it is the interaction of these cultural markers of homosexuality with those of other portrayals of masculinity on the show that piques my interest. For example, Justin’s characteristics of homosexuality are not viewed as problematic within the diegetic world of the show until his absent father re-enters the picture. It is this intersection of the heterosexual (and Latino) masculinity of the father and queered masculinity of the son that creates an interesting tension, especially in the fact that the father was for the most part absent, but now feels like “being a good father” means keeping Justin from being gay. In this way, the show’s representation of fatherhood serves as the heteronormative desire to contain gay youth.

            Justin and his father are not the only examples of fatherhood serving as commentary on sexuality. Bradford Meade and his sons Alex (now Alexis) and Daniel portray intersections of masculinity, sexuality, and capitalism. Alex, who fakes his own death in order to come back as a woman, harbors intense hatred for his father for “never accepting who he really was,” despite Daniel’s assumption that his brother (now sister) was the “favorite son” because he was so successful at running the family business. Again, the father figure is portrayed as an attempt at containment of non-heteronormative behavior, but fatherhood is also intersecting here with capitalism. Not only is Bradford Meade disapproving of Alex’s behavior, but he also attempts to contain Daniel’s hyper-heterosexuality, as the relationship between Daniel and his father is strained because Daniel has always “chased women” and never been a “good business man.” In the case of the Meades, fatherhood seems to serve as reinforcement of a patriarchal capitalism, in that it works to contain both transgendered sexuality and heterosexuality within the walls of good business.

            The representations of fatherhood between Justin and his father and between Bradford and his sons also interact with each other through the construction of each respective relationship in regard to existing cultural norms. The representation of fatherhood between Justin and his dad work to construct their identity as working class Latino, while the relationship between Alex, Daniel, and Bradford works to construct them as wealthy whites. These representations of fatherhood all work together on the show, but also within each respective planes of cultural identity, which makes Ugly Betty quite the post-modern text. I’ll save more on that topic for next time.

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[1] Kissel, Rick. “ABC Thursday on the rise.” Variety.com. Posted Fri., Feb. 9, 2007, 11:50am PT. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117959091.htmlcategoryid=14&cs=1&query=ugly+betty+ratings 

 

Translating the Telenovela: Ugly Betty, Genre, and Scheduling

In terms of international television, American network programming has traditionally been viewed as an export, where programming flowed in a one-way direction from the United States to other countries. In recent seasons, however, American networks are seeing some interesting success in what’s being imported instead. Shows like The Office, from British version of the same name, and Ugly Betty, from the Colombian Yo Soy Betty, La Fea, have become distinct hits with American audiences. These shows aren’t reproduced exactly as they were in their countries of origin, though; they have been re-casted, rewritten, and reworked for American viewers. This process of “Americanization” provides an interesting site for analysis.

Ugly Betty is an especially interesting case, because ABC and executive producers Salma Hayek and Silvio Horta did not just have to “Americanize” the show, they had to do it without alienating the Hispanic viewers, a large contingent of whom were already familiar with the original Betty La Fea and the telenovela genre. Hayek and Horta’s team clearly utilized a multitude of both blatant and inconspicuous techniques to achieve this cross-over success, but the most basic change – the time and length of the program – is perhaps the largest contributing factor to the embrace it’s received from American viewers.

Like most telenovelas, the original Yo Soy Betty, La Fea, aired weekdays in 30-minute episodes in a finite strip. Early signs hinted towards ABC following this telenovela format with Ugly Betty and airing it as a daily strip during the summer. However, when ABC actually commissioned the show, it was slotted as an hour-long weekly to air in the fall, in primetime. [1] Making Ugly Betty an hour-long dramedy with a budget of $2 to $3 million per episode[2] was the first and perhaps largest step in translating Ugly Betty for American audiences. The dramedy format and the budget takes the show and puts it in a language viewers are used to seeing on television: cinematic production values, elaborate sets, multiple filming locations, and elevated or accelerated dramatic narrative, a style particularly evident in shows like Desperate Housewives and Boston Legal. In fact, shows like Desperate Housewives and Boston Legal, whose over-the-top mix of serial drama and comedy created an endearing quirkiness with viewers, are in part what helped Ugly Betty translate so easily – the hour-long dramedy formula is what allowed Ugly Betty to retain much of the exaggerated drama of the telenovela while adapting to American television.

In addition to adapting Ugly Betty as a dramedy, changing it to a weekly and placing it on Thursday nights near other hour-long dramedies (although Grey’s Anatomy is now much more of a true drama than the dramedy it was in its first two seasons) also helped translate Ugly Betty for American audiences. As a lead-in for Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty had the opportunity to garner the attention of the primarily female audience that already tunes in to watch Grey’s. The two shows back-to-back have helped make Thursday nights a “chick-flick” destination and served as the ratings powerhouse for ABC. If Ugly Betty had remained a daily strip, it would be airing every weekday, most likely next to and up against a different show every night. It would have had to stand on its own without the anchoring of an already immensely popular show and bring viewers back to the same show every day, which might have proved much more difficult. The hour-long, weekly dramedy format made Ugly Betty a much easier show for viewers to warm up to, as they didn’t have to tune in every day to see what was going on.

It’s difficult to postulate whether or not Ugly Betty would have had as much success as a half-hour sitcom or even half-hour American telenovela. News Corp. Ltd’s MyNetworkTV has aired English-language telenovelas Desire and Fashion House, which stay very much in line with the traditional telenovela genre, but has not seen much success with either show.[3]^,[4] The success of translating Betty into a dramedy certainly does not say that telenovelas will never be successful on American television. Instead, it may just be the beginning of bridging the divide between Hispanic-market television and mass-market American television. As Buena Vista International Television Senior Vice President Fernando Barbosa recently said ,

“One of the big stories this year, obviously, was finally getting a successful script from Latin America exported to the U.S. — which was ‘Betty la fea’ (ABC’s “Ugly Betty”). Even so, they took a telenovela script and adapted to a U.S. genre as opposed to keeping the telenovela format. Having said that, ‘Ugly Betty’ was a great triumph for Latin America. It will take a little time for U.S. producers to capture the essence of the genre, but it will happen, little by little.”[5]

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[1] Benson, Jim. “ABC rethinks Ugly Betty.” Broadcasting & Cable. April 23, 2006.

[2] De la Fuente, Anna Maria. “Novela idea.” Variety. August 17, 2006.

[3] “Betty is the belle of
US television ball,” Reuters. November 10, 2006.
[4] Obviously MyNetworkTV is a “mini-network” and cannot directly compare with network giant ABC, but both of those shows have been well publicized as American adaptations of the telenovela.

[5] Tracy, Kathy. “
Latin America won’t stand pat on recent success.” Variety. January 12, 2007.