Core post #5 --- Betty, la fea

I think that this week’s readings are useful for thinking about race as something being represented and constructed by media. In this sense, I very much liked Acham’s point that even if Cosby didn’t want to acknowledge race heads on, the show was still a political product being ideologically used by others to legitimize their agendas. We also know from last week’s readings that the show didn’t do much for blacks or whites but rather reified racial stereotypes. Similarly, I obviously enjoyed Gray’s article because he focuses on the institutional character of commercial TV, approaching it by looking at its political economy and technology.

However, this post is mostly about Esposito’s text. I overall liked it and appreciated the general discussion on notions such as race, “color-blindness”, postracial, etc. I particularly liked her mention of how even the construct of diversity is taken for granted in analyses, and that by remaining unproblematized it contributes to the naturalization of differences.

But, I have to say, after that wonderful discussion on race and a more-than-interesting analysis of the Ugly Betty episode, I was profoundly disappointed that the origins of the show weren’t mentioned at least in one short sentence. “Ugly Betty” is actually an adaptation of the Colombian show “Betty, la fea”, which aired from 1999-2001 in most parts of South America. See here:

(interestingly, the intro song is an old tango popularized by Tita Merello, the most famous female tango singer in the 1950s in Argentina, which also talks about a woman who’s ugly but that, despite that, she still makes do with what God gave her)

I have never watched Ugly Betty but I remember watching some episodes of the original show when I was in elementary school. In Argentina and in Colombia, the show generated enthusiasm because it was presented as progressive and non-discriminatory. This of course was a blatant lie dressed as a PR spin because the show reified all possible gender stereotypes and constructions: the pretty blond assistant was dumb and incapable of performing well, the male boss was a chronic cheater and asserted its power by shouting orders, the ugly and clumsy character was hard working and capable, constantly engaged in humorous self-deprecation, among others. More importantly, as you can catch in the beginning of the video, everybody in the audience was waiting for Betty to turn pretty, because everybody knew that that was going to happen eventually and that she’d end up with the boss then. Normalization 101.

So why am I upset then? I know that Esposito’s point in the article is to demonstrate that popular discourses in the media not only silence racial privilege but help reify notions of race, of which Ugly Betty becomes a case example. And I don’t just want to drop the “cultural appropriation” accusation and leave it there. But, as a cultural product that was created by “brown people” for “brown people” where gender and not race was the main variable (in its original context, this show didn’t oppose “Latinness” against white normalcy) and that, although deeply problematic, was extremely popular and exported to other Latam countries, I find that not acknowledging this origin, even in passing, is problematic.