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 etty Suarez is the girl Vogue always warned you about. She wears clothes in every shade of heinous. She binges on cold ravioli, probably cuts her own bangs, and her mouth has more metal than the main stage at Ozzfest. She doesn't belong in the fashion industry any more than she belongs in vinyl hot pants, although Ugly Betty manages to put her in both.
Based on the hugely popular Colombian telenovela Yo Soy Betty la Fea, Ugly Betty is the tale of a wannabe magazine writer from Queens who lands a plum job as an editorial assistant at a high-end glossy called Mode. She thinks she was hired for her passion and pluck, but she actually got the job because of her look. See, the boss has a tendency to get hands-on with the staff, and they needed an assistant who wouldn't tempt him. Who could be better than Betty? She is a woman so unappealing it's actually in the title.
The first fifteen minutes of the pilot unfold, disappointingly, like a made-for-TV version of The Devil Wears Prada. There are similar scenes of abject humiliation: Betty enduring snickers at the office, taking business calls at three a.m., forgetting her loved ones amid a demeaning landslide of coffee-fetching and impossible lunch orders. This is set to the soundtrack of Donna Summer's "She Works Hard for the Money," a clichéd soundtrack for a clichéd montage. But Ugly Betty isn't all rehash. It offers a few genuinely memorable moments. Consider the scene in which Betty squeezes herself into those vinyl hot pants.
It begins at a Mode photo shoot, a ludicrous misé-en-scene of crashed cars and BDSM chic, indicative of the show's campy take on high fashion. The boss plays a cruel prank, asking Betty to pose for the camera in a vampy Barbarella get-up, the equivalent of a kick-me sign for dumpy girls. At this point, Betty knows the truth behind her hire, and she knows the wardrobe request is engineered to send her running home to dad and a can of Chef Boyardee. Instead, she marches out in that ridiculous get-up, flesh squirting out of every seam, and holds her head high.
This was the moment I decided I might like Ugly Betty, despite the show's early flaws, and I think the scene works for two reasons. For one, we get to see a little spark of triumph for the character, Betty, who has (finally!) decided she will no longer play doormat to these asswipes. For another, we get to watch the actress, America Ferrera, in the kind of mortifying scenario that other young, talented actresses staple their stomachs to avoid. That scene took balls, man. Now, an awareness of actress-playing-character could have ripped me away from the story, ruined the dramatic build. But here, it didn't bother me. Actually, it made me like both women more.
Liking Betty, and caring about what happens to her, will be key to enjoying Ugly Betty, which will follow her Pygmalion ascent from drab to fab like a season-long version of What Not to Wear. Of course, along the way Betty will change their hearts and minds, too. And in that task, she has been handed a lineup of shallow, easy villains. Vanessa Williams pulls out the stops as a Mode diva who injects Botox like other people take cigarette breaks. Gina Gershon goes over the top (and into the neighbor's yard) as a Donatella-esque designer, shouting Italian epithets in an accent so broad I thought she might declare, "Now thatsssah spicy meatball!" One French photographer is so reeediculously eeevellll that he should be twirling his handlebar mustache. This must be a nod to the series' soapy telenovela heritage, but it underscores the plot's predictability. Still, it's kind of like the world of fashion itself — if you don't think about it too much, it can be kind of fun.
But the problem with such a charismatic lead character, and actress, is that every scene without her suffers. We are so invested in her drama, in her emotional (and soon, physical) transformation that the story sags when she's not there. The pilot hints at several crazy sideplots, but interestingly enough, I didn't even notice a few of them until a third viewing. I was too busy wondering when Betty was going to come back on the screen.
If Ugly Betty is to succeed — and it very well might — the reason will be America Ferrera. The twenty-two-year-old actress, born in L.A. to Honduran parents, has already carved out a name for herself with two memorable roles in so-so films, Real Women Have Curves and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The better of the two, Real Women, showed the kind of range and bravery Ferrera could bring to a role. She was likable but stubborn, shy at the same time she was sexually aggressive. At one point, she stripped down to her big cotton undies and showed what Hollywood really doesn't want you to see — a seventeen-year-old's pot belly and soft, jiggling thighs. How can you not like an actress willing to do such a thing? How could you not pull for her? And unlike other actresses playing ordinary teen girls, Ferrera actually looked like one. She's wasn't Jessica Biel, corseting her Stradivarius curves on 7th Heaven. She wasn't Gilmore Girls' Alex Bledel, exquisite as a porcelain doll. Ferrara is pretty, often radiant, but you could still see her rifling through the sale rack at Forever 21, or sitting on the stoop after class ended, laughing and clutching her books to her full-figured chest. In press for Ugly Betty, Salma Hayek (a producer of the show and cameo performer) introduced America as a major star of tomorrow. It's certainly possible. She's no Lindsay Lohan. But how great is that? n°
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
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Sarah Hepola has been a high-school teacher, a playwright, a film critic, a music editor and a travel columnist. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, The Guardian, and on NPR. She writes the Scanner blog for Hooksexup and lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. |
©2006 Sarah Hepola and hooksexup.com.
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