Women Lifestyle, Fashion, Health, Beauty and Personality

Ugly Betty has scored higher ratings than any other programme making its debut this season. She was ugly, ugly, ugly – but people in 70 countries never got tired of seeing her on their TV screens, that’s become the lesson of fall season premieres most years. And ABC is betting that American viewers will be no different. ‘Ugly Betty’ was ever so pretty in the ratings department Thursday, which competed strongly against CBS stalwart ‘Survivor’ to become the most-watched new show of the season.
Visions of last summer’s movie The Devil Wears Prada may come to mind (complete with beautiful actresses and impeccable clothing) but viewers beware: This is no ordinary television starlet, or show for that matter. In fact, ABC touts the show as representing the ‘ordinary girl.’

The ‘Ugly Betty ‘ comedy, based on a popular Colombian ‘telenovela’ – or soap opera, which stars Ferrera as a plain Queens girl who pushed her way into the fashion world, was seen by 16.1 million people in its ABC debut on Thursday night, according to Nielsen Media Research. Before ‘Ugly Betty’ arrived during the second full week of the new season, returning favorites like ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ‘Without a Trace’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’ had filled every slot in the Nielsen Top 10. Till now, the only rookies in the Top 20 in fact — ABC’s heavily promoted “Brothers & Sisters” (No. 12) and CBS’s similarly ballyhooed ‘Shark’ (No. 18) — were blessed with a little help from their more popular network friends.
ABC, owned by The Walt Disney Co., had some inkling that ‘Ugly Betty’ was attracting attention even before the first episode aired. It had originally scheduled the show for Friday nights – one of the slowest nights on TV – before switching it to Thursday over the summer.

Ugly Betty is the story of young and smart Betty Su??rez, a girl from Queens in her early 20s who gets a job at one of those glossy New York fashion magazines populated by the beautiful, the snooty and the empty-headed. Here, as on the Colombian-made sensation Yo Soy Betty, La Fea, the heroine is an unfashionable hick employed in the fashion business. With her thick glasses, braces and, well, suspect sense of style, Betty stands out like a sore thumb.
The English-language telenovela – a first, no doubt – is based on “Betty la Fea,” a Colombian soap opera produced in 1999 by RCN Television. It was wildly successful in 70 countries, on three continents and in several languages. It became the most-watched telenovela ever.
“Ugly Betty” is produced by Mexican actress Salma Hayek (you would never call her Ugly Salma), who got her start in her country’s TV tearjerkers.

When I heard ABC was considering on makie over this Colombia telenovela phenomena, I was skeptical, it’s not like U.S. audiences are hurting for soaps. While the creators convert Betty La Fea’s setting into the mostly Anglo workplace of a New York glossy, they kept Betty a Latina. That makes ‘Ugly Betty’ the only show among the networks with a story line revolving around a Latina character, charmingly and convincingly played by America Ferrera.
Granted that ‘Ugly Betty’s story line is utterly predictable. But what gives this show its heart and dimension are the scenes in un-glitzy Queens. That’s where Betty lives with her father, Ignacio; her older sister, Hilda (a single mother who peddles herbal supplements); and her fashion-obsessed 12-year-old nephew, Justin, who refuses to eat flan because he’s afraid it will make him fat.
I can see where ABC was trying to go with this idea: She’s tormented for her appearance, then her boss later feels sympathetic and expresses interest in her ideas. She’s got brains but not beauty, and eventually people will start appreciating her.

“To me, Betty is the most beautiful opportunity that’s ever come across my path to represent a whole generation of young women who maybe don’t recognize themselves in anything they’re watching,” the 22-year-old California native and daughter of a Honduran mother has said. “Whether it be in magazines or on TV or in the movies, they’re invisible. To me, it’s an honor to take this role, and I love being her.”
The trademarks of Betty’s ugliness are her heavy red eyeglasses and comical orthodontics???a wall between her and the world. Wouldn’t it be lovely if a smart actress turned the wall into a window? I know the show’s meant to be funny. We’re supposed to laugh at the funny outfits Betty wears, along with her dorky glasses and braces. Yet, what’s this really saying about the ordinary woman?
Regardless, America Ferrera is not ugly. She???s a rarity in that she???s a relatively normal, real-looking woman in an industry dominated by anorexic-looking model-types. AMERICA FERRERA, best known for her roles in the movies Real Women Have Curves and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.