Ugly Betty: Skin Deep or Down to the Bone?

Betty Suarez was hired for her looks. One glance at the laughably un-chic Plain Jane, though, and you'd wonder if her fashion-industry boss needs another round of Lasik surgery. Crassly insulted by colleagues as the "fugly" girl from Queens, Betty sticks out like polka-dots on plaid in a job where appearance is everything. Yet it doesn't take long to realize that Betty is in fact the knockout on ABC's new hit—and heavily blemished—dramedy, Ugly Betty.

Beauty and the Beast
It's the boss's father, by the way, who hires Betty (played brilliantly by America Ferrera) for her bad looks. Mode magazine owner Bradford Meade (Alan Dale) wants to make sure his playboy son, Daniel (Eric Mabius), won't squander his role as editor in chief of the fashion Bible by continuing to bed a succession of fast-and-loose—and beautiful—assistants.

Obviously, that won't be a problem with Betty around.

After a rough start, The Devil Wears Prada-style plot twists force Daniel and Betty to realize they need to look out for each other, if not at each other. After all, how else are they going to prevent fashionista Wilhelmina (Vanessa Williams) from taking over the company? Bradford's certainly no help. He's too busy covering up what appears to be murder.

If all this sounds to you like a soap opera plot gone prime time, consider yourself fashionably astute. Ugly Betty is actually an Americanized adaptation of a wildly popular Colombian telenovela—a type of Spanish-language soap that takes viewers on a 13-week roller coaster and then lets them disembark for the next series/ride. In many Spanish-speaking homes in the U.S. and in South America, telenovelas have been as much a part of the nightly routine as David Letterman and Jay Leno have in English-speaking ones. So for co-executive producer Salma Hayek, it was only natural to bring Ugly Betty to ABC and a wider American audience that's becoming increasingly Latino.

Does This Clash?
So far, Hayek's instincts are right on target. Her show's ratings have been solid. But what of its morals? On the comely side of things, Ugly Betty regularly bashes the impossible standards and negative influence of a fashion industry that "seems intent on making any normal human being feel like an outcast," as one character moans. "It's all fake and unattainable, but nobody seems to get it," adds another. Great messages, especially for young, self-conscious girls taking mental notes on what's hot and what's not. To top it off, in this intentionally broad-stroked world of over-the-top caricatures, the good guys win on a weekly basis, while the villains' evil plans are repeatedly foiled.

Those core messages are sometimes colorfully adorned with innocent, lesson-laden humor. For example, when an in-demand photographer insists that Betty accompany the Mode bigwigs to a dinner (he and Betty are from the same neighborhood), the assistant tries her best to fit in by changing her look. Her hilariously flubbed makeover makes Queens construction workers whistle but draws mostly laughs from the snooty Madison Ave. crowd. The point? Stay true to yourself, no matter how image-obsessed the world around you gets.

Unfortunately, that "proud-to-be-me" motif bleeds over into a wink-wink take on homosexuality. Wilhelmina's effeminate assistant, Marc, hits on a metrosexual GQ-er at a party, assuming he's also gay. Worse, Marc offers Betty's young, fashion-obsessed nephew lifestyle advice. With all comedic and stereotypical signs pointing to a "plays-on-the-other-team" orientation for the boy, Marc tells him to ignore the kids at school who "don't really get [him]." "Be who you are, wear what you want ... just learn how to run real fast," he recommends.

Other times—also on the duckling end of Ugly Betty's fashion plate—writers make a mockery out of their own good intentions by sudsing things up with sexual jokes, cleavage-baring outfits, lingerie-clad models and risqué telenovela scenes. (We're frequently shown hot-and-heavy scenes from the Suarez family's favorite show-within-a-show.) The pilot featured Daniel receiving oral sex from an assistant hidden under his desk. Episode 2 included a couple making out. And throughout the series Daniel is spied in bed before and after sex. Add typical TV-grade profanities and Ugly Betty begins to live up to its name.

Two Sides to Every Stitch
That's a real shame. Not only because this show exhibits a refreshing bent toward Cinderella-like storytelling, but also because of its 8 p.m. East Coast/7 p.m. Central "family-hour" time slot.

Tune in to this prime-time lead-in and you'll find that, as the 22-year-old Ferrera states, "[It's] not about being ugly at all. More than anything it's just about looking past what you see. Achieving that image is not all that we're on this planet to do." That's a beautiful and true idea. But it's woven into fabric that is both snagged and torn.