We've been watching the first season episodes of Ugly Betty. My room mate loves the show and has wanted me to watch it. But the title of the show turned me off, and I assumed the primary comedic device would be the humiliation and degradation of someone who does not fit the classic definition of "pretty", at the hands of those who exemplify the definition.
I was wrong about the show. Each of the characters has something wonderful to bring to the screen.
First, of course, is the main character, Betty Suarez. She's "Ugly" (in TV Land, that means the make up makes her ugly, but she's really quite beautiful), but beautiful on the inside. But while most shows would paint the Ugly as weak, desperate, lonely and the butt of bad jokes, Betty is the one with the strongest character, with a loving and accepting family. Yes, people play cruel jokes on her, but they soon find that she can swim with the sharks just fine.
I love Vanessa William's character. Essentially re-creating Glenn Close's bitch role from The Devil Wears Prada," Vanessa plays her character with a real emotional center. She can be the bitch one minute, and struggling over Thanksgiving Dinner with her estranged daughter the next. In many of her scenes, she is not glamorously made up, and has several scenes that look like she drove through a car wash with the windows open.
Everyone on the show is a strong character. Even the sycophantic assistants are executed with tantalizing glimpses of a (deeply buried) moral compass. Even while drawing caricature cartoons of Betty, they respect her and even the bitchiest characters have something real and meaningful to tell.
Yes it's a bit of a shock, that one of my favorite shows has no phasers, transporters, shuttlecraft or red-shirted guys from engineering.