Tuesday mornings are my usual time for chatting on IM with my friend from Missouri. We've known each other for about five years now and become real pals over the ether, sharing the good times and bad, variously cheering, encouraging and commiserating with one another. Today I'm worried for my friend after reports of appalling weather in Missouri here. She works fifteen miles away from her home, which is pretty isolated. Even if she did make it home, the power cuts would make things more than difficult. Her house is as old as mine - more than 150 years - and seems to be hanging on by a thread to life. If, as I'm hoping, she's decided to stay in town with one of her nieces, then I know she'll be worrying about her animals at home. These things always make me feel so helpless, especially when I know someone who might be suffering. Hang in there, Loretta!
On a happier note, I've been hearing people talking about a new American import on Channel 4, Ugly Betty. It was even recommended by our rector on this blog, so I decided I had to see for myself. By the wonder of the wwweb I was able to watch the first episode (albeit subtitled in French, which actually made picking up the US dialogue slightly easier!) and then through the similar wonders of Freeview I was also able to see episode 2, this time with breaks for adverts but no subtitles, alas.
Was I impressed? Hmm. It's a comedy, right, so the characters have to be exaggerated, predictable and a bit stereotypical. As with most situation comedies, the viewer needs to be one step ahead - to see the disasters that await the character before they happen and then laugh smugly when the character reacts in the prescribed way. That's how situation comedy works. The viewer feels superior to the hapless buffoon. It's a good formula and I admit it's present in my favourite comedies - the Vicar of Dibley, My Family etc. Ugly Betty is no different, which is a pity - it would have been nice to see something a little out of the ordinary.
So is Ugly Betty going to turn into Beautiful Betty during the course of the show? I must say I don't like the title - it makes me uncomfortable. Poor Betty isn't really ugly at all - she's a pretty actress with added glasses, braces (on seemingly perfect teeth) and outmoded clothes. Everyone else in the show is beautiful, with the exception of Betty's boyfriend - a girl with the disadvantages of glasses and braces etc has to be content with a chinless loser, naturally. Of course she has brains, which fits nicely with the stereotype. I'm going to watch some more to see if, by any stroke of good fortune, the writers bother to develop the characters. If Betty is as bright as she's made out to be, she'll get her Scottish pal to give her a makeover, ditch the braces - her teeth are fixed! - and invest in some contact lenses or more becoming specs. But will she then shed her integrity along with her Seventies clothes? I doubt if either will happen.
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3 comments:
It might be a cultural/ generational thing, you know. I don't expect complex character development from Ugly Betty. And like a lot of other American programmes that have crossed the pond lately (Desperate Housewives, Six Feet Under) it can be ridiculous in its extremes. But it is familiar too. This is the world that so many of my classmates work in. I enjoy it for it's basic question: what happens when you refuse to play the game everyone else is playing?
I think we may be *too old*. Curmudgeons of the world, unite!
Wish you'd change to Blogger beta - I keep having to retype comments here!
I wasn't impressed, to be honest. There was too much hype about the programme and it has turned out to be a let-down!
I wasn't best pleased with the advertising that was in place for the programme. About 6 different actors with braces prancing about the place. So what E4 are effectively saying is that all people with braces are ugly. Oh well... if that doesn't put the urine on the chips of confidence, I don't know what will!
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