Since "Ugly Betty" made its debut this past year the show and it's star, America Fererra, have both been hailed as refreshing departures from a media obsessed with thinness and perfection. However, featuring a woman who is, "a size 6 or 8,"(according to Fererra in a recent Glamour magazine cover story) hardly qualifies as changing the world's perception of women. The show itself is atrocious-a low budget attempt at The Devil Wears Prada that dashes frantically back and forth between cheesy camp, melodramatic mystery and awkward attempts at true drama.
Fererra has spent essentially her entire career playing the big girl. She was a chubby outcast in the Disney film "Gotta Kick It Up." She was the chubby, sassy girl-in-crisis in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." She had curves in "Real Women Have Curves." It is, I suppose, a good sign that she is appearing onscreen at all-but that's like congratulating the conjoined Hilton twins for appearing in the 1932 cult classic "Freaks." It will be a sign of social progress when-if-she ever plays a role where her weight is not a plot point. Fererra says beauty is "all about being comfortable in your own skin," yet looks back on junior high as an embarrassing time because she hadn't yet discovered "the wonders of waxing."
The rest of the show isn't exactly sensitive to women's bodies, either. "Do we really need another editorial on eating disorders?" the magazine's editor-in-chief asks as a skeletal woman gets up and rushes from the room in (assumedly) shame. When stressed the bony blond receptionist starts consuming all of the food in her sight (without gaining a pound) and the magazine's creative director has a near mental breakdown when she finds she has meandered from a size two to a size four.
When push comes to shove, Betty is just another case of "she's-not-plain-she's-beautiful," (a trick actress Anne Hathoway has mastered). Take away the absurdly overdone wardrobe (braces, poncho, furry eyebrows & wig) and America Fererra is anything but ugly. She is "real" in the sense that she is a living person and therefore real, but she is not "average" by anyone's definition. The fact that she is not a size zero represents, if anything, a microscopic shift in public perception-certainly not a landslide towards equality. Casting a truly "ugly" woman wouldn't be possible. Casting Fererra is safe and reassuring. Equality would be a show pitting Cameron Manheim as the wife of Mel Gibson.
The truth is that our culture still hates women who don't fit the physical mold. Fat/ugly characters are either played by men, (see John Travolta in Hairspray, see Eddie Murphy in… everything,) or by traditionally attractive actresses in heavy costume (see "Shallow Hal" or "Ugly Betty"). These tricks only serve to ridicule women more; the message here is that unattractive and overweight women simply do not exist. Moreover, these women do not find satisfaction in the form of a male partner, obviously, unless he has been brainwashed, is stereotypically nerdy, or until they themselves have gone through a satisfactory makeover montage.
"Ugly Betty" loves itself, and the world loves it back, because viewers can pat themselves on the back for enjoying a show featuring an actress who is only twig thin, not stick thin. We absolutely can't congratulate ourselves for this. Even the Dove "Real Beauty" campaign, lauded for featuring 'real women,' is being used to sell self-improvement products. For every Betty Suarez, there are two-dozen Meredith Grey's. Hailing this show as a departure from the norm is only hurting the cause for true acceptance.
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