Linguistic Life

Betty la Fea in English
When I lived in Chile, my host family and the entire rest of the country was addicted to a Colombian telenovela called "Betty la Fea," about a pitifully unattractive and shy young woman working at a fashion industry company. The show took all of the Latin American world by storm, winning a bunch of awards in the TV industry down there, and becoming the obsession of pretty much every Spanish-speaking country in 2000-2001. Every other Spanish major I know from college who studied abroad that year, from Costa Rica to Chile, knows what I'm talking about.

And now it's coming to the US! Yesterday, while I was watching the World Cup final on ABC, they advertised some of their new shows for the upcoming season. One of them looked awfully familiar, and lo and behold, when they flashed the title, it was indeed "Ugly Betty."

So far, besides the fact that it's in English and set in the US instead of Colombia, the biggest difference I've noticed is that this Betty isn't nearly as ugly, primarily because her bangs aren't shellacked down to her forehead. I hope they're really going to follow the original plotline and actually have the show end when the story has run its course, even if it does do as well here as it did in the Latin America. Having shows that actually ended when the story line was finished was a huge advantage.