How “Betty la Fea” became the beautiful “Ugly Betty”

As a lover of Latin soaps I am very pleased to say that our telenovela culture has finally made a cross over to the Anglo world with Ugly Betty.

As a young child growing up in Venezuela I used to watch telenovelas with my grandmother. This was the neighborhood entertainment. We would always share impressions and comments with the butcher, the manicurist, the florist and other people that would make up the community. This was a very important part of our culture. The cliffhangers and final chapters were discussed at length for several days. You could feel the excitement building up as the novela of the moment reached its agonizing end.

In 2002 a little not so known novela “Betty la Fea” made its discreet entrance on Telemundo. It was produced in Colombia and it told the story of a very unattractive but clever girl that was hired by a modeling agency. This broke the standards of traditional telenovelas where the heroine is usually beautiful and her only aspiration is to be married. The show caused a worldwide uproar.

Crossing over from the Latin world to the Anglo world is almost impossible for a telenovela. Now with the huge expansion of the Latino community in the US we are now experiencing a whole cultural exchange with the advent of pop stars like Shakira, Juanes and glamorous movies stars like Salma Hayek. We now have a novela to call our own that is equally appealing to the audience. Ugly Betty made its appearance September 2006. With America Ferrera as the star. The show is entertaining and has made the crossover painless. In fact interestingly enough, “Betty” is also a novela fan.

Yesterday I watched my evening novela with my friend. She had never seen a Spanish show before. She was so delighted she now wants her daughter to watch. By the way, did I ever tell you it is the best way to learn Spanish!!!!

¡Hablamos luego!