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Ugly Betty: Swag
(S01E11... or, is it 04?) Why? Why do networks do this? "Swag" was originally supposed to air as the fourth episode of Ugly Betty. Instead, ABC pushed it into the number eleven position. Brilliant strategy. Take a show that's part telenovela and air it out of sequence. The result was a poorly edited version of an otherwise entertaining episode. The tags that were filmed later with Betty, Christina and the janitor, along with the occasional "remember when such and such was happening" voice-overs, were clumsy and unnecessary.Worse yet, the emotional logic came off as loopy. These characters have come a long way since the first episode, and seeing them in their older, more one-dimensional incarnations was disappointing. Having said that, I'm happy to turn my attention to the parts of the show that didn't appear to be part of the sloppy cut and paste job. And, as is always the way with Betty, they were both amusing and moving all at the same gosh-darn time.
This show has more feel good messages than a row of Hallmark cards and an issue of O combined, but it delivers them in such a sincere, pop, lefty manner that they're more likely to bring a tear to my eye than send them rolling. This week's big message - "Never give up." Or, the alternative message, "It's not how much you have. It's how you spend it." Had this episode aired in its originally intended slot, it would have been Exhibit A in Salon.com's article about Ugly Betty as class commentary. The crux of that piece is that Ugly Betty makes for truly subversive television not because its main character is an unattractive woman in a den of superficiality. Ugly Betty is fabulously subversive television because it's about class.
It's the economic differences between Betty's home in Queens and the Manhattan highrises where she spends her 9 to 5 that makes the show so damn relatable. Betty exchanging her company swag - a $4,200 Gucci purse - in order to pay for her father's heart medication when his HMO refused to cover the cost wasn't needlessly melodramatic. It was real. That kind of decision - what needs to be sacrificed - is very much part of my own life and the lives of those around me, and I certainly don't see it depicted on TV very often. I even appreciate that we get to see Betty, knowing she made the right decision, cry over losing the purse because it "made her feel pretty." Betty's not above wanting to feel attractive, which is another reason I love the character. She's a human being not a saint.
Now, on to what makes the show tolerable to those without a love of the drama - the comedy. This week we got the bastard child of Karl Lagerfeld and Issey Miyake. Pretty funny stuff even if the minimalism jokes wore thin after awhile, but nothing's funnier than having Amanda offer Betty a Menudo box set and a coupon for 100 taquitos for her Gucci.
One more aside, did anyone else notice how many Weight Watchers and Slim Fast commercials aired during Ugly Betty? Did they decide that Ugly Betty's demographic was self-loathing chubby girls? That's sorta the antithesis of the show's message. Seriously, to quote Christina, "We all can't live on laxatives."
Wilhelmina Quip of the Week: Good luck returning my ass.
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