El Espace is a column dedicated to news and culture relevant to Latinx communities. Expect politics, arts, analysis, personal essays and more. ¿Lo mejor? It’ll be in Spanish and English, so you can forward it to your tía, your primo Lalo or anyone else (read: everyone).
In the 1999 Colombian telenovela “Yo Soy Betty, la Fea,” viewers were introduced to the character of Beatriz “Betty” Pinzón Solano: a brilliant, accomplished woman in her mid-20s who is held back professionally because of her looks. Betty, played by the actress Ana María Orozco, had a unibrow, braces and blunt bangs. She wore oversized red framed glasses and unflattering clothes, and her voice was raspy in a swallowed-a-frog kind of way. In the telenovela, Betty struggles to find employment, despite her graduate degree in economics, so she ends up accepting a position as a secretary at a fashion company. There, she falls in love with her handsome boss, Armando, who, despite his initial revulsion, falls for her too.
Betty’s story struck a chord with viewers, in Colombia and elsewhere. “Betty, la Fea” has spawned remakes all over the world: In Mexico, there was “La Fea Más Bella,” starring Angélica Vale. In the United States, America Ferrera won an Emmy for her starring role in “Ugly Betty,” which ran on ABC for four seasons. Production companies in Spain, Greece, the Philippines, Brazil and Thailand have all released their own versions. And last week, Telemundo premiered its own reboot, “Betty en NY.”
I’m a huge fan of the original. So huge that I refused to watch “Ugly Betty” when it aired on ABC. It could never match up, I thought. Betty was different from other female novela protagonists of the ’90s and early aughts, because she was distinguished by her intellect rather than her looks. And despite the social barriers she faced as a result of others’ superficiality, she never felt bad for herself. Instead, she and her friend Nicolás Mora even made light of their circumstances. In the very first episode of the Colombian original, Nicolás, joking about the challenges of finding a job, says they should try out for the circus. Betty, in a fit of laughter, adds that they could be hired to scare the lions into behaving.
It reads harshly, I know, but I see it instead as radical acceptance. Betty and Nicolás acknowledge the reality of the society they live in, where résumés need to be accompanied by photographs. It’s true in real life, too, that appearance is heavily scrutinized, even if it is unspoken.
Recently, I gave in and watched Ferrera’s “Ugly Betty.” I was surprised to find that the story translated well. Like the original, this Betty does not lament her looks, and the story is pushed forward to be about existing in two different worlds. Betty is a Latina who lives in Queens with her family and finds it hard to fit in at her job in Manhattan at the fashion magazine, Mode. Ferrera’s Betty is funny and resilient; she doesn’t back down when others try to make her feel less than.
I expected a similarly modern approach from “Betty en NY,” which seems, so far, to be staying close to the Colombian original, with some minor updates: a reggaeton-version of the original theme song, a character who is a social media maven and another who is queer. Some of the scenes are close to identical, and many of the characters look like those in the Colombian version.
But because the show is meant to take place today, I felt more critical of the changes in society it isn’t accounting for. The #MeToo movement has resulted in increased scrutiny of the treatment of women in the workplace, and anti-bullying campaigns have received increased public attention over the last few years. The treatment of Betty in the new remake borders on cruel, and it is grating to watch. There is one scene in which the hiring manager tells Armando that he refused Betty the job because of her looks. “I can’t believe that the director of human resources of my company is saying this nonsense,” responds Armando. But he quickly follows up with, “How ugly can she be?”
“Betty en NY” was smart to take the word “ugly” out of its title, because women shouldn’t have to contend with it, in their professional lives or elsewhere. Both Ferrera and Orozco’s Bettys were defined by more than their appearance. As “Betty en NY” progresses, I hope Telemundo’s new Betty develops a similar complexity.
Here are more stories to read this week.
El Roundup
AS SEEN ON TV
The Rosa character in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” played by Stephanie Beatriz, was enigmatic for the first six seasons of the show. Then her character came out as bisexual, paralleling Beatriz’s own public and personal coming out. Even before it was stated explicitly on the show, Beatriz said: “Secretly in my mind, I think, I was playing her as someone who was attracted to all genders.”
REMEMBER LORENA BOBBITT?
Well, she’s ready to set the record straight about why she did what she did.
YES, MIGRANT FAMILIES ARE STILL SEPARATED
In this New Yorker story, Sarah Stillman follows the attempts of a woman named Sindy to regain custody of her toddler, who was taken from her husband at the border. Stillman shows the bureaucratic hurdles Sindy faces — she said she was asked to pay for her daughter and an accompanying adult’s flights, for instance — and describes the heartbreaking video chats between mother and child.
CHANGE IN MEDIA
For Elle, Monica Castillo wrote about the ongoing erasure of Latinx characters in American movies and television and asks: Will the success of new movies like “Roma” and shows like “One Day at a Time” create lasting change?
La Ñapa
Ahead of Black History Month, Jasmine Sanders wrote an opus on black women and their relationship with owning fur. It’s an engrossing timeline that takes the reader from the beginning of the fur trade in the United States to a modern-day mink farm. I’ve always been interested in low-income women’s relationships with their clothing and appearance. The women in my family are committed to immaculate presentation, and have always said “pobre, pero dignas” — which is to say, “poor, but dignified.”
“So often the commercial habits of black people are demonized,” wrote Sanders. “My mother’s furs are her insistence on public elegance in a world frequently inhospitable to her.”
Do you have suggestions for El Espace? Want to receive it as a newsletter? Let me know: elespace@nytimes.com
