The television show Ugly Betty premiered in 2006 and focuses on Betty Suarez, a twenty-something Latina whom lives with her father Ignacio, her sister Hilda, and her nephew Justin in Queens. Betty aspires to become a columnist for a major magazine but lacking ‘real world’ experience as a writer, she accepts a job at Mode fashion as an assistant to the editor-in-chief, Daniel Mead. Betty, dressed in her conservative clothing and donning her braces, does not fit into the high fashion world of Mode magazine and her co-workers remind her of this every day.
Episode #102, The Box and the Bunny, focuses on movie star Natalie Whitman coming to Mode for a photo shoot as she has been selected to be on the cover that month. Natalie has just finished filming a movie which she gained thirty pounds for and has not yet lost all of the weight so the Mode editors and Natalie’s manager want to digitally retouch the photos. During this process Natalie comments that she didn’t think she looked that bad to which Wilhelmina, one of the head editors of Mode, replies “Why not with the help of modern technology, give yourself the opportunity to look as stunning as possible?”. Right from this initial meeting between Natalie and Wilhelmina the viewer can see the discourse of impossible perfection and impossible evil (Mayne, 162) beginning to take shape. Later that evening Betty sees Natalie sitting in one of conference rooms with a laptop in front of her and she is digitally retouching her photo until the image of herself is so thin that it disappears from the screen. This haunting image illustrates how minoritzing the discourse of beauty can be.
A subplot to this episode is that Daniel has not been receiving The Book, the mock-up of the magazine, at the close of each day. He demands that Wilhelmina start turning The Book over to him since he is now the editor-in-chief and it is part of his job. Wilhelmina, who aspires to become editor-in-chief herself, conspires with her assistant Mark to deliver The Book to Daniel, but to include the unretouched photos of Natalie in it, assuming that he will not notice and it will bring shame to the company, thus putting her in a better a light. This scheming further enforces that Wilhelmina is playing the impossibly evil and villainous role. Once Daniel has acquired The Book from Mark he becomes distracted by the blonde secretary Amanda, who uses her sex appeal and promise of a good time to lure him away. Daniel leaves The Book on his desk and Betty notices it later and takes it home for safe keeping.
When Justin realizes that Betty has The Book in her possession he snatches it away from her and begins to peruse it. He immediately notices the untouched photos of Natalie and exclaims “Eww! Natalie Whitman is still fat!” Betty looks over and says that she thinks it is wonderful that Mode decided to use the untouched photos. Betty’s idea that Natalie’s untouched photos look fine presents the universalizing discourse of the representation of beauty being on a continuum. In this manner the viewer can also see how the representation of beauty is “reflect[ing] the culture from which [it] emerge[s], and [has] the ability to shape that culture in turn” (Mayne, 163). Justin prefers the retouched photos of Natalie because he is fashionable and Betty prefers the untouched photos because does not keep up with the trends of the fashion world.
That night The Book is stolen and held for ransom by Betty’s neighbor, Gina Gambaro, who feels that Betty owes her money for a television that was broken during a previous argument. In a moment of panic Betty tells Daniel over the phone that The Book is safe and she looking at it right then and that she is proud of him for using the unretouched photos of Natalie. Daniel becomes angry because he did not approve for the unretouched photos to be published. He sends a car for Betty and when she gets to the office she discloses what really happened and Daniel becomes irate screaming “You don’t lie to me ever! We cannot afford to have those unretouched Natalie proofs out there in any way, shape, or form! I cannot tell you how royally screwed she and this entire magazine could be!” Betty asks “Why? Because there’s pictures of what she actually looks like?” to which Daniel replies “exactly!” The viewer is again reminded that there is no place in the minoritizing fashion world for an actress who has not yet lost her filming weight.
Daniel explains to Natalie and her manager that The Book with the unretouched photos is missing. While Natalie is calm, her manager is freaking out, and when Natalie tells him to calm down he responds “Do you know how these pictures could hurt your career? Nobody was to hire a fatty! What’s this going to publicize, the fact that you can’t lose any weight?” Natalie looks dejected as the viewer is reminded that she cannot obtain the impossible perfection which the standard of beauty calls for without being digitally altered. Betty later sees her in the elevator and tells her “for what it’s worth I really did think that those unretouched photos were beautiful. And the truth is I’d kill to look like you”. The episode ends with Natalie on Fashion TV the next day making an announcement that Mode will run unretouched photos of herself in hopes of “putting a spotlight on the hypocrisy of this business which seems intent on making any normal human being feel like an outcast”. This move by Natalie once again enforces that beauty can run on a universalizing discourse where bodies of all shapes and sizes would be accepted if it is allowed to do so. By not allowing the retouched photos to be run Natalie has shattered the norm that one must be impossibly thin to be beautiful.
Works Cited
“The Box and the Buny.” Ugly Betty. 5 Oct. 2006. Netflix. Web. 6 Apr. 2012.
Mayne, Judith. “Women, Representation, and Culture.” Reading Women’s Lives. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 161-65. Print.
I love that you mentioned the retouching of the photo by Natalie. I feel that that scene hits home for all who watch it. If you just look at the retouched images floating around our culture, it's impossible to have any self-esteem. I also find it funny when those who retouch the photos make mistakes, and it shows society that these women don't actually look this way. There was a set of photos that I saw recently that looked perfect untouched, but in one of the photographs the woman's elbow was fixed because it wasn't completely round. It's amazing when you look at what exactly they change and how ridiculous these minuscule changes are.
ReplyDeleteI had the honor of actually watching this episode with you, and this was a great example of Mayne's piece about women's representation in the media. In the episode, Natalie was depicted as being a beautiful girl, but obviously not beautiful enough for the magazine. Mode magazine felt the need to retouch her already beautiful photos, and it was a huge disaster for the photos to be real. It was quite troubling to me that they made her real photos such a huge deal to hide from the public eye. Also, Betty's comment "I'd kill to look like you" was very important, as it shows a couple of things. First, it emphasizes the importance of the internal gaze, and how much damage it can do to a person. Betty is very self conscious, and is given many reasons to be without the show, as the whole reason she was hired as an assistant was so that she wasn't "hit on" by her boss. Also, this comment made by Betty points out the point that Natalie is beautiful to the standards of society (more so than Betty), even without the retouching of the photos. When the photos got retouched, her chest was made bigger, and her waist was made smaller. This gives us a sense that her body was shown not as a whole body, but more fragmented. The overemphasis of certain body parts certainly would draw the eye to those parts, but not to her face, or maybe other parts. Also, Natalie as a character experienced a lot of put downs (just like Betty), saying that it would be a disaster and ruin her entire career if those "bad" photos were released. In a sense, even those who are able to fit the societal standards of beauty are still not able to obtain the "perfection" that is expected of them. Theoretically, the woman who meets the perfect gender norm would still be retouched, as this perfection isn't obtainable by a woman with a pulse.
ReplyDeleteLaura, I absolutely agree with you on Betty's line of "I'd kill to look like you". It illustrates just how ingrained the standard of beauty is in our culture. Betty is beautiful but nobody in the high end fashion world recognizes this because they are so focused on criticizing her weight. Before she was Betty Suarez, America Ferrera stared in the film "Real Women Have Curves" which is amazing and I think everyone should watch it at least once. She has lost weight in recent years but has said in interviews that it solely because she wanted to become healthier and it had nothing to do with the media's critique of her looks.
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