SUMMARY

“Yo soy Betty, La Fea” is the story of Beatriz Pinzón Solano, a young lady whose professional abilities turn her into a model worker of a company, and though her merits as an economist with a master’s degree in finance make her deserve an executive post, her physical attributes oblige her to resign herself to the secretary post, since she has been unable to secure a job interview, because, she claims, her ugly photograph ruins her otherwise impressive résumé.

Being ugly is Betty’s only defect; she learns to handle the idea of being a spinster for life, so she prefers to invest time in her own education and in pleasing her father.

But when Betty starts working in Eco Moda as a secretary, one of the biggest fashion companies in the country, she meets Armando Mendoza, the man for whom she falls. But she must resign herself to be by his side just as his secretary, since as she’s ugly, things won’t be easy for her; so she decides to start from the bottom and escalate positions little by little.

Betty works in isolation from the rest of her workmates, and there she dreams and lives happy because she can see her boss the whole time; she sighs for him despite that, for Armando, Betty doesn’t exist as a woman but as a person who gives him brilliant ideas, a person who is his accomplice and who manages his agenda of clandestine dates and covers up for him before his girlfriend Marcela Valencia, a sophisticated fashion designer who despises her.

Things start changing for Betty when her boss confronts serious problems with the company. He makes dangerous maneuvers, always counting on Betty’s generosity. One night, Armando wildly kisses her. That kiss changes Betty’s life: it puts her to dream like never before, it takes her out of the abyss of resignation. Betty will never be the same, since she will undergo an amazing makeover, of body and soul.

OUR COMMENT

This telenovela is another original idea of Fernando Gaitán, author of “Café Con Aroma De Mujer”. “Betty, La Fea” was an authentic revolution and was enormously successful in all the countries in which it was broadcasted, apart from the adapted versions for some other countries.

Betty and Armando’s story is very sweet. Betty falls in love with her boss from the first moment even when she knew it was going to be very hard to conquer him, and even harder to displace her rival, Ms. Marcela.

Armando is a selfish and bad-tempered person, and though he normally treats her well, he will not waste the chance to take advantage of her to achieve his objectives; but later he will realize that, when the game of seduction starts, he will end up falling for her.

We don’t think that Betty’s story is simply like the ugly duck’s story; it goes beyond that because, while Betty lives in her own world she doesn’t have a complex, she builds her own happiness. But in fact, it’s all appearances because she’s not self-confident, and though she doesn’t care about her looks, with time, she will understand that she has to gain self-esteem and that it is possible to make her inner beauty come out.

Armando also undergoes a transformation when he realizes that the person he loves is his secretary, and on top of that, she is an ugly secretary.

The story is narrated with a humorous style which provides the story with a good rhythm, and many of the characters, though they may seem to be stereotypes, are quite real. One of these characters is Mario Calderón, who, though he’s selfish, insensitive and bigheaded, his dialogs with Armando, when they laugh about Betty, are witty and hilarious.

Another great character is Patty (Patricia Fernandez) la ‘peliteñida’ (the ‘dyed hair’), who is the typical rich woman that lost it all and cannot withstand to lower her standard of living. She’s very funny, and though she tries to play all kinds of dirty tricks on Betty, she never succeeds.

This telenovela breaks the stereotypes of the typical telenovela with goodies and baddies; and as we’re used to the Colombian telenovelas, we know that, in these telenovelas, there aren’t evil baddies who try to kill everybody, but the ones who can be said to be the bad ones, fight for their objectives or guard their own interests.

Summing up, we all know somebody somewhere who is shy and brilliant like Betty, we all know vain and silly people like Patty, or people who think that they are God like Hugo, or people who is hysteric and angry at the world like Armando and of course, everybody knows gossipy people like the secretaries of the company.

A great story in telenovela format.

THE BEST

The performances of almost the whole cast, achieving a choral comedy. Betty and Armando’s dialogs and also Armando and Mario Calderón’s.

THE WORST

Maybe the love story is too slow and plays hard to get. We would have preferred that it began earlier.