12

Global Ugly Betty

International Format Trade and the Production of National Adaptations

Lothar Mikos and Marta Perrotta

The global television landscape in the first decade of the twenty-first century is a complex terrain of contradictory developments and trends. On the one hand, there are globally successful formats and series like Big Brother, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? – or Sex and the City and Lost. On the other hand, each national TV landscape presents its own national adaptations of successful programs from other countries. The same audiences that are fascinated by such international programs are often looking for local adaptations of the same shows.

Within the global television market, international trade in television formats has become an important part of the business (Havens, 2006; Moran & Malbon, 2006). The “global media flow” is mainly dominated by American products (Straubhaar, 2007; Thussu, 2007). Europe is the largest export market for US films and television formats. American television programs are broadcast in more than 125 countries (Thussu, 2007, p. 15). In recent years, however, the dominant position of the American film and television industry has been somewhat undermined. “While US-based companies remain undisputed leaders in selling TV programs around the world (accounting for more than 70 per cent of all sales), Britain leads the world in the export of television formats” (p. 18). Furthermore, there are a few other film and television genres that enjoy worldwide distribution: Japanese anime, Indian Bollywood films and Latin American telenovelas (ibid.; Straubhaar, 2007; Waisbord, 2004). In the early twenty-first century, what was once a one-directional flow of films and television formats from the US toward the rest of the world has become a complex field of “multi-directional flows” (Thussu, 2007, p. 12; Bicket, 2005).

Since 2002 the Colombian telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea made its way around the world (De la Fuente, 2006). Yo soy Betty, la fea is a telenovela written by Fernando Gaitán, produced and broadcast in Colombia by RCN Televisión (Radio Cadena Nacional, a Colombian private television network) between 1999 and 2001. It tells the story of Betty, an unattractive and unpopular but effective and professional assistant at a fashion design company, who falls in love with her charming boss. While airing in Colombia, Telemundo –one of the biggest Spanish-language American television networks, owned by National Broadcasting Company (NBC) Universal since 2002 – also broadcast the serial, which thus achieved new highs of popularity among Latino/a audiences.

The global success of this telenovela could be attributed not only to the worldwide screening of the original Colombian format, but also – and even more – to the selling of the license rights for national adaptations. The first season of the original, which was composed of 165 48-minute episodes, showed in Spain and in all Latin American countries, where it was so popular that the cast went on tour to meet fans throughout the two continents. Moreover, the Colombian Betty has been dubbed and broadcast in several countries in Western and Eastern Europe – Italy, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Lithuania–as well as in Central and Eastern Asia – Turkey, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, China and Japan. RCN sold Yo soy Betty, la fea, as a scripted format, to several producers and distributors around the world, for local adaptations. The case of Ugly Betty can serve as an example of the multidirectional flow of formats in the global TV market.

This chapter deals with the comparative study of the original format and of four adaptations: those in Germany, Russia, Spain, and the US. The analysis focuses on issues of licensing and production and will investigate how these conditions have impacted the narrative, the dramaturgical, and the aesthetic structure of these different national adaptations. The rise of an international program market with the growth of the international format trade has changed audiovisual production cultures globally. The adaptation of formats minimizes the risk of program innovation and allows big production companies to install local subsidiaries. The formatting of TV shows made it possible to localize globally traded shows. In addition, the global television market has to face, nationally, media-literate audiences that have knowledge of different genre conventions because they grew up with television. Therefore the developments in formatting and in international format trade have a huge impact on economic and cultural practices in the national cultures in which television is produced.

The International Format Trade

The international exchange of television programming began in the 1950s, growing into a global television market characterized by intense competition for the few globally profitable programs. For, as television channels have multiplied, the market share of individual networks and their programming formats have declined. Popular formats such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? are commodities in high demand in the fight for national and global market shares. National television channels throughout much of the world have never relied on their own productions alone, but have always bought programs from other countries. Since the 1990s, however, the format trade market has taken on a new momentum, as many countries shift from public to private broadcasting systems.

The term “format” for television programs was not established until the 1990s. Albert Moran defines it thus: “The total body of knowledge systematically and consciously assembled to facilitate the future adaptation under license of the programme” (Moran & Malbon, 2006, p. 7). There is a so-called “bible” for every TV format, which covers all the information – from ratings and scheduling information to instructions for lighting, camera positions, and title sequences for the adaptation of the format.¹ Latin American telenovelas as a specific narrative form evolved from Cuban adaptations of American radio soap operas of the 1930s, whereas television soaps in the US continued the original tradition from American radio. Other genres specific to television crystallized in the 1950s. These included game shows, quiz shows, talk shows, music shows, and the like – not only in the US and Latin America, but also in Europe and Asia (see Straubhaar, 2007, pp. 157ff.). Programs that followed the conventions of these genres were distributed around the world, both licensed and in unlicensed forms.

In the mid-1980s the deregulation of television markets and the introduction of new, privately owned networks around the world created a new growth in formats, which was followed by the digitalization craze in the mid-1990s. This second wave of globalization drastically changed the international television market, more formats than ever being traded at the television sales fairs (Havens, 2006). Rising revenues also brought changes in the power structures of the industry. As the demand for programs boomed, the number of domestically produced shows also grew in many countries. As a result, the share of US productions in almost all national television markets declined from 1972 to 2001 (Straubhaar, 2007, pp. 162–163). Reality TV flourished at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Local adaptations of shows such as Big Brother took the place of imported shows in network programming. The new shows were specified as a framework that consisted of an idea and its stylistic and dramaturgical realization yet left room for local adaptation. Latin American media scholar Silvio Waisbord (2004, p. 378) stated: “Format television shows ‘glocalization’ at work – that is, the merits of a business ‘multicultural’ strategy that is ‘sensitive’ to cultural diversity.”

The Global Licensing and Production of Yo soy Betty, la fea

There were four main players in the licensing and selling of Yo soy Betty, la fea: RCN, which produced the original Colombian telenovela; the Mexican conglomerate Televisa; Sony Entertainment; and FremantleMedia. Whereas Sony produced and licensed the Indian and Russian adaptations, FremantleMedia sold the license to Belgium, Bosnia/Croatia/Serbia, Germany, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands. It also licensed the German adaptation to Hungary and the Bosnian/Croation/Serbian adaptation to Poland (BrzydUla). This example makes clear that every scripted adaptation of another scripted format is a series in its own rights. The rights of every single local adaptation of Yo soy Betty, la fea could be sold and licensed for adaptation to other territories. Televisa was involved not only in the production of the Mexican adaptation, but also in the productions made in Brazil (Bela, a feia), in China (Chou nü Wu Di), and in the Philippines (I heart Betty la fea). The Chinese adaptation was produced in cooperation with local producers and with RCN. The Colombian broadcaster and producer also sold the license to the Czech Republic (Ošklivka Katka), Vietnam (Cô gái xãu xí), and Turkey (Sensiz olmuyor).

The success of the original telenovela has pushed some producers to create their own versions of Betty, but without buying the rights. TV Azteca in Mexico first produced a telenovela entitled El amor no es como lo pintan (Love Is Not as They Depict It), followed by the Venezuelan version Mi gorda bella (My Sweet Fat Girl). These Betty-inspired versions saw local adaptations as well. The Portuguese Tudo por amor (All for Love) and the Israeli Esti Ha'mechoret (Ugly Esti) were adaptations of El amor no es como lo pintan, and the Malaysian adaptation, Emil Emilda, is based both on the Mexican TV Azteca version and on the Venezuelan one. In total, the Colombian original saw 12 licensed adaptations, 1 cancelled adaptation in Italy, and 5 unlicensed remakes.

Televisa first bought Yo soy Betty, la fea, which it reproduced under a slightly different title, La fea más bella (The Most Beautiful Ugly Girl). Meanwhile, Sony was the first corporation to buy the license to adapt Yo soy Betty, la fea. The company took advantage of the fact that RCN was not aware of the serial's potential as a scripted format. RCN had not even developed a “bible.” Sony produced the series in India (Jassi jaissi koi nahin = There Is No One Like Iassi, 2002) and in Russia (Ne rodis' krasivoy = Be Not Born Beautiful, 2005). Both these versions successfully “garnered prime-time audience shares ranging between 35 and 40 percent” (Alvarado, 2006). In 2005, FremantleMedia bought the adaptation rights for the European market. The first adaptation was Verliebt in Berlin (In Love in Berlin, 2005–2007), in Germany.² FremantleMedia has sold rights for versions of this adaptation. A dubbed copy sold under the title Lisa cask egy van (There's Only One Lisa) to Hungary, where it aired in 2006. The same version was dubbed in French. Entitled Le Destin de Lisa (Lisa's Destiny), it was broadcast on TF1, on the Belgian RTL-TVI, and on the Télévision Suisse Romande. In Slovakia, the series aired under its original title, Verliebt in Berlin, on TV JOJ. Finally, Grundy has started new productions of the format in The Netherlands (Lotte), Belgium (Sara de Roose), Greece (Maria, i aschimi = Maria, the Ugly One), Bosnia/Croatia/Serbia (Ne daj se, Nina = Don't Give Up, Nina), and Spain (Yo soy Bea = I am Betty). An Italian adaptation (Betty, la cozza = Betty, the Ugly), to be distributed by FremantleMedia, was cancelled before its broadcast.

The Russian and Indian versions of Betty demonstrated that adapting a Latin American script goes beyond simply translating it into a different language. Steve Kent, senior executive vice-president of international production at Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI), explained the methodology used for the Russian adaptation of Betty:

The German adaptation won the Rose d'Or award in 2006 for showing a different method of reworking the story. “While the Russian version remained true to the comic ingredients of Betty la fea, the German version [. . .] was completely different. Verliebt in Berlin's near-feature-film production values and dramatic storytelling resulted in a huge hit for the commercial broadcaster Sat1” (ibid.).

In the meantime, Sony tried to translate the Betty format for American audiences. In the fall of 2001 NBC, together with Sony Pictures TV and with writer Alexa Junge (former executive producer of Friends and Sex and the City), developed a half-hour sitcom based on the telenovela (Adalian & Sutter, 2001). Despite NBC's ambitions to produce a new hit – a prime-time comedy, perhaps with dramatic elements – the project was cancelled. Yet, “during the same 2001–02 development season, ABC and Touchstone TV developed the comedy Less Than Perfect [. . .], which bears some similarities to the premise of Betty” (Andreeva, 2004). Four years later, a joint venture between the NBC format vendor Reveille Productions, Salma Hayek's production company Ventanarosa, and Touchstone Television resulted in Ugly Betty, a 60-minute program series for the ABC network and for a general mass viewership. Following the show's strong ratings in the US−16.3 million viewers tuned into the season premiere, on Thursday 28 September 2006 (WorldScreen.com, 2007) – Disney–ABC International Television licensed it to several territories. Ugly Betty launched in the UK (Channel 4), in New Zealand (TVNZ's TV2), and in Australia (Seven Network), making its Asia–Pacific debut; in the Asia–Pacific it was the most highly rated new series in 2007.³ Through the cable channel Sony Entertainment Television, Ugly Betty has also returned to the same Latin America countries where La fea was launched.

The story of Betty is rooted in that of The Ugly Duckling, a fairy tale written by the Danish poet Hans Christian Andersen and originally published in Copenhagen in 1843. It has also generated youth-oriented spin-offs, such as an animated series Betty Toons, which was created by Conexión Creativa and was aired on the Latin American version of Cartoon Network since 2004. The series focused on the school adventures of a young Betty, her friend Nicolás, and the whole set of characters from the original telenovela – as children. In Russia, a web-only animated parody of the telenovela, called Umanetto (a name that recalled the company name Zimaletto in Ne rodis' krasivoy), targeted an audience of young adults as well.

The Logistics of Format Marketing

Against this background, format adaptations are a way to transform both fictional and non-fictional television productions into domestic ones, and thus to improve their chances of success significantly.

However, in the fragmented markets of the early twenty-first century, this is true only for some milieux and target groups, and not in general. The concept of cultural proximity also refers to linguistic regions. That is, films and television formats are easier to distribute in countries where the same language is spoken. Films from other linguistic regions are adapted by dubbing or subtitling. The introduction of digital versatile discs (DVDs) has made it possible to watch the same film in different language versions. DVDs often include subtitles in a choice of many languages. This is one way in which films can be adapted for other cultures.

There are three varieties of format marketing in the global television market (Mikos, 2002, pp. 442–447):

(1) One marketing variant entails selling broadcast rights for fully produced series or, more commonly, for individual seasons. These series then compete under their titles as brand names for the television networks of foreign countries. The buyer acquires the broadcast rights to a finished product and performs no modification except subtitling or dubbing. The salability of the product depends on the dominance of its format and on the openness of the narrative to interpretation. Furthermore, the narrative openness of a television series is formally rooted in the structure of its patterns. The 1980s series Dallas is perhaps the best known example of the sale of rights to a fully produced format. More recent examples include drama and sitcom series such as Ally McBeal, CSI: Miami; Emergency Room; Friends; Gilmore Girls; Gray's Anatomy; Heroes; Lost; My Name Is Earl; and Sex and the City.

(2) Another type of format marketing involves selling the rights to a series concept and a format outline. In this variant no finished content is sold. Instead each buyer produces the series, adapting it to local conditions within the limits of the agreed outline. For example, the German daily soap opera Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten (1992–) is an adaptation of a Dutch adaptation of an Australian serial titled The Restless Years (1977–1981) (Moran, 1998, p. 109; O'Donnell, 1999, pp. 56–57). Ugly Betty, with its various international adaptations, is a more contemporary example.

(3) The third marketing variant is the licensing of rights to quiz shows, game shows, and reality shows. In this case individual programs are international brands. Well-known examples are Big Brother, Next Top Model, The Swan, Idol, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. These shows have a brand that is used uniformly throughout the world, and their presentations, from dramaturgy to character constellations to design, follow uniform rules across all adaptations. Only the contestants, the games, and the quiz questions adapt to local conditions. The uniform dramaturgical and aesthetic elements are specified in a format “bible.” The shows are then produced to the same specifications by different production companies in the various local markets.

In the global television market, series and shows are marketed worldwide. The formatting makes it easier to buy and sell new programs with a minimum of risk. Only large television markets like the US, the UK, or Germany generate revenues that cover the production costs for developing a format. Program creators located in smaller television markets must thus depend on international marketing. The advantages of format business for the television networks are self-evident. The networks save development costs, and at the same time they acquire a product that has been proven successful in one or more other national television markets. Furthermore, when networks buy a license for a television format, they acquire the corresponding expertise of the original production. Thus the purpose of acquiring format licenses is not only to obtain a product or an idea, but also to obtain the benefit of the experience gained in the production and broadcasting of the format in other local television markets.

The format trade allows a global networking of the market participants, including the television broadcasters, media conglomerates, license and format traders, and production companies. For example, the quiz show format Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was invented by the British production company Celador and owned by the Dutch license trader 2waytraffic, which is a subsidiary of Sony Pictures International. Endemol produces the show in Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Poland; Synergy in India; Ma' agalot Productions in Israel; Valleycrest Productions in the US and in the Philippines; Artea in Argentina; RTL Klub Televisie in Hungary; and Danish Metronome Productions in Denmark. Metronome itself is a subsidiary of the British Shine Group, which also owned the US production company Reveille, producer of Ugly Betty in the United States. The result is a global net of production companies, TV channels, license traders, and media conglomerates that are involved in the worldwide production of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Although the licensing market is dominated by a few large companies, there is room for independent producers. Still, the producers with the largest international revenues in the television format market, such as Endemol, FreemantleMedia, Granada, Sony Entertainment, the BBC, and Strix, are also the ones who invent and bring the largest number of new formats to market (Moran & Malbon, 2006, p. 86). Producers in this group have also become the largest distributors of formats that were invented in other local television markets, formats such as Yo soy Betty, la fea.

Of course, there are limitations on the free transnational flow of programming. Television regulatory policy is the prerogative of nation-states, which then influence programming; as do national television industries and production infrastructures. If a given country has few domestic production companies, then television networks in that country more likely depend on imported formats. Glocalization may localize a global format, as the word implies, but it can also have drawbacks. While licensed formats may minimize the risk of a market launch, they do not offer absolute protection against flops. A format that is successful in one country may fail to address local and national differences in viewers' cultures, identities, and television-viewing habits.

Cultural Proximity and the Production of Global Formats

Joseph D. Straubhaar (1991) coined the phrase “cultural proximity” to describe the way in which countries and cultures tend to prefer their own local and national films and television formats. He developed the concept from research on cultural flows conducted in the mid-1980s (see Antola & Rogers, 1984; Hoskins & Mirus, 1988), by theorizing that audiences in local markets tend to reject films and television programs that have too little to do with their own cultural realities. He later wrote:

Although his conception of culture originally referred primarily to geo-linguistically bounded entities, Straubhaar has since extended this theory to account for other differences. In modern societies, he writes, audiences have multilayered identities (p. 221), influenced not only by sociological features such as social class, age, ethnicity, and gender, but also by their milieux or lifestyles. Media consumers belong to different communities, including “imagined” communities (Anderson, 1983), aesthetic and reflexive communities (Lash, 1994), proto-communities (Willis, 1990), subcultures (Jenks, 2005; Muggleton, 2000), and fan cultures (Hills, 2002; Sandvoss, 2005). People's media preferences depend, among other factors, on their position in these social fields – which is influenced in turn by the specific economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capitals they have acquired over the course of their lives (Bourdieu, 1984). All of this would affect what shows television viewers prefer.

Studies that apply cultural proximity theory have yielded uneven results. Some studies (Mikos & Töpper, 2006; Straubhaar, 2007) have found that better educated and economically situated audiences prefer American television series over national ones, which led scholars to postulate that there are multiple cultural proximities between television contents and audiences (La Pastina & Straubhaar, 2005; Straubhaar, 2007). Straubhaar, for example, distinguishes between genre proximity, value proximity, and thematic proximity (2007, p. 197). Another study comparing television series preferences in eight countries found, however, comparatively few cultural differences between audiences on the basis of a number of intercultural communication dimensions, such as the individualism or collectivism of narrative themes or the masculinity or femininity of lead characters (Trepte, 2008). The study did find that audiences' past experience with American fiction programs influenced perceptions, including whether the American series was broadcast in the original language with subtitles or was dubbed. What do these divergent findings signify for the theory of cultural proximity?

Even though the concept of cultural proximity has been refined to include various typological distinctions, it remains limited. Since viewers are not simply embedded in a general culture that is locally or nationally determined, it makes no sense to speak of “the audience” as a monolithic whole. Similarly, even with distinctions among types of representations, cultural proximity theory needs to account for different people's experiences with different kinds of media and with their own media literacies. People in all parts of the world can interpret media codes and are familiar with media conventions. Through their visual experiences they have gained knowledge of media forms, genres, and styles. Audiences' media knowledge also includes knowledge about specific narrative patterns and specific production elements such as camera movements, montage editing, lighting, shot framing, and more. Viewers in large parts of the world know, for example, generic patterns of soap operas, such as the heavy use of close-ups to express character emotion, and shot–reverse-shot sequences to show character dialogue. These generic visual styles must be integrated into the concept of cultural proximity.

This discussion of cultural proximity is relevant to the international television trade and local format adaptations, because they require television producers to juggle both familiar and unfamiliar elements for diverse sets of audiences. Reality shows such as Big Brother, Survivor, and The Farm have a common core theme, but they are dramatized in different ways in the various countries that adapt them (Mathijs & Jones, 2004; Mikos, Haible, Töpper, & Verspohl, 2001; Perrotta, 2007). Adaptations of television programs are “(re-)interpretations and (re-)creations,” meaning there is a wide range of possible variations to retell or reproduce the spin-offs (Hutcheon, 2006, p. 172). Transcultural adaptations frequently create hybrid formats that mix together the conventions and vocabularies of different genres. Conventions and stylistic elements are not simply added, but are integrated. The integrated mode of hybridization “is exemplified by those formats where a more thoroughgoing amalgamation of styles and approaches has taken place” (Kilborn, 2003, p. 12). The local adaptations of Yo soy Betty, la fea are examples of integrated hybrid formats. For this reason, in our comparison of the German, Russian, Spanish, and American adaptations of this Colombian telenovela, our analysis focuses on the narrative and dramaturgical structures and on the use of visual stylistic conventions.

Method

To compare adaptations, we needed to analyze the Colombian prototype. Then, we chose two countries that seemed to be culturally distant from the Colombian telenovela, namely Russia and Germany, and two countries that seemed culturally proximate on grounds of language, namely Spain and the US, which has a large Latino population. The US also has a history of program exchange with Latin American countries, though the exchange goes mostly from the North to the South. Then, in order to compare five countries' productions of the television series – Yo soy Betty, la fea (Colombia), Yo soy Bea (Spain), Ne rodis' krasivoy (Russia), Ugly Betty (US), and Verliebt in Berlin (Germany) – we analyzed the first episode of each of the five adaptations. This approach seemed promising, because the beginning of a series must include an introduction to plot and characters. The fundamental conflicts that drive the drama are laid down in the initial episode. We also took a brief look at the second episode of each adaptation, to see whether the conflicts introduced were pursued and whether new major characters were introduced.⁴

Our analysis centered not only on aspects of representation such as the meaning of ugliness, gender, or fashion, but also on the aesthetic and dramaturgical style in which the story is presented, because we think that we will be able to identify local production styles. Our analytical orientation draws on neoformalist film analysis (Bordwell & Thompson, 1993), structural and functional film and television analysis (Casetti, 1998; Mikos, 2008), and the methods of comparative media research (Mikos & Töpper, 2007). The focus of our analysis is always on how the stylistic elements of these TV shows function culturally. These elements include both conventions of visual aesthetics and narrative conventions that are basic elements in a production. We examined how the conflicts and the relationships between the characters are dramatized and what path the heroine follows in her development. At a first glance, the Betty adaptations are a classic coming-of-age story in which the heroine undergoes a metamorphosis from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. In our analysis we investigated, first, how the main characters are constructed and what their relationships are to one another. Second, we studied the aesthetic–dramaturgical means by which the story is narrated at the audiovisual level used in order to get closer to local production styles.

Study Findings

All the adaptations of Betty around the world differed in the number of episodes in their series. They also differed in the length of their program episodes, which varied from 22 to 48 minutes. Even if there were similarities in the various local adaptations, the latter nevertheless differed primarily in three respects: (1) their staging of the main character; (2) their blending of comedy in the telenovela genre; and (3) their dramaturgy and aesthetic styles.

The name chosen for the protagonist in the various adaptations of our analysis is not always the same as the one given in the original telenovela. Spain and the US prefer to replace the Colombian Beatriz Pinzón Solano, also known as Betty, with two other protagonists: Beatriz Pérez Pinzón, also known as Bea, and Betty Suarez. In the Russian and German adaptations the names are completely different: Katya Pushkaryova and Lisa Plenske, respectively. Presumably the localization of names was necessary in order to avoid uncommon names in each of the countries.⁵

Without getting into the details of each adaptation, we can give a brief cumulative synopsis of the pilots in our sample. In all of them, Betty (Bea/Katya/Lisa) searches for work and contacts companies where she will try to get a job over the course of the episode. Her search concludes either at a fashion design company in Colombia, Russia, and Germany or at a fashion magazine in the US and Spain. The fundamental themes of each of the pilots are organized into a narrative structure that follows two storylines: (1) Betty's relations with her family; and (2) the power relations involved in the management of the company where Betty finds work. The latter, on occasion, is presented over the course of a public event (a party, or a showcase), and it is often accompanied by scrutiny from the mass media (newspapers or television services). The main event and nodal point of the plot in each first episode is the job interview; it occurs in all the adaptations except the American series, in which the protagonist is denied a job interview.

Staging of the Main Character

Whereas the Colombian and Russian adaptations introduce Betty (Katya) in very similar ways, the German, the Spanish, and the US adaptations have different introductions of the main character. In the original version, the opening is shot subjectively, through Betty's eyes. Betty's voice appears nondiegetically from outside the screen, expressing the personality of the protagonist in an emotional way and contributing to the anticipation of the plot. When Betty finally enters the camera frame, the telenovela's heroine-to-be is finally disclosed. Her physicality thus satisfies the viewers' curiosity –is she truly as ugly as we imagined? – and produces a kaleidoscope of emotional responses. Some aspects of Betty's physical appearance jump to the eye immediately: rectangular red glasses that are a little bit too big for her face, braces on her teeth, a fringe of hair that covers her forehead in an unnatural manner, and her unquestionably old-fashioned clothes. Together, the costuming and the props make her seem much older than her 20 years.

In the Russian version, Ne rodis' krasivoy, the first encounter with Katya is similar to the one with Betty. Katya speaks in a slight and uncertain voice, indicating that she does not know how to behave in the present situation. When she finally comes into view, she appears to have the same startling characteristics: thick, round glasses, dental braces, messy hair, and unfashionable clothes. The head of human resources concludes aloud that she is ugly and that she dresses worse than his grandmother.

The setup and the staging of the opening minutes were slightly different in the other two adaptations. For instance, the Spanish and the German versions also open with a voice-over spoken by the protagonist, who shares her feelings about the experience she will have. However, in the Spanish adaptation Bea is immediately visible, through a close-up of her image reflected in a computer monitor. Posting a message on her blog, she addresses her readers as queridas feo-nautas (“darling ugly-nauts,” instead of “astronauts”). Bea writes that she is tired of being watched while she walks down her street. This monologue is intercut with photographs, on the screen, of models in bathing suits and underwear, and with a quick cut of Bea. The reverse shot of her facial details (eyes and glasses, the mouth full of braces) illuminates the gaps between what is seen, what is heard, what is felt, and what is understood when Bea writes that she is muy fea (very ugly). At the keyboard, Bea admits how much she wants to overcome people's rooted prejudices and at least find a job as a secretary. Snapshots illustrating the most important events of her life follow. In all these scenes Bea appears to be discriminated against – not only for her looks, but also for being a little bit of a geek.

Lisa, the heroine of the German version, is also introduced, visually, through a juxtaposition that takes place during the first seconds of the episode. She is walking down the streets of Berlin behind another person of her age, but prettier. Lisa's voice is heard as she speaks of a job interview. Viewers associate the voice with the pretty character, but soon there is no doubt that the voice emanates from the ugly one in the background. The ambiguity of the first camera shot that frames them together enhances the impact of Lisa's clumsiness. Like the other Betties, Lisa wears braces, big glasses and pronounced bangs. She dresses in too large, out-of-style clothes, which look as if they do not even belong to her.

The voice-over in the later pilots cyclically return to re-emphasize the narrative through Lisa's inner thoughts and through Bea's blog, giving the Spanish and German episodes a sense of melancholy and self-reflexivity that is missing from the Colombian and Russian telenovelas. The abrupt jump from subjective to objective narrative style in those two versions represents, through contrast, the comic yet ironic way in which the main character is created. The characters of Bea and Lisa seem to swerve into a covertly tragic register, in which the sadness of loss, the awareness of an impalpable condition of social discrimination, and the conflicts with an excessively protective family all play a fundamental role in defining the heroine.

The American protagonist Betty Suarez is a hybrid resulted from these two different characterizations of the main character. A close-up of her opens the pilot. She is over-weight, donning red glasses, bushy eyebrows, and a large, sweet smile of metal braces. “Old-fashioned” would be a euphemism for her cheap and colorful wardrobe. There is no subjective camerawork; there is no voice-over. An objective narration, conducted through dialogue and action, presents Betty instead. She is shown as a gaudy curiosity; but also as a self-confident person, determined to get a job in the field of her study. Some of the themes that will be developed throughout the whole series – like the opposition of socially diverse worlds – are also shown here, but not through her subjective narration. Betty is characterized as a slightly unconventional heroine, who fights against disparities that exploit the tragic potential of her comic character.

Each of the five adaptations shows differences that are strongly related to national production cultures. Whereas the US adaptation introduces Betty's central conflict very quickly, the original and the three other adaptations spend more time on this presentation. The similarities in the staging of Betty in the Colombian and Russian versions can be explained by the historical success of Latin American telenovelas in the Russian television market; Russian audiences knew the telenovela's conventions. Whereas these two adaptations highlight the comic elements of Betty's physical appearance by showing the strange reactions of people who meet her, the German adaptation introduces viewers into the more serious space of the inner world of the heroine.

The Blending of Comedy and the Telenovela Genre

It is necessary to underline that Betty's character is construed in different ways because it is related to divergent local narrative traditions. In the Colombian version Betty is neither a victim nor a protector, neither a fool nor a villain. Although these types appear among the main characters, Betty only displays some of their characteristics – especially those of the victim and of the fool. As we have already highlighted in the previous section, the Colombian Fea is built in a comic register. This breaks with the genre, giving the whole series a “comic climate” that is uncommon in a traditional telenovela, because it trivializes matters of life and death (Mast, 1979, p. 9). Our aim in this section is to probe even further the signs that point to Betty's world being a comic one, because these show the unique ways in which each of the adaptations broke with the generic narrative of the telenovela. In sum, these signs let viewers know generally that, despite Betty's misfortunes, “the action is taking place in a comic world, that it will be ‘fun’ (even if at some moments it will not be), that we are to enjoy and not to worry” (ibid.).

Despite her weird looks, the Colombian Betty is witty, self-ironic, self-reflexive, and deeply conscious of her being an “ugly duckling.” Instead of focusing on herself and on her problems in finding a job, she seems to feel at ease. She is Betty la fiera (the proud), even though she is overtly discriminated against (Collazos, 2000). In addition, nonverbal, slapstick moments based on Betty's basic clumsiness emphasize the ridiculousness of otherwise serious situations. Her awkwardness and her ugliness – which is actually a collection of ugly details in an ordinary girl – make her audiences laugh.

In the Russian adaptation, Katya is a kind of enigmatic clown who wears bizarre clothes and has a fragile and melancholic appearance. Yet she is often comic in her gestures and expressions, especially when she is involved in recurring gags at the hands of her work colleagues. Katya is characterized by slapstick actions more than by the self-irony portrayed by the Colombian Betty.

The German telenovela portrays Lisa as a sort of alien immigrant; her main problem is how to survive in the fashion world of the big city. Bea, the Spanish heroine, is a typical geek who is teased for being an “A” student; she is unpopular with teachers and pupils alike, but she also looks the part, especially through her Groucho-esque eyebrows and thick glasses. Betty Suarez of the US version, the girl of Mexican origin from Queens, is the only overweight Betty. Clumsy and gaudily dressed, she is willing to submit to self-humiliating tests in order to be accepted in the Manhattan lifestyle environment of Mode magazine. The slapstick performances and clown-like pantomime of these unsophisticated but good-natured heroines fill the screen with additional visual information, which makes the narratives more meaningful. At the same time, the real-life problems of being ugly, unemployed, and repressed by the family are handled as if they were not problems.

The telenovela has its roots in a dramatic structure based on tragedy, but it seems to us that the various Betties infuse a comic climate into their telenovelas. Four out of the five adaptations (all but the US version) had a defined number of episodes leading to the happy endings, which formally classified them as telenovelas. Yet the journey to the happy ending happened through a comedic heroine, thus satisfying some audience expectations – but not all. The Yo soy Betty, la fea and its epigones keep progressing toward the climax of the story by planting a series of comic signs that function as plot points and predict radical changes, without becoming inscribed in a fairytale-style narrative. As a result, these adaptations of telenovelas display a more innovative style than others; they introduce highly unconventional characters and stereotype-breaking formulas in the evolution of the story. These hybridizations make the programs attractive to a wide range of audiences in their locations.

The American drama Ugly Betty is neither a telenovela nor a soap opera, but its genre status as a “dramedy” shares themes and plot developments with both. Romantic love stories are always at the heart of telenovelas and soap operas. The future couple has to overcome many dramatic obstacles before it reaches the happy ending. This is also the story of Ugly Betty, which features melodrama combined with situation comedy elements. This combination of different genre conventions can address multiple mass audiences: telenovela viewers, soap viewers, and sitcom viewers.

Dramaturgy and Aesthetic Styles

In the four adaptations and in the original version, the tragicomic heroines are introduced in different ways, which are linked to national and local traditions of dramaturgy and aesthetics. In the visual introduction of the main character, however, there are strong similarities between the Colombian and Russian adaptations on the one hand, and between the American and Spanish versions on the other. In the Colombian and Russian adaptations, she is invisible in the opening; a subjective camera and point-of-view shots are used instead. This illustrates that these latter versions try to characterize the heroine through other people's reactions to her.

We see reactions to Betty's appearance on the faces of passers-by, security personnel, employees of the fashion company, and other applicants for the secretarial job at the company. In the Russian adaptation pedestrians comment on Katya's appearance too, although she is invisible to the viewer. In fact it is not before they are four and a half minutes into the episode that the viewers first see Betty or Katya on screen. The first shot of her occurs during her job interview, where her “beautiful” rival (Patrizia in Colombia and Viktoria in Russia) is also present. In both cases the main character appears for the first time in a medium shot, in parallel with medium shots and close-ups of the competing applicants. As the interview continues, the camera closes in on the Betties, calling attention to the features that underscore her ugliness.

In the Spanish and American adaptations, the viewer's attention is immediately drawn to Betty's appearance through close-ups of her face. After just 30 seconds, the Spanish viewers see Bea's glasses and braces, shown in an extreme close-up. In the American adaptation, the point-of-view technique is used only later in the first episode; until then, the camera favors medium shots and close-ups of the main character. The German adaptation begins with an establishing shot of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, straight after the title sequence. The next shot shows an exit of the train station there, where the main character Lisa is one in the crowd streaming towards the escalator. Only gradually does the camera pick her out.

Sound, in the form of Betty's voice-over narration, also functions to reveal the lead character's “mental subjectivity” by giving “internal commentary reporting the character's thoughts” (Bordwell & Thompson, 1993, p. 78). The voice-over narration is a common feature in the German and Spanish adaptations. Viewers hear Lisa's voice-over narration of her arrival in Berlin and of her application for an executive assistant job at Kerima Moda. The Spanish adaptation also uses voice-over in the opening sequence. Only the US adaptation does not present the character's subjective point of view. The US viewers, who come visually very close to the character, still remain in the position of an observer, watching the action from outside. In the opening sequences, dialogue is used to portray Betty's family relationships. Whether through an internal voice-over or through an objective gaze, the conventions in Betty programs guarantee viewers a focus on the main character's personality.

The Russian adaptation adheres closely to the Colombian original in its chronological sequence of events and in the way they are presented. In both versions, viewers are provided with the same initial knowledge as the protagonist about the interpersonal relationships at the workplace. As the episode continues, however, viewers soon come to know more than the heroine does, by observing other characters' actions. The Spanish adaptation even presents Bea's unconscious knowledge of the future, offering a dream sequence in which she kisses her future boss. Information about the relationships between people who work at the fashion magazine is conveyed in scenes set at the office. Flashbacks are often used in the Spanish version; this is something that the US and German adaptations avoid. The latter convey only the necessary knowledge, and they do so in the course of a linear plot. Viewers attain knowledge external to the heroine through alternating and parallel storylines.

As for nondiegetic sounds, the Russian adaptation uses them for scene transitions, instead of a music soundtrack – which is common to the other versions. Thus a similarity between all adaptations and the original is that scene transitions are announced audibly. Ne rodis' krasivoy avoids using music, while Ugly Betty and Verliebt in Berlin use music a lot – especially to underscore the heroine's mood, or to reinforce romantic or comic situations. Not all the music in these series is expressly composed for the series; there are also popular recordings by stars such as Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams. All five versions have a catchy title melody.

Whereas in the Colombian original and in the Spanish adaptations visual effects are of little importance, the Russian version includes two scenes that use fast motion to identify slapstick actions. Fast motion also occurs in Verliebt in Berlin, where a rapidly emptying waiting room indicates that fewer applicants are waiting to be interviewed for Lisa's job opening. The episode also includes shots in slow motion, intended to heighten the drama of a tragic scene. It is also apparent, through the use of colors and light design, that the US and German adaptations are visually richer and more dynamic: the first episode is warmer in the US adaptation and glossier in the German one.

These two versions also feature a greater variety of shot lengths than the others. The German version, for example, has the camera moving through the middle of the action, whereas the Russian adaptation keeps the camera at a distance during scenes that take place in the fashion firm. One reason for this distance is that Katya is not present in the Russian firm during the events presented; she is only reading about them in the magazine, and she is pictured as being literally far away from the world of fashion. Lisa in the German adaptation is, however, present at the event, where she serves champagne as part of a catering service. She is still outside the fashion world, as her clumsy actions make evident; but she is physically in the middle of it. The editing styles of the US and German adaptations are also more dynamic; individual scenes use more varied shots than the original or the Spanish and Russian adaptations. In Ugly Betty and in Verliebt in Berlin the visual presentation of the setting is also important, involving the prominent use of establishing shots of the New York skyline and of Berlin's Potsdamer Platz. The other versions also use establishing shots, but only to set workplace scenes, or scenes at the protagonist's home.

Concluding Thoughts on Hybrid Formats and Media Production

A thorough discussion of all the audiovisual stylistic elements – title sequences, setting, editing style, camera style, visual effects, the visual presentation of dialogue, and the soundtrack – is beyond the scope of this chapter. Nonetheless, a look at a few of the differences and similarities between the adaptations and the original is informative. Genres incorporate conventions that are familiar to audiences. Telenovelas narrate complete melodramatic stories (Lopez, 1995; Martín-Barbero, 1995). Unlike daily soap operas, which are based on endless story lines (Bielby & Harrington, 2005; Cantor & Pingree, 1983), most telenovelas are oriented towards a happily-ever-after in 100 to 300 episodes.

Although there are local differences between telenovelas from Brazil, Mexico, and other Latin American countries, the melodramatic tone is shared among them. This makes the stories seem serious, even though a comic subgenre of the telenovela developed, primarily in Brazil, since the late 1970s (Tufte, 2000, p. 112): since then, comedy has become an established component of telenovelas.

Yo soy Betty, la fea marks the introduction of a tragicomic protagonist whose story follows the original conventions of the melodramatic telenovela, but whose character belongs to the comic structures and to the comic climate of comedy series.

The different adaptations show different ways of mixing the elements of telenovelas and comedy. While the Spanish adaptation gives greater weight to the telenovela aspects, the German one remains close to the original Colombian in terms of proportions between telenovela and comedy components. In contrast, the US and Russian adaptations allow the comedy elements to predominate. Kim Akass and Janet McCabe (2007) go so far as to characterize Ugly Betty as a “stylish US hit comedy.”

In countries where serial genres have a long tradition, it is important for local adaptations to remain true to their respective genres. The fact that the Russian adaptation follows closely the Colombian original may have to do with the fact that telenovelas have enjoyed wide popularity in Russia since the 1990s (Baldwin, 1995). By the same token, the telenovela-ization of US prime-time programs aims to capture both the Latino population of the US, which exhibits close affinity to telenovelas, and the Anglo population, which is familiar with the conventions of soap operas as well as with those of drama and comedy series.

As maintained by Antonio Savorelli (2008, p. 174): “The comic coating Ugly Betty gives telenovela highlights even further the exasperation of some of this genre's features, without necessarily devaluing its ability to represent the real.” Yo soy Betty, la fea and its local adaptations show hybrid formats inasmuch as they integrate elements of different genres in the basic telenovela structure, including a genre shift toward the “telenovela-ization of US soap operas” in Ugly Betty (Bielby & Harrington, 2005). The format thus meets the requirements of the global television market, since its various elements can be mixed differently in each local adaptation without excessively altering the basic structure of the original brand. Our research shows evidence that there is a complex web of similarities and differences between local adaptations of the same format. Even a traditional telenovela like Yo soy Betty, la fea draws from different genres – like drama series and situation comedy, slapstick and fairy tale, soap opera and reality TV – with regard to dramaturgy, narration, and audiovisual styles. “The significant dynamic of the present era in television is adaptation, transfer, and recycling of content” (Keane, Fung, & Moran, 2007, p. 75). The various Betty adaptations show that it is also possible to recycle single stylistic elements from different genres and combine them in unique ways. Therefore, the more hybrid a format is, the more flexible it is to the dynamics of local adaptation and the more able it is to attract diverse audiences all over the world. Genre proximity is no longer necessary in order to ensure international success, since the format mixes conventions that are well known by audiences all over the world, as long as they have an experience of the diversity of television and film genres.

The driving force behind the hybridization of television formats can be found less in television producers' creativity in the market than in the variety of audiences, each with its knowledge of narration and visual styles. Knowledge of genre conventions is part of the media literacy of audiences that grew up with television in their everyday life. Local adaptations have to be aware of the complexities of flows and counterflows in traveling styles. This doesn't mean that economics are unimportant. Global media licensers like Sony Entertainment and Fremantle Media, or regional producers like Televisa are in the front line of picking up, distributing, and sometimes producing successful local formats. Therefore it is not only cultural proximity, in a broad sense, that enables and limits the adaptation of formats, but also the economic strength of the global networks, combined with the know-how of local, regional, and global production companies. To the global flows and countterflows, we would add the “multiple flows” that are based on these cultural and economic conditions for the production of global television formats.

NOTES

1 A format “bible” is “the project to implement the development of the basic descriptive structure, including all elements required to execute the programme, such as the running order, the profile of the main characters (host, competitors and/or guests), a description of the set design required for the story, considerations regarding direction techniques if necessary, and any other elements required for the format's television transposition and its optimised production” (Fusco & Perrotta, 2008, p. 92).

2 The German producer Grundy UFA has bought original Colombian scripts from RCN, even if FremantleMedia owns the rights for the adaptation and Grundy UFA is a subsidiary of FremantleMedia.

3 Other strong performances include those on Norway's TVNorge, Malaysia's 8TV, Singapore's Channel 5, Hong Kong's TVB Pearl, and Sweden's Kanal 5, not to mention Spain's Cuatro and Italy's Italia1 (WorldScreen.com, 2007).

4 Originally we also planned to analyze the Italian adaptation Betty la cozza, but its production was stopped without notice.

5 In accordance with the theory of cultural proximity, the choice of the names for the heroines has to be close to the cultural history of the country where the adaptation takes place. Hence there were Leticia in Mexico, Jasmeed in India, Maria in Grecia, Lotte in the Netherlands, Sara in Belgium, Esti in Israel, Nina in Bosnia/Serbia/Croatia, Gönül in Turkey, Wu Di in China, Katerina (Katka) in the Czech Republic.

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FURTHER READING

Hofstede, G. (1991). Culture's consequences: Software of the mind. London, UK: McGraw-Hill.