Dateline Hollywood: "Ugly Betty" sitting pretty after winning meaningless award (there, I said it)

HOLLYWOOD -- It's not déjà vu if you really did do the same thing twice. Two busloads of TV critics and I are being herded through the Raleigh Studios parking lot and into the same hangar-sized building where, one year ago, we toured the set of “Commander in Chief,” a noble but doomed ABC drama about a strong female, played by Golden Globe winner Geena Davis.

On this crisp morning, we're here to tour the set of “Ugly Betty,” a noble ABC comedy about a strong female played by America Ferrera, who just the night before had picked up her Globe for her portrayal of the homely, plucky would-be tastemaker Betty Suarez.

  This year, though, the walk-through has a different feel. People are happy, giddy even. Vanessa Williams, who plays one of the heavies on “Ugly Betty,” has bought the crew lunch. (A sign reads, “Thanks for all your hard work! -- Vanessa”) Inside the iPod-white walls of Mode, the fashion magazine where young Betty toils and dreams of greatness, everyone is clearly savoring their triumph.

 

  Silvio Horta, one of the show's producers, hasn't let the show's Golden Globe trophy for best comedy out of his sight, though he allows critics to pick it up and gauge its heft.

  I pick it up. I'm not even tempted to point out that the Globes are a poor predictor of Emmy success. For unlike “Commander in Chief,” “Ugly Betty” has wings, and that's the feel-good story of the TV season.

  Betty -- a chubby brace-face first created for a South American soap opera -- has leapfrogged Borat and David Beckham to become the country's hottest cultural import. “Ugly Betty” is ABC's first hit show in its time period in a generation (it airs at 7 tonight on KMBC).

  So, how'd they do it? As we walked around and chatted with cast and crew members, it became clear that “Ugly Betty” was designed from the ground up to be more than a low-rent “Devil Wears Prada.”

 

From Mark Worthington's whimsical, peek-a-boo design of the Mode offices, to Horta's decision to make Betty more than a male-worshipping social climber (as she was in the Colombian original, “Betty La Fea”), “Ugly Betty” projects an image of the new American woman -- independent, ambitious, a dreamer, yet caring and sensible -- that is less threatening than the Hillary Clinton caricature often seen in mass media.

  “Right out of the gate, people responded to the show so warmly because of what the character meant to them,” said Ferrera, minus her braces, glasses or beauty sleep the morning after the Globes.

  “Just last week I got to read a letter from a young girl who wrote into Cosmo Girl saying, 'Thank you for putting America Ferrera on the cover. When I watched “Ugly Betty,” it was the first time in my life I felt beautiful.' That was just overwhelming.”

  Ferrera has played similar roles in films -- “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and “Real Women Have Curves” -- which made her a natural to Horta, who adapted “Betty La Fea” for producer (and guest star) Salma Hayek.

  But Horta, who grew up watching telenovelas with his Cuban-American parents in Miami, also knew that Betty had to break free of Latin stereotypes before teenage girls here would embrace her.

  “There are 40 or 50 adaptations of the show around the world,” Horta said. “Though they're all about a young woman who's struggling to be taken seriously, most of them take the turn (that) she's in love with her boss, and I wanted to stay away from that.

  “I think that weakened her character, to be pining after someone who really doesn't treat her well.” In one scene from the Colombian version, her boss even puts her in the trunk of his car, “because you're too ugly to be seen!”

  Eric Mabius, who portrays Betty's playboy boss, didn't even try to emulate the creepy Lothario figure of the original. “I don't like having my perceptions colored,” he said as he tried to keep warm on the set, a winter coat over his gorgeous Boateng suit. Besides, he added, “I don't speak Spanish.”

  Horta is proud of the fact that the ABC version is starting to air in other countries, including those that put on a more traditional “Betty” of their own.

  “There's something about this character that people love,” said Horta.