TV's Betty Goes Global ─ From Telenovela to International Brand

Premiering in 2006, the stylish and award winning US hit show Ugly Betty, about kind-hearted ugly duckling Betty Suarez (America Ferrera), is the latest incarnation of a truly global phenomenon that started life as a Colombian telenovela, Yo soy Betty, la fea, back in 1999. The tale has since taken an extraordinary journey around the globe, from the original Colombian Beatriz, Indian Jassi, Chinese Wudi and Israeli Esti to the Flemish Sara, Spanish Bea, Greek Maria and Dutch Lotte as well as Czech Katka, Russian Katka and Turkish Gonul. This groundbreaking book about how television formats go global asks what the Betty phenomenon can tell us about the international circulation of locally produced TV fictions as the Latin American telenovela is sold to, and/or re-made for, different national contexts. The contributors explore what Betty says about the tensions between multimedia conglomerates' commercial demands and the regulatory forces of national broadcasters, about national TV industries' struggle in competitive markets, and about what this international trade reveals about cultural storytelling and audience experience, as well as ideologies of feminine beauty. The book features original interviews with buyers and schedulers, writers, story editors and directors, including the creator of Yo soy Betty, la fea, Fernando Gaitan.

Janet McCabe is Honorary Research Fellow in TV Drama at Birkbeck, University of London. She is author of The West Wing and Feminist Film Studies. She has co-edited collections on contemporary US television including Reading Sex and the City and Quality TV: Contemporary American TV and Beyond (2007, both I.B.Tauris). She is a co-founding editor as well as managing editor of Critical Studies in Television journal. Along with Kim Akass, she is series editor of Tauris' Reading Contemporary Television series. Kim Akass is Lecturer in Cultural and Contextual Studies (Film and TV), University of Hertfordshire. Among the books in contemporary television she has co-edited are Reading Six Feet Under (2005), and Quality TV: Contemporary American TV and Beyond (2007, both I.B.Tauris). She is the author of Telematernity: Watching Mothers on Television (I.B. Tauris forthcoming). She is a co-founding editor and managing editor of Critical Studies in Television, as well as series editor, with Janet McCabe, of Reading Contemporary Television series.