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Being the pseudo-perfectionist that I am, I just changed the hosting for the image above. Tell me if it shows up or doesn't on your screen, please.
P/S- Some people need to sort out their web-hosting issues :P.
"Summertime....when living is easy"- HAH!
"Telenovelas are the new opiate of the masses"
Me, too lazy to look for a legitimate quote.
Yipes! 1 more month until time for me to return to the land of a twenty million gloomy people and still gloomier weather and as always, I haven't gotten half the things on my always-delusionally-optimistic Things To Do This Summer list. The title for my dissertation still belongs to the land of lost thoughts, wedding plans have been put on minor hiatus due to normal procrastinatory behaviour and the web-zine still exists only in conversations. Not to mention my typical set of unanswered emails. Ah well, C'est la Holiday Work Paralysis Syndrome (Credit to Weekenders on Disney for term).
Yes, I have been, as exemplified by school breaks of 15 years past, unable to resist the combined seductive efforts of my couch and idiot's box (typo intentional). As if all-new episodes of Rugrats weren't enough (Will the people crying 'you sad childish idiot' at the back please shut up?), there's now a not-so-new telenovela on the block. Oh, curse you, NTV7! I had successfully resisted the temptation of Francisco et al from Mis Tres Hermanas regardless of combined pressure from little sisters, cousins and repeat playings of the Malay and Spanish soundtrack on the radio. OK, so my success was mostly due to the fact that I had started watching it late into the season and my post-exam brain couldn't hack the thought of unravelling the usual convoluted plot. But now, my 4.30-5.30 p.m nap slots are currently spent in the thrall of Betty La Fea- the main protagonist of which is, (duh) Betty, a 'brilliant but unattractive economist' (Astro's description, not mine).
Therein lies the attraction for me- I may be an 'average, but average-looking economist', but we economists must stick together, like the rest of the world's collection of nerds (we're slightly below engineers and slightly above mathematics teachers in the pecking order, you see). Every afternoon is spent in me, my mom's helper and my cousins hoping that today will be the day Betty, with glasses bigger than my mouth (I have been said to have a mouth that wouldn't fit into a standard issue college campus room), whose fringe looks like it's been plastered with PVA glue and cement on her forehead, and whose laugh is more-than-slightly reminiscent of a donkey's bray- gets her inevitable makeover, after which her jerk of a boss, Armando, who she has a crush on, will fall in love with her, much to the dismay of his ok-looking dragon-lady fiancee Marcela and her blonde-bitch of a sidekick Patricia (oh what wonderful alliteration is 'blonde bitch'!).
Then again, part of me doesn't want her to have a makeover- why should she after all, if she's comfortable with the way she looks? Why should she follow the traditions begun with Cinderella and continuing with Pretty Woman and countless other mass media examples, and undergo what is normally represented as the taking off of glasses and a visit to the hair-dressers on TV and in the movies (the equivalent of a Botox injection in real life) to get what she wants? In passing, what are these screenwriters thinking? Contact lenses do NOT instantaneously lead to good looks- trust a superhero dumb enough to wear his underwear on the outside to believe that the mere addition of spectacles could fool people- maybe the people of Metropolis were particularly myopic.
Anyway, the thing about Betty is that she works in an apparel company that has its workers divided into the good-looking (Marcela, Patricia and your usual assortment of bimbo-models) and the not-so-good-looking-but-good-of-heart (Betty and gang). What's refreshing about all this is that the issue of looks is so obviously harped upon. Choice examples include Armando exclaiming "Tetapi dia sungguh hodoh!" when faced with the possibility that poor ol' Betty might actually have a *gasp* boyfriend, and Patricia telling the not-so-aesthetically-endowed people that "Kamu tidak boleh pergi ke majlis pelancaran rekaan fesyen terbaru nanti kerana kamu semua sangat hodoh dan boleh merosakkan imej syarikat". I don't know about anyone else, but issues about looks are normally skirted around in sensitive Hallmark-like fashion. Either that, or it's my twisted perceptions talking. By the way, for the telenovela novice, the dialogue is in Spanish- I was quoting subtitles. Malaysia isn't so boleh that actors in Latin American countries are able to converse in Spektra-like BM, evidence from dubbed series in which all the women sound like Doraemon to the contrary.
Oh, I found out I was addicted when I insisted, to the shock of my pseudo-intellectual middle sister and mother that I would rather watch Betty La Fea than 'Hard Talk' on CNBC, or is it CNN? Oh well, all biased media channels are alike under their corporate skins.
Betty had better end before I go back or I'll have to spend countless hours looking for it on the Internet.
nads went at 00:58