10 useful words

Antagonist: the principal opposing figure or villain in the narrative.
Useful: Wilhelmina is the antagonist.

Capitalism: an economic system in which the production and distribution of the goods and services in society is organized via a free market for the purpose of maximizing profit.
Useful: ugly Betty’s setting is New York and in mode building, the structure is a capitalist one (dog eat dog world)

Dominant Ideology: the belief system that serves the interest of the dominant ruling elite within society generally accepted as common sense by the majority and reproduced in mainstream media texts.
Useful: the dominant ideology is shown in ugly Betty as she does not ‘fit in’- her way of speaking, her appearance, her culture etc is all different and her class is shown to be lower than the people at mode.

Enigma Code: a narrative structure that involves the creation of riddles or problems solved by the resolution.
Useful: many enigmas created in ‘Ugly Betty’ which are either resolved in the end or in the next episode.

Hybrid: a cross between one film genre and another.
Useful: ‘Ugly Betty’ is a hybrid of romance and comedy.

Mulvey Laura: feminist academic and media and film critic, responsible for developing theories of the male gaze.
Useful: some female characters are sex objects and this relates to this theorist who talks about the ‘male gaze’.

Parody: the imitation of one media text by another for comic effect.
Useful: News is shown to be over-dramatic and this creates a comic effect.

Protagonist: the leading character or hero in a film with whom the audience can identify with and from whose point of view the action is positioned.
Useful: Betty is the protagonist.

Stereotype: the social classification of a group of people by identifying common characteristics and universally applying them in an often oversimplified and generalized way.
Useful: most of the characters are stereotypes of a particular group of people- for instance Marc is shown to be a ‘typical gay’. Stereotypes are used to create humor.

Celebrity: an individual who has become the focus of the media attention and is therefore widely known and recognized by the public.
Useful: America (who plays Betty) has become well known for her role as Ugly Betty and the show does tend to use celebrities such as Victoria Beckham and Lucy Lu.