Ugly Betty and Affirmative Action
Step 1: Google Morgan Jaffe
This was not an intention, but it was something that I noticed myself doing, almost, as if it was an action out of my control. A fluid and seamless scroll over to a new tab while Jaffe’s (2017) voice introduced her podcast, Burst Your Bubble, in the background, “Ugly Betty, a U.S. interpretation of a Latin-American telenovela...” (Jaffe 2017). While the podcast continued playing, I was typing her name, my mind half-heartedly in two places at once. She’s in Boston? Is she my age? Is she younger than me? Did she really teach in all those schools? Should I being doing something, anything differently?
The questions were all there, a second layer while the podcast droned on. It is is within this impulse that I find a necessary place to reflect on where I found myself. In a simultaneous moment, I was consuming information, questioning the credentials of the information and then returning to the information with a different perspective, in under ten seconds. I did not approach the podcast wondering who Morgan Jaffe (2017) was, but, there was a definitive moment where the need to know credentials, status, background and there they were and then, click, the window was closed.
While not coming from any deep place, this ability to instantaneously question and receive a gratifying answer to said question is a hallmark of our digital age. It was a sense of power or at least a sense of gratification. I felt more comfortable listening, I trusted or at least didn’t completely disregard the voice that was speaking, I had some sense of a person speaking with a background. I felt a sense of peace with being able to react to what I was listening to, it was no longer an unsubstantiated voice.
Following the Podcast and a listen to some of Jaffe’s (2017) other episodes, I felt more comfortable knowing who she was as a person. I started to anticipate her cadences, her responses and her stances. Jaffe (2017) is a quintessential “millennial” voice. She has views she wants to express, she knows how to create a platform to express her views and she knows how to market her expression into a form of quantifiable consumption. She can see the weight of her opinions in views, comments and subscribers.
Jaffe (2017) describes her podcast in this way:
“Burst Your Bubble is a podcast that combines racism, sexism, homophobia, and all of the other -isms and -phobias within our society and looks at them through a pop culture lens. From music and movies to comic books and games, hatred, bigotry, and ignorance seep into our everyday lives. What is important is to dissect it and discuss it, and not just accept it as something we can not process or change” (Jaffe 2017).
Hobbs (2017) reflects this sentiment when she writes, "asking questions can activate and deepen critical thinking and the practice of close reading and close analysis can be a powerful tool to understand how media are constructed and how media text construct reality" (Hobbs 2017, p. 62). While only surface deep, my initial questions about Jaffe were necessary for me to consume what she was saying, whether I agreed or disagreed with what she was about to say, I needed to know the source of the opinions I was receiving in order to decide if the argument she was presenting was worth my time at all. Was Jaffe (2017) a voice worth agreeing with or challenging?
The small questions that plagued my mind at the top of the podcast about Jaffe (2017) gave me a sense of who she was as an author. With a background in education and communications, Jaffe (2017) works as the General Manager of Boston Community Radio. Being a supporter of public access media in all forms, this allowed me to listen to Jaffe (2017) as a authority on the subject matter. Some other aspects of the podcast, the uniform intro music and use of original artwork by Jeremy Ferris for each episode further lent credibility to the podcast in my mind. It had substance. While only image deep, the branding and the hook of “challenging” assumptions was enough to not only catch my attention, but intrigue me enough to listen.
Step 2: Maintain judgement-free Zone, listen, make coffee
As with all other podcasts I have come to enjoy (Love + Radio, Radiolab and This American Life to name a few), the listener is brought to a familiar place with theme music and a hook from a recognizable voice. These elements make the podcast a welcome place to relax and listen to something. Jaffe’s (2017) Burst Your Bubble is no different as she introduces what Ugly Betty (the show) meant to people, what it did right and then, the hook before cueing the music. After celebrating the grounding breaking nature of Ugly Betty and what it brought to marginalized voices on network television, Jaffe (2017) “pops” the bubble when she says, “but it still has some stereotypes and problems of its own. Like the episode where Ugly Betty puts affirmative action in a negative light. I’m Morgan Jaffe and this is Burst Your Bubble” (Jaffe 2017). This “burst your bubble” moment is a predictable element of Jaffe’s storytelling style and it serializes the podcast in a way that allows the listener to predict her inserted opinion after laying out a seemingly noble, altruistic or otherwise positive element of pop culture. It is this moment that holds the listeners attention and elicits a response that causes them to listen to Jaffe’s argument.
In itself, Jaffe’s podcast serves as a method of digital inquiry that the listener can follow along with and, at the same time, must perform a meta-inquiry about Jaffe’s (2017) own inquiry.
Jaffe (2017) focused her podcast on one particular episode of the show Ugly Betty that took on the issue of affirmative action. Throughout the course of the 30 minute podcast, Jaffe (2017) works in what Hobbs (2017) calls the “theater of the mind” as she delivers an opinionated de-construction of the episode using clips from the show to link together her ideas regarding affirmative action, what the show got wrong and what opportunities were missed. Hobbs (2017) writes, “storytelling’s inevitable and highly attractive approach to oversimplification, through the creation of a hero, villain and victim, may distort our understanding of history by contributing to the fictionalization of history” (Hobbs 2017, p. 125). In Jaffe’s (2017) case, she is working to poke holes and offer a more rounded, gray-area view of pop-culture as we know it. Through her storytelling, we are offered only her take on things and are left to debate outside and apart from the speaker, in the real world, while her views are left recorded and static.
I suppose one could always tweet her their take.
For this reason, I purposefully suspended judgement during the episode to fully absorb Jaffe’s take on the episode. In this way, I attempted to approach the media as an independent listener, but also an open listener. While I support Affirmative Action and agree with general atmosphere of what Jaffe had to say, I also find myself adopting opposing viewpoints as a default when confronted with opinions. Even if the opposing viewpoints are not necessarily ones I believe in.
I believe one needs to be comfortable with having their views uncomfortably challenged or adopting uncomfortable positions, even in a hypothetical sense. Namely, playing devil’s advocate in one’s own mind. That is a level of vulnerability that is needed now more than ever. Media simply must be met with a challenge.
In a kind of double kudos, I commend Ugly Betty for taking on the issue of Affirmative Action in such a direct way. I have never watched the show, but even given the clips that Jaffe (2017) provided, I feel like Ugly Betty did make an effort to confront an issue calling it by its name and allowing different sides a voice on the issue. Furthermore, I feel like Jaffe (2017) should be commended for holding the show accountable for not taking the issue far enough. People of color, disadvantaged people and other stakeholders in this issue might interpret Jaffe’s message as either a rallying cry or something disagreeable, but, it should be generally realized when listening to a podcaster, a vlogger, blogger or even fringe “newscaster,” that they are representative of one viewpoint. It is up to the listener to discern their own take on the matter using the voiced opinion as either a catalyst or opposing force to move their position to more solid ground based on reason, research and articulation.
Step 3: Dig deeper, ask questions, rinse, repeat
Pangrazio (2016) defines "critical digital design" as a framework to operate within in order to both consume and create digital media. She writes, "critical digital design can be thought of as a deliberately political model of digital literacy in which complex and detailed understandings of discourse, ideology and power in the digital context are scaffolded. It aims to analyse the specific multimodal features of digital texts, as well as the general architecture of digital technology and the Internet, so that a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of these concepts is developed in the learner" (Panagrazio 2016, p. 172). With this in mind, it becomes clear that what Jaffe (2017) is doing to Ugly Betty, one must also do to Jaffe herself. While Jaffe (as an admittedly white woman) stands up for Affirmative Action and what it has done for disadvantaged people of color, she does not offer understanding or empathy for the clips she played of white people who sued universities from not getting in. Jaffe’s (2017) values align with the plight of the “Ugly Betty’s” of the world, but she does not see a gray-area in such circumstances.
Furthermore, Jaffe (2017) fails to recognize the work and hard decisions the writers of Ugly Betty must have made to air an episode that dealt with Affirmative Action in such a head-on way and with care given to opposing sides of the issue. While “it was a different time” or “it was good for its time” arguments do not always apply, I think they do in this case. I feel like Jaffe omits an olive branch given to writers and producers of Ugly Betty in favor of doubling down on her own strong opinions, as right as they may be. Did Jaffe (2017) consider Salma Hayek’s work as producer of the series (Barreiro 2010, p. 34)? As a white woman does Jaffe (2017) have the right to push back on the work of people of color as not going far enough in serving social justice? Do all people have a stake in an issue such as affirmative action? Should Jaffe (2017) be singling out one episode of a show to “burst” the bubble of its appeal? Is that fair? Does fair matter?
With such pointed questions left unanswered, the fact that they came up in the first place meant that the work of a discerning listener was unfinished. A look outside of Jaffe’s (2017) podcast was in order. After all, is it fair as a listener to only focus on one view of one episode of one show? In research done by Barreiro (2010) on what audiences, particularly Latino audiences, look for in Ugly Betty, she offers this take on the Ugly Betty:
Although Ugly Betty’s text and its official Website seem to make efforts to include race
discourses, the audience’s perception seems to be far from focusing on racial or cultural matters as the series’ main point. Instead, viewers concentrate more on the entertainment nature of the text. Ugly Betty seems to unify culturally mixed audiences by acting as the connector between Hispanic and Anglo viewers. The series presents universal themes that allow multicultural audiences to relate to them, while acknowledging, but not concentrating on, the multicultural element of the text. While cast as an outsider, Betty becomes an intrinsic component of the society that surrounds her, providing an empowering Latino representation (Barreiro 2010, p. 39).
Thus, Barreiro (2010) offers a much larger scope view of Ugly Betty that can work to better frame and compartmentalize the microscopic look that Jaffe (2017) takes to make a macroscopic argument. Where Jaffe (2017) sees injustice due to an episode, Barreiro (2010) sees a show at large that indeed does depict multicultural representations in addition to bigger picture representations of image, self-worth and social status.
Does a platform come with responsibility? Perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn’t. But, the constant is the responsibility of the listener to discern their own feelings from media. One must be able to suspend opinions, upend them and amend them to fit a shifting view. This requires conscious research, a calm and accepting disposition and a desire to articulate and self-define one’s own view and standpoint on an issue. Â
Barreiro, Paula. (2010). Understanding ugly betty: negotiating race in a culturally-mixed text.
Divergencias. Revista de estudios lingĂĽĂsticos y literarios. Volumen 8, nĂşmero 1, 34 -39.
Hobbs, R. (2017). Create to Learn: Introduction to Digital Literacy. New York: Wiley.
Jaffe, M. (Writer, producer & editor). (2017, July 12). Ugly betty and affirmative action [audio podcast]. Retrieved from
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/burst-your-bubble/e/50764994?autoplay=true
Pangrazio, L. (2016). Reconceptualising critical digital literacy. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural
