Merit for Thee, Not Me

Mrs. X and I are fans of the show Ugly Betty. Last night’s episode was good but also revealed the strange TV dynamics that writers come up with in their need to resolve the major plotline in 40 minutes.

The central plot was that Betty finds out about this special program for magazine assistants trying to move up in the world. Betty, of course, gets all hyped up believes that the world will end if she doesn’t get into the program this year when the deadline is only 2 days away. We also find out that the program will only take one person from each magazine and she is competing with the other editor-in-chief’s assistant (Mark). Of course the big twist is that her two day effort seems to beat out Mark’s three-month extravaganza but we find out that it is only because she is Latina and they need to fill their quota. Betty feels bad and withdraws her name and Mark gets in. However, at the end, Betty’s boss resubmits her name under a different magazine that she had worked with him on and she gets in to the program.

Now, the part that bothers me a little bit is that Betty goes through this whole martyr’s complex about getting in to the program based almost strictly on her race. Yet in the end, when she gets in on the other magazine title, it doesn’t bother her that she is still in only because she fulfills a quota so long as she doesn’t keep Mark out. It makes the whole point of standing and being judged on your own merits that they beat us over the head with the whole episode totally moot.

A far more realistic attitude would have been Betty having to wait until next year and spending the couple of months necessary to put together the type of presentation that should be expected. But that doesn’t make for a very good happy ending to an episode.