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Humor and Latina/o Camp in Ugly Betty

Funny Looking

Tanya González and Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson

Humor and Latina/o Camp in Ugly Betty: Funny Looking expands the vista of critical approaches to comedy and representational politics on mainstream television from an interdisciplinary Latina/o studies approach. González and Rodriguez y Gibson examine how Ugly Betty uses humor and Latina/o camp to reframe socially charged issues on the show: representations of masculinity and familia, immigration, drag and queer subjectivities, Latina sexuality, and finally, a Latina feminist critique of the American Dream. Ugly Betty moves beyond the binaries of traditional representational politics and opens a vista of critical possibility applicable to all mainstream texts that portray people of color through comedy. This work will be of interest to scholars in media studies, Latina/o studies, and communication studies.
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  • Author
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  • TOC
  • Reviews
  • Reviews
Lexington Books
Pages: 198 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
978-0-7391-9749-3 • Hardback • July 2015 • $114.00 • (£88.00)
978-0-7391-9751-6 • Paperback • July 2017 • $53.99 • (£42.00)
978-0-7391-9750-9 • eBook • July 2015 • $51.00 • (£39.00)
Series: Critical Studies in Television
Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Hispanic American Studies, Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication Studies, Performing Arts / Television / General, Social Science / Popular Culture
Tanya González is associate professor in the English Department at Kansas State University.

Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson
is associate professor in the Department of Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University.

Chapter 1.With His Spatula in His Hand: Remaking Masculinity and Familia
Chapter 2. First Class Tickets to Mexico!: Laughing at Deportation
Chapter 3. Life’s A Drag: Identity as Queer Performance
Chapter 4. Bringing Sexy Back: The Complexities of Latina Sexuality on Ugly Betty
Chapter 5. Wake Up Betty!: Feminism, Neoliberalism and the American Dream

González and Rodriguez y Gibson use a ‘funny looking’ lens to analyze the popular television series Ugly Betty (2006–10). Featuring minority characters and taking a progressive stance on LGBTQ issues, the sitcom resides ‘on the border’—on one hand acclaimed for avoiding cliché, on the other derided for ‘humorous and campy manipulation of stereotypes.’ Embracing the ambiguities of borderland culture, the authors observe the main character’s attempt at auto-defining what it means to be a second-generation Mexican American/Chicana engaging with ‘race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality.’ Each chapter highlights specific episodes that make fun and make sense of a particular topic within Chicana/o culture. The series and thus this book give alternative representations of Latino masculinity and ‘familia.’ The authors also address immigration issues such as separation of families, adaptation of recent immigrants, and assimilation into mainstream culture of subsequent generations. They reflect on sexually charged masculine and feminine roles and new interpretations of Latina sexuality. This book illustrates a progressive ‘Latinidad’ that challenges the inequalities and injustices at the foundations of the American dream. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.
— Choice Reviews


In Humor and Latina/o Camp in “Ugly Betty”: Funny Looking, Tanya González and Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson provide a much-needed addition to the slim scholarly canon of book-length studies in Latina/o humor.... Humor and Latina/o Camp in “Ugly Betty”: Funny Looking provides an excellent and accessible introduction to Latina/o studies theory and television analysis, making this text valuable for scholars and students in under-graduate media studies as well as Latina/o studies courses. The authors’ close readings of a third of the show’s episodes provide multiple examples of how Ugly Betty’s humor is both complicit in and critical of the American dream and how the show’s use of camp and stereotype complicate representations of Latinos/as in popular culture.
— Studies in American Humor


González and Rodriguez y Gibson show us how Ugly Betty cleverly explores complex social issues surrounding ethnicity, race, gender, identity, and sexuality through its comedic repurposing of stereotypes created and reinforced by mainstream media. This book offers a critical approach to understanding the show’s parodic yet subversive treatment of these myths from within the framework of popular cultural production.

— Patricia M. Montilla, Western Michigan University


González and Rodriguez y Gibson offer a sophisticated reading of the show’s engagement with latinidad through the use of humor, critical camp, and queer aesthetics. With the theory of 'funny looking,' the book shows how the humorous and non-normative work together, helping us to think critically about the relationship between Latinidad and neoliberalism, a refreshing approach that makes an incisive contribution to television studies, Chicana/o cultural studies, and queer studies.
— Marci McMahon, The University of Texas Pan-American


Humor and Latina/o Camp in Ugly Betty

Funny Looking

Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • Humor and Latina/o Camp in Ugly Betty: Funny Looking expands the vista of critical approaches to comedy and representational politics on mainstream television from an interdisciplinary Latina/o studies approach. González and Rodriguez y Gibson examine how Ugly Betty uses humor and Latina/o camp to reframe socially charged issues on the show: representations of masculinity and familia, immigration, drag and queer subjectivities, Latina sexuality, and finally, a Latina feminist critique of the American Dream. Ugly Betty moves beyond the binaries of traditional representational politics and opens a vista of critical possibility applicable to all mainstream texts that portray people of color through comedy. This work will be of interest to scholars in media studies, Latina/o studies, and communication studies.
Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 198 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
    978-0-7391-9749-3 • Hardback • July 2015 • $114.00 • (£88.00)
    978-0-7391-9751-6 • Paperback • July 2017 • $53.99 • (£42.00)
    978-0-7391-9750-9 • eBook • July 2015 • $51.00 • (£39.00)
    Series: Critical Studies in Television
    Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Hispanic American Studies, Language Arts & Disciplines / Communication Studies, Performing Arts / Television / General, Social Science / Popular Culture
Author
Author
  • Tanya González is associate professor in the English Department at Kansas State University.

    Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson
    is associate professor in the Department of Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Chapter 1.With His Spatula in His Hand: Remaking Masculinity and Familia
    Chapter 2. First Class Tickets to Mexico!: Laughing at Deportation
    Chapter 3. Life’s A Drag: Identity as Queer Performance
    Chapter 4. Bringing Sexy Back: The Complexities of Latina Sexuality on Ugly Betty
    Chapter 5. Wake Up Betty!: Feminism, Neoliberalism and the American Dream

Reviews
Reviews
  • González and Rodriguez y Gibson use a ‘funny looking’ lens to analyze the popular television series Ugly Betty (2006–10). Featuring minority characters and taking a progressive stance on LGBTQ issues, the sitcom resides ‘on the border’—on one hand acclaimed for avoiding cliché, on the other derided for ‘humorous and campy manipulation of stereotypes.’ Embracing the ambiguities of borderland culture, the authors observe the main character’s attempt at auto-defining what it means to be a second-generation Mexican American/Chicana engaging with ‘race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality.’ Each chapter highlights specific episodes that make fun and make sense of a particular topic within Chicana/o culture. The series and thus this book give alternative representations of Latino masculinity and ‘familia.’ The authors also address immigration issues such as separation of families, adaptation of recent immigrants, and assimilation into mainstream culture of subsequent generations. They reflect on sexually charged masculine and feminine roles and new interpretations of Latina sexuality. This book illustrates a progressive ‘Latinidad’ that challenges the inequalities and injustices at the foundations of the American dream. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.
    — Choice Reviews


    In Humor and Latina/o Camp in “Ugly Betty”: Funny Looking, Tanya González and Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson provide a much-needed addition to the slim scholarly canon of book-length studies in Latina/o humor.... Humor and Latina/o Camp in “Ugly Betty”: Funny Looking provides an excellent and accessible introduction to Latina/o studies theory and television analysis, making this text valuable for scholars and students in under-graduate media studies as well as Latina/o studies courses. The authors’ close readings of a third of the show’s episodes provide multiple examples of how Ugly Betty’s humor is both complicit in and critical of the American dream and how the show’s use of camp and stereotype complicate representations of Latinos/as in popular culture.
    — Studies in American Humor


    González and Rodriguez y Gibson show us how Ugly Betty cleverly explores complex social issues surrounding ethnicity, race, gender, identity, and sexuality through its comedic repurposing of stereotypes created and reinforced by mainstream media. This book offers a critical approach to understanding the show’s parodic yet subversive treatment of these myths from within the framework of popular cultural production.

    — Patricia M. Montilla, Western Michigan University


    González and Rodriguez y Gibson offer a sophisticated reading of the show’s engagement with latinidad through the use of humor, critical camp, and queer aesthetics. With the theory of 'funny looking,' the book shows how the humorous and non-normative work together, helping us to think critically about the relationship between Latinidad and neoliberalism, a refreshing approach that makes an incisive contribution to television studies, Chicana/o cultural studies, and queer studies.
    — Marci McMahon, The University of Texas Pan-American


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