Although typically seen on TV as a female character (Betty Suarez in Ugly Betty or Marge in The Simpsons for example), a Power of Love character can also be a compelling male character.

Their function in a story, as is Tim Gunn’s function, is as a caretaker or a mentor: to cajole others into doing what is “best for them;” encourage others to take advantage of possible opportunities for advancement or improvement; soothe the hurt feelings of others; encourage others to do their best; to be patient and giving toward others; and to anticipate others’ needs.  Gunn does this par excellence with his “designers.”

His catch phrases always express his care and concern:  “Talk to me”, “Make it work”, “This worries me”, “Don’t bore Nina”, “That’s a lot of look”, “Designers, gather around” and “Carry on”.

Power of Love characters— often soft and gentle on the outside— are made of strong, even steely, stuff on the inside.  There is an iron fist in their velvet glove. These characters can be interfering, domineering, dictatorial and obsessive when they believe they know what is best for others.

Tim Gunn never goes to that extreme but he also doesn’t ever hesitate to deliver the harsh truth needed to improve a contestant’s work.  (And some of his charges DO experience his advice as domineering and/or dictatorial). Notably, those are usually the ones who lose out on a challenge.  The man has a good eye and sincerely wants to bring out the best in everyone under his strong and capable wing.

Anyone looking to develop a compelling male Power of Love character would do well to take a look at Tim Gunn in action on Project Runway.

Ugly Betty

According to Neilson figures, last week’s premiere was “down by 1.39 million viewers and down 15 percent among adults 18-49 from it’s year-ago season-opener.” In fact, the show premiered only marginally up from its low of last season.

This signals growing dissatisfaction with the story and further declining numbers. Here’s what I believe went wrong with the season premiere (and what danger signs it sends for the rest of season three).

Negating the Conflict

Betty returns to Queens from a cross-country vacation trip to “discover herself.” She’s assembled a big book of ideas. Near the top of the list is to get an apartment in New York City. With only minor obstacles and a few easily overcome setbacks that’s what she does in the course of a single episode!

This very quick choice and resolution seriously damages one of the most important emotional aspects of the show. When Betty lived with her struggling Mexican-American family in Queens she commuted between two very different worlds. The powerful pull of both worlds is the conflict at the heart of the original story concept.

In the season premiere, we also find out that Daniel has left Mode Magazine. He has been demoted to Player Magazine. Player seems to a publication for boy-men who retain a perennially adolescent-level interest in sex, vehicles and games.

This change of venue further weakens the essential conflict at the heart of Betty’s story. Player Magazine is not the icon Mode is—It seems almost to be a joke. Player and its staff reads as buffoonery whereas Mode had more bite as sharp satire.

Poor Change of Venue

Betty Suarez, as portrayed in the series, is a Power of Love character. Stories driven by the Power of Love (romantic or not) are about assimilation. Betty’s story is fundamentally about triumphs and tragedies of being caught between two worlds.

At Mode Magazine our heroine was right in the middle of the epitome of Anglo culture. Mode is depicted as a powerful arbiter of beauty and success. Betty came to work each day armed with her Mexican immigrant values of family, community, hard work and sacrifice. Two sets of cultures, attitudes and beliefs immediately were at war.

Over the course of an assimilation story (or a love story) the parties are continually forced together. As they are compelled to interact with each other, they exchange gifts. Each has something the other lacks or offers something new or really useful to the mix.

Mode Magazine offered Betty a gateway into the dominant Anglo culture and all the status, success, wealth and acceptance that assimilation brings (the American Dream). Betty brought honesty, authenticity, devotion to family and real care for others to a slick stylized world that has lost much of its heart and soul.

The change of venue to Player Magazine offers none of the iconic contrasts that made Betty’s story so powerful. Instead, the change amps up secondary character conflicts at the expense of what should be at the center of the show. Betty is no longer at the center of Mode and the focus further shifts to lesser characters.

Diminished Central Focus

The central focus of Ugly Betty should be Betty herself. Supporting cast should do just that—support Betty’s story. The show is not about Daniel Meade’s (Eric Mabius) exile from Mode, Wilhelmina Slater’s (Vanessa Williams) baby surrogate drama or Claire Meade’s (Judith Light) new magazine launch. These storylines are only of interest if they push Betty’s story forward. They should never pull focus away from Betty.

Betty is our heroine. She is the title character. The audience identifies her as the center of this story universe. Every plot line, dramatic twist or comedic situation should revolve around or reflect back on Betty. Each circumstance and situation should sharpen and clarify her essential dilemma and further illuminate her emotional journey. If a storyline does not do that it should be reframed or jettisoned as quickly as possible.

Instead, as complex story lines are developed they move the story away from Betty. The audience’s connection with her journey weakens and they begin to lose interest in the show. It doesn’t matter how outrageous, surprising, or interesting a storyline is, unless it reveals Betty’s journey more clearly, it is a diversion that dilutes the emotional focus of the show. The more the dilution, the faster the audience dwindles.

Missing the Mark

A show’s tone is always a question of balance. In the premiere, the balance strays too far off the mark. Too high a premium is placed on outrageous behavior and outlandish situations. When humor is based on situations, the situations have to continually get crazier to raise the stakes.

As the show becomes more flamboyant or more outlandish, the tone threatens to overshadow and overwhelm the show’s sincerity and heart. Humor that is generated by extreme circumstances or bizarre situations doesn’t dig deep. Settling for the cheap easy laugh can, over time, seem simply cartoonish.

It is Betty the audience cares most about. Her appealing warmth, generosity and authenticity are the reasons the audience tunes in week after week. They want to know her better. They are worried about her out there in the wide world. They are eager to see how it will all work out for her. Remember: If we aren’t worried about a character’s sanity, safety or soul we aren’t compelled to tune in.

The tone and style of the show is only useful if it makes Betty seem more “real” and makes her personal dilemmas feel more urgent and pressing. Betty needs to drive the show and not merely react to the outrageous goings-on. Betty seems adrift at Player Magazine and so am I as a member of the audience. (I don’t think I am alone in this feeling.)

Small Moments Make Big Comedy (or Drama)

The setting, the tone and all story elements in Ugly Betty should help to spotlight Betty’s internal conflict. Her conflict should be revealed in the small everyday decisions that demonstrate who she is and who she wants to be. The storylines should go to the core of what Betty’s essential struggle is with herself and with others.  The problems at issue for Betty are the classic quandaries in any Power of Love story (or any story about assimilation, romance or partnership).

.

These story questions are:

Who I am vs. Who you want me to be?

How much of myself should I change to be accepted or to get along with you?

How much should I expect you to change?

What happens if I grow and change too much?

What happens if I don’t grow and change enough?

Will others tolerate my transformation or reject me?

What will I sacrifice for love or friendship?

Will you still need (or love) me if you aren’t dependent on me?

How independent and self-sufficient should I be?

This transformational emotional struggle is why the audience tunes in. It is a story as old as time. It is the universal bedtime story about the country mouse and the city mouse. Once this process of change begins, things can never be as they were. You can’t un-ring the bell. You can’t go back again.

Once Betty moves out she cannot move back “home.” In a powerful symbolic way she leaves her family further behind. This should have been a long slow build up that comes at great personal cost. Planning her move, telling her family and executing her move offered tremendous opportunity for an entire season of drama, conflict and humor; but which was summarily dispatched in a single episode! A key emotional story process was short cut and pushed to the side by outrageous situations having little to do with Betty’s essential dilemmas of the heart.

Too little Family Conflict

When Betty leaves her working class neighborhood to enter the more glamorous world of New York City and her professional career, her family is proud of her. But they must also be keenly aware that she is leaving them behind in the most fundamental way. Betty must inevitably be changed by her experiences. Even in the most loving families this change causes feelings of inadequacy, loss, rejection, resentment and jealousy in those left behind.

Changes in Betty should trigger changes in her family. What happens if Hilda (Ana Ortiz) or her son Justin (Mark Indelicato) steps up and takes Betty’s place in the family? What if Betty is the last to know about some important family business or is left out of a key family decision? Will Betty feel those same feelings of inadequacy rejection, loss, resentment and jealousy her family is experiencing? Betty’s role in the family was always as a caregiver. What happens when the role passes to someone else—because she isn’t there to fill it? Who is Betty Suarez then?

It is a mistake to make the Suarez family Betty’s safe haven and constant cheerleader. It takes endless comedic possibilities off the table. Comedy comes from pain. (“If it doesn’t hurt it isn’t funny”). If Betty is beleaguered on all sides it makes her situation much more painful and much funnier. Comedy makes characters more vulnerable not less vulnerable. Betty is not at risk enough with her family. Her family is too one-dimensionally “nice.” Families can offer loving support and intense opposition (and sometimes both at the same time).

Acceptance comes much too easily for Betty. The Suarez family is more understanding, patient, tolerant and well adjusted than any family I’ve ever met. The audience’s own families are much more chaotic, difficult and dysfunctional. Their families are filled with real, painful and intense conflict. Great comedy always comes from great conflict.

Acceptance in real families comes hard and at a very high emotional price. People really have to struggle to accept things, people or situations they don’t understand, didn’t plan for or didn’t ask for in the first place. The more the Suarez family struggles with acceptance issues between all members of the family, the more painful, and the funnier the story will become.

A huge emotional opportunity is being missed. Outside of a few very brief tussles, no one has any serious issues with each other in the Suarez family. There are great potential battles to be fought in Queens. These are the battles in which the audience is most keenly interested because they involve Betty directly and because they reflect the audience’s own personal battles. Although there is no place we are more at peace than with our family, there is also no place we are more at war. In families, kindness and cruelty go hand-in-hand. That’s what makes us so vulnerable with the ones we love.

Lackluster Love Interests

In the premiere, Betty is back to a buddy-buddy relationship with Daniel without missing a beat. Didn’t he miss her while she was away? How do we see that? Didn’t he realize anything about her while she was gone? Didn’t she miss him? How do we see that? Where is their more intimate personal reunion? That emotional story is virtually non-existent in the premiere.

Betty needs to have some romantic longings for Daniel. This is central to the original concept of the show (as a telenovela). In the premiere (and up to this point) the potential romantic sparks are few to none. These feelings can and should be concealed very deeply but they must bubble somehow below the surface.

In contrast, Betty needs a strong love interest in Queens. All of her love interests have been lightweights played more for easy comedic effect. What would happen if Betty met and fell in love with real neighborhood guy, a wonderful salt of the earth kind of man cast in her father’s mold? How would a man’s man of this caliber threaten Daniel’s relationship with Betty?

Falling for a guy as strong and loving as her father could make for a heart-breakingly difficult choice for Betty. Such a man might represent a real threat to Betty’s professional aspirations. He could provide a strong argument for her to find less demanding work closer to home in Queens.

Would Betty give up a wonderful marriage, children and a comfy Queens home of her own for a career in New York City? Would she be able to say goodbye to Daniel? Would she struggle to try to have a foot in both worlds? What happens if there is a crisis with Daniel and a simultaneous crisis with a man who loves her as she wishes to be loved? Which way would Betty turn? What would that tells us about her journey?

These relationship choices could provide an endless source of conflict and comedy. Right now there are no strong, compelling and believable counter-forces pulling Betty away from New York City and back toward Queens. Betty’s newest possible love interest, her next-door neighbor, pulls her toward the world of the big city, not away from it.

Strong oppositional forces are what make stories compelling, interesting and emotional. There is not enough push-pull between Queens and New York City. Betty’s essential conflicts haven’t been sharpened; they’ve been severely diluted. Unless choices are really really hard, they aren’t interesting and they don’t feel urgent and imminent. Unless choices are hard, the audience doesn’t care.

Based on the premiere there’s a lot in Ugly Betty that needs turning around.

Apply These Lessons to Your Story

1. Find the big drama (and big comedy) in the smallest moments and the simple every day choices and decisions your character makes. Squeeze every ounce of emotion and conflict out of those crucial defining story situations. Don’t be in a hurry to resolve these conflicts. Let them play out slowly.

2. Develop all story situations and conflicts to illuminate, support and demonstrate what is really emotionally at stake for your main character. All plot points should keep coming back to the character’s essential Story Questions. Each Character Type explores one set of these crucial human questions. Each set is quite different and distinct.

3. Jettison anything that pulls the focus too far away from your main character. Use secondary characters to intensify the conflict for your main character or reflect back on that conflict. Supporting players should do just that—emotionally support and/or clarify (through opposition) the main character’s journey.

4. Use tone or style to illuminate the heart and emotional authenticity of the story. Keep tone and style in balance with the story. If there’s a question, always go for the heart.

5. Find most of your conflict in your character’s core relationships. Keep characters in constant conflict with those they love. That’s where the stakes are really high. No can hurt us or help us more than those we love.

6. Make sure your story has sufficient oppositional conflict. There must be a strong push-pull for your character at all times. Create two very strong forces attracting your character. Then, put your character squarely between them. Tear your character apart in the push-pull of these powerful magnetic forces.

7. Create the hardest possible choices for your character. Make sure there is a very high price for any such choice. Make those choices hurt—badly! Otherwise, the choice isn’t meaningful or important.

The Ugly Betty (Yo soy, Betty la Fea) telenovela has translated successfully around the world and the recent American version garnered Golden Globe, People’s Choice, and Writers Guild Awards for best new series as well as a best actress Golden Globe for America Ferrera.

What makes the Ugly Betty format so successful with audiences world-wide? How can the US show avoid the story problems and resulting audience downturn that bedeviled the equally popular Lost and Desperate Housewives in their second seasons? This month I’ll look at the challenges Ugly Betty faces going forward.

Ugly Betty (Yo soy, Betty la Fea) is about the two lives of Betty Suarez, a bright but beauty challenged college graduate. She lands a job with the ultra slick Mode Magazine in New York City but lives with her struggling Mexican-American family in Queens. Betty commutes between these two very different worlds.

The Danger: Repeating the Mistakes of Lost and Desperate Housewives

Lost and Desperate Housewives were also highly original shows on ABC that had acclaimed premiere seasons. In the second season neither show stayed true to the essential story elements that initially captivated viewers. Straying from their emotional cores defused the power of each show. As a result, each show lost viewers and dropped in the ratings in its second season.

Is Ugly Betty in danger of repeating that mistake as its first season draws to a close? What are the first signs of this potentially problematic trend?

According to Nielsen numbers, the pilot started the show off at a high of 16.09 million viewers. Ugly Betty then settled comfortably into the 13+ million to 14+ million viewer range. In the last four episodes viewers have slid generally downward, dipping to 10.80, to 10.50, and 9.5 million viewers respectively then up slightly to 9.6 million viewers.

Does this signal growing dissatisfaction as viewers tune out? Why might the audience be disengaging from the show? How can this be corrected?  Here is my analysis:

1. Identify the Classic Story Elements

Betty is portrayed as a Power of Love character in the series. (In my view of television and film there are Nine Character Types, each with their own internal values, worldviews and emotional journeys.) 

Stories driven by the Power of Love (and all love stories, romantic and otherwise) are about assimilation.

Immigration stories are also assimilation stories: whether it is a story of Algerian immigrants in France, Indian families in Britain, Mexican immigrants in the US, or rural workers migrating to city jobs in China. These stories start the same way all love stories start— the two parties can’t stand each other! They view each other with mutual dislike and suspicion.

There is a clash of cultures, attitudes and beliefs. Each party fears the other will somehow overwhelm or destroy their core identity. This is what is at issue with banning of Muslim headscarves in France, controversies about Spanish language usage in the US and economic turmoil in China.

Power of Love stories ask, as Ugly Betty asks: How much must I change, adjust or compromise to accommodate you (or to fit into your culture) before I totally lose myself? How much can I demand that you adjust, change or compromise to accommodate me, before you lose who you are?

In Ugly Betty our heroine enters the epitome of Anglo culture and its defining arbiter of beauty and success, Mode Magazine. She comes armed with her Mexican immigrant values of family, community, hard work and sacrifice. Two sets of cultures, attitudes and beliefs immediately are at war.

Over the course of an assimilation story (or a love story) the parties are continually forced together and, as they are compelled to deal with each other, they exchange gifts. Each has something the other lacks or offers something new or really useful to the mix.

In Ugly Betty, Mode Magazine offers Betty a gateway into the dominant Anglo culture and all the success, status, wealth and acceptance that assimilation brings (the American Dream). Betty brings honesty, authenticity, devotion to family and real care for others to a world that has lost much of its heart and soul.

2. Sharpen the Central Focus

The central focus of Ugly Betty should be Betty herself. Supporting cast should do just that—support Betty’s story. The show is not about Daniel Meade’s (Eric Mabius) struggle to accept his brother’s new identity, Daniel’s desire to hold onto his position at Mode Magazine or a murder mystery. These storylines are only of interest if they push Betty’s story forward.

Every member of the audience looks at the world and sees himself or herself at its center. That’s why even ensemble shows should have one individual who is at the center of the story’s emotional universe. (Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City or Ray Barone, played by Ray Romano, in Everybody Loves Raymond). That person should define the world and the emotional playing field for all the other characters.

Betty is our heroine. The audience identifies her as the center of this story universe. Every plot line, dramatic twist or comedic situation should revolve around or reflect back on Betty. Each circumstance and situation should sharpen and clarify her essential dilemma and further illuminate her emotional journey. If a storyline does not do that it should be reframed or jettisoned as quickly as possible.

The transgender story of Alexis Meade, (Alexander Spencer Meade) played by Elizabeth Penn Payne currently is a distraction. As this story line pulls emotional focus away from Betty, the audience’s connection with her journey weakens and they begin to lose interest in the show. It doesn’t matter how outrageous, surprising, or interesting this storyline is, unless it reveals Betty’s journey more clearly, it is a diversion that dilutes the emotional focus of the show.

3. Clarify the Core Story Questions

All story elements in Ugly Betty should help to spotlight Betty’s internal conflict. The problems at issue for Betty are the classic quandaries in any Power of Love story (or any story about assimilation, romance or partnership). These questions are:

Who I am vs. Who you want me to be?

How much of myself should I change to be accepted or to get along with you?

How much should I expect you to change?

What happens if I grow and change too much?

What happens if I don’t grow and change enough?

Will others tolerate my transformation or reject me?

What will I sacrifice for love or friendship?

Will you still need (or love) me if you aren’t dependent on me?

How independent and self-sufficient should I be?

Mode will change Betty and Betty will change the people at Mode. How much can each change before their core identities are lost? As Betty changes how does this create conflict within herself and within her family, who may not recognize, like, or want to accept the changed Betty?

This transformational struggle is why we tune in. It is a story as old as time. It is the universal bedtime story about the country mouse and the city mouse. Once this process of change begins, things can never be as they were. You can’t unring the bell. You can’t go back again.

4. Aim for the Heart

One of the best things about Ugly Betty is also potentially its greatest weakness. Mode’s glamorous setting and outrageous style is a fresh and funny counterpoint to Betty’s struggling family and her working class world in Queens. Her warm, genuine and caring character is wonderfully showcased against the cold, artificial and ultra-competitive world of Mode.

A show’s tone is always a question of balance. Right now it seems that the balance is straying too far off the mark. Too high a premium seems to be placed on outrageous behavior and outlandish situations. When humor is based on situations, the situations have to continually get crazier to keep raising the stakes.

As the show becomes more flamboyant and more camp the tone threatens to overshadow and overwhelm the show’s sincerity and heart. Humor that is generated by extreme circumstances or bizarre situations doesn’t dig deep. It settles for the easy laugh and, over time, can seem cartoonish.

It is Betty the audience cares most about. Her appealing warmth, generosity and authenticity are the reasons the audience tunes in week after week. They want to know her better and are eager to see how it will all work out for her.

The tone and style of the show is only useful if it makes Betty seem more “real” and makes her personal dilemmas feel more urgent. Betty needs to drive the show and not merely react to the outrageous goings-on.

5. Amp Up Family Conflict

The comedy in the show should come from true conflict between the characters.. A huge opportunity is being missed in the Suarez household. Outside of a few brief confrontations, no one has any serious issues with each other. There are great potential battles to be fought in Queens.

When Betty leaves her working class neighborhood and enters the glamorous world of her professional career, her family is proud of her. But they must also be keenly aware that she is leaving them behind in the most fundamental way. Betty will inevitably be changed by her experiences. Even in the most loving families this change causes feelings of inadequacy, loss, rejection, resentment and jealousy in those left behind.

Changes in Betty should trigger changes in her family. What happens if Hilda, played by Ana Ortiz, or her son Justin, played by Mark Indelicato, steps up and takes Betty’s place in the family? Betty will feel those same feelings of inadequacy rejection, loss, resentment and jealousy her family is experiencing. Betty’s role in the family was always as a caregiver. What happens when the role passes to someone else—because she isn’t there to fill it? Who is Betty Suarez then?

It is a mistake to make the Suarez family Betty’s safe haven. It takes endless comedic possibilities off the table. Comedy comes from pain. (“If it don’t hurt it ain’t funny”). If Betty is beleaguered on all sides it makes her situation much more painful and much funnier. Comedy makes characters more vulnerable. Betty is not at risk enough with her family.

In general, acceptance comes much too easily in this family. The Suarez family is more tolerant and well adjusted than any family I’ve ever met. The audience’s families are much more difficult and dysfunctional. Comedy comes from conflict.

Acceptance in real families comes hard and at a very high emotional price. People really have to struggle to accept things, people or situations they don’t understand, didn’t plan for or didn’t want in the first place. The more the Suarez family struggles with acceptance issues between all members of the family the more painful and the funnier the story will be.

6. Strengthen the Pull of Queens

Betty needs a strong love interest in Queens. She needs to meet a man who represents all the things she would miss if she leaves the neighborhood lifestyle behind. This love interest should be an appealing, warm-hearted and a hunky kind of guy. He should also be the kind of guy who would feel tremendously uncomfortable and completely out-of-place in her professional world.

Arthur, played by Kevin Sussman, had the discomfort factor but he wasn’t a strong enough pull on Betty’s affections. He was geeky, jealous and unfaithful. Choosing her career and losing Arthur was never a heart-breakingly difficult choice for Betty.

What would happen if Betty met and fell in love with another neighborhood guy, a wonderful salt of the earth kind of man cast in her father’s mold? Losing a guy like that could be a heart-breakingly difficult choice. Such a man could represent a real threat to Betty’s professional aspirations and could provide a strong argument to find less demanding work closer to home.

Would Betty give up a wonderful loving marriage, children and a comfy Queens home of her own for a career at Mode? Would she try to have both? What happens if there is a crisis with Daniel and a crisis with the man she loved?

These choices could provide an endless source of conflict and comedy. Right now there are no strong, compelling and believable counter-forces pulling Betty away from Mode and back toward Queens. Betty’s new possible love interest, Henry, played by Christopher Gorham, pulls Betty toward the world of Mode, not away from it.

7. Make it Specific

The show seems to define the Suarez family generically as Latino. Very little is made of the fact that the family is Mexican-American. There are rich comedic possibilities to be mined in fully exploring the foibles and follies of that very particular identity. Why bland their background out?

Why be generic when you can be specific? What makes Mexican Americans funny as opposed to what makes Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Colombians or Guatemalans funny? Why not exploit the rivalries, prejudices, reputations and stereotypes that exist between diverse Spanish speaking people? Great writing is about specificity. A great comedic opportunity is being missed here. Even better– It is one that is fresh to network television.

8. Shore Up the Audience

Ugly Betty is a wonderful show that can easily reverse any potential downturn. The show can gracefully sidestep the mistakes that rattled Lost and Desperate Housewives second season ratings. What Ugly Betty needs to do is to fully explore the show’s fundamental story questions, keep Betty front and center in any plot twist or story complication, make the tone secondary to the show’s heart and fully mine all the natural conflict on both sides of Betty’s world. Do that and the audience will keep coming back for more next season and beyond.

A very successful long-running Power of Love story was Everybody Loves Raymond. In that show, Ray also moved between two worlds. He was pulled between the world of his childhood family (and his mother’s demands and expectations) and the world of his own adult family (and his wife’s demands and expectations). Raymond was besieged on both sides for almost 10 years. The show was one of the most critically acclaimed sit-coms of its time.