Angela Natividad's Live & Uncensored!

16 July 2009

Equipped with Diet Coke and TNT, Ugly Betty Makes a Mean-Ass Doll.


I know Legs is all about that left-of-center puppet hype, but in the case of these Ugly Betty vignettes for Diet Coke, you gotta wonder: did it watch the show even once?

15 mini-spots depict a girl ("Eleanor") wreaking explosive havoc in a high-fashion boutique, which is actually pretty close to the Ugly Betty premise, but it's all done out of a sense of tinny puppet malice; less because she's chunky, awkward and constantly courting apology with sad little eyes.

I can't, for example, imagine Ugly Betty blowing a hole through a hat just to prove to a chic shop-keeper that it is, in fact, a scarf. She'd more like grovel and call her boss, who'd rescue her by effecting his indiscriminate libido.

Created in tandem with Mother London and marionette-makers Puppet Heap, the spots are currently running in the UK, which I guess suits because British humour's off the chains anyway. I'm posting three, but you can see all 15 here if you like.

"Paint":




"Skirt":




"Scarf":




From Legs: "Our inspiration was Bjork meets Rambo with ultra-glam couture accessories." An apt description for this series, and a lesson on managing retail egos: if I came into Hermès toting explosives and spraypaint, I'd probably get faster help. Or, well, a nice set of conjoined silver wristlets.

2 comments:

mo said...

what is TNT stand for

Angela Natividad said...

Trinitrotoluene -- explosives!