Chinese reject newest TV star as too pretty for ugly role

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder - but so, it appears, is ugliness. A Chinese television company seemed to be striking a blow for the unsightly when it announced it would screen its own version of Ugly Betty.

But now "Ugly Wudi" faces a backlash, with newspapers and internet users complaining that the star of the show is too good-looking for the role.

The story of a smart, kind but defiantly unattractive girl struggling through an appearance-obsessed world has proven international appeal. The Colombian telenovela quickly spawned remakes in Russia, Germany, India and the United States.

Hunan Television's version goes on air next week. According to the Oriental Morning Post, one of the cast had said that Ugly Wudi was so "extremely ugly" he did not have the words to describe it.

But when the show's star appeared for her first press conference yesterday, "many thought she was in fact a beauty" behind her braces and frumpy clothes. The Information Times added indignantly: "Lin Wudi is much less ugly than Betty."

The actor - who is not revealing her name - claimed the show would speak for every unattractive woman, adding: "It is telling us you don't need to worry for [even] a girl that is ugly can do it."

But she undermined her own argument somewhat when she assured reporters that she looked worse on screen.

"I worried that in the show I was too ugly for you to accept, so I made up a little," she explained.

Her agent said she prepared for the role by putting on 10kg and sunbathing to get a tan. Pale skin is highly prized in China and skin whitening products are a huge industry.

Her efforts did not impress potential viewers. By early afternoon almost 3,300 comments on the show had been posted on the popular Baidu website - many suggesting that the actress was too attractive, and even arguing the programme should be renamed "Pretty Wudi".

"The actress should be fatter," said one disgruntled comment.

Another argued: "Isn't that hypocritical to use pretty women to play ugly girls?"

But a third comment said the choice merely reflected society, adding: "If they really use an ugly girl to play her, who will give her a chance?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media

EastEnders paedophile storyline draws 200 complaints

More than 200 complaints have been made about an EastEnders storyline in which a paedophile grooms his 15-year-old stepdaughter.

The BBC said it had been contacted by 177 people since the plot began on Friday night, with 163 of those making complaints, while media regulator Ofcom said it had received 41 complaints.

The ongoing storyline features the grooming of character Bianca Jackson's stepdaughter Whitney Dean by her stepfather Tony King, played by Chris Coghill.

In Friday's episode of the BBC1 soap, King arrived in Albert Square after spending a year in jail and was shown passionately kissing the underage girl, played by Shona McGarty.

Viewers saw him sneak into her bedroom while Bianca, played by Patsy Palmer, took a bath.

The pair kissed before falling onto the teenager's bed.

A peak audience of 8 million viewers watched the pre-watershed show.

The BBC defended the plot, saying it had been created in association with the NSPCC and was in accordance with its editorial policy.

A BBC spokesman said: "EastEnders has a rich heritage of tackling difficult social issues such as domestic violence and mental health.

"Our current storyline about child abuse is another such issue which had been created in association with the NSPCC and in accordance with BBC editorial policy."

At the end of August, the BBC received 156 complaints over scenes showing character Jase Dyer being attacked by a criminal gang and then lying dead in hospital.

At the time, the BBC said the violence was "implied rather than explicit" but admitted some viewers had found the scenes "uncomfortable".

Steve ballmer interview

Microsoft is about to roll out new versions of Windows and Office. On the day he unveiled a bold $500 million marketing campaign to challenge IBM in the corporate tech market, the affable and energetic Ballmer, 50, bounded into FORTUNE's offices to discuss what Sony's troubles mean for the Xbox 360 game system, the future of advertising and why his kids shun iPods.

You guys took some heat for Xbox shortages over Christmas, but now Sony says its PlayStation 3 will be delayed until November. Did you pop a cork?

We weren't unhappy. In every other generation, the first guy to ten million consoles became the No. 1 seller. Did we just get an even better opportunity to be the first guy to ten million? Yeah, of course we did.

What might get your stock moving?

We've got companies like AT&T and verzion driving this Internet television stuff very aggressively. If you can get a few bucks a month on a lot of televisions around the world, that's a pretty darn big opportunity. Same thing for Windows Mobile, where we're a negligible player but we have real market traction for the first time. The stuff we announced today has quite a nice growth profile. Frankly, our competition in the business market is more absent than not.

Did time warner made a mistake by selling a stake in AOL to Google instead of to you?

AOL is not making any investment in the future of the media and advertising business. [AOL would respectfully disagree.] It ceded that to Google. The argument I made is that some media company--as opposed to just Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo--should've cared enough to make the bet as well. Will anybody be selling newspaper ads in ten years? Or will they all get sold out of these online marketplaces? Even TV advertising. Who is better to deliver an ad, a computer that knows about you and can target you, or an ad sales guy who's walking around?

Do you have an iPod?

No, I do not. Nor do my children. My children--in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

Think you can you crack the iPod market?

It's going to take an innovative proposition. In five years are people really going to carry two devices? One device that is their communication device, one device that is music? There's going to be a lot of opportunities to get back in that game. We want to be in that game. Expect to see announcements from us in that area in the next 12 months.

Steve Ballmer

Steven A. Ballmer is Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft . Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 and was the first business manager hired by Bill Gates . Since then, Ballmer’s leadership and passion have become hallmarks of his tenure at the company.

During the past 20 years, Ballmer has headed several Microsoft divisions, including operations, operating systems development, and sales and support. In July 1998, he was promoted to President, a role that gave him day-to-day responsibility for running Microsoft. He was named CEO in January 2000, assuming full management responsibility for the company, which includes delivering on the company’s mission of enabling people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential.

Together with Gates and the company’s other business and technical leaders, Ballmer is focused on continuing Microsoft’s innovation and leadership across the company’s seven businesses. Microsoft’s goal is to provide an integrated platform to enable a seamless experience across a wide range of computing and non-PC devices and services.

Variously described as ebullient, focused, funny, passionate, sincere, hard-charging and dynamic, Ballmer has infused Microsoft with his own brand of energetic leadership, vision and spirit over the years.

Ballmer was born in March 1956, and grew up near Detroit, where his father worked as a manager at Ford Motor Co. He graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics. While in college, Ballmer managed the football team, worked on the Harvard Crimson newspaper as well as the university literary magazine, and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates. After college, he worked for two years at Procter & Gamble Co. as an assistant product manager and, before joining Microsoft, attended Stanford University Graduate School of Business.