beauty and the beast

[piranha]

i am curious. there seems to be a glut of television sitcoms in which very pretty women are married to unprepossessing (and that's putting it kindly) men. it's not all that uncommon in movies either, and now that i've started to watch anime i see some of it there as well.

but the reverse: ugly woman hooks up with hot (and nice) guy -- so uncommon that i can't think of an example off the top of my hat. and i don't mean "ugly" as jeaneane garofalo in the truth about cats and dogs; that's hollywood-ugly -- somebody who actually thinks JG ugly is flying blind. i'm talking the equivalent of those unprepossessing husbands, somebody commonly perceived as not the greatest catch in the looks department. and yes, i know "ugly" seems to ever so frequently translate to "fat", and i hate it. but since fat is commonly perceived as ugly, any tv show or movie or anime that portrays the ugly girl as fat counts for the purpose of this post.

so, does anyone have examples?

Comments

Off the top of my head.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Hairspray.*

n.
*Though to be fair, I haven't seen it since the movie came out.

[bethzebra.livejournal.com]

Are there ugly women on TV? In any capacity?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yes, but mostly in no-line extra or few-line supporting roles; they're maids, ancient aunts, school teachers, waitresses, washed-up whores, "trailer trash".

note that i always have to jump through an extra hoop because i don't view appearance the same way the mainstream does, so the following doesn't describe what i find ugly, but what i hear described as ugly by such people.

there are some ugly=fat women in leading roles: roseanne (married to a fat guy), camryn mannheim's character on the practice (was single when i watched the show), kathy kinney who plays mimi on the drew carey show (marries a bald, chunky guy). usually one has to look towards british shows to bring the ugly in skinnier form: i will recognize british soaps immediately even with the sound turned off because many more of the characters in them are regular people (=unattractive) when compared to their hyper-polished US counterparts.

i think the role of camryn mannheim is extraordinary because here we have a fat woman (who even with "a little bit of weight loss" wouldn't be conventionally attractive) who's neither a clown, nor an "ugly lesbian", nor a criminal, nor "white trash", but a competent lawyer.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

ISTR reading an article about Mannheim where she talked about her role on the show. She said that as written, the script where she was introduced had her character eating a doughnut in the very first shot, and she put her foot down and wouldn't do it. I applaud her for that. :)

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

mannheim rocks like a totally rocking thing. :)

have you heard of busu no hitomi ni koishiteru? it's jdorama (and there might be a manga?) that allegedly has an ugly girl (i presume that means "fat") who gets the goodlooking boy away from his gorgeous girlfriend because of her awesome personality. i've not seen it; somebody on journalfen mentioned it in passing.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't heard of it. Sounds like it's worth keeping an eye out for, though. :D

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Just found a fansub thread on this (http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32671). Maybe I'll have a look later.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh cool. tnx! maybe this is the show that will make me figure out how all of that works. :)

discussion thread. oh, man.

apparently the show is based on the real-life story of the writer/director.

[sabotabby]

I can't think of many—one of Chris Keller's ex-wives in Oz was extremely overweight, but she was an ex. But overall, "Hollywood-ugly" hits the nail on the head. TV shows and movies reflect dominant culture values, etc.—even where women are the primary audience, they cater to the male fantasy of the average or below-average looking guy hooking up with the stunning woman. If she's less than stunning, once he hooks up with her, she'll shed the glasses, fix her hair, and become stunning.

one correct opinion

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Women aren't interesting as characters. They are interesting as Women. Women, to be defined as such, are conventionally attractive. Women who are not conventionally attractive are Failures as Women. This includes fat or very large women, ill-groomed women, and old women (more Ex-Wowmen than Failures, them). Unless there is some reason for a leading female character to be presented as a Failure as a Woman, she will be conventionally (or Hollywood-conventionally) attractive.

I don't think its a male fantasy. I think its a cultural mindset. It's not absolute, but it is overwhelmingly prevalent in mainstream visual media.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Can't think of a one.

For that matter, I can't think of many movies that have featured "ugly" women at all, except as objects of comedy or scorn. And then at the end, of course, they lose weight/take off their eyeglasses/learn how to dress and are transformed ...

The message - well, one of the messages - appears to be that any man, no matter how plain, deserves and can get a conventionally attractive woman.

[firecat]

I haven't seen it personally, but I've seen some fat-acceptance folks argue that Shallow Hal qualifies.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since I saw it, but I don't recall the Shallow Hal guy being especially conventionally attractive. More like "average guy."

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, hal isn't exactly a heart throb either -- he's chubby himself, and does in general not have much to recommend him ("nice"? uh, no; he's an obnoxious lout.).

and oh, shallow hal -- [rant ON] i am so not buying that movie as fat-positive. after the spell by robbins, hal sees only the inner beauty of a woman? hell, no. he looks at an overweight woman and instead sees her as a thin, graceful, and ethereal. that's not inner beauty. that's outer beauty idealized to hollywood standards. *duh*. i realize inner beauty is much harder to capture, and since the farrelly brothers specialize in weirdo slapstick (with a side order of thoughtfulness), that wouldn't be a movie they could as easily make, if at all. but this is completely wrong.

and gwyneth paltrow in a fat suit in which she was visibly uncomfortable? how about hiring a fat actress and have her play rosemary with confidence? the only bits of the movie i enjoyed were rosemary's sarcasm.

the message the movie sends is not a message i care about: that fat people are trapped in their monstrously ugly bodies, that deep inside we all want to be sylphs, that we put up with superficial assholes like hal in order to feel loved, and maybe the most rotten of all, that loving somebody means not actually seeing them. imagine this movie with fat gwyneth being black instead. what message would that send, and would we compliment the farrelly brothers?

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I didn't really like the movie, but I didn't especially take that message away from it. I thought it was actually playing with/even criticizing the idea you started the post with--the Hollywood-cultural thing about drab guys deserving good-looking women. So, poor Hal is portrayed as afflicted with this acculturation, and thus suffering because in reality he's *not* getting good-looking women. Through that "inner beauty" magic (and the subsequent return to "reality") he learns a lesson, and one gets the impression (IIRC) that after this experience he'll be better able to interact with and enjoy the company of not-beautiful people.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I hate categorizing anyone as ugly. That said, Jane Kaczmarek on Malcolm in the Middle strikes me as wildly unattractive. If her eyes are capable of focusing in real life, then she deserves three Emmys for finding an affectation that revolts me so primally.

Also, in an only half-serious suggestion, how about Maris and Niles on Frasier? I didn't watch that show religiously, so I don't recall if she was supposedly ugly, although that is my recollection.

For that matter, there are very few shows in which the wife is the uglier in an emotional or spiritual way either. So many shows are about the dopey imp of a husband and his wife as the "straight man".

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

I hate categorizing anyone as ugly.

i just usually can't. unless somebody is hideously disfigured, i simply don't feel it. which is why i disclaimered that post so heavily; i am going by what i see mainstream opinion regard as ugly.

did we ever actually see maris? i don't think so; that was one of the gimmicks, wasn't it? from what i recall she was generally described as very skinny, except for one period where she "blimped up", after niles got married to mel. i don't think anything was ever said about her looks other than that cosmetic surgery seemed to be one of her hobbies. anyway, niles -- not exactly conventional hotness either. in fact that show seems to me to follow the stereotype with all of the male characters -- they're nothing to write home about, but they generally date good-looking women; not even a fat-but-cute one among them.

jane kaczmarek is quite attractive to me; such an interesting face. :) i think the eye thing is an affectation because i didn't notice it in non-MitM sightings. everyone on MitM mugs awfully much.
http://www.hissandpop.com/celebrities/k/janekaczmarek/photos/002.jpg
http://www.hissandpop.com/celebrities/k/janekaczmarek/photos/006.jpg

somebody whom so many in the mainstream adore, but who's extremely unattractive to me: pamela anderson. there is something about her face that looks incredibly mean to me, even when she smiles. and mean gets close to ugly. (i am not saying she is mean; i don't know anything about her.)

agree about the "doofus dad" phenomenon but i don't want to get into that right now.

[ebourland.livejournal.com]

No examples I can think of though I don't watch a lot of tv.

I think it's a real opportunity for a writer though. If a writer wrote a compelling story the protagonist of which were a nonglamorous female, then ... salut. I find the idea inspiring.

Hmm.

[beaq.livejournal.com]

One and a half seasons.

[djm4]

If I squint at it from the right angle, I can include the first three seasons of Jonathan Creek in this. I mean, I think Caroline Quentin is one of the sexiest women on TV, but she's not conventionally attractive, she's not stick-thin, and her character isn't particularly portrayed as glamorous.

Even if you don't think that Jonathan Creek qualifies as 'hot' - plenty of people fancy Alan Davies, but JC himself is portrayed as a bit of an oddball and not conventionally attractive - she has 'flings' with a couple of conventionally attractive people along the way.

I'm reaching a bit, I know. And I can't honestly see anyone describing Julia Sawalha (who took over for the fourth series) as ugly, even if she has put on a bit of weight since she played Linda Day.

[surelars.livejournal.com]

I guess that in movies (at least those I see) the "conventional pretty woman" + ordinary man is much more common than the other way around. At least that's how I understand it. I have great difficulty with this, though, as I don't grok conventional beauty. In particular when it comes to conventional female beauty.

I can observe the women Hollywood and the pop industry picks as stars, and that gives me some idea idea of what is considered "conventional female beauty". But it means nothing to me. There's hardly any of these women I'd consider attractive.

When I go see a Hollywood movie, most likely I'll find the male lead attractive and the female lead not at all. So, I'm inclined to name "Ocean's Eleven" for you survey, but I do understand that Julia Roberts for some reason is to be considered "pretty".

I guess I'm just not qualified for this kind of thing.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*heh*. yeah, julia roberts is considered quite the eye candy (and with her, i can actually see it; i like her pixie-ish face with that big mouth and unusual smile).

[huashan.livejournal.com]

Before I try, and fail, to come up with some examples like you're asking for I thought I'd relate some discussion we had on this in one of my anthro classes a thousand years ago. It started off as a discussion of "why does the hero/ine always seem to have incredible skills in a wide array of convenient areas in all these movies/stories?" And the answer is that nobody is interested in reading about the guy that gets trapped in a burning house with only a rubber band, a cake knife and a pack of gum and burns to death because he can't figure out how to save himself. Nobody wants to read about the prince who gives up his kingdom to marry the scullery maid who turns out to not be terribly intelligent, really is fairly unattractive because of malnutrition and mistreatment during her childhood and has no idea how to react in society.

I and several other people pointed out that in these statements "nobody" is inaccurate, but "most people" is unfortunately very accurate. The perception is that most women are less concerned with looks/fitness/etc in a mate than most men are, so there is less of a fantasy pull for the "ugly" woman to end up with the hot guy. Especially in the minds of the very predominantly male controlled media industry of tv/movie/etc producers. I actually had a great conversation about his with a bunch of gamers who were of the hyperintelligent but radically more socially ept variety which is so incredibly rare. We were trying to decide what kind of new gaming scenario we wanted to start and the idea was semi-jokingly put forward that we should play completely normal or slightly sub-normal people caught up in a gigantic epic such as the normal gaming world would encompass. We talked about it for a long time, and eventually decided not to do that because gaming is about fantasy and escapism. Campaigns aren't generally built around the people that can't defeat the Liche King and his army of undead. Movies aren't generally written about the person that fails to save the world from the evil genius villain. And when they are, it's for comedic effect.

Now some possible examples of what you're looking for:
"My Big Fat Greek Wedding" Yeah, it's the whole transformation movie idea thing, but the woman doesn't qualify as conventionally beautiful even at the end of the movie, and I think she portrayed her transformation very well as being more about self-confidence in doing what she wanted than in making herself more beautiful.

"Space Mutiny" With any luck you've never seen this movie, or have only seen the MST3K version of it. I don't think this satisfies your criteria, but at the end of the movie the "hunky" star ends up with the daughter of the captain. She is portrayed in the movie as being fabulously good looking, but in reality she's obviously much older than the male star and looks like she's been through a few too many "procedures". The MST3K version refers to her as "Gramma daughter". I really don't think this one counts.

Hmmm...damn, there is a story about a young magician adventurer who ends up with an immortal witch who is very ugly. I haven't read it in years so I'm blanking on the name or even the names of the characters or author. It may not count either, as he falls in love with her over a period of time during which he only ever sees her in her temporary enchanted beautiful state. It does somewhat qualify because he stays with her when he finds out what she really looks like and that she's like 400 years older than him. (In these books being a certainly level of powerful almost always means immortal. OH, and now I've remembered that it was a series of books, or at least a series of stories. Damn, this is going to drive me nuts until I remember it.)

Hmmm...it happens at least temporarily in a few anime, but almost always for comedic reasons. I'll try to remember some that are more long term and not just as jokes.

And yeah, "The Truth About Cats And Dogs" is a great example of the "ugly" person being radically more attractive than the "beautiful" person throughout the story/movie. Jeaneane is awesome.