Film Clips: Where are the Movies Where Unattractive Women Score Hot Guys?
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Columns, Film Clips
One of my favorite bloggers, Jim Emerson, gives Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeff Wells a virtual bitchslap for a recent post Wells made on his favorite topic: how he doesn't believe guys who look "normal" (i.e., to him, fat and ugly) really score with beautiful women. In a post last month titled "Eclipse of the Hunk," Wells starts off by talking about the opening of the Judd Apatow-produced Forgetting Sarah Marshall, then goes on to mourn the loss of sexy, buff leading men and the success of Judd Apatow's films, in which dorky guys like Seth Rogen and Jason Segel get the hot chicks. Emerson excerpts my favorite quote from Wells piece:
"Taking their place are guys who look like real guys, which means almost never slender or buffed, and frequently chunky, overweight or obese. And usually with roundish faces with half-hearted beard growth, hair on their backs, man-boobs with tit hairs, blemishes, and always horribly dressed -- open-collared plaid dress shirts, low-thread-count T-shirts with lame-ass slogans or promotions on the chest, long shorts and sandals (or flip-flops), monkey feet, unpedicured toenails."
This made me laugh out loud when I first read it, and it hasn't lost any of its hilarity since. Wells has an obsession about feet -- he's written before about actors who wear sandals or flip-flops (he apparently considers the wearing of flip-flops to be the footwear equivalent of wearning a burlap sack, and thinks that men's feet should always be covered up because they're ugly.) With the "unpedicured toenails" bit, I now have a mental picture of Wells ensconced in a massage chair in a West Hollywood nail salon, wearing a facial masque and getting his toenails done by a tiny Asian woman who clucks her tongue as she digs the gunk out from under his hideous man-nails and jokes to her co-workers about his calloused monkey feet.
One of the commenters on Emerson's piece noted that while, thanks largely to Apatow, we are seeing a proliferation of films where normal-looking, dorky guys get the girl, we aren't seeing the same from the other side of the spectrum. "
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
14-09-2008 @ 10:06PM
Thad Garrison said...
I'd also add that men can fairly easily find humor in seeing their fat, unkempt, uncaring stereotypes on screen. It's a form of machismo to not care about your appearance and many men take pride not only in doing it, but find it gratifying to see that aspect of themselves portrayed in movies and TV.
Women, on the other hand, are ruthless with one another. They're quick to judge and tear other women apart (especially women in the spotlight) for looking imperfect, fat, blemished, etc. Most the big women I know are far more concerned about whether other women think they are ugly than if men do. It's a demented cycle of oppression.
That's not to say that the fantasy image of women in movies isn't directly proportional to the men in control in Hollywood; but, without any girl-to-girl camaraderie and humor on the subject of appearances, there is little hope that "normal women" will ever be portrayed in a kind way.
Women in the media world especially skew towards having an absolutely heinous view of women. In their efforts to grab back power from the Boy's Club -- they often wind up stooping to sexist lows lower than most men would dare to prove that they've got balls. I've experiences sharky media women put describe as fat and ugly well known actresses whose bodies most women in America would kill for.
With no one on the side of real women - there is little impetus for Hollywood to make movies that portray them.
Of course with the growing tendency in metropolitan men towards effeminate obsession with looks and dress pouring into the suburbs and rest of the country -- it'll might well start becoming difficult for men to get away with playing the fat slob. The audience for it could very well begin to decrease and become a niche for low-brow humor much like that of fat women jokes.
34-09-2008 @ 10:07PM
Gustavo Brunetti said...
Well, the woman in My Big Fat Greek Wedding is no model, although I think she's attractive.
4I think you put far too much weight on the significance of the studio executive's own fantasies in what leads them to casting only fairly attractive women to incredibly attractive women. Not to say that they aren't important here, but that I don't think you once mentioned explicitly that what matters is the perceptions about what films will appeal to the broadest audiences and thus rake in the most money. Aside from that I think you get their reasoning mostly right, in that the perception seems to be: Girls will go see a movie with a less-than-hunky male lead if it appeals to them otherwise, while fewer guys will go to a movie if its female leads aren't gorgeous. That's the perception. I have no idea whether or not its true.
There's a second issue though, as well. Can audiences change? You seem to argue that they can't, that guys and girls won't go to see movies headlined by average looking women in the future, based on the fact that they haven't in the past. That's certainly a safe assumption, but there's no reason to think that audiences can't change. Isn't that what these average-guy gets hot-girl movies are anyway? A new trend that some (like Wells) still find implausible? Speculation aside, what evidence do you have that the same couldn't happen for girls?
64-09-2008 @ 10:27PM
Gustavo Brunetti said...
Here in Brazil there's an actress called Claudia Jimenez (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0422757/), who is not atractive at all according to standards, but in the Soap Operas (which are reeeeeeally bigger than movies here) she always scores the hottest guys on televison, and people buy it, probably because she is incredibly funny, talented and almost always plays a nice person (but in a really funny way). But the point is: people believe it and like it.
10to Corax:
I think the problem for Hairspray is that while it happens, it's played as camp in both versions. For something that's *not* raised to musical or John Waters level of exaggeration (and where the size of the actors and their hair are playing this up) I think it's much harder to find.
13Dogfight (1991). One of my favourite films back in high school. River Phoenix plays a soldier who is about to be shipped off to Vietnam, Lily Taylor, the 'dog,' plays the girl he ends up with. Lovely flick.
Fanshawe
http://www.cinemarealm.com
144-10-2008 @ 11:12AM
Cincinnati Mike said...
fanshawe...
Dogfight is a great little flick. But it is the exception that proves the rule, as they say. The story was about a contest to pick up the ugliest girl, right? So, I guess the entire premise is pretty solid. Unless it's a story like Dogfight, we generally don't see unattractive girls. Another example is Circle of Friends. Will rich, hunky Chris O'Donnell end up with poor, dumpy, overweight (at that time) Minnie Driver?
15I think Thad put it the way I would have. Actually everyone except 'abby' who is spamming a website has made great comments!
But don't forget John Water's Hairspray both the original, and the musical version, featured an average, heavy girl who gets the good looking guy.
16What about every film with Janeane Garofalo in it? The Truth About Cats & Dogs, The MatchMaker, Wet Hot American Summer... (okay, in that last one she only landed David Hyde Pierce, but you get my point). Garofalo is a normal-looking woman with a quirky personality that makes her a believable love interest.
And yes, there's Drew Barrymore, Nikki Blonsky, and several others who have realistic bodies and faces. But remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Just because you think Barrymore is not attractive doesn't mean that I will.
Personally, I'd like to see more films with women who don't look like Jessica Alba or Katherine Heigl. One vapid-looking blonde bombshell clone is pretty much like the next. Personality is much more sexy.
18I enjoy watching movies where the dorky/geeky guy gets the girl much more than the movies where the girl ends up with the smoking hot man. In real life the dorky guys are the humble ones-who treat their women like a godess, especially if they feel they've scored "the hot chick". Take a walk through the mall and try to find a very attractive man walking hand-in-hand with an unattractive(skinny or overweight) woman. You'll be looking for a long time. I think those dork-gets-the-girl movies hit a little closer to home and are easier the relate to than a movie where an unappealing female lands and totally hot hunk of man meat. I'm not say right or wrong either way-but it's just something I've notticed!
19There are certainly some exceptions to this, a few of which have been pointed out by others, but I think it boils down to the perception of Hollywood producers. Its similar to the discussion a few days back about how the 21 producers switched the leads from asian to white. The behavior is dictated by what those in control think will earn the most money. I don't believe the behavior was racist in 21's case, just like I don't see anything malicious in this. Whether the underlying cause of the belief is more sinister is something that could be explored, but on its surface the perception is that a movie with an unattractive female lead pursuing a very attractive male character would be unappealing to both sexes. As others have said, women can be roped in with the hook that the male lead is a nice guy worth pursuing for his inner characteristics whereas men can be sucked into a movie simply because the female lead is good looking. Its the way to draw in the greatest number of viewers, and hence the way to earn the largest amount of money.
20Leave it to the French....provided you find Gerard Depardieu attractive.
Too Beautiful For You
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098520/
"In real life you sometimes see very pretty women with average guys, but then you also see a fair number of really fat women with tall, good-looking guys. You ever see the latter couple in a movie?
No, me neither."
Well, good point, but in real life you also see a lot of chunky older couples schlepping around in matching madras shorts and socks-with-Birkenstocks, and Hollywood's not making a lot of films about them, either. Hollywood is largely controlled by men, and men like to see their fantasies on screen, period. And while there may be a lot of average-looking Jewish guys who were dorks in their teen years and who are now rich and married to hot women (or who wish they were), there probably aren't a lot of men greenlighting studio pics who are standing in line for their frothy beverage at Starbucks looking at the size-18 female ass in front of them and thinking, "Man, I wish I could get me some of that." Sorry, but that's the reality.
Fat women are generally portrayed as the butt of jokes (no pun intended) in Hollywood, period, from Norbit to Heckler (which ends with Jamie Kennedy burning a box full of bad reviews with a couple of very large women in bikinis -- and I can guarantee you no one in the audience was looking at those women and thinking, "Hey, I bet those women are really nice people, I'd sure like to get to know them!")
Hollywood revolves around male fantasies, from busty blonds in microshorts to CGI wet dreams of action figures coming to life, to war movies with many big guns and hopefully a lot of blood. Every now and again a chick flick comes down the pike that appeals to the women out there, but even in those, the range of "normal" beauty for the female characters is still skewed toward the "pretty" side of the scale.
I don't think we'll ever see a lot of films where an average-looking, overweight woman scores a hot guy, because, frankly, men -- and most women -- won't pay to see that. A lot of women, in their heart-of-hearts, like to think they'd rather be with a nice guy who treats them well and wants to be with them than a Greek God who thinks the world revolves around him, and so Apatow's films appeal both to women with nice-guy fantasies and guys with scoring-with-hot-chicks fantasies. A lot of men, in their heart-of-hearts, may love their wives, but they still look at their wives' post-childbirth bodies and wish like hell that she looked like Katherine Heigl or Jessica Alba. It's a double-standard, yes, but since when has Hollywood (or, hell, society in general) not been about the double-standard?
Be honest, folks. Let's engage in a little mental exercise here: say a big Hollywood studio actually made a film that revolved around a female character who weighed in at, say, 200 pounds. Heck, just for fun, let's pretend that 27 Dresses, which starred the very attractive Heigl, had starred instead some 200-pound, size-18 actress. For good measure, let's replace Heigl's size-zero, supermodel sister with a sister who's a beautiful plus-size model. Let's envision the film opening up with a scene of our heroine getting ready for work in the morning, showing plenty of closeups of her dimpled ass and thighs ala the Apatow films' tendency to show back hair and man boobs to establish the "normalcy" of the dorky male lead.
Now let's pretend that it was shot exactly like such a film with a "sexy" actress would be shot -- plenty of shots of her sassy ass swinging back and forth as she walked down the street in a short skirt and high heels, and of course, some obligatory shots from above of her ample cleavage. And that the plot was otherwise the same -- that an attractive male character pined after her, that men looked at her model sister with lust and that heads turned everywhere she went. And that both women end up with very sexy, rich guys who consider themselves lucky to be with such an intelligent, attractive woman. Would you buy that?
I'm not asking if such couples exist in real life, or if you yourself are in such a relationship. Just, would you buy that in a movie? I'm betting not. Hollywood studios often make very crappy movies (particularly in the action, comedy and horror genres) because people will shell out many millions of dollars in ticket sales to see them. They make movies with very beautiful female characters for the same reason -- because the likelihood that millions of dollars in ticket sales would result from a film in which an overweight, unattractive (I'm talking by Hollywood standards here, not "real people" standards) woman is the romantic lead is simply non-existant.
I guess the real question is: do societal standards dictate what we see out of Hollywood? Or does Hollywood by its male-fantasy-centric nature set that standard, forever relegating the fat or average-looking girls, if we see them at all, to the role of "funny sidekick," never to land a sexy, rich guy? Probably a little of both, but that's not likely to change, is it?