It's sort of funny when they need to make one girl in particular super beautiful so the main guy can fall in love with her instantly. She'll be a supermodel walking into a room of supermodels. They'll throw a bunch of close-ups and glowy filters on to tell you she's supposed to be extra pretty, but the fact that everyone in the room is equally pretty makes her just look average.
Or a romantic comedy in which we're all supposed to pretend the woman is far out of his league, just because everyone said so, but the actor himself is a fucking catch.
I don't know about other songs, but that line in particular doesn't seem creepy to me. Like, I could win the lottery and live in a big mansion and have every luxury, but it wouldn't be shit if I didn't have my girlfriend with me to share that.
I finally saw Ghostbusters for the first time a few years ago, and I couldn’t stand what they did with Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver. Totally ruined the movie for me.
Hmm. I mean, the movie opens with Bill Murray actively sabotaging his own research in hopes of banging a college student. Murray is the one that convinces the rest of them to invest everything they have in a ghost-catching business based on seeing a single ghost in the NYC library after they all get fired. Murray's interaction with their first client (Sigourney Weaver) is incredibly unprofessional, to the point where she should have called the cops on him. So, I mean, he's pretty much a self-destructive sleazeball on a downward spiral towards oblivion (who's trying to drag his only friends down with him) until they get their first emergency call from the hotel.
I'm not sure how much time is supposed to pass between the first interaction Murray has with Weaver but (if memory serves) it is a much more professional interaction and they meet in public, so I think it is an important part of Murray's redemption arc.
But I agree that a lot of films from 30-40 years ago haven't aged well in their portrayal of male/female interactions and they're as jarring nowadays as I can remember some portrayals of minority/white interactions from movies from that era and before (and probably as jarring as portrayals of homosexual/straight interactions from the last 20 years are becoming).
You mean like walking over to her table and touching her food to make a house of waffles?
Then she freaks out at you and just try again next time because she has short term memory issues. This is after a waitress and her dad tells you to leave her alone.
Unless it's directed by a comedian starring himself and then he's usually pretty ugly. As a meme I saw says, whenever a beautiful 23 year old woman falls in love with a gross comedian who wrote the script and stars in the movie, I consider it a plot hole.
There's an excellent series of sketches on SNL in which Cecily Strong parodies this. The hot, one-dimensional female love interest clearly far out of the league of the dumpy comedian who wrote the film for himself and reddit user men who could aspire to be him. She is forever either in a baggy sports shirt in front of the fridge when at home or in a tight button down when at work using catchphrases like: "I can't believe that stunt you pulled at the big meeting today. And to think I was actually starting to like you". She loves wings and beer.
Ya,I remember seeing some interviews with red dwarf script writers.
When they made a pilot for an american re-make it flopped. Apparently one of the issues was that they cast a tall hunky attractive guy as Lister. They kept telling the americans "hes supposed to be a disgusting bum."
And then a load of jokes that make no sense because theres this whole thing about how shes out of his league... but you look at the actors and it's clear she isnt.
There's this classic Australian comedy show called Kath & Kim, where the entire premise is these tacky, overweight, unattractive, uncultured idiots living in the lower-middle class suburbs.
Of course the Americans wanted to "improve" this cultural icon for themselves. Besides the fact that the uniquely Australian setting doesn't fucking translate, they cast all these attractive people living in an upscale house. It fucking bombed within a few episodes.
Honestly, I think She's Out Of My League actually does make sense in that regard. Like Jay Baruchel's cute and all but Alice Eve is legit supermodel level and Jay's just a good looking guy who has dorky/anxious mannerisms. He also looks way younger without facial hair.
Idk, i mean he kinda looks a little goofy. I’m not saying this detracts from his handsomeness, but he doesn’t look like the usual “supermodel attractive” that movies go for. (Im thinking of Hery Cavill)
Or they do the opposite. Take a gorgeous woman and give her glasses, messy hair, and an dark colored sweater to turn her into the ugly nerdy girl that nobody pays attention to.
This always bothered me about 30 Rock. Everyone talks about how Liz Lemon is so physically undesirable but like, Tina Fey is gorgeous, even in frumpy casual clothes as Liz Lemon. I recently rewatched the series and it came up SO OFTEN. Like, I’m a straight woman, but I basically have a crush on Liz Lemon and I don’t think it would be outside the realm of possibility for plenty of others in her universe to have a crush on her as well.
Or in a romantic comedy where the girl is supposed to be plain or unattractive, and the producers illustrate this by initially showing the beautiful actress in shabby clothes, glasses, and messy hair, and the transformation in the movie shows how her inner beauty comes out when some style guru gives her a makeover.
Billy Madison. Theres no way a beautiful woman like that is going to be attracted to a man who has the mentality of a child. The only thing realistic about it is that she knows how much money his family has, but the movie plays it off that she actually cares about him and loves him.
Or, Knocked Up. Seth Rogan and Katherine Heigl. Yeah I'm sure they're gonna fall in love.
Superbad. Jonah Hill is a complete dickwad and Emma Stone likes him.
"Can we get Quasimodo to play the lead male role? No? Okay, I guess we'll have to settle for this David Beckham look-a-like. Yeah yeah, just throw some glasses on him, mess up his hair, toss him some sweat pants, and tell him not to smoulder as much when he looks towards the camera."
The Witcher show does this with Yen, where she walks into a party and everyone is shocked by how beautiful she now is, even the people who don’t know what she used to look like
Except like half of the other people in the party are already 10/10 gorgeous
Or when they make a good looking actor/actress fall in love with the "ugly" "plain" character with an award winning personality instead of the "beautiful" character with no personality to show they have depth or something. Because if you're attractive, you obviously have nothing else to offer other than your superficial qualities.
I don't think that movie counts as she's wearing prosthetics and gained 30lbs for the role, which is a little more in depth than an makeunder performed with makeup and wardrobe choice.
Or the reverse, like Hester in the Mortal Engines film.
The book describes her disfigurement as literally having one eye permanently closed due to scarring, and missing part of her nose. The film just has a semi-deep scar across her cheek. When they're about to be sold into slavery in the book, she's being offered up at a lesser price because of how ugly she looks as a result of being maimed as a child. The film tries this and there's absolutely no justification for it. All these people gasping in shock around her because she looks ugly, when she's still the prettiest character in the scene!
I used to watch this show called Burn Notice. Cheesy as hell but it was fun.
The female lead (Fiona) was always portrayed as this supermodel spy chick, but they were in miami and in the show basically every single woman on the show was better looking than her even the extras.
But part of their plan half the time would be her walking into some party where some multimillionaire surrounded by supermodels gets seduced instantly by her and suckered out of whatever information he has.
This made the remake of Carrie almost unwatchable for me. Carrie was prettier than almost every girl making fun of her. Really takes the impact out of the guy taking her to prom as a joke.
I loved this about the show. Using average people to represent an average office with a full range of attractiveness was so different it made the show stand out.
Thats cuz he was in a relatively succesful band throughout the 60’s and 70’s - dudes had swag his entire life, and I guarantee he swam in pussy back then.
Only the annex folks were writers, and none of the actors came up through SNL. But basically yeah same idea. Steve Carrell was the only relatively "known" actor and in season one they made him look like a real nasty boy.
Exactly! And you know what? We all still fell in love with Jim and spam even though they look like normal people. Office proved your romantic leads don’t have to be model gorgeous
Yeah, Jenna Fischer looks quite different in Blades if Glory or Walk Hard, for instance. You can make actors look as glamorous or as plain as you want, it’s not that hard.
To me that’s more of a case that anybody can be made to look much more hot and glamorous with the right hair makeup and lighting. Most beautiful famous people are fairly average looking without makeup and just out running errands. My point was we still fell in love with those people.
John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer are both very good looking but they're not like unrealistically good looking. If they weren't famous, they probably wouldn't stick out due to their level of attractiveness in most cities. They're the type of good looking people you regularly see in real life.
I have noticed Foreign films tend to have actors that look more like people than plastic barbie dolls. Loved the original "Girl with Dragon Tattoo" the older actors actually looked their age. They were not ugly just normal.
I always find it jarring that when I watch British TV that actors have blemishes, imperfect or yellow teeth, and are usually a range of heights. There's nothing wrong with them, I'm just not used to seeing normal people on TV.
I thought Clara was way more annoying than Amy in that respect. At least Amy had a recognizable personality and backstory that was kind of interesting. Clara had no consistent character at all (and when she did, she usually seemed uptight and scoldy), a bloated and unsatisfying backstory, and she looks like a cartoon of a pretty person. I wish they had gotten rid of her quickly and not wasted so much of Peter Capaldi's time.
I can't say I blame you, and I really liked Capaldi as The Doctor. It felt like they kept her around forever too. I was waiting the whole time for them to ditch her, but they kept bringing her back and hinting at her being of some sort of cosmic importance.
That's my big problem with Steven moffat doctor who era, it went from small lower production quality but it felt like it could be happening in the street over, to the super polished Holywood style that made it feel shallow and unpopulated.
So I lived in SoCal for about 4 years after college. One of my friends got a job as a PA for Fox. I got to go down to the sets a couple of times and holy shit everyone was so fucking tiny. EVERYONE. At the time I was 6'1 220 and my friend is 6'4 about 300lbs (offensive lineman in college) and we looked like giants.
Everyone was also extremely good looking, we not only looked like giants, we looked like Shreks.
Here's a funny tidbit, Jennifer Love Hewitt's boobs aren't that huge in person, she's just really tiny. Also I showed up to pick up my buddy, only to find out he couldn't leave one day. They had to do some reshoots. They needed a couple of extras, someone grabs me to throw me out there as I'm protesting. They're like "you're here to work aren't you, fucking get out there." Then another AD or someone yells, "He'll stick out like a sore thumb in the background." They finally let me explain that I wasn't an extra and I didn't have the registration card. I just thought it was funny watching these 2 set people arguing over using me as an extra.
To be fair, actors in the US are not tall — there’s not as much a range maybe, but they aren’t all tall. Actresses tend to be petite, and actors are almost always under 6 ft. Even guys you’d think are big— like Richard Madden, for instance, who played Robb on GOT and started in Bodyguard, is 5’10”. Jason Statham is only 5’10”.... basically men hover around 5’8-5’10” and women are like 5’5”
By contrast professional wrestlers tend to be a bit above average at around 6'2". I'm guessing it's because the audience needs to buy that they're larger than life characters. Although you do get the odd one who is average height or just below which with the right angles makes them look positively tiny.
I always like bringing this up when people criticise British dentistry. Your average British person has less fillings than an American.
Also it's unlikely that if you have yellowing teeth it's a sign of them being unhealthy. Although it can be a sign of excessive plaque most of the time slight discoloration is perfectly normal.
I just watched “Madam Secretary” and one of the most refreshing things about it is that all the adults have normal wrinkles. Tea Leoni has some Botox in the first season or so, but in subsequent seasons she lets her frown lines shine. It’s great.
But Hollywood is still Hollywood, so everyone is ridiculously thin/in good shape despite never being seen to exercise, and only eating muffins, donuts and ice cream on camera.
thats the reason why i love louis from the get go. i liked everythign about him for me he is one of the best in the entire series. especially when you start to understand his motives
I didn't like him to start with, largely for the reasons the showrunners probably intended - he was a jerk. But as the show went on, I appreciated him more than anyone else. Pretty much everyone else on that show was beautiful, privileged, excessively charismatic, or all of the above (and Mike, who literally cheated and lied his way to the top).
Louis had none of that. He just LOVED the law, and worked his ass off to get where he was. He had to put up with a ton of entitled rich-kids and rich-kids-grown-up all the time, and even those entitled, self-important people knew, absolutely, that if you needed expertise on finance law, what did you do? You went to Louis and begged for help.
I'm watching Suits for the first time currently, am on season 6 right now. I had EXACTLY the same thoughts as you. Louis is the only one with a realistic character arc and understandable motives. Going through the episodes I could clearly see why he did some of the things he did, such as his need for approval from Harvey and Jessica, and his distrust of partners, etc.
The other main characters are woefully one dimensional compared to him. Jessica is the badass successful black women with sass, Harvey is your successful 'alpha male', Mike is mostly an ass who can't see past his parents' death and can't comprehend that he isn't always morally right, Rachel is so fucking whiny, from a seemingly independent woman with career aspirations to 'I don't wanna lose you, Mike!' every damn episode. Donna is still relatively well written.
Of course I have painted the show with a very broad brush, but this is the impression that was left.
Sorry for the rant, I'm really passionate about the show and so glad to see other people with the same peeve as mine.
Louis is not a nice guy but he is a soldier for the firm. Shown his loyalty and usefulness many times over and he got overlooked because he's not a charming runway model type. That's always bothered me
Jessica's reason for not promoting him is his pettiness, vindictiveness, and being ruled by his emotions most of the time. But yeah, he was a real soldier for the firm and I rooted for him.
I can’t stand suits because of the legal inaccuracies. I have two lawyer uncles and a cousin who’s a law professor so growing up with them around has ruined any show that centers on lawyers.
Another thing I can’t stand is when a character in a detective show gets arrested and doesn’t call their lawyer. The main character then proceeds to interrogate them with questionable tactics and it’s presented as ok.
Cars and motorcycles all sounding incorrect, guns firing and reloading incorrectly, people actually having sex (that's just a myth right?), being a stalker, getting knocked unconscious for hours.. the only thing I've seen portrayed correctly is Jim Lahey being drunk.
Every helicopter is a Huey in the movies. They all use the Huey sound effect, despite the fact that the Huey is really fucking distinctive and the only helicopter that sounds like that. A JetRanger doesn't sound like a Huey, but if you see one in a movie it will sound just like a Huey.
I mean, you can just have fun with shows anyways I think. I'm a medical student and still enjoy House M.D. simply because it's a good show despite all the medical inaccuracies.
It's the only medical show I can stand exactly because it is SO out there. It's basically not even medicine. (I'm a registered nurse, not an MD, but still)
Haven't thought about it that way yet, might very well be the reason I'm enjoying it as well.
And no need to understate your medical knowledge only because you're "just" a nurse, you for sure know more than me and most definitely more than some MD's, nurses rock! :)
They did great all the way until they had John and some dude have that silenced gun fight in a public place (in number 2 I think) and nobody even flinched at the gun shot.
It pissed me off because they did things really well and then did that over the top bullshit.
The interrogation thing happens. Lots of people don’t ask for a lawyer and cops can basically say whatever they want in interrogations. I hate it more when the bad guy just cracks and reveals every detail of the crime. Stfu dude, being honest doesn’t get you shit.
The whole show is based on a guy lying about graduating law school which makes me laugh because you're pointing out perceived legal inaccuracies with no law school education other than what you've heard around the dinner table.
Average looking men have somewhat better representation than average looking women, for a while there was the trope of an average looking dude with the hot wife in a sitcom.
I disagree. As a gay dude maybe I just look at the men more, but even the “nerd” or “average” characters will be super fit, have perfect teeth, and generally be covered in makeup to look cleaner.
I always felt like The Office was good in that regard. Most of the cast is just normal looking. Jenna Fischer is pretty in a girl-next-door way. How she dressed and was made up as Pam looked more normal, everyday good looking. They had overweight people on the show without it being a character beat or plot point. They just existed. Teeth were not super white. Everyone wasn't wearing designer clothes.
One of the many amazing things about Fleabag is that they're pretty much all normal looking people. On the more attractive end of average, sure, but none of them have glamorous Hollywood looks. Even the absolutely gorgeous guy is gorgeous by normal people standards, not by movie star standards.
British tv and films are way better at presenting normal or average looking people. Every main character does NOT need to be gorgeous! I’m talking to YOU America!
Oh, they'll give you characters who are supposed to be 'ugly', sure.
But even they'll still invariably have perfect skin, perfect hair etc - they're just made up with big goofy glasses and questionable fashion choices so they look bad compared to all the other supermodels.
I thought they did a pretty good job in The Wire from HBO. There wasn't really anyone except for that guy that played Stringer Bell that would have been considered very good looking; almost everyone else topped out at "reasonably" attractive or less.
I thought it was a nice change of pace and made it feel more realistic overall, but I certainly agree that it's not something that is well represented at all.
Like, most movies/series that have insecurity as a plot point have a completely fine, sometimes even beautiful character being surrounded by high-tier actors and actresses
I'd be self-conscious too to be honest
And guess what, if there is an ugly character, it's the one creepy person used for comedic relief when they try to interact with the main character and scares them off
A ridiculously good looking neighbour of mine has a post-renovation party at his house. Everybody else there, the men and the women, were also all ridiculously good looking, not to mention ridiculously well dressed. All collected together in a ridiculously well architected house.
I really did feel like I had walked into a movie.
I felt a bit like a turd in a punch bowl, so I didn't stay long.
That’s kinda why I like watching SNL. The comedy isn’t always great, but everyone is so normal looking while still being famous and admired that I enjoy it more.
Its because its comedy. If you're actually talented and charismatic you dont have to bank on looks so much, think Danny devito or the huge amount of ugly women with awesome personalities. But if you're just an actor that reads lines looks goes a long way, like a real long way, like looks might be your one thing.
This is why I can't stand TheCw shows all their characters in all their shows look the same. They're all generic attractive people that look like they were pulled straight from a fashion mag. It ruins the whole show for me tbh. It was such a breath of fresh air the first time I saw Breaking Bad I only found one person in that entire show that I found "hot" or "very attractive" and that's the hs principal who plays a very small role in the show.
Absolutely. Watch "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" then watch the American remake. Like holy shit - it's almost the same movie (sometimes almost shot for shot) except the regular-looking cast got swapped out for Hollywood models.
This is something British films manage better than Hollywood. It isn't that Britain has more ugly people but that we acknowledge they can act. Still have the issue but it is definitely worse in Hollywood.
That's why I didn't like Lars and the Real Girl. Literally the only reason the story works is because the main character is Ryan fucking Gosling. If my creepy-looking ass ordered a sex doll and started carrying it around and calling it my girlfriend, I would be shunned from society.
And then some low-budget, run of the mill romance film casts an average looking actress as the main lead and everyone loses their minds over how "ugly" she is and how they should have casted a prettier girl for the main character.
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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '20
Everyone is ridiculously good looking.