Attractive People Ruin Entertainment

I'll let you all in on a little secret, one that the entertainment industry apparently isn't aware of: Women exist who aren't drop-dead gorgeous. Not just older women -- even younger women can sometimes not be stunningly beautiful. And here's the crazy part: Sometimes these less-than-entirely-lust-inducing women can be interesting to watch! Sometimes they can have engaging stories!

The entertainment industry seems to understand that some non-gorgeous men can be interesting. I don't think anyone ever lusted after Jack Black or Dustin Hoffman. But even when a part clearly calls for a non-gorgeous young actress, Hollywood can't help itself. They hire some gorgeous woman and give her a weird haircut or something. It usually ruins the story.

And I'm not just talking about the teen movies where they take some beautiful young girl, put glasses on her and her hair in a bun, and then call her an ugly duckling. I'm talking about entertainment for grown-ups. They take source material in which it is crucial to a story for a female character to be plain-looking, and screw it up royally by casting someone gorgeous. It drives me nuts every time.

Here are some examples:

"The Tudors": I grant that "The Tudors" was basically just an R-rated soap opera for history buffs. It's the story of Henry VIII, he of the six wives, so it of course has lots of sex and death. But even allowing for the trashiness of it all, they could have and should have spared one specific part for an actress who isn't stunning.

Henry VIII's fourth wife was Anne of Cleves. He became engaged to Anne without ever seeing her in the flesh, on the basis of a flattering picture and the recommendation of his main advisor Thomas Cromwell. When Henry actually saw her, he was immediately turned off, and never was able to consummate the marriage. Soon after he finagled to have Anne legally declared his sister (true story) and got the marriage annulled. Anne survived, but Thomas Cromwell got beheaded.

I think you'll agree that it's pretty important that the actress who plays Anne of Cleves probably shouldn't be terribly good-looking. Not grotesque, but at least plain. Otherwise the whole plot doesn't make sense. Here's who "The Tudors" chose to play Anne of Cleves.

That's Joss Stone, who is beautiful. Henry VIII, in both reality and the TV show, had the libido of a 15-year-old boy popping Viagra and "reading" the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and he couldn't get something going for this woman? Joss Stone does a good job portraying an innocent, sweet girl confused and hurt by the situation she's thrown into -- but imagine how much more pathos it would have had if Anne of Cleves were actually played by a non-beautiful actress. It would have been absolutely heartbreaking. All of us non-gorgeous people would have felt our own insecurities and rejections well up within us in a surge of empathy. What a wasted opportunity.

"The Help": I didn't read much of "The Help," but it was pretty clear right away that Skeeter, the main character, is meant to strongly contrast with all the racist, vacuous white housewives that she has to socialize with. The other white women are dolled up to a T, existing for little reason besides pleasing their husbands, while Skeeter is tall, wiry and plain (hence the nickname Skeeter), with frizzy hair and a general indifference to her appearance. In scenes with the whole group, she should stick out like a sore thumb. The idea is that she has more going for her than just looks -- she has aspirations of being a writer, and doesn't care much about attracting men.

So OK, you need a tall, wiry and plain-looking actress, with frizzy hair and a general indifference to her appearance who can look completely out of place among to the superficial beauty of the other characters ...I know, Emma Stone!

Wait, what? This is "Skeeter"? There's even a scene in "The Help" where Emma Stone, as Skeeter, talks about how she's never been considered pretty, and some guy has to convince her that she is pretty to him, at least. Seriously? That person has never been considered pretty? You took the most gorgeous woman in the cast and made her the "homely" one.

Unlike with "The Tudors," this casting choice doesn't completely undercut the story. There are enough other qualities to Skeeter, like her intelligence and her compassion for the African-American maids, that make her stand out among the other white women. But, come on! Would it have been so hard to cast someone who actually looks the part? Every other group in a society gets to have a champion -- I think us goofy-looking people deserve one too. Skeeter could have been it, but they blew it.

"Little Children": There are two main female characters in the suburban neighborhood of "Little Children," a book by Tom Perotta. Kathy Adamson is a beautiful, confident documentary filmmaker with a handsome, ex-quarterback husband and the kind of generally charmed, easy life that us goofy-looking people assume all attractive people get as a birthright. Sarah Pierce is the opposite: a mousy, unkempt woman with a dorky Internet-porn-obsessed husband and a whole lot of jealousy for Kathy Adamson.

In the movie, the perfectly perfect in every way Kathy Adamson is played by Jennifer Connelly. OK, that makes sense. The mousy, unkempt woman who is terribly jealous of the perfectly perfect Kathy Adamson is of course played by ... this person.

Kate Goddamn Winslet. No, not some other Kate Winslet you've never heard of who is not one of the most stunningly attractive people in the history of the world. THE Kate Winslet. The Kate Winslet who launched a million puberties by appearing topless in "Titanic."

Kate Winslet of course tries her best to play a unattractive suburban housewife, but it doesn't really work because she still looks like Kate Winslet. In one scene, she spies on Jennifer Connelly strutting around looking stunning and Kate tries her best to look desperate and jealous and sad and ugly but SHE'S KATE GODDAMN WINSLET. It completely wrecks the believability of the character, making her seem delusional rather than relatable.

I've only seen one movie that actually got this right. "Vanya on 42nd Street" is basically just a filmed stage performance of Chekov's play "Uncle Vanya." In it, several men compete for the affections of one sad beauty, Yelena, played by Julianne Moore, who is cooped up in a remote, stiflingly dull manor house in the cold, dark Russian countryside. Julianne Moore is well-cast -- I'm not talking about her.

The old, ugly, erudite Uncle Vanya is one of the competitors for Yelena, and spends a lot of time rapturing eloquently about how her beauty must be freed from the stultifying cage of the manor house. Vanya's fails spectacularly to woo Yelena, and he is left in his misery and humiliation to live out the rest of his days in the sterile stillness of the house.

The movie concludes with Vanya wallowing his self-hatred with Sonya, Vanya's niece. Sonya is a sweet girl who is always ignored because she isn't beautiful. In "Vanya on 42nd Street," she concludes the movie with a heartbreaking speech to Vanya:

VANYA. [To SONIA, stroking her hair] Oh, my child, I am miserable; if you only knew how miserable I am!

SONIA. What can we do? We must live our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we
shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest, both now and when we are old; and when our last hour comes we shall meet it humbly, and there,
beyond the grave, we shall say that we have suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on us. Ah, then dear, dear Uncle, we shall see that bright and beautiful life; we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender smile--and--we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith. [SONIA kneels down before her uncle and lays her head on his hands. She speaks in a weary voice] We shall rest. [TELEGIN plays softly on the guitar] We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see all evil and all our pain sink away in the great compassion that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and tender and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith. [She wipes away her tears] My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying! [Weeping] You have never known what happiness was, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest. [She embraces him] We shall rest. [The WATCHMAN'S rattle is heard in the garden; TELEGIN plays softly; MME. VOITSKAYA writes something on the margin of her pamphlet; MARINA knits her stocking] We shall rest.

And what actress commiserated with Vanya's pain by delivering this heartbreaking elegy to the misery of the ordinary, unloved and passed-over? What actress beautifully distilled the quiet resignation inherent in plodding through life and waiting patiently for the sweet release of death? Here's the actress.

Kidding, of course. It was Brooke Smith, and she did it perfectly. She's far from ugly. But she's not a glamour queen. She's believable as someone that guys would not necessarily look at twice, especially when Julianne Moore is in the room.

I guess I get upset about this because I really think there is a lot of great emotional depth to be mined in the stories of people who aren't gorgeous. I have nothing against gorgeous people per se, and I like looking at them as much as the next guy. But I feel like their world and experiences have been mined to death. What about the struggles and feelings that are unique to us ugly people? Where are our depictions in Hollywood? We do outnumber to beautiful people, you realize. We're the silent majority. Maybe someday we'll decide to take over. Then you'll all be sorry! (And that just made me the villain. Which I guess us ugly types will always have. Sigh.)