Beautiful All Along - Television Tropes & Idioms

Ugly duckling loses the glasses, takes down her hair, and walks down the stairs as a swan. Pretty much the plot of the movie She's All That.

Another version of this would be "Miss Jones Syndrome", where a dowdy, bespectacled woman switches to contacts, shakes loose her hair and is told by the unrequited object of her affections, "Why, Miss Jones, you are beautiful." (A variant on this can be heard in Thomas Dolby's song "She Blinded Me With Science": "Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto, you're beautiful!")

This is mainly possible because most of the "ugly" women on TV are beautiful actresses in bad clothes, though it also has something to do with narrow standards of beauty in movies and TV.

Starts as a nice little moral about how looks aren't everything, but saves the hero from actually having to go out with an ugly girl.

Opposed by Nerds Are Sexy. See She Is All Grown Up for the related prettification of a childhood friend. Contrast Just The Way You Are, Unnecessary Makeover.

Examples

Anime

In the anime Love Hina, Narusegawa Naru goes from looking like a total nerd to being beautiful by removing her Nerd Glasses and taking her hair out of massive braids. Then again, her "ugly" state is a deliberate act intended to drive off unwelcome male attention.
Likewise, in Strawberries One Hundred Percent, Toujou Aya becomes better looking by letting her bangs down, and beautiful by taking off her glasses and unbraiding her hair.
A subtle subversion is Chisame Hasegawa of Mahou Sensei Negima. In her daily school life she is a bespectacled computer geek, allegedly with bad skin. But at home she takes off her glasses, combs out her hair, and takes digital pictures of herself in costumes, which she then photoshops to clear up her skin and increase her bustline — and becomes the virtual idol "Chiu" on her website. Of course, her teacher Negi insists that she's cute enough as-is, but he's ten, what does he know?
Justified in the manga Beauty Pop, as main character Kiri has the talent to make anyone look beautiful. Partially subverted in that she doesn't care about looking good herself.
In Seto No Hanayome this trope is played in the classic fashion. Iinchou (the Class Representative) takes off her glasses, lets her hair down, and the object of her affections (who doesn't recognize her) almost immediately bumps into her, and thinks about how cute she is.
In the manga The Wallflower, Sunako, who shuns light and all forms of beauty, abruptly transforms from Super Deformed creature into Tall Dark And Bishoujo when her friends are threatened or she has a brief bout of self-confidence. Partially subverted in that this change is not bought about by a makeover, but by the character getting in touch with her inner beauty, and that the change is not permanent — Sunako reverts back to Super Deformed once the threat/epiphany has passed.
- Subverted in the very first chapter, when the boys see Sunako's face for the first time: she's covered in flour and appears flawless, but brushing the flour off reveals split ends and bad skin.
Subverted in Idaten Jump: a handsome, brilliant fighter deliberately hides his good traits and pose as a complete nerd to protect his secret identity from his enemies.
The Lamune & 40 series makes this into a Running Gag; when Meganekko Cocoa removes her glasses for any reason, everyone in the immediate area has this trope hit them hard — and she just says "What?" as she puts them back on.
In Code Geass, The Scrappy Nina Einstein, who looked extremely dorky and nerdy in the first season, returns in the second season with an updated look, that she looked quite beautiful. However, the rule 'inside beauty' still plays hard here, and as she still held her Scrappy qualities until almost the end of the series, people think her makeover does not help make her more beautiful at all.
Skewed a bit in Ouran High School Host Club: when Haruhi's Nerd Glasses come off, the members of the titular club are startled to realize that she's really quite attractive — but (aside from The Chessmaster) they all still think she's a boy.
One of Akane's pet peeves in Ranma 1/2 is that, although female Ranma looks very ordinary in the standard, unisex Chinese uniform (which is tailored for Ranma's male form anyway,) "she" is actually a beautiful woman otherwise. (Not to mention Ranma's apparently unconscious ability to do both sexpot and Moe Moe at will...)
- Not surprisingly, Ranma's mother, Nodoka, appears as an attractive, but nondescript woman in a kimono most of the time. When she lets her hair down, she goes from "pretty" to Hot Shounen Mom in two seconds flat.
- Near the end of the series there is a Beach Episode where (allegedly) unglamorous homebody Kasumi appears wearing the second-tiniest bikini in the entire episode (only raving loony Kodachi wears a smaller one), and accidentally wins a beauty contest (in which all the other girls have entered, and for which she is acting as a "card girl") when the (mostly male) audience decide they like her best.
The hentai manga Were-Slut combines this trope with Clark Kenting (and, perhaps, a more subtle form of lycanthropy). After main character Kimiko swallows the Beauty Stone, she becomes so beautiful that she gets flak from her teachers about wearing make-up and has to hide her gorgeous looks behind her usual nerd-glasses. This also keeps people from realizing that she's the Were-Slut, a side-effect of the expired Beauty Stone that... well, it's hentai, so it should be obvious by now. Also subverted by the fact that the boy she took the Beauty Stone to seduce was already in love her and she only needed to have more confidence in herself (or just be blindly in heat) to make him her boyfriend.
In Glass Mask, Maya, who is usually described as "plain-looking", is cast as a beautiful princess opposite the beautiful Ayumi. Everyone thinks it's a complete miscast, and are extremely surprised by Maya's first appearance on stage. It only lasts as long as the stage makeup does and weirds out her friends.
Nodame from Nodame Cantabile is actually a very attractive lady when she washes her hair and doesn't dress in mold-afflicted dirty clothes—and also refrains from shouting at the top of her lungs all the time or making silly faces.
Torako from Hyakko may not be really ugly, but her tomboyish demeanor usually lets her be outshined by girls like Ayumi—until she decides to get loose while posing for some photos.

Comic Books

Subverted in the manga Blade Of The Immortal where Rin (who is attractive, just too young) takes down her hair and tries to talk seductively to Manji in order to prove that she can be mature and lady-like. Manji simply bursts out laughing at her and mocks the trope itself.
When Ellen Dolan is first introduced in The Spirit, she's a dowdy college girl with, yes, hair up, and glasses. And she has a geeky fiance. By the end of the story, the Spirit lets her hair down and removes her glasses... and then steals a kiss from the lovely girl. Needless to say, she dumps the fiance soon after.
- In the upcoming movie by Frank Miller, Ellen starts out beautiful.
Runaways doesn't quite do this narrative-wise, but it's suggested by Alex's initial description of Nico and his reaction after seeing her for the first time in a year, combined with a flashback or two later on ("Have you ever thought about getting contacts, Nico?"). Also one of the few instances that combine it with a major change in aesthetic.
There's a bizarre example in Alpha Flight, with Jeanne-Marie Beaubier and her alter-ego Aurora. Aurora wears her hair loose, and no glasses; Jeanne-Marie has a tight bun and "glasses you barely need for reading" (as her brother put it). While Jeanne-Marie is hardly ugly, she looks much more strict and severe than free-spirited Aurora. It reverses the trope, in that her (long lost twin) brother first saw her as Aurora, then was shocked to see her do up her hair and put on glasses on purpose to look less attractive. This is no Clark Kenting, either; she has multiple personality disorder, so this trope works to draw the line between two different people.
However, it is Clark Kenting with Supergirl, who in her "Kara Kent" identity wears a wig and glasses.

Film

The movie that arguably originated this trope, Now, Voyager (1942), also served to subvert it in anticipation. Bette Davis plays an overweight, dowdy, bespectacled, poorly dressed woman who's also painfully shy, unsocialized, maladjusted, and bullied by her widowed mother. When she loses weight, takes off her glasses, and buys fashionable clothes... she's still shy, unsocialized, maladjusted, and bullied by her mother.
This cliche is so old, it was subverted in 1962's That Touch of Mink, starring Cary Grant. Gig Young tells a plain looking secretary to take off her glasses and let her hair down, and is disappointed to get the same plain woman. "Gee, it always works in the movies!"
Used in the rival bookstore scene of The Big Sleep (1946), where Marlowe "transforms" the lady bookseller.
Inverted in, of all things, How To Marry A Millionaire. Poor Marilyn Monroe is all but blind without her glasses, but never wears them because she's afraid of men not paying liking her. When she finally meets her true love, he puts her glasses on and tells her that she's beautiful.
Central to the plot of the 1989 Tony Danza film She's Out Of Control, in which an overprotective father discovers his 15-year-old daughter has undergone this kind of transformation while he was away on a business trip, and can't cope with its results and side-effects.
Blade Runner used this trope to good effect; when the replicant Rachel took down her hair (admittedly, she wasn't wearing glasses, as she was an android with perfect vision) she revealed herself to be beautiful and, in keeping with the theme of the film, more human.
Miss Congeniality 2 uses this in the epilogue with Sandra Bullock doing this to a young student.
- Of course it's also the driving plot point of the original Miss Congeniality, when Sandra Bullock has it done to her.
A brilliant parody of this trope is used in the Lethal Weapon spoof Loaded Weapon 1. A plain, dowdy woman takes off her glasses, bends over and shakes out her hair, and when she looks back up, she's a completely different actress — supermodel Kathy Ireland, in fact.
Parodied in Not Another Teen Movie. The main character, Jamie, a "rebellious" artist who is seen as ugly by all the other characters, gets a makeover by a popular girl. Before she begins, the popular girl warns Jamie, "this may seem a bit crazy..." She then proceeds to take off her glasses and pull down her hair. Suddenly, everyone acknowledges her beauty, and she even gets her own slow-walk down a stairway shot, complete with music.
- Also parodied before that when she's nominated "hardest to make into the prom queen" because she has "glasses, a pony tail and paint-covered overalls". (Candidates stated as "easier" to make over include an albino folksinger, twins joined at the head, etc...)
The movie Shaolin Soccer subverts this not once but twice. The heroine, originally a rather ugly girl with terrible skin, gets a makeover in the hopes of attracting the hero, but the result is almost as bad; she ends up with streetwalker-thick makeup, '80s big hair and shoulder pads. Eventually she goes through a second transformation where she gives up on the makeup, etc., and shaves her head bald — and looks better than ever. (One wonders what happened to the bad skin.)
- This is rather common in Stephen Chow movies, in that almost all of his love interests have either physical flaws, or are characteristically flawed. One of the most memorable moments in Chow's movies before he became vastly famous was the ending scene of The God of Cookery, where the comically homely female street chef got an extreme makeover after he alleged death. The actress playing the role, however, is a famous Chinese pop star in real life, so her final appearance in the movie actually had her to do away with her faux ugly makeup.
  - Really? I can't be the only one who thought her head looked HUGE when bald.
In The Princess Diaries, Mia is seen as a dowdy and generally unremarkable person until Paolo (no, not that Paolo!) gives her a makeover, at which point it's revealed that she's actually quite cute. (In a minor twist, though, the other characters still don't pay her any real respect, even after they find out that she's the princess of Genovia.)
Fran in Strictly Ballroom goes through a similar transformation, although Shirley has been on at her to treat her skin with product for the first half of the film.
Although she was never supposed to be "ugly" (just plain) the character of Jamie Sullivan in A Walk to Remember has a Beautiful All Along moment during the scene in which she performs in the school play; as she takes off a black cape she is revealed in a blue silk dress, along with full hair and make-up for the first time.
The moment Ally Sheedy gets ruined in The Breakfast Club.
The scene in Superman II where Clark Kent is in Lois's apartment with her (off-screen) getting ready for their date. He is debating whether to reveal to her that he is Superman, and the actor straightens his posture, removes his glasses (ok, he doesn't let down his hair, it isn't a perfect example of this trope), does something to his expression, and becomes the extremely attractive Superman. Lois (still off-screen) says something and he changes his mind, transforming instantly back into the nerdy and relatively unattractive Clark. An excellent piece of acting by Christopher Reeve.
- In the original comics, Clark Kent was so ugly, and Superman so beautiful, that Lois hated Kent and loved Superman.

Literature

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Hermione straightens her hair for the Yule Ball.
- That, and she got her buck teeth magically fixed earlier in the book.
Neil Gaiman's short story The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch plays with this: "Miss Finch" is not the title character's real name, but the narrator calls her that because,
"... it's what I thought when I first saw her... Like in one of those movies. You know. When they take off their glasses and put down their hair. 'Why, Miss Finch. You're beautiful.' "
- Since this is a Gaiman story, the circumstances under which she takes off her glasses and puts down her hair turn out to be bizarre, surreal, and strangely disturbing.
In book three of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, when Nathaniel first sees Kitty's aura as Bartimaeus sees it, he exclaims, "You're beautiful!" to which she replies sarcastically, "Only just now?"
In The Last Unicorn, near the end of the book, Molly Grue puts her hair down, and "she was more beautiful than the Lady Amalthea". This doesn't happen in The Movie.

Live Action TV

An episode of MacGyver ("Twice Stung") references the cliché — for his next trick, Mac needs a woman's glasses, her hairpins and the top three buttons of her shirt (upper cleavage level). She complies and it turns out to be part of the con that they're pulling.
An early episode of Charles In Charge ("A Date With Enid", broadcast 12/05/84) featured some play with this trope. Enid, a classic early-80s girl nerd with ugly glasses and hair up in an awful style, is Douglas' first crush. She expresses a desire to be more attractive to him. Citing the old "take off glasses and shake out hair, voila she's beautiful" cliche, Enid fears that it won't be that easy for her. They spend the entire episode trying things to prettify her that fail horribly, only to discover at the end all she had to do was... take off her glasses and shake out her hair. Of course, the twist is that Douglas now thinks they "ruined" her...
A parody of this trope was done on the first season episode of Arrested Development, "Visiting Ours". G.O.B. has to seduce his father's secretary, and in the process he tells her to take off her glasses and let down her hair, revealing her to be cross-eyed with bad, poofy hair.
OK, keep the hair, back on the glasses.
- What makes this a more thorough subversion than usual is the fact that with her glasses and done up hair, she is reasonably attractive, but without them she becomes rather unnerving looking.
An episode of The Addams Family had something similar to this with Pugsley's teacher.
The Cosby Show had a notable inversion in the episode where Theo's teacher (Brazilian superstar Sonia Braga) came to dinner at the Huxtables' home. Prior to her appearance onscreen Theo had been describing her in unflattering terms, but when she finally arrives she is (to his shock and surprise) stunning. She stays stunning until she has to be "Teacher" again with his parents, at which point she casually puts her long hair up into a bun and puts on heavy glasses. She doesn't stop being beautiful, but the transformation is still impressive.
- This plot development is stolen from the Spider-Man comics. Originally, Peter didn't know how Mary-Jane looked like, and assumed that she was hideous because of how Aunt May described her. Once she finally meets her, he is stunned by her beauty.
Lisa Zemo of Neds Declassified School Survival Guide, former epitome of the image of the Nerd with no fashion sense, big glasses, and chronic nasal problems, became "hot" when she returned after a season break with "a new haircut, new clothes, new contacts, and new allergy medication."
Parodied in an episode of Seans Show; "Tie your hair up. Now, put on these glasses. My God, you're beautiful!"
On Gilligan's Island, a homely girl shows up on the island... and when given a makeover, looks exactly like Ginger Grant.
Subversion in an episode of Midsomer Murders: A character, after killing off her love rivals, takes off her glasses, shakes down her hair, and goes looking for the object of her affection. He's creeped out, and when he learns what she's done, horrified.
This trope happens just around mid-run of Soap Opera Yo soy Betty la Fea, where the titular protagonist, who has been considered ugly since birth, embraces a makeover. Interesting because the makeover is treated more as a metaphor of her newly gained maturity (and she resists at some stages), because not everybody thinks she looks prettier now, and because it happens by slow steps: first she gets a new hairdo; then she trades her ugly, horn-rimmed glasses for a pair of cute, modern, minimalist glasses; then she gets rid of her bad-fitting clothes and gets more fashionable ones; and in the last chapter of the soap she finally gets rid of her orthodontics treatment and shows the results.
- Notably averted (dream sequences aside) in the US version's Ugly Betty since she dosen't seem to have many hang-ups about her body and her odd fashion sense is an expression of her individuality (although they will be addressing the braces soon).
A Star Trek The Original Series episode does this with a beautification drug. A woman realizes she doesn't need it and her confidence was what was truly responsible for her attractiveness when she's given a placebo. (Turns out to be a Broken Aesop, though: Apparently, "confidence" completely re-does one's hair and makeup, makes the lighting more flattering, and even generates a soft focus effect.)
Subverted in Gilmore Girls when Lane stops wearing her glasses to look better to Zach, who prefers her with them.
Male example: In one episode of The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, Hillary has a glasses-wearing boyfriend who she thinks looks better without them and makes him not wear them. This is only revealed after he accidentally rams Will's car.
Obligatory Buffy The Vampire Slayer example — this is actually done twice with Willow: although she neither wears glasses nor her hair in a bun, this is done by changing her out of her overalls-'n-jumpers outfits she wore through the first three seasons; in "Homecoming" she looks gorgeous in her formal gown and in "Doppelgangland" she astonishes the boys when she puts on Vamp Willow's sexy black leather outfit. Examining her chest, she says "Oh. Look at these." And do they ever!
- Thrice, actually. The first time was in "Halloween:"
  Willow: I'm a ghost!
  Giles: Yes — um, we —, uh... the ghost of what, exactly?
- The irony of this is that Alysson Hannigan played in the American Pie movies Michelle, a girl who had sex with most of the guys at band camp, and after taking the virginity of protagonist Jim (Jason Biggs), makes him fall in love with her, and subsequently the two get married.
Lizzi in the Greek episode "See You Next Time, Sisters!" (yes, that's the episode title). Who knew that a straightening iron and a power suit could give a girl such confidence?

Theater

Played mostly straight in the musical Wicked where the very green Elphaba quite literally lets her hair down, takes off her glasses, and dons some lipstick before being told, "Why, look, miss Elphaba, you're beautiful" by her roommate. However, other than the Love Interest, no one seems to notice.
- Then in Act II,
  Elphaba: I just wish...
  Fiyero: What?
  Elphaba: I wish I could be beautiful... for you.
  Fiyero: Elphaba...
  Elphaba: Don't tell me that I am, you don't need to lie to me.
  Fiyero: It's not lying! It's... uh... it's looking at things another way.
And then there's The Rainmaker, where it takes a Con Man to convince Lizzie that she's beautiful with the pins taken out of her hair. (Her joyful exclamation of "is it really me?" becomes the title of a song in the musical adaptation, 110 In The Shade.)
Avoided in Hairspray. Tracey Turnblatt is short and overweight and her make-over can only do so much. Then again, she became popular before the make-over, which is more of a perk of already being popular, by winning the crowd over due to her upbeat attitude and dance ability rather than looks. The love interest Link likes her because she makes him grow as a person, and because he's narcissistic enough to be beautiful enough for both of them. Tracey's mother, Edna Turnblatt, is traditionally played by a man, compounding the problems. Her husband, however, doesn't even notice the make-over, as he is in love with her no matter what (and he's as thick as a 1960's bomb shelter door when it comes to noticing things).
- There were casting calls for a local production of the play in Argentina. Even thought the ad for the casting calls clearly demanded overweight teenagers for the role of Tracey, some skinny/normal girls ignored this and auditioned for the role anyway.

Webcomics

Ping of Megatokyo attempts an inversion, and fails.
In Triquetra Cats, Rain Soricha in her adopted civilian life wore a pair of thick spiral lensed Nerd Glasses. When she becomes a super powered magic user, she removes them to reveal big sparkly doe eyes, which takes everyone by shock.
Helen Narbon finds herself complaining: "Leave it to me to live in a defective fictional universe." Of course, the real problem is that she did not lose the glasses◊.
Subverted wonderfully in this page of Charby The Vampirate.
Played straight in Kevin And Kell, where Lindesfarne helps Fiona in this way. Later inverted, when Fiona undoes the change to escape unwanted attention — and going negative, by developing huge ears that she considers unflattering.
Amber in Shortpacked! manages to pull this off without losing the glasses, just getting new ones.
- The hairstyle and more flattering clothing helped, but the point still stands. Especially since they weren't that different from what she wore previously.
Done with shameless Anviliciousness in Nip And Tuck, where Thelma enters a beauty contest... and things go drastically bad half-way through. Cue one near-Narmish "pep talk" from Nip and "Gosh, I am beautiful!"

Web Animation

On Homestar Runner, in the tenth issue of Strong Bad's independent comic Teen Girl Squad, a frumpy gal known throughout the series as "The Ugly One" gets made up for her birthday: she trades in her usual clothes, hairstyle, and glasses for more stylish ones, and even Strong Bad is impressed by the transformation: "Woah! Did I draw that new hotness?"

Western Animation

Subverted repeatedly on Daria. She *is* pretty, but has chosen to not play it up.
On Clone High, the last two episodes just sort of mocked this trope. Joan is already quite good-looking, and as Abe tries to find her "hidden beauty" he just insults her unintentionally.
Subverted on the South Park episode "The List".

Real Life

As any makeover show will demonstrate, the right haircut, good makeup, becoming clothes and most importantly a good dose of confidence are transforming. Basically almost any woman who isn't actually deformed can be reasonably attractive - not beautiful but attractive - making this trope an example of Truth In Television, more or less.
A girl straightened my hair and made me take off my glasses, the result was compliments around for my yearbook photo.
I have seen this in action, with a woman I would not have guessed it possible on. There wasn't even that much change in her make-up or clothes from what I had normally seen her in, but she went from projecting a mousy, almost frightened attitude to projecting a great deal of confidence. The transformation was mind-boggling.
Happens frequently in Cosplay. You'd never expect some cosplayers you saw a few hours prior before they went changing, to be the same costumed beauties you see later - sometimes they are normally plain-looking but a good costume and makeup is miracolous, other times they are normally "hidden" under plain clothes and glasses. I am often unable to immediately recognize even long-time friends at cosplay events.
This apparently happens when this troper lets her friends put makeup on her. They've repeatedly tried to make me wear it on a regular basis, but I refuse. And now I have a boyfriend who doesn't mind my not wearing makeup at all.
This troper constantly gets told she's prettier with her hair down, but due to a once-necessity-now-confidence issue, her hair is almost never down (it's usually in a ponytail). She also hates make-up, and hasn't had friends who care to put it on her in ages. She's trying to change the hair thing by getting it cut shorter so a ponytail isn't really necessary anymore. Her taste in clothes is a lot better now too, but she still refuses to wear skirts or dresses except for special occasions or cosplay.
In the last year, I've attended four weddings. In each case the same thing happened — in fact, I've seen it dozens of times in TV and movie weddings: The Bride, who has, throughout the courting period, worn her hair down, does her hair UP for the wedding, so as to look fantastically beautiful. Since this trope specifies hair down equals beautiful, weddings must tend to subvert this.