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alt title(s): Hollywood Ugly; TV Ugly 
King Henry VIII claims he can not tell her from his horse. This either speaks very poorly of his eyesight or very well of his horse.
Producer: What were you thinking? Casting: Well, you said you wanted gritty. In other words, ugly. Producer: I wanted Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island ugly, not Cornelius on Planet Of The Apes ugly. TV-ugly, not ... ugly-ugly.
June is hideous. By which I mean Movie Hideous, in that she's actually an adorable little girl who's had all kinds of makeup applied to make her look hideous.
Dramatic situations sometimes require a character (usually female) who is unappealing, unattractive, and has a hard time finding dates. However, unattractive or even average-looking women are often dissuaded from even trying to get acting jobs in Hollywood unless they are older or unusual-looking in some way, so the person cast in the role is more gorgeous than anybody you'll ever meet in real life. They make her "plain" by giving her some or all of: thick glasses, braces, unfashionable clothes, an unflattering hairstyle, and an even-better-looking sibling or friend. A more subtle method involves giving the actress clothes that clash with her natural skin color, making her look pale or blotchy — a method also often used in " before-and-after" shots for diet-pill commercials.
Works better if the inability to get dates is also attributable to being socially inept.
Inversions of this trope are just backlashes because plain-looking or utterly ugly males can pursue a successful career in Hollywood without problem and fit in the Ugly Guy Hot Wife trope. The likes of Danny De Vito, Jack Black, Mike Myers, Joe Pesci or Woody Allen hardly have any female counterpart. In short, this trope is Double Standard at work.
Generic Cuteness is the animated equivalent of this trope, and the result is a very Informed Attribute.
Compared Beautiful All Along, Loser Guy, Cool Loser, Hollywood Nerd, Hollywood Pudgy. Contrast Informed Attractiveness and Gorgeous Gorgon. Adaptational Attractiveness is when this trope is applied to characters who were plain, unattractive, old, etc. in the source material a show is based on. Beauty Inversion is the use of makeup or prosthetics to successfully avert this trope.
Examples
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Anime and manga
- In Howl's Moving Castle, Sophie is considered plain compared to her sister. That said, her sister seems to be a garish parody plastered with makeup, while Sophie's features are more normal. In the book, mind, Sophie's moderately attractive and aware of it, but has different reasons for being a shut-in; as the oldest of three sisters, she's doomed to fail first and hardest at any task.
- Then again, this is Studio Ghibli. Howl is convinced she is beautiful. Sophie subtly changes back-and-forth between an wrinkly old women with a huge nose to a young girl (with everything in between) depending on the situation. Sophie's personality perks up quite a bit after she's cursed. Notably, no one ever calls her ugly when she cursed, just "old."
- In the Scold's Bridle story arc in Godchild, Drew is supposedly so plain that other upper-class girls won't give her the time of day - something which the mangaka illustrates by giving her quite good-looking round glasses, freckles and a braid. The art style may be partly at fault, but the fact remains that she looks no less pretty than any other girl in the manga. In the same story arc, Viola wears a mask because she is disfigured, but when she takes it off it turns out that her face is perfectly fine apart from a finger-sized acid burn on one cheek. Justified in that she is completely insane and is probably exaggerating the extent of her scarring.
- Arguably, L. It takes more to make a character ugly than make them a Pale Skinned Brunette with baggy eyes, hunched over constantly, and who has no fashion sense. Just ask the Estrogen Brigade.
- Word Of God says he was meant to be attractive to an extent.
- In Ursula Le Guin's novel Tehanu, young girl Therru is so disfigured by third-degree burns that people avoid looking at her. In the animé adaptation Tales from Earthsea, she's a sweet young girl who appears to suffer from a bad sunburn.
- An arguable male example is Ganju Shiba
 from Bleach.
Film
- The Winona Ryder version of Little Women, with inhumanly gorgeous Ryder as Jo March, has her declare that she is "ugly and awkward."
- Refreshingly averted in Adam Carolla's The Hammer, where the love interest is very realistically attractive as opposed to the "plain-jane supermodel" that comedians are usually paired with.
- Janeane Garofalo in every role she ever gets. Making nonsense of The Truth About Cats And Dogs, which is The Cyrano with Garofalo as the fat homely girl that skinny model girl Uma Thurman pretends to be, except that Garofalo is actually cute and Thurman looks grey-skinned, anorexic and dead in this role.
- Sam Witwicky in the live-action Transformers movie. At least his girlfriend Mikaela Banes was supposed to be gorgeous. Mind you, Sam acts like a grasping dork, so that might have something to do with it all.
- Andi in The Devil Wears Prada. Even in her supposedly frumpy stage, she's still played by Anne Hathaway and while clad in a college sweatshirt and pajama pants with unstyled hair looks better than most women could ever hope to. Also constantly referred to by the other characters as fat. Admittedly, this is meant to be a takeoff on the fashion industry's ludicrous standards, but several other non-fashion characters (including her boyfriend!) comment on her lack of attractiveness.
- This is arguably worse in Hathaway's previous film The Princess Diaries, where Mia has frizzy hair, Nerd Glasses, and Doc Martens. And then she gets transformed into a sleek-haired contact-wearing princess. The stylist actually breaks her glasses. Because you want to wear contacts from the moment you get up until you go to sleep. The movie even tries to make a stab at turning this into a really Warped Aesop. On top of Mia's friends rejecting her for becoming prettier right off the bat, the movie attempts to show how she's beautiful inside when she shows up to give a speech completely drenched. Then at the end of the movie, she's back to sleek and styled and never returns to old Mia at all. Kevin Murphy had some choice things to say about this in his book A Year at the Movies.
- Dogfight, starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor, is about a crew of Marines who challenge each other to a 'dogfight' — finding the ugliest girl they can and bringing her to a party. Phoenix's character selects Taylor's character in order to win this 'dogfight'. By Hollywood standards, she's hideous. By any real world standards, she's a reasonably attractive woman.
- Melonie Diaz's Alma in Be Kind Rewind is played up as ugly when the male film-makers are forced to take her over her (apparently) more attractive sister. This is achieved by... having her sniff and rub her nose a couple of times. (Then immediately forgotten about - she's the hot girl for the rest of the movie!)
- Jamie Sullivan in A Walk to Remember. Although the character was never intended to be unattractive (merely unconcerned with her appearance) the audience has a hard time believing the shock of the other characters during her Beautiful All Along moment given actress Mandy Moore's natural beauty.
- Male example: In Can't Buy Me Love, the uber-nerd takes off his glasses, untucks his shirt, and fluffs up his hair, and turns into Patrick Dempsey. (Admittedly, it's Patrick Dempsey back when he was a scrawny 14-year-old kid, but still...)
- The House Bunny looks set to play this straight, if the poster is anything to go by. Apparently being ugly just means being a brunette.
- Played straight in the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera. The title character, who is supposedly so hideously deformed that he is rejected by his mother, exhibited in a freak show, mocked by society, and driven to live as a recluse below the earth, turns out to look like...Gerard Butler with a skin rash on one cheek.
- Tracing The Phantom Of The Opera over the years offers great insight to how this trope has grown in popularity over time. In the original silent film version, the title character really is gruesome and deformed◊ and (being played by the great Lon Chaney) essentially is one of the famed movie monsters of the silent era. But with each successive adaptation, the character is made more attractive until we reach the extreme noted above, which applies Adaptational Attractiveness to the stage version.
- It has reached the point where many viewers of the Phantom movie consider the "ugly" character to be more attractive than the "good looking" character, and think movie!Christine is a moron for picking the Viscomte. The fact that the Phantom is an obsessive, murderous psychopath makes no never mind to them. Which provides a (most likely) unintentional example of this trope, since the worst that can be said about Patrick Wilson's appearance in that film is the rather unflattering wig they saddled him with.
- Slightly justified in the fact that originally for the stage version, they planned on giving Michael Crawford a more hideous design; but he couldn't sing right with all the makeup they had to put on, so they toned it down (or risk having the title character in the musical sound incoherent). Still doesn't explain why in the more recent film version all he has wrong with him is a little sunburn.
- The upcoming Jennifer's Body stars Megan Fox as a beautiful cheerleader (certainly plausible) and Amanda Seyfried as her "plain jane" best friend. Amanda Seyfried!◊ In case fans couldn't tell that she's unattractive and unwanted, they named her Needy.
- A male example: New clothes and a hot car (courtesy of a Guardian Angel) turns nerdy Jason Gedric into a cool kid in The Heavenly Kid.
- Kate Winslet in Enigma is a good example, too - even anti-dolled to look ordinary, she's still prettier than the "hot chick".
- Miss Congeniality: Even though she returns to her old ways afterwards, she's still played by Sandra Bullock!
- "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful◊." At least, not in the book version of Gone With The Wind...
- Same thing happened to Melanie Hamilton Wilkes, who is described as plain in the book, and is played in the movie by Olivia de Havilland.
- In the 1999 film She's All That, a high school boy takes a bet that he can turn any girl in school into a prom queen. Of course, he chooses the gorgeous Rachael Leigh Cook in glasses, unkempt hair, and eccentric clothes. Romance, of course, ensues once she makes the transformation and reveals herself as Beautiful All Along. This was spoofed in Not Another Teen Movie when the guy choosing the girl for the bet passes over a hunchback, an albino hippie, and Siamese twins to pick the "Pretty Ugly Girl", as she's billed.
Jake: Not Janey Briggs! She has glasses! And a ponytail! And look, she's got paint on her overalls!
- The Hottie And The Nottie. Christine Lakin is supposed to be the Nottie. Don't estimate how many hours in makeup she racked up to become the Nottie. Especially if Paris Hilton is the Hottie. It doesn't work. No amount of makeup could make her company less desirable than that of Paris Hilton.
- Averted in Date Movie, of all things. Though the girl in question is played by Alyson Hannigan, the character does look really ugly before "uplifting."
- In The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Tilda Swinton's character is described as "plain as paper." Uh...right.
- A particularly egregious example is the movie Frankie and Johnny. In the stage original, the plain girl was played, to great acclaim, by Kathy Bates, who fits the casting requirement by being not particularly physically attractive. For the movie version, the part was recast. Michelle "Catwoman" Pfeiffer. Again: uh... right.
- Used blatantly in Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Iris is supposed to be unattractive as part of the plot, yet she is played by Azura Skye, who is very (albeit unconventionally) pretty.
- Minnie Driver's character in Circle of Friends is supposed to be dowdy and heavyset. (At one point she refers to herself as a "heifer".) Even playing her against the gorgeous Saffron Burrows doesn't quite make this work.
- In Marty, Ernest Borgnine (no prize himself in the looks department, although that's admittedly acknowledged in the film) goes on a date with a "dog" played by former model Betsy Blair, and former wife of Gene Kelly.
- Doubly bad in The Enchanted Cottage. The main woman is so "homely" that no guys will dance with her, young boys comment on her looks, and she generally limits her social life in despair. Later, a man breaks off with his fiancee and considers suicide over a barely visible war scar. As the two fall in love, they become beautiful in each others' eyes — represented on camera by a strange blur on their features.
- Juno. Lampshaded in the lyrics of the ending musical number: "We sure are cute for two ugly people", indeed.
- Averted in Monster by Charlize Theron, who looks dramatically different due to gaining 30 pounds and wearing prosthetic teeth and heavy makeup for the film; she won an Oscar for it. Of course, the fact that it is still Charlize Theron under there keeps it from being a total aversion.
- Watts from Some Kind Of Wonderful. Of course, the ugly girl gets the guy.
- Is she supposed to be ugly, though? The jerks of the film mostly refer to her as "lesbian" - and she does look like the most adorable little baby dyke ever.
- It's made a point in the Watchmen comic that Rorschach is quite homely. Jackie Earle Haley in the film adaptation of Watchmen? Not so much. This probably why the lines about his homeliness were dropped from in the film.
- Jackie Earle Haley is actually a really good match for the drawn version of Rorschach. See?◊ That being said, Hollywood Homely probably applies to the comic as well. While not being particularly attractive, especially not by comic-book standards, neither version of Rorschach is downright homely.
- Even Hollywood isn't usually shameless enough to pass off Sandra Bullock as "ugly." But she is that town's go-to actress when they need an approachable, plain, girl-next-door type. "Usually" is the key word there, as she is supposed to be the ugly type in Love Potion Number Nine.
- Lampshaded in Last Action Hero, when Danny Maddigan tries to prove that they're in a film by pointing out that none of the women are ugly, to which Jack Slater responds:
Jack: "No, this is California."
- Leelee Sobieski as the nerdy girl in Never Been Kissed, especially when she strips down that that spandex blue cat suit at the prom. Drew Barrymore in the selfsame film. She's supposed to be a bookish, nerdy girl as well...but she's Drew Frikkin' Barrymore! That said, they do manage to make Drew look pretty bad in her prom flashback. More than the majority of these examples, anyway.
- This trope has pretty much defined Amanda Bynes' career.
- In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn Monroe's glamorous gold-digger has a "plain" best friend. Said friend is played by Jane Russell.
- Cousin Bette. In the novel, Bette was described as a very unattractive, rough-looking woman. In the 1998 film adaptation, she was played by... Jessica Lange.
- The Harry Potter movies do this with Hermione. In the books she's supposed to have bushy, frizzy hair and be unconcerned with how she looks, so it's a shock to the other characters when she shows up to the Yule Ball with sleek, shiny hair and lovely dress robes — Harry actually doesn't recognize her at first. The adaptation starts her out looking like her eleven-year-old self, but progressively makes her hair prettier, bouncier and more styled-looking over the course of three and a half movies and puts her in trendy, sporty Muggle clothes whenever possible, so when the brief makeover does happen, the impact is ruined. One could argue that they do this with Snape as well, making him the male version of this trope, as he's supposed to be very ugly in the books. Your Mileage May Vary, but few would proclaim Alan Rickman as terribly unattractive, let alone gaunt with stringy, greasy black hair.
- Then again, J.K. Rowling herself has said that Alan Rickman was perfect for the role of Snape...
- It happens to everybody. Both Ron and Harry are supossed to be less than normal, and let's not mention Neville Longbottom
- In the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, the japanese girl Bond is supposed to marry has "a face like a pig"... OK, her nose is a little largish, but she's actually pretty cute for a "pig".
- Invoked in Muriel's Wedding, where the title character is played by the very attractive Toni Collette (of United States Of Tara fame.)
- In the The Quiet, Camilla Belle's character is described as being unattractive by several characters. One character even goes as far to say that she is a hermaphrodite. The only thing that makes her "ugly" is the fact she has short hair, minimal make-up on and wears boys clothing. In real life, Camilla Belle◊ is as beautiful as Elisha Cuthbert.
Literature
- Bella Swan of Twilight fame. She is terribly self-deprecating, describing herself as a skinny, big-eyed, clumsy, Pale Skinned Brunette. Mind-reader Edward even lampshades this when he tells her that she should have heard what the entire male student body was thinking when she first came to school. Depending on your opinion, it's made either worse or better in the movie: Better because you don't hear as many of her thoughts and therefore don't have to hear about how "plain" she is as often, or worse because she's being played by Kristen Stewart.
- Arguably, Honor Harrington. Due to from-birth life-extending treatments, she was still physically in the awkward-as-all-get-out stage of adolescence when she formed her adult self-image.
Live Action TV
- Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, although it was finally inverted in the Season 3 episode "Rhoda the Beautiful."
- Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch.
- Male example: Seth Cohen on The OC.
- The title character of Ugly Betty - in Hollywood, ugliness is apparently defined by braces, bad eyesight and a complete lack of fashion sense. The show tries to justify it by having her work at a fashion magazine. She subverted it in "Real Women Have Curves". While she and her mother seem to consider her ugly, no one else has that problem. (One supposes a show called "Cutey Betty" would seem derivative.)
- David Spade did a monologue in the show on how this seems to not only make the standards of beauty unrealistic but the standards of ugly as well.
- Yo Soy Betty La Fea, the Colombian soap opera on which this is based, looks a bit more convincing◊ into characterizing Betty as ugly, even when the main actress is actually quite pretty◊. Just see this comparison◊.
- Sure, Betty was played by the gorgeous America Ferrera, but lets not forget how they had Christopher freaking Gorham as Henry. It's shocking that Betty was literally the only one at Mode to think he was attractive. And seriously, the glasses and argyle just made him hotter.
- On Just Shoot Me, Maya conducts an experiment to prove beautiful people get social perks by sending both a male model and "ugly" guy to a job interview. She ends up proving herself as shallow as everyone else by rejecting the charming "ugly" guy and dating the clueless himbo. However, the actor cast as the "ugly" guy wouldn't have been out of place in GQ. Maya herself was treated like this in the first season. By season 2 they stopped trying to make any one believe that Laura San Giacomo was in any way "homely".
- Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) on 30 Rock This is Lampshaded in the episode "Cleveland." Liz goes to Ohio and is offered a modeling contract and is complimented by people on the street.
Jenna: "We're all models west of the Allegheny."
- Since reality shows tend to be cast mainly with astonishingly gorgeous people as well, this sometimes carries over into that genre. MTV's Next sometimes sees daters rejected on sight for falling slightly below supermodel/Abercrombie & Fitch standards. This is probably one of the side effects of Network Decay, as there was a time when MTV used to let average and even ugly looking people (who weren't borrowing their fraternity/sorority's brain cell and didn't need a script to be witty) be on The Real World and Road Rules.
- Ethel on I Love Lucy was the source of constant fat jokes, despite being about the same build as Lucy. To compensate for this, the producers had her wear clothes that were several sizes too small. (The Urban Legend that she was contractually obligated to gain 20 pounds is untrue.)
- Karen Ball in Green Wing.
- Many male fans insist this one was (unintentionally) inverted on WKRP in Cincinnati, wherein Jan Smithers as shy, nerdy Bailey apparently came off as a whole lot hotter than 'blonde bombshell' Loni Anderson. Loni Anderson stated that the trope was being intentionally subverted and that she enjoyed playing on a show where the two attractive women were loyal co-workers and good friends.
- Inverted? Averted? in a Planter's Nuts commercial. The commercial features an incredibly ugly, short, fat, lumpy woman. Aside from an unconvincing unibrow, it's difficult to tell how much of this is makeup. She is going about her daily business; the men around her all stare at her, enraptured, causing hilarity to ensue. Cut to the woman at home, preparing for her day, revealing the reason for all this attention to be because she's been rubbing on nuts in the same way some women put on perfume. While Planters succeeds in creating a memorable commercial, they seem to have overlooked the Fridge Logic.
- Marvin McFadden (AKA mouth) on One Tree Hill is constantly tormented about his average looks, which are perfectly normal standing next to normal people, but in the presence of the ultra beautiful cast of OTH, are shunned. Another example from this would be Millie, his girlfriend, who in all rights appears completely and utterly gorgeous, except for a thick pair of glasses.
- Ted the lawyer in Scrubs is a deliberate male example, created with makeup and an ill-fitting suit. The actor has been quoted as saying that after seeing him in the pilot episode, his mother called him up and asked if he was ill.
- Accidentally underlined with an episode of The Office (US version). Andy and Michael flirt with a couple of waitresses at a restaurant and attempt to get them to come to a party. They show up at the party with two different waitresses, the joke being that the first two refused and they had to settle for supposedly less attractive ones. Unfortunately, as Co-creator Greg Daniels admitted, poor casting meant the actresses hired were too good looking and the joke fell flat.
- Mild case (BBC Homely?) in the televised version of the Inspector Lynley mysteries; in the books, DS Barbara Havers is committedly unattractive — middle-aged, plain, overweight, and badly dressed — while the actress they found to play her is, while the right age and not supermodel-gorgeous, nevertheless quite pleasant to look at. The author of the original books reportedly objected strongly until she actually saw the performance.
- When Audrey Meadows first auditioned for the part of Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners, Jackie Gleason rejected her for being "too pretty." So she had a photographer come to her house early in the morning and photograph her just after waking up, morning hair, no makeup, etc. Jackie took one look at the pictures (without knowing it was Audrey) and hired her on the spot.
- On Sex And The City, the character Miranda (played by Cynthia Nixon) is apparently supposed to be the ugly one of the four lead characters. Arguably, Charlotte's second husband Harry. While played up as Ugly Guy Hot Wife due to him being bald and a bit chubby with bad table manners, his actor Evan Handler does have a rather cute face, and is hardly less attractive than many of the character's guys of the week over the years (of course it also helps that he's one of the nicest characters in the whole series.) In the last season, they pretty much dropped the Ugly Guy Hot Wife angle.
- Arrested Development's Ann Veal. Although Ann's not really played as "ugly," more that she's incredibly boring/unmemorable.
- Another male example: Xander of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Despite actor Nicholas Brendon being an incredibly attractive guy, and the character rather witty, he is supposedly the bottom of the social barrel at Sunnydale High, and numerous cracks are made at his inability to get girls. He dates the cheerleader Cordelia from Season 2 onwards. Doing so sent Cordelia's social status straight from 'most popular girl in school' to 'nonexistent'. Every acquaintance she had considered her completely insane for choosing to give Xander the time of day, and she ended up entirely exiled from her former social circle. Joss actually mentions this trope in the DVD commentaries:
Joss Whedon: Of course, Nicholas Brendon is way too good-looking, but this is Hollywood, so get over it.
- Most of the above also applies to Willow Rosenberg (played by the very attractive Alyson Hannigan). But in both cases, their outcast status is justified by their social awkwardness and choice of friends - aside from one another, their social circle consists of the school librarian (Giles) and the class psycho (Buffy).
- Mind, in the original, un-broadcast pilot, Willow was played by Riff Regan, a heavier woman with more average looks than Hannigan. This did not stand.
- Joss Whedon also makes a point of this in Dollhouse: the Girl Next Door, Mellie, played by the actress Miracle Laurie, complains that she's Hollywood Pudgy and can't get dates because she lives in LA and has to compete with all the girls that aren't. Her love interest doesn't care, and neither does the audience, because by any realistic standard, she is beautiful.
- Lampshaded in Bones when Booth describes himself and Brennan as the "sexy FBI agent and the sexy scientist".
- There was one of those commercials stations run to convince themselves they are socially responsible (as opposed to selling stuff), which featured a very attractive young girl complaining about how ugly she was while comparing herself to a made-up rock star in a poster. The poster pops to life and the stunningly attractive female "rock star" explains that it's all make-up and Hollywood, then shows how she ordinarily looks (still better than any girl I've actually met). Now that she's Hollywood ordinary, the formerly depressed "normal" girl cheers up.
- Disney loves this trope - all parts of the Disney Empire. Look around for the Mitchell Musso music video 'The In Crowd' for a textbook version of this. Katelyn Tarver, who plays 'the plain girl' is so obviously beautiful that it isn't even funny - and to 'make her plain', they give her glasses, put her in jeans and a flannel shirt, tie her hair into a messy ponytail and have her act 'goofy'. Jeez, people - maybe you shouldn't have gone with any close-ups that show just how hot this girl really is! (Of course, in real life, she's a model...)
- Zachary Levi as the title character on Chuck. Granted, when he's dressed in his Nerd Herd attire and placed next to uber vixen Yvonne Strahovski as Sarah, he does tend to look a little plain. For that matter Joshua Gomez (Morgan) and Vik Sahay (Lester especially, if the fan girls are anything to go by) are all reasonably attractive men. Also worthy of note, Adam Baldwin also has a certain following. Sarah Lancaster (Ellie), Ryan Mc Partlin (Awesome) and Julia Ling (Anna) are also much more attractive than your average doctors or retail store employees.
- Of course Awesome is good looking, he's The Ace.
- You have to admit though, the rest of the Buymore crew (specifically Jeff) were all either average looking, or genuinely homely. Then again, next to Yvonne, everyone looks homely, except for maybe Matthew Bomer.
- Deliberately used in Firefly with River, played by the adorably beautiful Summer Glau. The character tends to wear dark clothing and minimal makeup, and has long, frazzled hair to deliberately invoke Pale Skinned Brunette and The Ophelia. The overall effect, when compared with other, more glamorously beautiful female characters like Inara, Zoe, and Kaylee, makes River both a little bit more plain and childish, which is the whole point: she's supposed to be cute, but not overtly sexualized. Of course, that last bit isn't helped by the fact that she's one of the most heavily fetishized characters on the show.
- Peggy Olson on Mad Men is supposed to be deliberately keeping herself dowdy in order to be taken seriously at work. Of course, she's played by the gorgeous Elisabeth Moss. The character was also shown gaining weight throughout Season One, presumably for the same reason. As we learn in Season Two, though, she was actually pregnant with Pete Campbell's child. It should be noted, however, that once Peggy has her "date" with Kurt in season 2 and starts dressing herself more fashionably and wearing her hair differently, the show tends to present this as her harnessing the power of "being a woman" as Bobbie had advised instead of it merely being that it's opening doors for her all on its own.
- Joss Stone as Anne of Cleves in Season 3 of The Tudors. Henry VIII claims she 'looks like a horse' and is unable to consummate his marriage to her, supposedly because she is so ugly. An alternative explanation suggested by other characters is that he's turned off because Anne is a virgin who doesn't know what to do. Most likely, it's all in his head.
- This is used in Philippa Gregory's novel, The Boleyn Inheritance, where Anne of Cleves seems very frumpy at first because she is wearing incredibly modest (read: baggy) and unflattering clothing that she brought with her from Germany. After Henry VIII divorced her, however, she was free to wear English clothing and hold her own court in her own household. The next time she showed up at court, everyone thought that she looked very pretty. There are several historical accounts that support this theory.
- Part of the backlash on Spinelli on General Hospital is that he's a greasy-haired, geeky nerd with Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness...on a Soap Opera, where anyone under a 9 is ugly. This ws stretched even more when they brought in a similarly geeky girl...and hid her behind glasses, Girlish Pigtails, and clothing that went out in the mid-90s.
- In a recent episode of Reaper, "Business Casulty," Sock is set up with a friend of Nina's. His reaction to her is that she is hideous beyond all imagining, to the point that he tries to get away from her as quickly as possible. In fact, the character is simply played by a beautiful woman wearing a minimal amount of make-up wearing average clothes with her hair in a pony-tail. There isn't even any of the usual Hollywood Homely attempts to disguise this: she doesn't wear glasses, have braces, wear hideous clothes, have bad hair, or prosthetic makeup. She just looks like someone going out to run errands.
- A weird case on NCIS, where in a 6th season episode a young, hot woman's attraction to Gibbs is portrayed as odd, apparently thinking the audience doesn't notice that Gibbs is played by Mark Harmon.
- Quinn in Zoey 101
- Very much averted on Strangers With Candy, where Amy Sedaris, who in real life is far from bad looking, took extensive pains to look as ugly as possible as Jerri Blank. This includes fat suits, yellowed teeth, hilariously awful wigs, and a wardrobe that would make anyone with a modicum of taste gouge their eyes out. The result is appropriately hideous. In an interview, she stated she was deliberately trying to avoid this trope.
- One of the longest-running gags on Married With Children centered around Al Bundy dreading the notion of having sex with his wife Peg, something many viewers didn't understand, given Katey Segal's Hot Shounen Mom appearance. Similarly, Marcy is repeatedly teased for her boyish appearance, having been mistaken for everyone from Johnathan Taylor Thomas to Bruce Jenner, and Al claims to have gone blind when he's seen her in lingerie. A male version occurred with Bud Bundy, who was generally so unsuccessful with women that he made Leisure Suit Larry look like a stud. Inversions did crop up from time to time, such as when other men hit on Peg (which usually prompted a jealous Al to "hit" on them), or when Bud landed some genuinely attractive women.
- It is shown this is more his bias due to her personality and actions then anything, as MANY guys comment on her attractiveness. The time she lost her memory and started doing her share of the work and acting like a decent human being, Al could barely hold back herding her into the sack.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia averts this trope. Margaret McPoyle is hideous. As it turns out Margaret McPoyle is actually played by the very attractive Thesy Surface under a lot (cannot stress that enough, a lot of makeup) Don't believe it? Margaret McPoyle◊ vs. Thesy Surface
- In one episode of Absolutely Fabulous, there was a constant stream of fat jokes at the expense of Jennifer Saunders, even though she didn't even look fat. One point, it got absolutely ridiculous, as Jennifer Saunders was wearing tights and claimed she was actually wearing slacks. She just looked like a woman who was, at worst, average, wearing tights.
- In a recent ITV adaptation of the Miss Marple story "A Pocketful of Rye", the supposedly-plain Elaine Fortescue was played by the decidedly beautiful Hattie Morahan, looking her best in fashionable clothes and an elaborate hairdo. Despite this, the other characters were at pains to point out how unattractive she was.
- In Real Life you will often see "cute girls" hanging with less attractive sidekicks in order to make them look even better by comparison. Hollywood does the same thing, only their idea of the "homely sidekick" is the likes of Emily Osment, Jeanette McCurdy and Jennifer Stone. In real life these would be the "cute girl" in the pairing at the very least, if not the girl who's so hot she doesn't need anyone to make her look better.
- Ashley Tisdale was supposed to look plain and frumpy in comparison to Brenda Song on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. It doesn't work.
- Maddie was supossed to be less atractive than London?
- At first anyway. As Ashley Tisdale became a bigger star this changed.
- In Glee, Rachel Berry is supposedly less attractive than Quinn Fabray. Now, Quinn's actress, Dianna Agron, is a cute girl, but Rachel's played by Lea. Friggin'. Michele.◊
- Probably not an accurate example, since several characters have remarked that Rachel is extremely attractive, but just has a very grating personality.
- Big Rhonda from That70s Show was made up to look homely, but the actress who played her wasn't actually bad looking. This is seen in the episode It's a Wonderful Life, where, in an alternate timeline she was dumped by Eric and appears at the gang's 10 year reunion without the whole Big Rhonda look.
- Justin from Wizards of Waverly. In one episode his family couldn't believe that a pretty girl would consider dating him. At one point, Alex said that Justin was not cute all. And we are supposed to believe this? Especially since he is played by the ridiculously hot David Henrie.
- Ted from Queer As Folk, though this is meant to Lampshade the impossible standards of beauty that gay men place on themselves. Women check him out all the time, much to his annoyance.
Theater
- This trope can affect audience perceptions even outside Hollywood. When the Stephen Sondheim musical Passion was in previews, the director James Lapine had great trouble settling on a make-up look for the character Fosca. Fosca is supposed to be ugly, or at least exceedingly plain — that's the entire point of her character — but whenever they used prosthetics to make the actress Donna Murphy look genuinely ugly, the audience lost all sympathy for the character. They ended up making Murphy up in pale "no make-up" make-up, giving her a mole, and dressing her in unflattering clothes; that was as much ugliness as the audience could take. Lest tropers unfamiliar with the work think poorly of those audiences, the character of Fosca isn't exactly beautiful on the inside, either—she has deep psychological scars from a disastrous first marriage, and spends most of the show pursuing a man who has clearly and calmly indicated that 1. He's not interested and 2. He's already in a relationship (with a married woman, but still...). When he finally reciprocates at the end, it's not clear if he has actually learned to love her or if she has simply broken him completely.
- The musical version of Legally Blonde: The supposedly plain Vivienne is played by Miss America 1998 Kate Shindle.
- In Wicked the Musical, Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba, is supposed to be so hideous that her father cannot look at her upon her birth. She even describes herself as "ugly". Still, she is played by actresses such as Shoshanna Bean, Eden Espinosa and the incredibly attractive Idina Menzel, with no further pains taken in making her look unattractive than painting her green. There are some. however, who theorize that Elphaba is actually supposed to be pretty. She thinks she's ugly because people look at her funny, and her dad can't look at her because he blames her for her mother's death.
Music
- If you think about it, the song Don't Cha is essentially the Pussycat Dolls pointing this trope to the listener. "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?/Don't you wish your girlfriend was raw like me?/Don't you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?/Don't you?/Don't you?".
- In the video for "You Belong With Me", they put Taylor Swift in really big glasses and a band uniform and we're supposed to believe she's The Plain Girl. Yeah, right. And then when the glasses come off... Just to drive the trope home, the 'hot cheerleader' is played by... Taylor Swift, in a brunette wig. With the same eye makeup. So the difference is...? A slutty red prom dress.
- The whole point of the song "Girl Next Door" by Saving Jane.
- In the video for Avril Lavinge's "Girlfriend", we're supposed to believe that Avril's bratty punk-like "bad girl" character is more desirable than the nerdy girlfriend. Er... (Word Of God says it's supposed to be satirical, but if that's true, it sure has one hell of a Misaimed Fandom.)
Professional Wrestling
- In her time in the WWE, Nora "Molly Holly" Greenwald was booked as the ugly heel diva, mainly for not being a wafer-thin blonde with implants. One running gag was for other divas (particularly Trish Stratus) to make fun of her large butt. In truth, the only thing that really ever made Molly seem unattractive was her frequent scowling (which was part of the character).
- While the WWE has loaded its diva roster with blondes since the 90s, this was averted with Amy "Lita" Dumas, a wiry redhead with tattoos who quickly built a large fan base, though just as much for her acrobatics as her looks. Still, long-time beau Matt Hardy may have summed it up in the foreword to her autobiography, calling her "the girl you can't take your eyes off of and don't know why."
Close Professional Wrestling
Video Games
- Given Japanese media's issues with Generic Cuteness, it's noteworthy that the first Ace Attorney game avoids this. Will Powers, the defendant in the third case, is, while not a Gonk, genuinely rough-looking and unattractive. Maya, who has never seen him out of his Steel Samurai costume, is more than a little stunned. Your Mileage May Vary, as there are many who find Will's cragginess rather appealing, and the constant hullabaloo about how "frightening" he looks a straight invocation of this trope. The sequel has some more good times on this subject: Will, who lacks the skills or training for anything but television, has been reduced to hosting a children's exercise program in a rabbit costume that hides his face, Will's successor, Matt Engarde, usually looks about as attractively sixteen as you can get (until he pushes back his hair and reveals the rather extreme scar across his eye, which also signals his switch into his real personality as an inhuman, manipulative monster), and Matt's supposed rival, Juan Corrida, is frequently mocked for being ugly and looking so much older than Matt (ie he looks to be in his early-to-mid twenties, which he is, and he looks pretty good for it too). Straight as an arrow.
- Ethan Thomas in Condemned: Criminal Origins is somewhat of an aversion as he looks believable as an average police detective. In Condemned 2: Bloodshot, however, he somehow has become built like a football player despite the fact that he's been spending the year between the two games living as an alcoholic vagabond. The only signifier of his degenerate status is his scruffy facial hair. He changed quite a bit, actually. Compare Condemned 1 Ethan◊ with Condemned 2 Ethan.◊ His personality is totally different between games, as well.
Web Original
- Intentionally used for humor in A Very Potter Musical, when Harry, Dumbledore, and especially Ron, will deliver entire monologues about the horrid ugliness of Hermione, who is played by a very pretty actress. Draco tries this as well, but the most scathing thing he can come up with is that she's an 8 out of 10 (Maybe an 8.5...No more than a 9.8!)
RON: It was inevitable that one day Hermione would realize that no guy would ever like her, because of her obnoxious personality, and her ugly face, and her misshapen body, but I figured she'd get in at least one night of happiness before she realized she was going to be growing old alone, you know?
- Of course, a few minutes after that she enters looking so beautiful that Ron and Draco break into a Counterpoint Duet about how they're falling in love (falling in love, falling in love) with Hermione Granger (Danger...)
Western Animation
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