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Plain ol' Mary Ann
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. — The Simpsons, "Pygmoelian"bel
Dramatic situations sometimes require a character (usually female) who is unappealing, unattractive, and has a hard time finding dates. However, unattractive women usually can't get acting jobs in Hollywood, and those who do would likely object to being cast as such, 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.
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. Contrast Informed Attractiveness.
Examples
Film
- 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.
- Sam Witwicky in the live-action Transformers movie. At least his girlfriend Mikaela Banes was supposed to be gorgeous, as the actress portraying her also is. Mind you, Sam acts like a grasping dork, so that might have something to do with it all.
- Renée Zellweger at her Bridget Jones weight was considered too fat for the cover of Harper's Magazine, showing that Hollywood beauty standards apply even beyond the film studio. It's probably even worse in magazines.
- 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 (Andi says she's a size six, so by no means huge) but she doesn't appear substantially heavier than any of the fashionistas who surround her.
- This is arguably worse in 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.
- 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...)
- An upcoming movie called 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 can be credibly compared to the movie monsters of the same era. But with each successive adaptation, the character is made more attractive until we reach the extreme noted above.
- 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.
- 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!
- 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: At least she returns to her old ways after the pageant.
- "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful◊."
- Surprised this hasn't made it on the list yet...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 a girl that is essentially a busty supermodel in glasses, unkempt hair, and eccentric clothes. Romance, of course, ensues once she makes the transformation and reveals herself as Beautiful All Along.
Literature
- Bella Swan of Twilight fame. She is terribly self-deprecating, despite 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. However, given Bella's Canon Sue-ishness, this might just simply be an attempt for the reader to better put themselves in her shoes.
- This, however, failed miserably, and made her even more Sue-ish.
- It could alternatively been due to the fact that she came from a really large city, somewhere where the "Hollywood" version of beauty may be heavily overemphasised. Which could have given her the impression and the mindset that she is in fact very plain. That's just how I perceived this anyway.
Live Action TV
- Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show
- Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch
- Subverted in the Daria episode 'Quinn the Brain': while Daria is generally described as plain or even ugly (by people who believe that All Guys Want Cheerleaders), and usually shows disdain at best for makeup and clothing, she proves that she can match her fashion-crazed sister Quinn to make a point to her. Extra points for being a Spoof Aesop, in that Daria did so in order to set Quinn back on the shallow, airheaded lifestyle Daria so loathed her for, because Quinn being seen as intelligent was a threat to Daria's self-image. Of course, no one really talks about how Daria seems to attract the really good guys on the show (Tom, Trent, Ted Dewitt-Clinton) somehow...
- 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)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Subverted in, of all things, 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.
- Arrested Development's Ann Veal.
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 — 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.
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.
- Oh, I forgot to mention-when you're learning all this about Juan, he's dead of murder. So much for respect for the dead.
Western Animation
- Meg Griffin on Family Guy, whose ugliness really only seems to be a matter of glasses, an unflattering hat, and a modest amount of pudge. Even so, these small nitpicks must combine into astronomical ugly, considering the fact that people have committed suicide by fire upon sight and have killed family members to generate excuses to avoid her. Of course in the episode, "Don't Make Me Over" all that was easily fixed with a new hairstyle and color, fashionable clothes and make up. Interestingly both actresses who have voiced Meg (Lacey Chabert and Mila Kunis) are generally cast as babes when they do face acting (ie. Not Another Teen Movie). It's quite possible that Meg not really being that ugly is part of the joke. They just call her that as part of her role as the Butt Monkey.
- Subverted in a South Park episode where Kyle is determined to be the ugliest boy in his class by the girls and is forced to hang out with the other ugly kids. Kyle leads an impassioned speech about how they're just as good as anyone else, and what they need is a makeover. He turns to the girl of the group and starts with the time-honored Hollywood tradition of taking away her glasses... which reveals that she has small, squinty eyes. Kyle just slowly puts the glasses back on, his plans utterly destroyed.
- Velma Dinkley from Scooby-Doo used to be decidedly plain; her hairstyle was unflattering at best, her face was nothing to get excited over, the sweater she always wore was shapeless, and her figure could generously be described as resembling a barrel on legs. Then (probably because the actress who played her in the live-action movies was pretty good looking herself), when they were making What's New Scooby-Doo?, they decided that old-school Velma was just too ugly for TV, so they redesigned her. They made tweaks to her face and hair, narrowed her waist down, added a little boob, and made her sweater form-fitting, to the net effect that the once plain-but-smart Velma is now incredibly easy on the eyes. Did someone say "Playing it straight?"
Real Life
- There are an absurd amount of genuinely attractive teenage girls who insist they are ugly and fat. Even when they happen to be under average dress size, have proportioned features and the coolest hair ever.
- Also, a lot of real life teens with acne are more attractive than their clear-skinned counterparts, because acne blends into the skin like freckles, but one huge spot will be glaringly obvious. They refuse to believe this.
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