On television, films, and indeed most visual mediums just about everyone is beautiful. This is why Hollywood Homely exists. Fiction is generally a world of beautiful people meant to depict the real world, in which some people are more attractive than others.
So what are writers to do when someone's attractiveness is a plot point? If this were animation, they could just add Bishie Sparkle. But for other writers, often the only choice is to have the other characters tell us how attractive a particular character is. In live-action, this can create dissonance with audience members who don't agree with this assessment of the character's appeal.
But ultimately this is about characters pointing out how exceptionally attractive an actor is, not whether the audience agrees with it. And having an unusually active sex life isn't a part of this trope, unless a character says outright that the reason that person is being pursued is that they're the best looking of the group.
This can also work in reverse, where the level of Informed Attractiveness is in the negative, with someone's ugliness being a plot point, which often leads to an Unnecessary Makeover. This trope is effectively the opposite of Hollywood Homely. Cases of The Glasses Gotta Go and She Is All Grown Up is also more about comparing them to their past selves, instead of comparing them to other people.
Be aware that some writers use the trope in an ironic way, and sometimes audiences don't identify it as such.
This trope is difficult to avoid when describing an attractive character in literature, due to the limitations of the medium (though balancing characters' verbal remarks with subtle descriptions of the way that beauty makes them act is a good start). Comics and animation with limited, minimalist art styles may also need to resort to Informed Attractiveness to convey that a character is good-looking. In videogames, with the advent of customizable 3D player character models, it is mostly limited to the programming of the characters in the game who have to interact with the player character regardless of how they look.
Again, this is not about how unattractive you subjectively believe certain stars to be. This is specifically for instances where they can't live up to being as exceptionally attractive as the characters say they are, typically seen when the actor in question is no more attractive or notable than the rest of the cast. Furthermore, as again attractiveness is by definition subjective, adding Your Mileage May Vary is just redundant.
See also Gaussian Girl. Compare Unnecessary Makeover for situations when the audience REALLY doesn't believe a change is for the best. Can be both contrasted or caused by Generic Cuteness. Often a result of Only Six Faces.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
Haruhi Suzumiya is described as being stunningly beautiful in both the novels and the anime. She is, without question, but then so is the rest of the cast. The viewer's index of comparison is rather... limited, to say the least.
Mikuru is CONSTANTLY being called beautiful, gorgeous, and one of the cutest girls in school, to point where a picture of her in Haruhi's bunny-girl suit was selling like wildfire among the male students. However, Haruhi and Yuki look just as cute, but are (the latter especially) not nearly mentioned as much. Maybe that's just because Haruhi forces Mikuru to wear Fetish Fuel outfits.
This is addressed, sort of. Haruhi is considered attractive, and Kyon has even stated that she is as appealing as Mikuru, but her personality is off-putting. Yuki is also fairly popular in the school, with a fan-club of her own, but is still not as popular as Mikuru. Definitely elements of Truth in Television, as most people would focus on the busty, if shy, Mikuru than the under developed and quiet to the point of mute Yuki or the abrasive and demanding Haruhi. Basically all of the SOS Brigade has been described as good looking at some point or another, if to different degrees. Well, except Kyon.
Of note is the fact that Kyon adores Mikuru and Kyon is the narrator. Even in the books, where we can't see and decide for ourselves, the way he talks about her makes it pretty clear that he's blinded by love and nobody could really be that hot.
Moka in Rosario + Vampire is described as very attractive a bit more often than necessary. By the main character, sure, but every time she changes outfits, his response will be something along the lines of "You're so cute in your <clothing type here> clothing too, Moka-san!"
Not that he's wrong or anything...
He isn't. However, there are a lot of pretty girls in the series; several of whom are after him and don't get half of the compliments Moka receives.
This was a little better before the Tone Shift, where Tsukune might at least acknowledge the other girls as cute/pretty or get flustered by their advances; since the viewer knew he considered them attractive too and mostly liked Moka better for her personality as well, it avoided the trope. Later, however, as Tsukune became the standard clueless shonen hero, Moka is the object of his Single-Target Sexuality.
If you're not interested in feminine bishonen, the appeal of Griffith in Berserk and why people seem to love him instantly can be confounding and hard to relate to.
Even some people who love traditional feminine Bishōnen don't necessarily take well to Griffith's looks... his appearance seems to be appreciated by a rather selective section of the audience.
Ran Mouri from Detective Conan is supposed to be extremely attractive such that she's always the one who gets picked up. Even so, she looks no better than her friend Sonoko.
Tokidoki Rikugou of Amatsuki is always being told how cute and good looking he is, and has people falling for him left and right, but Kon never gets treated like that and is just as attractive. The manga does actually acknowledge Kon as good looking, he's just apparently "not much fun".
Julia in Fist of the North Star (or Yuria, as you prefer) is apparently beautiful enough for Kenshiro, Shin, Toki, Raoh and more to be madly in love with her and say things like "She was the only woman I ever loved". Tetsuo Hara might be good at drawing Bad Ass men and whatnot, sure, but women... not much so.
It was part of what she was: she was basically the physical incarnation of the love of a mother. And ALL the characters that fell for her really missed their mothers, if they even met them (in fact, Kenshiro is showed having never met his mother). This was lampshaded twice: first in Fudo's flashback, where Julia is the first EVER to tame the demon and Fudo immediately admits he never met his mother (and even believed children popped out from the ground like worms), and then by Julia (I think, but I may be wrong) saying to Raoh he loved her exactly because of that.
Sasuke in Naruto and his good looks are mainly commented on by his admirers. He isgood looking, but so are many of the other male members of the cast, and no one ever comments on their attractiveness.
Kouko Ibuki from Clannad. She's very pretty, but since she's in a series utterly flooded with exceptionally moe characters, it seems odd when Tomoya (in his guise as the show's narrator) tells us how beautiful she is.
In After Story, Nagisa also at one point turns out to be quite the super-attractive guy magnet, which is even weirder since her looks didn't get much mention before.
Sae Kashiwagi of Peach Girl is always described as "really pretty" and "cute" by most of the guys in her school. None of the other girls tend to be described as attractive though, even though some of them are just as pretty if not more so.
Bleach: This has been invoked a few times, always in an exaggerated manner so it can be Played for Laughs.
When Shishigawara first sees Orihime's face, he's sent flying backwards through the air before crashing into the ground, dazed and shaken, leaving her rather confused and leaving him wondering whether she's really that inhumanly beautiful or whether it's simply because he hasn't seen a girl for a while.
When Riruka first gets a good look at Ichigo's face, she freezes for several moments before his hotness causes her to cry out and collapse to her knees, breathless and flushed. Ichigo is rather confused. Later on, in a Call Back to this scene, when she summons Ichigo to her for training, she suddenly tells him to stop and come no closer with a deep blush on her face, leaving him confused yet again.
Chizuru Kawanami of Yumekui Merry. She's the only female character that gets sexy sparklybubbly glowy montages and "oooohhhs" and "aaaaahhhs" from the guys, but the fanbase really doesn't seem to care about her one way or the other, especially not next to fan favorites like Merry and Isana. This is probably the straightest anime example listed thus far, as every other character on this list really does have quite a few fans of the opposite gender, even if there are fans that don't like them.
Rukawa of Slam Dunk. He's attractive in a feminine way (skinny, pale skinned, long eyelashes, silky black hair, soft features) and is swooned over by the female student body; the rest of the Shohoku starters are seen as scary looking. This can be rather jarring as Sakuragi and Mitsui are clearly drawn as handsome and Miyagi isn't bad on the eyes either (though he has an unflattering haircut).
However, considering Hancock is easily the most physically powerful female character introduced thus far, it's likely that there's an element of Hot Amazon to this attraction.
The bisexual Icemaiden was Sigrid Nansen. DC's other Ice Maiden, Tora Olafsdotter, a.k.a. Ice (who wears a similar costume to Sigrid, has the same powers, and was also a member of the JLA and Global Guardians, even though they're not legacy characters of each other, not that that's at all confusing) once got talked into accompanying her teammate Beatrice Da Costa, a.k.a. Fire, on a tryout for a modeling job. Tora got plenty of offers while Bea got none. There had never previously been any indication that Tora was supposed to even be as attractive as Bea, including the way they were drawn.
Wonder Woman is canonically described as the World's Most Beautiful Woman, having being blessed at birth by the goddess Aphrodite. However, there's really no way to show this in a comic book, and out of costume she's pretty much indistinguishable from other heroines with similar colouring such as Huntress.
Veronica from Archie Comics is identically drawn to Betty, just with darker hair. Nevertheless, males seem to universally find her more attractive than Betty, despite having a much less pleasant personality (though her wealth may have something to do with it). Betty's niceness could tread on Informed Attribute by itself, but most stories within the past 20 years play it straight that she's the nice one. Cheryl Blossom and Melody from the same universe alter it slightly with Buxom is Better (which is probably true amongst teenage boys anyways).
Tulip from the Preacher comics. It might just be the artist's style, but she's very plain looking. This doesn't stop her male companions and female best friend from acting like she's the perfect woman. This is a concern throughout much of said artist, Steve Dillon's, work.
Mystique briefly infiltrated the X-Men as a new student named Foxx. In spite of the other women around her, and Foxx's own creepy, ugly design, character dialogue constantly reminds us she is stunningly gorgeous, to the point she drove one character into insane lust and possibly seduced Gambit. It would be hard to argue that Fox is even "more attractive" to the undisguised Mystique herself.
A good argument could be made for Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man, especially when drawn by John Romita. Supposedly she was buxom and gorgeous beyond belief (and knew it), but many didn't see it like that.
MJ suffers from every single artist that comes on the title drawing their idea of the ultimate redheaded sexbomb, rather than any attempts to stay consistent with the original design or previous artist's style. So in a way she'll always be an example of this trope, as each artist informs us "This is what an attractive redhead looks like."
In Mandrake The Magician, writer Lee Falk sometimes went to extreme lengths to point out just how beautiful Mandrake's finacée Narda is. She once won a secret contest arranged by a mad collector to determine who is the most beautiful woman in the world (not that she was happy to win it, since the collector was really mad, and wanted to include her in his collection). She also won an inter-galactical beauty contest, competing against ten million alien women!!
In the comics, Daisy Duck is considered the most attractive woman in all of Duckburg, and has even done some modeling work. She looks just like Donald Duckin a dress.
Vanity Smurf of The Smurfs believes himself to be the most handsome Smurf in the village, despite looking rather identical to much of his fellow brethren.
Film
In the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesmovies, the turtles are almost wanking over April even though she's played by a strictly average-looking actress.*
Actually, more than one strictly average-looking actress.
Then again, she's pretty much the first woman they've ever met in person.
Dale Arden is described as beautiful in Flash Gordon, despite, you know...Princess Aura, right next to her. "She (Dale) even rivals your daughter (Aura)."
In Enigma, Saffron Burrows' character is continually portrayed as the more attractive of the two female characters. Her counterpart? Kate Winslet. Now, granted, Kate was pregnant during the filming (which was hastily gummed onto the script as an emergency Reality Subtext to avoid Scenery Censor tricks), and combined with some of the costumes she ended up looking a bit on the thick side, but still...
Lisa (Juliette Danielle) from The Room. The main characters state that she's "so beautiful" almost ad nauseum.
Taylor Vaughan (Jodi Lynn O'Keefe) from She's All That is described as the girl that every other girl wants to be and every guy wants to nail. This is in spite of the fact that Gabrielle Union and Rachael Leigh Cook (and Sarah Michelle Gellar) are also at the school. However, it's also implied that her reputation is mostly built on an illusion.
Liza Minnelli in Arthur is portrayed as more desirable than Arthur's gorgeous blonde fiancee, though this is probably in part due to her personality.
Twilight: When Edward Cullen is first introduced (slow motion entrance), Jessica describes him as "totally gorgeous" while Bella and Angela are practically drooling over him. The waitress at the restaurant is also shown checking him out. People also gush about Bella, played by Kristen Stewart, even though the school is filled with attractive actresses*
(note that Ashley Greene, Anna Kendrick, and other not notably ugly women get hardly any screen time in the movies)
and the character is crushingly antisocial.
Princess Leia in Star Wars. Luke gushes "she's beautiful" upon seeing her for the first time in a grainly, miniature hologram.
Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls gets a lot of praise, especially for her breasts.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture has Ilia, a Deltan whose beauty and pheromones give a sexual reaction in many species, so much so that she has an "Oath of Celibacy" on record. Only her former flame Will Decker shows more than a passing interest, and though she's played by a model (Persis Khambatta, Miss India 1965), she's also bald. The male bridge crew all stare when she arrives, with Sulu having the most obvious Hello Nurse reaction. They just return to professionalism once she announces the oath of celibacy.
Simple explanation for this: One of the writers had a thing for bald women, and was apparently dumbfounded to find out that this was not a universal appeal. He insisted he was still in the majority and simply wrote the script as if everyone shared his, ah... taste, and was suitably disgruntled and embarrassed when it turned out it was not just his fellow creative staff who didn't.
Charles Bludhorn, chairman of Paramount's then-owner Gulf + Western, summed it up in a meeting with Harve Bennett (who produced the next four Star Trek movies) when he told then-president Michael Eisner "You see, by you bald is sexy."
Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man. Peter Parker harbors a very long crush on her and thinks she's gorgeous. She also easily lands a number of strapping, handsome boyfriends such as James Franco and a hero astronaut.
A Knight's Tale has a great deal of fuss made of Jocelyn's beauty. The main character is immediately entranced by the sight of her and does everything in his power to gain her favor. Not much is made of the rest of the female cast.
Any adaptation of The Iliad is going to run into this problem. Helen of Troy is the most beautiful woman in the world, as selected by Aphrodite. Even in the nonmagical Troy, Helen is beautiful enough for Paris to start a war over.
Gilderoy Lockhart, played by Kenneth Branagh, has a considerable in-universe fan girl following.
Fleur Delacour. In the movies she is described as a breath-taking beauty with Veela (a stunningly beautiful magical creature) ancestry. Possibly justified in that the books imply that she possesses a magic charm that men find entrancing, but the audience obviously is not susceptible to.
In Ocean's Eleven, Matt Damon's character moans "This is the best part of my day" like he's about to orgasm right then and there as Julia Roberts walks down the stairs, basically acting like she's the hottest person he's ever seen in his life, an opinion backed up by all and sundry who get a look at her.
Another book-derived film example: Being There, in which Chance the Gardener is described by a senator's wife as "very, very sexy" to Eve, who agrees with that assessment. In the book, he's described as a cross between a young Ted Kennedy and Cary Grant. Interestingly, Sellers deliberately gained weight for the role, believing that Chance would live a sedentary lifestyle.
Kelly LeBrock in Weird Science is supposed to be the absolute teen dream girl.
In El Mariachi, Domino is supposed to be so beautiful that the local crimelord is willing to shower her with gifts to have her. The Mariachi sidesteps around this trope by saying, "She was the most beautiful creature I'd seen all day... next to the turtle." Director Robert Rodriguez apparently realized that his microscopic budget wasn't going to afford any supermodels, so he'd better not go overboard.
Zooey Deschanel as Summer Finn in (500) Days of Summer has an entire scene in the film that explains the "Summer Effect", which is basically this trope. There's a lot of work put into making sure that the audience understands that it isn't only Tom that's crazy about her. Tom gets into a bar fight over her with another guy for saying that she's too good for him.
It may or may not be significant that Paris Hilton is one of the executive producers.
Space Mutiny stars a female lead that is supposed to be a young, sexy love interest for the young and ripped Big McLargeHuge.
Interestingly enough, they got married in real life.
Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson) in Some Kind of Wonderful is said to be the most attractive girl in school , while tomboy Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson) is pretty much invisible to her best friend Keith (Eric Stoltz).
In American Pie, Stifler's mom is considering something of a legend among high school boys and apparently even popularized the term MILF.
Silken Floss is repeatedly called "the most beautiful woman ever" by the Octopus' goons in The Spirit. Sand Serif, played by Eva Mendes, doesn't get this hyperbolic of an assessment.
Though the henchmen are rather simple-minded clones, espousing this multiple times in a rather "my mommy is the best mommy in the whole wide world" tone. Also, Silken Floss is played by Scarlett Johansson.
In 25th Hour, Ed Norton's character is apparently supposed to be a pretty boy. Numerous characters cringe at the thought of "what they do to guys like him in prison." Norton's character is so scared that he's too pretty for prison that he forces his friend to pummel his face into hamburger so he'll be uglier in the critical first few weeks of his sentence.
In Nino's dream in Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, the headshots in one of his pictures come alive and argue over whether Amelie is all that attractive. Some will only say that she's rather pretty, but another insists that she's beautiful. Interestingly, the character was written for Emily Watson, and was probably going to be somewhat Hollywood Homely before Audrey Tautou was cast. During the press tour, one reporter even asked Jean-Pierre Jeunet why he had bucked his previous tradition by casting such a conventionally attractive actor in the lead.
Characters in Clerks II describe Dante's Romantic False Lead as extremely beautiful. She's played by Kevin Smith's wife, Jennifer, who, by all accounts, is indeed beautiful... but she's cast alongside Rosario Dawson, and therefore fails to stand out.
Prince of Persia's Princess Tamina is said to be beautiful and when we get to see her Tus says "for once the stories are true" which all then men leer at her. Even the Prince can't take his eyes off her.
In the movie to the musical Rent, Maureen is described as a girl who "all the boys would look at since puberty". The attractiveness of both the actress and the character are sometimes in dispute among fans.
The first trailer for Snow White And The Huntsman is out, and it seems that every second comment made about it expresses disbelief that Kristen Stewart is "the fairest of them all" when up against Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen.
In the Barbra Streisand vehicle The Mirror Has Two Faces, her plain Jane character Rose undergoes a makeover to win over her inattentive husband. Suddenly, whereas no one gave her a second look before, every male within sight is fawning and gushing over her, even her 20-something years younger students (she's an English professor), to the point where she needs to stop in the middle of a lecture to chastise them for ogling her. Barbra Streisand is an attractive woman, but the excessive gawking was a little ridiculous.
Literature
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the book had Lucy learning about a spell that would make her so beautiful that (according to descriptions of the spell book's illustration of her Imagine Spot) all of Narnia would be plunged into a bloody civil war as suitors fought for her hand. Quite obviously, when The Film of the Book was made, this part had to be changed since there was just no way to make her look that beautiful (even temporarily) on the screen.
Live-Action TV
In Friends season 7, Rachel chooses to hire a handsome male assistant instead of a more experienced woman, risking her job because he's just so pretty! Rachel, Phoebe, and even Chandler gush about how good-looking he is. In another episode, Ross and Monica's cousin (played by Denise Richards) is so attractive that Ross forgets that he's related to her, and Phoebe temporarily turns gay. In another, Brad Pitt shows up and the episode basically revolves around the main cast mentioning how attractive he is.
Likewise, the first season episode with Victoria's Secret model Jill Goodacre. Chandler is nearly hypnotized by her hotness, but while she certainly is sexy, she's not noticeably more beautiful than practically every other woman in the show's history. It could be due to the fact that she's a well known model and that Chandler has probably already seen her in her underwear from catalogs.
The Friends examples are a textbook case of this trope. Yes, Denise Richards and Eddie Cahill are very good looking, but so is virtually every romantic interest that's ever been on the show.
Joey gets all the girls even though none of the others have exactly been hit with the ugly stick, or are even as off-putting in personality as they're painted.
All Girls Want Bad Boys. Phoebe doesn't believe his pick-up line "How you doin'?" would work on so many women, until he tries it on her and she giggles. Toward the beginning of the series, he was depicted as being more pragmatic and stylish (in The Nineties, a vest over a tight black t-shirt was considered stylish) than the other male characters. He, along with Chandler, served as a Bromantic Foil for Dogged Nice Guy Ross. He later descended into beingThe Ditz, but his status as The Casanova remained
The characters gushing over Brad Pitt was somewhat justified. The character he played was one of Ross and Monica's friends in high school; when Monica was asked to describe him, she responded by saying "I was his thin friend."
Ginger on Gilligans Island was supposed to be a glamorous movie star of whom Mary Ann was jealous. The debate still rages over whether Mary Ann or Ginger was the hotter castaway.
Nelle Porter (Portia de Rossi) was introduced as some sort of blonde goddess in Ally McBeal. Now, de Rossi is certainly good looking, but she isn't notably more attractive than Jane Krakowski, Courtney Thorne-Smith or Calista Flockhart (though her clothing, hair, and makeup could conceivably be described as more glamorous).
Note that Mr. Harrison is played by Blair Underwood, who has made several most attractive lists, like People`s sexiest man alive. A better example of this is New Christine who is very pretty but often treated as though she is amazing looking and has men drooling over her where ever she goes. Barb who is played by Wanda Sykes is also found to be very attractive by both Matthew and Richard and seems to have an Even the Girls Want Her situation with Old Christine.
Cameron on House was told she got her job because she's pretty ("it's like having a nice piece of art in the lobby"), and could have breezed through life on looks alone, yet became a Doctor, which said something for her dedication and how much she cared.
Dr. Chase. Not to say he's ugly, but during the speed dating, House points that he's not in the same league as Wilson or himself. Not so hard to find House fangirls who prefer Wilson.
In the episode "Skin Deep" the team treats a 15 year old model. The repeatedly stated assumption is that she's so beautiful that no man could possibly pass up an opportunity to sleep with her including her own father. This is a major assumption in their diagnosis. In real life, opinions would vary much more widely.
Hollyoaks is generally terrible for this. The majority of the cast members (particularly the female ones) are drop-dead gorgeous, but the script-writers always seem to choose one or two of them quite arbitrarily and have all the other characters harp on about how beautiful they are. One example was Sarah Barnes, a part-time model who was lusted after by just about everyone. She was played by Loui Batley, who is by no means unattractive, but consider that Sarah's best friend was Hannah Ashworth (Emma Rigby◊), who was portrayed as being so jealous of Sarah's looks and popularity that she developed a severe eating disorder in an attempt to look more like her.
Very early in season one especially, Samantha Carter on Stargate SG-1 is mentioned several times as being exceedingly beautiful, even going as far as having a Mongol IN SPACE comment that she was worth the price of six women for a trade. Nearly everyone who talks about how beautiful she is says this after only seeing her in baggy, unflattering military uniforms. She's certainly hot in civilian clothes, but there are relatively much fewer comments about her looks this way. Although her attractiveness to said Mongol could possibly have been linked to her being rather exotic relative to the women in his kingdom.
Another notable example is Hathor, who even without her seduction drugs was supposed to be irresistibly attractive. Suanne Braun◊ is indeed beautiful, but the severe wig◊ she wore in the role quite overshadowed her face.
WKRP in Cincinnati had two regular female characters. Jennifer (played by Loni Anderson) was invariably treated as a sexpot. Her photo was frequently stolen from the lobby, she maintained her job despite refusing to do much of the work associated with her position ("Get us some coffee, Jennifer" "I don't do coffee." "Oh, I'll just get it myself." "Thank you, Mr. Carlson." "No, Jennifer, thank you."), and she had an endless series of (usually rich) suitors at her beck and call. Meanwhile, Bailey Quarters (played by Jan Smithers) was extremely attractive (many argue more so than Loni Anderson), but invariably treated as plain and boring.
This was actually a deconstruction of the trope. According to the show's creators Bailey was supposed to be obviously better-looking than Jennifer. The constant fawning over Jennifer was supposed to be a joke.
Sex and the City has Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, who is depicted as incredibly sexy and sought-after by men, and many of her friends (including the famously pretty Kristin Davis) are envious of her looks at times. It isn't that she's 'ugly', but that Sex and the City aggressively marketed her as a conventional beauty and fashion plate when the other characters were either not that much different.
Those that love her love her... but those who hate her hate her; most of the former are women, and most of the latter (or are at least underwhelmed by her appearance) are men. Women focus on the features they think are attractive in women, like her designer clothes. Men look at her face and her body, and they don't get the appeal at all (except for Matthew Broderick apparently).
On Star Trek: Enterprise, the production team loved to frame Jolene Blalock as Ms. Fanservice repeatedly. But on the show itself, her Vulcan character of T'Pol was presented as essentially shunned by the human crew early on. It was actually a symbol of Character Development on both sides when she was considered reasonably attractive "for a Vulcan". When stranded on a shuttlepod and thinking they were going to die, Reed mentioned to Trip how he thought T'Pol had a "nice bum", while Trip was dismissive of that. Ironically, Trip started to form a romantic relationship with her in the third season.
Played with in an episode of TNG, where the Enterprise was recruited to escort a woman to be married to the leader of another planet as a peace treaty. The woman, Kamala, was an empath and capable of reading the minds of others and taking on personality traits they would be attracted to. She nearly caused a riot in Ten Forward due to having a group of space-construction workers hanging out there and even made a pass at Worf by acting like a Klingon woman would. In this case, it was made exceptionally clear that it was her personality that caught everyone's attention and not just because she was played by Famke Janssen.
Mary Shannon of In Plain Sight. We're constantly told that she's gorgeous, a "hot blonde" and very attractive. Now, she's far from ugly, but with her long face and strong features she is not exactly the knockout drop-dead gorgeous character everyone on the show makes her out to be.
In most adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, the actress cast as Jane Bennett is often less attractive than Lizzie, despite her renown as 'the most beautiful of the Bennett girls'. While understandable insofar as the heroine is normally the prettiest girl in a show, it's glaring in this case as it's a major plot point/piece of characterisation. Jane's beauty is such that's she's expected to singlehandedly raise the family's dire fortunes. Despite this preference for a plainer Jane, she's still repeatedly referred to as the best looking.
Crosses over with Values Dissonance in the 1995 miniseries: Susannah Harker (as Jane) pretty much fits the Regency England model of an attractive woman, yet a good portion of modern viewers found Jennifer Ehle more attractive.
Parodied by the "Mango" sketches on Saturday Night Live, with the notion that Chris Kattan wearing gold-colored hot pants turns straight guys gay. And Ellen DeGeneres straight. And that the talent was genetic, coming from his father Papya... played by Danny DeVito.
Brian Kinney in Queer As Folk was written as if he were impossibly attractive, but the actor, Gale Harold, was not miles ahead of the rest of the cast.
This was especially noted by those who saw the UK version beforehand; Stuart (Brian's analogue character) was incredibly attractive, to the point where it was believable that other characters might lust over such a person whose personality is less endearing. The typical response from British viewers watching Showtime's Queer As Folk for the first time was "What did they ''do'' to Stuart?!"
The West Wing: OK, Allison Janney is tall and attractive, no doubt. But the number of men who fell all over themselves to sing paeans to CJ's sexiness was a tad ridiculous.
In the 2006 version of Robin Hood, the character of Kate is introduced in season three, replacing Marian and Djaq as the main female character. It's love at first sight for Much, and Allan isn't too far behind. Robin tells her that she's "beautiful", Archer isn't at all interested in joining the outlaws until Kate's life is endangered, and even Little John seems rather taken with her, referring to her as "a treasure". Prince John locks her up with the intention of raping her, Rufus the tax-collector kidnaps her and forces her to dance in front of him, and even a random tavern patron tries his luck. Now, Kate is okay looking (despite the awful hair)...but take a look at Marian and Djaq (scroll down). If a woman of Kate's apparent beauty makes every man around her go crazy with love/desire/lust, then shouldn't Marian and Djaq have been beating off hoards of men 24/7?
Even more irritating, Djaq has exactly TWO promotional pictures taken of her, whereas Kate has at least ten. Many of these seem designed to drive home her supposed "hotness" even more, by having Much and Allan standing either side of her to denote their Love Triangle, or Robin leaning all over her as though smelling her hair.
The audio books can't seem to shut up about her looks either. In The Witchfinders Robin is momentarily struck dumb by Kate's beauty when she tames a skittish horse, and The Dambusters opens with Much pondering her (non-existent) virtues, including her good looks. Again, this is frankly quite bizarre considering both men have spent the past two years in the company of Djaq and Marian, who by anyone's standards, were drop-dead gorgeous.
On Lizzie McGuire, Kate is the quintessential Alpha Bitch, including the fact that she's sought by every guy and supposedly the prettiest girl in the class. Yet Lizzie, played by Hilary Duff, is the Hollywood Homely. The earlier episodes stated Kate's bustiness had something to do with it, but the later episodes ceased from mentioning it.
Every single woman that Major Nelson dated for the first five seasons of I Dream of Jeannie. Sure, they were all attractive, but even Jeannie would go on and on about how beautiful they were. Though it is justified in that Jeannie was massively jealous of all these women, and probably tremendously insecure from Tony rebuffing her advances for five years.
Usually played straight on Eight Simple Rules, but Cool Loser Kerry has been ranked above Bridget on at least one occasion.
In the That '70s Show episode "Eric's Hot Cousin" said cousin was supposed to be so hot that Eric lusted after her and Donna and Jackie felt upstaged by her. She was played by Brittany Daniel, but she's just slightly less better looking than Mila or Laura.
Meanwhile, Kelso goes on and on about how hot he is, and is never corrected. Apparently his hottitude is a matter of record in the T70S 'verse. Yet he doesn't seem dramatically more attractive than the other young men.
Throughout the whole series, everyone touts Donna as Point Place's single hottest girl, so much so that Eric is supposedly way out of his league to be with her. And while Laura Prepon is indeed attractive, she's honestly not much hotter than any other girl on the show.
Done somewhat oddly in Jekyll: when Tom Jackman becomes Hyde, his features alter, which is reflected in actor James Nesbitt's makeup (different hairline, jaw, etc.). What's weird is that people keep referring to Hyde as a "pretty boy" and the like; Nesbitt in either incarnation isn't unattractive, but he's a quirky kind of good-looking, and the Hyde prosthetics make him look more sinister than pretty. And ultimately, the difference isn't that noticeable anyway.
Pam Dawber was never hard on the eyes as Mindy McConnell on Mork and Mindy. But it does seem like overkill that every DVD release of the show needs to point out that Mindy is pretty.
In Burn Notice, Gabrielle Anwar's character is repeatedly referred to as attractive, even getting into parties, VIP club sections, etcetera solely on her looks. However, most of the other women at these parties appear to be around 18-22, and while Anwar is far from old, she doesn't seem like she'd actually be able to charm her way into most of these situations. She isn't unattractive, just out of place.
Law & Order: Pretty much every two-man (and they were all men in the early days) cop team consisted of an old cop and a young cop, with the young cop always "informed" as being attractive (which they pretty much were). The phenomenon usually expressed itself in the form of women hitting on them, giving them phone numbers, asking them to call, or generally indicating it with body language.
In Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, it is made extremely clear that everyone in-universe finds Olivia Benson extremely attractive. Which, being Mariska Hargitay, she is, but certainly not quite so dramatically more so than Alex Cabot or Casey Novak.
An interesting example recently happened with guest star Rose McGowan. In the show, she was a swinger/con artist who was some type of Memetic Sex God who had almost every male in the episode falling at her feet. While Rose McGowan is a stunningly beautiful woman, she had recently had some reconstructive surgery after a car accident, and most believe she had a few extra unnecessary procedures (mostly since the accident left her with a cut under her eye, but she also appeared to have had lip injections, amongst other things) that left her appearance in the episode a little off and not quite so hypnotically beautiful to justify having men murder for her.
The character of Michelle Richardson in Skins was depicted as the best looking girl in school. While the actress April Pearson is nice looking, Hannah Murray as Cassie is at least as pretty if not prettier. Possibly justified in that Michelle is flirty and extremely confident, whereas Cassie is unstable bordering on psychotic. Plus no one ever states outright that Michelle is better-looking than Cassie, or her "nerdy" friend Jal (played by the very attractive Larissa Wilson) for that matter, she just generally puts a lot more effort into looking good and carries herself with extreme confidence. In the episode where Jal gets a glamorous make-over, note that the boys are all suddenly staring at her and not Michelle.
In the BBC's adaptations of the Sally Lockhart stories by Philip Pullman, they cast Billie Piper as Sally. Now Pullman is a writer who does not go in for physical description on the whole and yet on the first page of 'The Ruby In The Smoke', Sally is described as 'uncommonly pretty'.
That could be what me meant, instead of abnormally pretty, he could have met pretty in an uncommon (unconventional) sense, and Piper is very pretty in a unique way.
Jasmine from Angel was supposed to be so beautiful that people would just fall down and worship her, but even the lovely Gina Torres falls short. This beauty was magical in nature, and unfortunately, your TV just can't reproduce the effect. Equally, When the glamour suddenly wore off and everyone saw her true face, she didn't look anywhere as bad as expected, or the reaction suggested.
Parodied in The Kids in the Hall with a film showing us "The Most Handsome Man in the World!", who is barely real-life average, strutting down the street, acting up to his title.
In an early episode of Dallas Sue Ellen gushes over how handsome Cliff Barnes is. Actor Ken Kercheval is not ugly◊ but it is stretch to call him anything better than average looking.
The Poirot television series was pretty bad about this trope, marching out a range of characters who were actresses, models, aristocrats, glamour-queens and various other "beauties" that Hastings would invariably gush over, all of whom were played by decidedly average-looking women.
The 2002 Costume Drama adaptation of The Forsyte Saga runs into some of the same issues that Poirot above does. The actress who plays Irene Heron, who is ostensibly a great beauty, is a prime example of this trope.
On one episode of Cheers, Cliff is ashamed that the woman he's dating is ugly (you'd think that he'd be glad to have anyone at all; think again). She ends up getting a makeover and having men drooling over her even though, from the audience's point of view, it would seem that the makeover isn't working.
Jane on Coupling is certainly flirty as well as reasonably pretty, but in several episodes, she's hyped up more than would seem believable. One particular episode has Susan being unduly impressed by Jane's breasts, when they are average sized and not being shown off to any particular advantage. Especially compared to a lot of artificially enhanced actresses, they can be considered somewhat small.
Nip/Tuck makes Julia McNamara's character the object of undying affection for both Sean and Christian. Her looks are questionable, with pronounced bags under her eyes and the kind of pale skin that turns blotchy and gross with her incessant crying and screaming bouts. The guys (and later a girl) behave as though she is the single most beautiful creature alive. This COULD be chalked up to them appreciating her natural beauty in light of all the "fake" women they see day in and day out, but several other female characters are much more attractive. Likewise, Kimber is pretty, but as time goes on, in spite of all the procedures she's supposed to have, her looks never improve and she is still the "eight" Christian originally said she was... even though she is treated like she's become a "ten."
This trope was played with on an episode of Jonathan Creek in which a pop starlet's husband is only sexually interested in her if she's wearing the tarty makeup and outfits that have made her career so successful. Without it, she's still attractive, but better described as "pretty" or "cute" than "drop dead gorgeous". Of course, the audience may have found her in both incarnations a case of Informed Attractiveness.
In Gossip Girl, Serena (Blake Lively) is described as always being the most attractive woman in the room, but quite a lot of female characters are equally as attractive, if not more, such as Raven Hair, Ivory Skin Blair (Leighton Meester).*
The fact that Serena doesn't go as much out of her way to be obnoxious as many of the other female characters do, including Blair, may be a factor. Though for a lot of people this is part of the appeal as well...
Also, Chuck describes his girlfriend Eva as "radiant", but standing besides the others... not so much.
Also his earlier temporary love interest Elle, played by Kate French. Now, French is pretty, but she cannot possibly be considered the most beautiful woman Chuck-the-womaniser has ever seen, especially considering he dated Blair.
An interesting case of this trope can be found in the plethora of alien beauties in Farscape. Naturally, the wide variety of different species have different tastes, particularly when it comes to non-humanoid characters, so we have to take Rygel's word for it when he falls for a fellow Hynerian who is just as slimy and slug-like as he is.
However, all the main female characters (Aeryn, Zhaan, Jool, Sikuzo) are considered or have been described as "beautiful" or "attractive" within the show, but special attention is always given to Chiana, treated as a highly desirable woman with immense sex appeal. In this case, it is not her beauty but her sensuality that is called into question, particularly when compared to the other women: whilst they all have a certain amount of poise and physical grace, Chiana lopes around like a bow-legged chimpanzee. Needless to say, for many people this is not particularly sexy.
A surprising subversion occurred in Hercules The Legendary Journeys when the time came to play out the myth of Cupid and Psyche. According to the legends, Psyche was the most beautiful woman in existence, so much so that Aphrodite herself was jealous of her beauty. The actress playing Psyche was indeed pretty, but not more so than the hundreds of other gorgeous women to have appeared on the show. The writers actually get around this in a rather clever way. First of all, Psyche is shown living in a rather small provincial town, where good looks would arguably have been rarer. Second, she is not so beautiful that men are actually scared of her; instead she simply has to put up with an unwelcome line of suitors. Finally, Aphrodite's motivations in persecuting Psyche had nothing whatsoever to do with her appearance (she acted out of concern for her son, who was in love with Psyche and turned into a Green-Eyed Monster whenever she got too much attention from another man).
Sally on 3rd Rock from the Sun got plenty of attention for her looks; certainly she was tall and relatively busty and curvy but Kristen Johnston's face is not exactly classically beautiful and even among the regular cast Nina is arguably more attractive.
Much dialogue, and indeed entire subplots, are devoted in How I Met Your Mother to Robin's beauty. As with many of these examples, yes, she's very attractive, but not drop-everything-fall-to-your-knees-thank-God-for-letting-me-see-this-beautiful-creature attractive. Especially considering that the show has a regular assembly line of extremely attractive one-off characters passing through, whether in the form of Ted's failed relationships or Barney's conquests, made even more ridiculous when the viewer is supposed to believe that strangers would bulldoze over and completely ignoreLily to hit on Robin.
Also, the cast makes a big deal about the hotness of a new female bartender. The bartender, while conventionally attractive, is hardly better looking than any of the female cast or any female actor that appears in any given episode. It is mentioned however by Robin that her hotness is "situational" and being behind the bar makes her look better than she actually is. Lily, who in particular was insisting that the bartender was totally hot, might have just been overdoing it to get Marshall to admit that he found other women besides her attractive.
Drake from Drake & Josh. Although, Drake Bell (the actor) is like this in Real Life and considering his musician status that is likely a major reason behind Drake Parker's (the character) romantic pursuits. But a lot of the humor in the show came from Drake being the opposite of Josh, where Josh Peck (the actor) grew to be quite tall and handsome, as such that many fans considered him to be more attractive than Drake by the last season.
The 2008 miniseries of Tess of the d'Urbervilles took this to great lengths with the character of Angel Clare, as played by Eddie Redmayne. He is undeniably very boyish and delicate-looking and had almost zero romantic charisma, and during the course of the series he has four milkmaids (including the title character, as played by Gemma Arterton) who worship the ground on which he walks. One of them, Retty, even tries to drown herself after he gets married to Tess. He also has an old friend in his hometown who obviously has feelings for him, and had a brief fling with a cougar in London.
MOST people, male and female, find Hyacinthe from Keeping Up Appearances repulsive, but an unusual number of men over the course of the series get the palm sweats over matronly, middle-aged woman. It's usually the Major, whose advances Hyacinth tolerates to some extent because he's very-well-connected-socially. Rule of Funny, really, and usually Lampshaded.
Same goes for Onslow. His wife Daisy is unaccountably fascinated with his body. Even Onslow is at a loss to comprehend it.
In an episode of A Touch of Frost entitled Deep Waters a girl is pushed down a flight of stairs by a stalker. Throughout the entire episode she is repeatedly referred to as being one of the most attractive women in Denton by everyone including: Inspector Frost, her best mate, her boyfriend, her Dean, her stalker's best mates... thing is, she really isn't as attractive as everyone claims she is.
On The Golden Girls, we were constantly informed how beautiful and sexy Blanche Devereaux was. Most often by Blanche herself. She was certainly attractive, but not ridiculously more so than Rose, Dorothy (hardly the hideous ogre they frequently made her out to be), and even Sophia (played by Estelle Getty, who was actually close in age to the others and quite attractive in flashback scenes where she ditched the white wig).
Phoebe Halliwell on Charmed. People on the show talked about her as if she were the most gorgeous creature to ever walk the Earth. While Alyssa Milano was certainly beautiful, she wasn't significantly more attractive than Rose McGowan, Holly Marie Combs, and Shannen Doherty. Their characters weren't praised for their looks nearly as much as Phoebe was (although she did have a tendency to show more skin than the other 3 did).
There was a tacky, shoddily made telenovela (a Russian/Argentine co-production) in 2006, titled ''Tango's Rhythm." One of the characters, a rather dull and pedestrian actress in terms of acting, charisma, and looks, was repeatedly showered by complements throughout the show regarding her intelligence, charisma, but most of all, her "great beauty," that made her a searing Femme Fatale and had all the man literally fighting for and throwing themselves on her. Can someone say "a shameless case of nepotism?"
Special attention has been drawn to the attractiveness of Sarah on Chuck on a few occasions. While Yvonne Strahovski is one gorgeous lady, the show seemingly lampshades it a little too much. Probably justified for Chuck himself, though, given his own nebbish insecurities around her, and that most of the other lookers in the series are either minor or recurring characters, villains of the week, or, of course, Chuck's sister.
On Sports Night, Sally Sasser was discussed as if she was the best-looking woman anyone in the show had ever seen. While Brenda Strong certainly is lovely, it's hard to view her as significantly better-looking than Felicity Huffman. The show worked around this, or arguably subverted it, by having Dan Rydell find her somewhat off-putting and struggle to understand what other men saw in her.
In an episode of Medium the main character Alison Dubois (Played by Patricia Arquette) spends half the episode talking about how attractive a woman she has dreamt about is. That woman is played by Rosanna Arquette - Patricia's sister. While she is attractive, she is by no means the "Exceptionally beautiful" woman Alison keeps referring to.
Played with in an episode of Corner Gas where Lacey discovers that every girl in Dog River thinks '''Brent''' is the most attractive male in town.
Family Matters: Steve regards Laura Winslow as the most beautiful girl in the world (as do several of the other boys who show interest in her), remaining in love with her to the point of obsession throughout the show's duration. Laura's certainly very pretty, but deserving of such obsession?
Brenda Chenowith in Six Feet Under has no problem seducing and having casual sex with lots of very good-looking men who tell her she's gorgeous. Rachel Griffiths isn't outright unattractive, but she's just not as desirable as we're supposed to believe.
Flight of the Conchords has an amusing example, where the woman who is the target of Jemaine's classic line "She's so hot she's making me sexist" is of only average looks.
Professional Wrestling
Pro wrestling is very prone to this, since a large majority of wrestlers (both male and female) are athletic, well-built, and usually somewhat decently attractive, if not supermodel gorgeous (WWE has actually had to fight off accusations that they hire their Divas based on looks first and talent second.) This shows up in two ways:
They seem to randomly assign somebody as more attractive than the others, and frequently talk them up as such. Kelly Kelly has somehow gotten the reputation (mostly thanks to Jerry Lawler obsessing over her) as the most beautiful Diva on the roster. Kelly is certainly drop-dead beautiful, but when she's in the ring with the likes of Eve◊ or Layla◊, does she really stand out like Aphrodite? (Note: This frequently happens with prettyboy male wrestlers as well, John Morrison gets it a lot lately, and in fact this was once the defining aspect of the character of Cody Rhodes.)
A (usually female) stable will frequently become a group of Alpha Bitches, will be considered, by themselves and others, the most beautiful and start to attack others female wrestlers they don't see as worthy. Lay Cool did it, as did TNA's The Beautiful People, who said point-blank they were "Cleansing the World, One Ugly Person at A Time." When they were attacking Brawn Hilda Awesome Kong and The Lad-ette ODB, it was quasi-believable, but when they went after Gail Kim,◊ people called nonsense.
Video Games
Suikoden V: Lyon gets a lot of attention from the males, more than any other female, even more than Jean!
In Fate Stay Night, there are repeated references to how incredibly beautiful both Rin and Saber are.
Ironically, most fans seem to prefer Archer or Lancer over Gilgamesh.
In Tales Of Phantasia, during a Skinship Grope scene Arche claims that Mint has a really nicely-sized pair of breasts. It's hard to see that in the official arts, though she is shown in her robes in all of them, so perhaps they're pushed in (which must be really fun for Mint by the way...), or Arche might have just been comparing Mint to herself.
Arche is often described as attractive too, though. They probably both are, because they're all drawn to be attractive (and because the writers don't want fanboys of the other female characters to hate the one that gets the attention).
Arche often comes across as more vulgar and forward - she attempts at one point to secure passage by offering sexual services, and is rebuffed ostensibly because she looks underage, but the captain might just as easily have been uncomfortable with her forwardness - compared to the more pure and pristine healer Mint. Her feelings of inferiority are plain to see during the confrontation with the unicorn: Arche thinks the unicorn won't come near her because she is impure (and possibly not a virgin). Exaggerating Mint's hotness is done to justify her own acknowledgement of an inferior position. In other words, she thinks Mint is better than her, and rationalises this by convincing herself that Mint is really hot. (Goodness Equals Beauty?)
Lucia from Lunar 2 has just about everybody drooling over her and telling her how pretty she is, to the point where soldiers are second guessing putting her to death because "nobody that beautiful can be evil" (the characters in this game are infamous for thinking with their other head). Not that she's bad looking, but she doesn't stand out as far as Lunar girls go. Though to be fair, Jean has her fanboys in-game, and Lemina has a couple of admirers, too.
Yomi from Jewels Ocean is said to be the most beautiful being, even envied by the Gods for, one NPC even outright stating "Her beauty surpasses even all of the jewels around the world". Granted she really is very beautiful but it's very clear that the game exaggerates it too much.
Most likely because the art-style of the Mario games doesn't let us appreciate it. If he was drawn in a more realistic style, he would probably look like Tom Selleck, if the character's comments are any clue.
According to NPC chatter in Final Fantasy X, Seymour is quite the catch and Yuna is lucky to have him. Seymour is apparently one-quarter plant, with disproportionately large, long-fingered and longer-clawed hands, a pattern of ridges on his face that resemble nothing so much as veins, blue hair that grows into tree-root-like stalks, and a handful of other strange features.
His robes are also loosely tied giving him an Absolute Cleavage outfit. However, it gives him the distinct look of having a hairy beer-belly.
For both the games and anime, Milotic is stated to be the most beautiful Pokémon in existence. Later generations of Pokemon games introduce Pokemon Contest, which includes beauty as one of the Pokemon's primary stats, though a Pokemon with a maxed out beauty stat is going to look exactly the same as one with nothing invested in it.
Dragon Age: Origins generally assumes that you're going to make your PC attractive, and a number of characters, maleor female, will tell you that you're the sexiest thing since sex. That's all well and good, unless you realize your big, shiny character creator has quite a bit of variety available to you and decide that you'd rather make your character look... interesting rather than beautiful. The same can also be said for the sequel.
Chun Li from Street Fighter has been officially stated to be the most beautiful woman in the entire roster, personal preferences be damned.
In Knights Of The Old Republic 2, the six Echani Handmaidens are supposed to look identical except for differences in the last, who had a different mother and takes after her mother. She is also supposed to be more beautiful than her half-sisters. Guess what? Her model is exactly the friggin' same!
In Mass Effect 2, Miranda is supposed to have been genetically modified to be perfect, with little actual evidence of this. Two mitigating factors here, though: first, Miranda is the one telling you her looks were engineered to perfection (and being obsessed with her "greatness" coming from her genes rather than herself is her major character flaw) and second, there is at least one part of her that is undoubtedly more attractive than usual, and the animation isn't afraid to show it.
Also, a part of what hinders her looks is the glitching in the game's rendering system with her model that causes her features to be very frozen and unmoving. When we see her at the beginning of the game in a fully-rendered CGI cutscene with the Illusive Man, her face moves and contorts properly with her mouth so we get a proper look at her. The results are much more stunning.
In Rise Of The Kasai, the twins are apparently supposed to be attractive female sorceresses who are able to enslave the whole Horde (the all male army of the Kasai cult) through magically assisted seduction, and even manage to do this to the main hero, Rau. However, the game's dated graphics, Disney-esque art style, and the general haziness of the scene they appear in (it's in a volcano) make them appear to be more like skin and bone, tight wrinkled old women. Then again, how much of their power was meant to be based off of actual attractiveness and how much was meant to be pure magic is never really addressed.
Princess Kaguya of Touhou is meant to be, well, Princess Kaguya of "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter", whose beauty was so magnificent that mere legends of it resulted in her being desired by nearly every man in the country, including the Emperor. No depictions of her, official or by fans, are representative of this, though one person came pretty damn close.
In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, there's a moment where Naomi breathlessly admits that Otacon has the most beautiful eyes she's ever seen. It's charming, and Otacon is attractive, but Snake actually has better-rendered, layered irises with realistic depth to them (since he's the main character and they need to light up properly in different environments), whereas Otacon's are just baked straight onto the surface of his eyeball poly since he isn't shown outside of one specific environment often.
Web Comics
The Order of the Stick has a number of these because of its medium, what with them all being stick figures. Whoa, that was a nice Samus Is a Girl reveal of the beautiful Miko there, wasn't it?
This has resulted in fans widely assuming nearly every character is attractive, unless specifically stated otherwise.
Inverted in Something Positive: Several characters have said that Davan is particularly unattractive, but he's not noticeably drawn that way.
Except for Mary Lee Walsh, who has Informed Great Age instead. The real Mary Lee Walsh is, in fact, quite old, but since Chris-chan can't draw worth a hill of particularly substandard beans, this is decidedly unclear. Fanworks mocking Sonichu or its creator typically depict her as an incredibly hot blonde with devil horns (the result of Chris-chan adding what general consensus accepts to be a Viking helmet on Walsh, for no reason anyone can ascertain, and not drawing her actual hair for several issues).
Dominic Deegan has a few, particularly Luna, who is said to be quite fetching despite her tusks. She doesn't really look all that impressive. It also goes in the opposite direction where everyone who talks of her as being horribly disfigured because of her tusks, even though she's pretty much like every other character.
While White Mage is described as really hot (at least by Black Mage), 8-Bit Theater is a Sprite Comic, which makes it hard to tell most of the time.
And is further played straight with the final (conventionally drawn) comic.
In the character bios for Keiki, the author admitted that he couldn't draw beautiful girls very well, and asked the readers to "take [his] word" about Marie Magnolia's beauty.
Played for laughs in the College Humor "Hardly Working" shorts. Sarah is the only recurring female character. In some sketches every man in the office will be lusting after her, other times they'll talk about sad it is that she can't attract a man.
Also played strait in their "7 people you'll date in college" video. The "Perfect 10" character is easily the most unattractive woman featured.
Played for laughs in The Spoony Experiment's Party Mania video, where "the two hottest guys in school" and "two creepy, socially awkward Nerds with personal hygiene problems" are played by the same guys.
Western Animation
Double D from Ed Eddn Eddy has had more female attention directed his way than the other male characters. Although he'd probably come out on top in terms of personality anyway.
Nazz is also treated like she is incredibly gorgeous but it's pretty hard to tell. But then, considering the other choices are Sarah and the Kankers...
The same thing happens on The Spectacular Spider-Man. Mary Jane is presented as so stunning even the popular girls are instantly jealous of her, even though really she and geeky Gwen having basically the same design; Gwen just wears glasses and less fashionable clothes. Late in season 2 Gwen stops doing that, and everybody comments about how stunning she is.
In South Park the third grade girls made a list ranking all of the boys in their class from cutest to ugliest. They must have been going by hair, since in all other respects the boys all look exactly the same (except for Cartman, Jimmy, Timmy, and Token - and even Token's just a Palette Swap).
Also in one episode it is revealed that Stan's mom is considered quite hot.
Inverted with the character Ugly Bob from Show Within a Show "Terrance and Phillip". He is regularly mocked by other characters for his hideous appearance, although he looks just like all the other "flappidty-headed" Canadians.
The episode "Royal Pudding" shows that his ugliness had a Medusa-like effect over the tooth decay monster.
Parodied in "Quintuplets 2000"
Kyle: Those contorting Romanian chicks rule!
Cartman: Yeah, especially that second one from the left. She was fine!
Kyle: Cartman, what the hell are you talking about?! They're identical!
Cartman: Not that second one from the left; she had it goin' on!
Olive Oyl from the Popeye shorts, at least in the shorts with her original comic strip design. Once Famous Studios got a hold of her and redesigned her, though...
Justin from Total Drama Island takes this to ridiculous extremes; nearly every female character (as well as a few male characters and most animals) become dreamy idiots whenever he walks into the room (or rips off his shirt, which he does ridiculously often). Nevertheless there's little way to tell that he's supposed to be attractive based on the animation style, except perhaps that he's more muscular than most of the other characters.
Alejandro seems to be getting even more attention than Justin ever did, when they look nearly the same. However, he seems to at least have some ability to charm and flatter girls; while Justin was more narcissistic and insulting towards them.
To a lesser extent Heather gets this too; Duncan was initially more interested in her than in Courtney (or Gwen), Geoff called her "the hottest girl on the show" (after she had become bald) and Harold expressed his attraction to her early in Total Drama Action (again, when she was bald). Colouring and clothing aside, Heather doesn't look particularly different in body shape to Gwen, Izzy, Katie, Courtney or Lindsay.
In an episode of KaBlam! Henry falls for Dawn, the executive's granddaughter. However, she didn't look all that different to June (except for a different hair style and color, different clothes, June being a bit taller and having the addition of a bit of "baby fat").
Many characters from the creations of Video Brinquedo suffer from this.
Lois Griffin from Family Guy. While she's indeed attractive, some characters speak of her as the hottest woman on Earth.
Her daughter Meg is treated as though she were the single ugliest thing ever to exist in this or any other universe - despite nothing to justify such loathing, this simply being another aspect of her Butt Monkey status.
Quinn Morgendorffer's attractiveness is mentioned frequently throughout the Daria series.
Somewhat lampshaded in Daria's Beautiful All Along scene. In order to get back at Quinn, Daria (usually viewed as unremarkable in appearance by other characters) removes her glasses, brushes her hair differently, puts on makeup, and dresses like Quinn. Sure enough, they look nearly identical. Apparently Quinn just goes out of her way to look attractive, and Daria doesn't bother.
In Avatar: The Last Airbender, viewers may be divided on the question "who is more beautiful, Azula or Ty Lee?". But in The Beach, when Ty Lee calls Azula "the most beautiful, smartest, perfect girl in the world", Azula treats this as an "As You Know". Explainable in that Ty Lee has a history of Azula fangirling, and Azula herself is just a tad egotistical.
Played for laughs in Futurama: Bender's Game. Hermes turned into Hermaphrodite, the most beautiful of centaurs. He merely looked like a centaur version of Hermes with a boob job and blonde hair.
The beauty of Belle in Beauty and the Beast is at one point described as "[having] no parallel". However, since her design is rather par for the course in terms of young Disney females, the effect is lost on the audience.
Interestingly, according to a "Making of" for the movie, the animators said that they weren't trying to draw Belle as the most beautiful woman ever. Instead, they designed her as someone who you could tell was beautiful inside and out, as well as a girl who was unaware of her own beauty.
Starfire from Teen Titans is constantly praised for how beautiful she is by the heroes, villains, and bystanders yet no one ever comments on how beautiful Raven is. This is coupled with the fact that most fans consider Raven to be more visually appealing than Starfire.
Though this may have as much to do with personality as anything else... Starfire is a bubbly extrovert, while Raven's a Deadpan Snarker introvert who spends a lot of time with her hood up and her cloak drawn around her (so most characters don't get a chance to see how visually appealing she might be, and her friends would know better than to tell her).
Adonis did hit on Raven in "The Beast Within", as he leaped on top of her; she wasn't amused and easily tossed him away. After he turned into the monster, he went after her.
Rarity from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic is stated to be the most beautiful mare in Ponyville. Some fans believe this title should go to other members of the mane cast, particularly Fluttershy.
Fluttershy's beauty isn't entirely ignored, as evidenced by her short (and highly successful) modelling career.
Other
Opera in general because most prima donnas are chosen based on their voice and seniority, not on their looks.
2D of Gorillaz fame is supposed to be the 'Pretty boy singer' of the group who Murdoc describes as "a blue haired, black eyed God" with "an arse like a satsuma". While 2D is a perfectly endearing character, as far as looks go he's not that much different to the others, aside from being taller and thinner.
In the Star Wars universe; Twi'Leks. Female Twi'Leks are seen as incredibly sexy and beautiful, but depending on the work, fall into the Uncanny Valley with Fetish Retardant...or are definitely Fetish Fuel.
Yulia Volkova [1]◊ of t.A.T.u. fame was considered extremely attractive. That combined with her amazing singing voice, Bifauxnen hair, and had a Schoolgirl Lesbian image going for her. Unfortunately, many tend to ignore the equally attractive and equally talented, Lena Katina [2]◊. The two would often appear in almost every single picture together but Yulia was often the only one whose attractiveness was pointed out on by fans.
