not a trope: Cookie Cutter Cuties

If this page is was to be kept, it should be limited to a potential story telling device. Girls fired or not hired because they don't have the look the employer wants. That could have an objective real life section. I still see no reason not to cut this page and start over with something new.

And I still see no reason to cut it.

What you don't seem to get is that men are not held to such exacting standards. A man can be ugly or just plain looking and still get a role. A woman? No. She has to conform to a mould that is fixed by Hollywood casters who impose a model. Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie are doppelgangers, just like Zoey Deschanel and Katy Perry, Mandy Moore and Julia Stiles, Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman, Miley Cyrus and Tara Reid, Kate Hudson and Jordan Ladd... And can you really ignore the disturbing ressemblance between Rebecca Gaylord, Amanda Seyfried, Jaime Pressly and Denise Richards? Or between Winona Ryder and Uma Thurman? Why do they all have to look the same? Among men, only Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Heath Ledger look similar. Only Maggie Gyllenhall and Sigourney Weaver defy this trope.

I know you believe this isn't a trope but just a coincidence however, Personal Appearance Tropes ARE legitimate tropes. Yes, the article sounds a little ranty but really, if you're being honest, there definitely is a typecast White women (yes, WHITE WOMEN) must conform to. Can you cite a currently famous Hollywood White girl who is average looking?

And minorities? Gabourey Sidibé? Apart from Precious, who remembers her? Mo'Nique? She's black thus not supposed to conform as a Black Best Friend is almost always a diversity excuse, the infamous Token Minority who can be all different since they are supposed to add "diversity" to painfully plain shows.

Why don't we see different looking girls like Fairuza Balk, Monica Staggs, Neve Campbell or even Angela Bassett no more?

This trope was created because film casters primarily want pretty women for their roles and no longer competent actresses. You can be competent all you want, if you're White and you look too different, you won't get any job.

Oh and in addtion, how do you explain that European productions, Bollywood and South American productions don't rely on this trope as much as Hollywood does?

edited 23rd Jun '11 11:56:18 PM by Alrune

Personal Appearance Tropes are tropes because they're meaningful patterns that occur within particular works. As it is right now this not a pattern that occurs within works nor the productions of works. It's just some article that says women in Hollywood look the same.

Also, "film casters primarily want pretty women for their roles and no longer competent actresses" is exactly why this trope needs to be cut or reworked. An overwhelming majority of actress in the western film industry are white and have some similar features but saying that it's the sole reason that they get roles without any statements from the film casters is at the very least assumptive.

edited 24th Jun '11 9:30:00 AM by captainpat

Vague tropes that are just commentaries on current hollywood trends and exists only to allow someone to rant about it is the very definition of Complaining. And having examples is almost like blaming the actresses for the trend, it's unfair to them. Even with all of the Did Not Do The Research tropes we should not be trying to pass judgement on any page. The only solution really is either cut the trope or work it into an exampleless entry.

Also, the way the trope is now you could put in almost any attractive white (or near white) girl. Really, what's the connecting thread between the actresses or the works? The page seems to be complaining that any given work is flawed for not deciding to go with a slightly overweight Indian girl because... someone doesn't like it?

edited 24th Jun '11 8:18:25 AM by KJMackley

It just degrades too easily into Complaining About Actresses You Hate.

Plus, I might be some kind of superhuman with abnormal facial recognition skills, but these women really don't look that similar to me.

Some of them do, and some of them don't. I think the point the picture was trying to make was about same body types, same hair style and similar facial structure.

Alrune, I suppose that not even recognizing many of the names you brought up proves I'm more ignorant of Hollywood culture than I thought I was. I did however list another American media that doesn't conform to Hollywood standards. Some editors decided to force it in for the sake of complaining but WWE isn't the only one, how about Victoria's Secret? The women who appear there tend not to look like those who star in Hollywood movies, with their big foreheads.

I would like to see more black people in American media(and media in general), but being one-two generations removed from the infamous Jim Crow a small economic footprint and sphere of influence is to be expected. Its not like South Africa where they were the majority population. Until very recently, USA was predominately white, and most of the non whites are newly immigrated. I believe that when other countries productions don't match Hollywood, its because of the casters and employers simply having a different idea of what is beautiful rather than some greater value for diversity. Canadian James Cameron himself chose Jessica Alba for his "Dark Angel" because she looked different to what he was seeing on tv. That she happens to be in America's cookie cutter mold is totally coincidental.

Despite also being American and owned and predominately white, WWE and Victoria's secret don't seem to conform to Hollywood's cookie cut, even if they have their own trends.

A trope doesn't have to appear in every media we list to still be a trope.

This.

Also KJ Mackey, I'm not saying that women in films must not look like this, just that there should be more body types, face types and skin types. Because, in the end, cinema is supposed to be a form of art, right?

Art is supposed to reflect aspects of Real Life, abstract concepts or a writer's fantasy. However, Most Writers Are White Straight Males, thus pander to a Straight, White, male audience, de facto excluding Blacks, Asians, Latinos, Indians, women and homosexuals. Men have all the range of body types, skin type and face types to themselves. Women can only be skinny, White, preferably blonde and vapid. Black women are either a White woman's foil and are overweight and sassy. Or they are "beautiful" and must look like Halle Berry. And female viewers are supposed to relate to that. So, of course, being a female who isn't White and blonde I find it harder and harder to relate to Hollywood actresses who all look the same.

You're not talking about works though, you're talking about the actresses themselves. There needs to be a way of making this page relevant to actual works, not an industry.

edited 24th Jun '11 1:52:04 PM by captainpat

Actors appear in works. Without them, there would be no live action works. Therefore, they are a part of works and tropes may apply to them, meaning they apply indirectly to works. Paratext, how often does that need to be brought up before it's paid any attention to?

Well then we should find a way to rework this trope so that it's in terms of the actual works and not just the real life actresses.

edited 24th Jun '11 2:17:18 PM by captainpat

It's a casting trope. It's about the construction of the work, the same way a trope on the Camera Tricks index is about techniques used in constructing the work.

Like what? I just want a simple definition.

edited 24th Jun '11 3:27:09 PM by captainpat

What I said back in post #8:

"At any given period in time, there is a group of actresses who are considered major stars. They may vary greatly in appearance from each other, or they may tend to look alike. What they always have in common is that they are very popular and provide good box-office returns.

At the same time, there are the minor stars and supporting actresses. They tend to be of the same physical type as one of the major stars. If/when the big name star falls out of favor, the cookie-cutter starlets copying her look either change their look to that of another big star, or fall out of favor themselves. "

edited 24th Jun '11 4:03:19 PM by Madrugada

That sounds a lot better. Can we avoid putting Cookie Cutter Cuties on the pages of Actresses themselves, and stick to Celebrity Resemblance?

And I'm saying that any value there may be to the trope is offset by an example list that has no value in demonstrating the trope. No One has yet explained what the hell Type 1, 2 and 3 are, they are just there. The description doesn't even explain it. I at first thought it may be something about Blonde, Brunette, Redhead but nope!

If this trope is about casting trends then listing individual actresses does nothing. But if you can identify some sort of identifiable source (a reason a "type" of actress becomes so popular) then we might have something there. For example Marilyn Monroe inspired a huge wave of like-characters and looks (platinum blonde, porcelein skin, "sex on legs," etc), Barbara Eden was among the earliest. Buffy inspired a wave of petite, perky ass kickers (which could be either blonde or brunette). Clarice Sterling is a direct ancestor of Agent Scully.

Of course there is precidence for the same thing to happen to men, in fact we have a trope on a very specific type of that, Bruce Lee Clone (Asian, moppy hair, over-the-top kata screams, pentient for Shirtless Scenes).

How does that apply to works or casting?

edited 24th Jun '11 4:39:06 PM by captainpat

Yeah, this trope certainly needs to be cleaned up if it isn't cut. At the moment, it twinges my "Ugh, those bitches" sense, and it's also kind of incoherent.

I mean... I get stuck on the fact that these are actually real people, and tropes like this seem quite unpleasant to me.

That seems like a good idea, and one that might make the trope interesting. I think the three types are mentioned in the first paragraph, but its not really as clear as it should be, and without explaining exactly what they are its kind of difficult to work out what the parameters should mean. Especially when you've got Angelina Jolie and Megan Fox - usually identified as being fairly similar - as apparently different types, while Amanda Seyfried and Jessica Alba are the same in some way. As are Lily Allen and Taylor Swift. And apparently Ke$ha is also an example of this trope, despite the fact that the lot of the Lust sites seem to view her as Squick material.

I mean... due to the incoherence and vagueness of this trope it just comes across as hating on them for being attractive.

Madrugada's rewrite seems like the way to go.

And incidentally, the part about wavy hair alone makes me suspicious of the rest of the page's observations. Hollywood's preferences regarding wavy and straight hair change pretty much every five minutes.

I'm not seeing how Madrugada's rewrite works. Some examples, as in examples involving particular works and not generalities, could go a long way.

bump, so anyone have any examples?

Even with the rewrite, this trope is still hard for me to swallow. I mean, the ideas behind it are solid—society has almost always valued a woman's beauty over any other quality, and that is reflected in our media, most noticeably when casting actresses. However in trope form it seems like pure complaining, especially with naming specific Hollywood actresses, which comes off as "calling them out". I'm not really seeing the different types, either.

Not sure whether it can be fixed or just cut, but if limited to fiction it could make a good subtrope for Only Six Faces as an expansion of the part about females being particularly susceptible.

@Mikebissle: It's not "calling actresses out", it's more about "casters making sure all women are as physically close to each other as possible" and "about no actress is allowed to look different anymore". And it's almost always WHITE actresses. And by different, I don't mean fat and ugly, I just mean different bone structure and face patterns.

I mean, can you think of a young, White actress in today's films/series that is NOT generic looking? As I said above:

Amanda Seyfried = Dakota Fanning = Gemma Ward (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Zooey Deschanel = Katy Perry = Lily Allen

Keira Knightley = Natalie Portman

Young Britney Spears = Christina Aguilera = Jessica Simpson

Miley Cyrus = Tara Reid

.... and the list goes on.

Back in the days, even is Marilyn Monroe was copied by Jayne Mansfield in the buxom blonde department, they weren't total lookalikes and had a somewhat different body.

It's not the actresses' fault, its just we only see, as you said yourself, Only Six Faces on TV and on films. We no longer see women like Sigourney Weaver, Neve Campbell, Maggie Gyllenhaal or Fairuza Balk who are not ugly or fat or both but who just have non-generic faces.

I'm not even mentioning Black women because that's a whole other problem.

I agree we should rewrite it but it's not the actresses who are to blame, it's the casters.

edited 25th Aug '11 1:13:33 PM by Alrune

Definitely needs a significant re-write along the lines of what madrugada proposed. Some of the double-standard stuff Alrune is pointing out should go in there but not to ranting levels.

Its not exactly a trope though- maybe it should be a Useful Notes type page?

All you're doing is pointing out women,from a very small pool, you think look the same and making speculations on the decision process of unspecified casters.

Does anyone have any specific examples that can be backed up by Word of God that an actress was cast for a role because she looked like another actress or least was a factor in the casting?