Not objective : Hollywood Homely

I could understand if this trope dealt with characters in works being treated as ugly in a ironic fashion but it is now, the trope description, picture, and examples for this trope read like Audience Reactions. Basically "This character isn't as unattractive as the work makes her out to be", which is of course is YMMV.

There are some bad examples listed, but the trope is objective if you think about as being about popular standards of beauty in the setting, not who is or isn't hot.

If a character appears in a familiar setting that is Like Reality, Unless Noted and they're played by an actor/actress who otherwise models or routinely plays canonically attractive characters, it's fair to assume that at least someone would find that character hot in the story. Similarly, if two animated characters are identical to each other and only one is considered unattractive, there's something a little weird about that.

Who's "someone"? because if it's the someone in audience that's still an Audience Reaction. Also, we don't classify real life people as being attractive or unattractive regardless of the fictional roles they play.

edited 26th Jun '11 6:26:11 PM by captainpat

^ "Someone" in the post above referred to "someone in the story".

The description might need to be tweaked a bit, but my point was that the trope is not dependent on commenting on people's real world attractiveness at all (which is subjective). Instead, we can comment on popular perception of beauty in a culture vs. the perception of fictional characters in a similar setting.

For example, if actress X is widely held up as the standard of beauty in a given culture, and she plays a character who is from that same culture but considered ugly by everyone she meets, this is unrealistic. This is not the same as saying actress X is attractive or unattractive. It's like making a movie set in Alabama in the 1950s and having no racist characters: statisicially improbable unless an explantation is provided.

edited 26th Jun '11 7:14:53 PM by Bailey

This is about classifying the thing as YMMV?

Sure, why not?

Uh, because actors, as a rule are not ugly? It's a objectively occurring phenomenon,

Yeah, it plainly is, but getting pedants to agree on what the criteria are for 'attractive' is just tedious. Let them have their YMMV status for the trope.

Actors can be ugly. Actresses don't.

It's a Casting Trope, I think.

Take a look at Cookie Cutter Cuties for that one. It's getting repaired right now, but that sums it up pretty well.

edited 26th Jun '11 8:51:25 PM by Discar

Didn't we already establish that we can't call real people attractive or unattractive?

edited 26th Jun '11 9:17:01 PM by captainpat

@Fast Eddie

How about "Actor not treated as hideous in other roles" (or "has the same face as "pretty" characters" for drawn works)?

Thin and fat at least have some objective measure.

edited 27th Jun '11 12:13:10 AM by deuxhero

Again, there's no real life standard for attractiveness. So just because an actor is casted as an attractive character in one work doesn't mean there's a objective dissonance when she's casted as unattractive or even plain in another work. That just means that the casting staff for both works have different standards of beauty.

^ The dissonance occurs when an actor is held up as the standard of beauty in a certain culture but treated as the opposite in the fictional version of the same culture.

We cannot objectively judge beauty, but we can certainly observe popular standards of beauty within a cultural setting. If a story is set in 17th century China and everyone is inexplicably repulsed by small feet, that's culturally inaccurate. If a story is set in the contemporary U.S. and Scarlett Johansson is supposed to be physically loathsome to everyone around her, unless there's a special explanation, that's also culturally inaccurate.

edited 29th Jun '11 5:04:26 AM by Bailey

culture does not fully dictate what individual people find attractive. So, because a character fits an the standards of beauty for a spefic culture doesn't there's a dissonance when individual characters do not find her attractive.

This is not about a story claiming that individual characters find someone unattractive; it's a story claiming that people in general don't find someone attractive. It implies that the character doesn't fit society's standard of beauty, not just one other character's standard.

Feel free to remove examples that are only about one other character thinking someone's ugly, but I don't think there are many such examples.

Nowhere in the trope description does it say anything about culture or standards of beauty. This trope is simply an "attractive" character being treated as "unattractive".

edited 29th Jun '11 6:49:27 AM by captainpat

Culture is certainly a factor in an individual's sense of 'attractiveness.' 'Svelte' in 1950 was 'a little chunky' in 1970. What we call 'fit' today was 'skinny' in 1950, as well.

Anyhow. Is anyone seriously contending that people on tv and the silver screen are not generally more visually appealing to a large segment of the current population? Because if they aren't, there are some polling companies that owe some refunds to Hollywood studios.

We can make it YMMV because we don't want to litter the main article with a bunch of hot-or-not jabber. We still get to acknowledge it. Just off the main page.

Nowhere in the trope description does it say anything about culture or standards of beauty. This trope is simply an "attractive" character being treated as "unattractive".

That's because there is no reason to say that. It's assumed by the context and doesn't need to be said. Those words are utterly unimportant except that suddenly their presence has become necessary to YMMV-proof the trope. Otherwise they are only of interest to pedants. I'm really getting tired of the attitude "because the trope leaves certain magic words out, I can put it in YMMV". YMMV isn't supposed to work that way.

No, you're assuming that. Beauty is a abstract concept that varies with different cultures, time period, and numerous other factors. It definitely warrants some sort of specification if it's gonna be used objectively.