Martha: Aren't you going to help, or are you too pretty?
Bethany: I'm too pretty.
Bethany: I'm too pretty.
Being attractive certainly has its perks, such as favors, good grades, even getting away with crimes. One subtle, but useful advantage of having good looks is that you can get other people to do work for you.
Some people try to coast through life without any effort whatsoever; For lazy beautiful people, their method of coasting by involves using their looks to manipulate people into doing work for them; they might be an Alpha Bitch who seduces the nerds into doing their homework, an Office Lady who seduces their coworkers and bosses into doing work for them, or a Gold Digger who uses their looks to snag a rich spouse to mooch off of.
While some beautiful people simply use their looks to get out of work by using their beauty as a tool, others see their good looks as an excuse to not work; they hold the opinion that good-looking people are too good for work, and expect the less attractive to enable their survival.
Typically, receive punishment for their slothfulness in one of two ways; either they run into a situation where they cannot use their looks, such as trying to seduce someone who isn't fooled or interested in their seductions, or they lose their looks, and by extension their power, via injury or age.
These characters are often contrasted with a less attractive, but hardworking character; stories that use this dynamic often start with the beautiful character coasting by on their looks, while the ugly character has to work hard and develop character to get ahead. These stories tend to end with the beautiful character experiencing hardship due to relying solely on their looks to get ahead in life, while the ugly character achieves success thanks to their hard work. The overall lesson of these stories is that people who possess a strong work ethic and good character will gain lasting happiness, while those who rely solely on their looks will end up miserable in the long run.
Note: a character using their good looks to manipulate people into doing stuff for them is not this trope; in order to qualify for this trope a character must use their good looks to either manipulate people to get out of work, or use their good looks as an excuse to avoid work.
Differs from Pretty Freeloaders in a number of ways:
- This trope describes characters who deliberately use their looks to mooch off of others and avoid work, whereas a Pretty Freeloader doesn't use their looks to freeload.
- Characters with this trope don't necessarily live with a character, while a Pretty Freeloader does.
- Characters with this trait are almost always meant to be disliked, while Pretty Freeloaders are meant to be liked.
- Characters this trope describes are almost always antagonists, while Pretty Freeloaders are almost always Love Interests.
Sub-Trope of Lazy Bum, Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!, and Beauty Is Bad.
Compare Brainless Beauty, Favors for the Sexy, Hired for Their Looks, I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!, Proud Beauty, and Gold Digger. When this type of character is contrasted with an ugly, hardworking person, it's a case of Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain and/or Misery Builds Character. Could overlap with Too Proud for Lowly Work if a beautiful person considers certain types of work ( typically physical labor) beneath them. See also, Sextra Credit, Sleeping with the Boss, and Sleeping Their Way to the Top for the sexual equivalents of this trope. Related to Privilege Makes You Evil, with beauty being the privilege and laziness being the evil.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Defied by resident narcissist Mimimi. She puts in as much work as possible toward making herself beautiful by earning her own money and learning elocution. She's also aware that beauty isn't limited to outside appearances, showing considerable maturity compared to most narcissists, and is able to recognize other people's beauty both inside and out.
- Tomie is an example of this trope being Played for Horror; she's a beautiful human-like... thing who uses her beauty to leech off of people for luxuries like jewelry, fancy food, and fine clothing to the point of bankruptcy, and when she wants to torment or kill someone, she prefers to manipulate others to do her dirty work for her.
Fan Works
- The Karma of Lies: Adrien combines this with Privilege Makes You Evil; his Control Freak father has him working as a model for Agreste Fashion, and being the "Golden Boy of Paris" has Adrien convinced that he's naturally charming, capable of smoothing over any problems with a bright smile and a few empty words. He also believes that he's a benificary of Protagonist-Centered Morality who doesn't have to do anything to earn his happy ending, brushing off anyone who tries to convince him that he should care about others or take his responsibilities as Chat Noir more seriously. This attitude starts backfiring on him after Marinette realizes she was Loving a Shadow, and results in an utterly disastrous live interview after he skips the Final Battle with Hawkmoth, then tries to win back the crowd by acting "charmingly dismissive" and flirting with Ladybug, even after she calls him out on his Skewed Priorities.
- The Many Dates of Danny Fenton and its spin-offs combine this trope with Future Loser; characters who were good-looking jerks in their respective shows (i.e. Dash Baxter, Bonnie Rockwaller, Mandy Luxe, etc.) end up miserable both financially and romantically because of this trope; in terms of finances, because none of these characters took their education seriously or simply made others do their homework for them, in addition to not having plans for the future, they end up with low-income and crappy jobs. In terms of romance, many of these types of characters end up unlucky in love, due to their good looks being their only positive quality, and most of them lose that advantage as adults.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines strongly implies that Misty's sisters offer sex to trainers to throw their matches. Considering the fact that 1: their 8th badge team For Context is as strong as a 2nd badge team due to their negligence in training their Pokèmon, 2: they are in danger of being fired as Gym Leaders due to their poor win-loss ratio, 3: Violet outright suggesting sleeping with Ash to make him throw their match, and 4: they use large amounts of plastic surgery to retain their looks and are spoiled Brainless Beauties, it's pretty clear that they are certainly willing to use their looks/sex to avoid work if they can get away with it.
Films—Live Action
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle: Discussed and downplayed with Bethany and Martha, when Bethany is sitting around trying to get reception for her phone when she is supposed to be helping the other three in detention. While Spencer and Fridge are fine with Bethany sitting things out, she doesn't actively flirt with them. Punished when she gets sucked into the Jumanji game as "an overweight middle-aged man" and has to help in order to survive.
- Discussed by Jesse in The Neon Demon. When talking to Dean, she says she has no talent or real interests, but her beauty is enough.
Jesse: I can't sing. I can't dance. I can't write. No real talent. But I'm pretty, and I can make money off pretty.
Literature
- In How To Be Popular, the one non-Alpha Bitch member of the Girl Posse is a Brainless Beauty who has a crowd of male students willing to run errands for her. When Steph realises the girl is not as stupid as she seems, she asks why she pretends to be. The girl just says that, if guys are willing to do her errands for her she may as well let them.
- Parodied on a societal level in My Year of Rest and Relaxation. The narrator is a beautiful, skeletal, blonde Ice Queen who perfectly matches the beauty standards of the 2000s. She has a job at the front desk of an art gallery, but she is intentionally terrible at her job, with a particular fondness for napping in the closet. She eventually gets fired - but notes that she was kept on much longer than she expected because of her beauty.
- The Rising of the Shield Hero: Malty and the rest of the girls in Motoyasu's party deconstruct this trope; they prefer to seduce guys in order to leech off of them and avoid hard work, however, unlike most characters of this type who are able to easily manipulate multitudes of people into doing their bidding, the only people who fall for their seductions are idiotic horndogs like the aforementioned Motoyasu and Tact.
Live-Action TV
- 30 Rock: Deconstructed with Dr. Drew Baird, who's played by the incredibly good-looking Jon Hamm. He doesn't necessarily want to be lazy: he's a medical doctor with various hobbies including tennis, drawing, and cooking. However, Drew is so handsome that everyone always excuses his failures, gives him whatever he wants, and lets him win, so he's never had to try to accomplish anything, to the point where he's not even aware that he's coasting through life—he just assumes everyone's experience is like that. When Liz shows him up by actually putting in some effort at a tennis game, he's genuinely confused about why he isn't automatically winning and ends up throwing a tantrum.
- Devious Maids: Genevieve is clearly used to coasting on her looks. She's a Book Dumb Brainless Beauty and takes pride in how little she can do around the house (which makes her dependent on her maid, Zoila). Though she was clearly hardworking at one time as she came from nothing, upon learning that she and Remi are broke thanks to a corrupt accountant, Genevieve's first instinct is to get back in contact with Remi's father and attempt to remarry rich.
- In Euphoria, Maddy's life plan was to use her good looks to land a rich boyfriend and become a kept woman. Unfortunately for her, she's ended up in a toxic relationship with Nate Jacobs, the abusive scion of a wealthy, dysfunctional family, and he takes advantage of her lack of self-preservation instincts in order to control her.
- Girlfriends (2000): Lynn is very well educated, having several college degrees, but due to being a Granola Girl, she doesn't actually like working and would rather get by via mooching off from her friends and from her many lovers, all while keeping her bohemian lifestyle. Lucky for her she's attractive enough and so good in bed that this works well enough for her, though her friends often get annoyed by her Pretty Freeloader antics and often call her out on her laziness.
- Married... with Children: Marcy's second husband Jefferson is ridiculously attractive, but also incredibly lazy and honestly believes he's "too pretty to work", leaving Marcy to be the breadwinner of the house. It's a Running Gag and a common storyline for Marcy to push him to get a job. Ironically, the few times he does, Marcy gets jealous because of how many women he ends up attracting while working, prompting her to force him to quit the job.
- Scream Queens (2015): Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist Chanel Oberlin is a vain Proud Beauty and Alpha Bitch who believes she's entitled to anything just because of how attractive she is, while also being a Brainless Beauty who barely understands how real life works because she coasted through it due to her looks and money. She's even too lazy to remember the names of her Girl Posse and just refers to them by numbers. This is even reflected in her sex life, where all she does is lay in bed while she lets her boyfriends do all the work, and has no sympathy for them if they complain she's a terrible lover.
Chanel: I'm sorry, okay? But... I'm hot. I don't have to be good in bed. I just lay here and let hot dudes pork me.
Theatre
- Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier:Dream a Little Harder
" parodies old Disney movies in which the heroine's situation improves based on being beautiful rather than actively trying to change her situation. Ja'far being ugly (well, Informed Deformity) is part of the reason they hate him.
Townsfolk: If you're good and you're attractive, no need to be proactive, good things will just happen to you!
[...]
Ja'far: I know that I'm no prize, I'm not so easy on the eyes, I can't rely on looks to get me by.
Ja'far: But ugliness permits, a man to use his wits, 'cause pretty people never have to try!
Video Games
- In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Hilda of the Golden Deer House fits perfectly. She's attractive and knows it, with several of her supports involving her getting male classmates to perform her tasks and chores for her. Many of her pre-Time Skip conversations and battle quotes imply laziness in other areas as well, such as requesting not to be used in battle. In addition to her beauty, she's the Crest-bearing younger sister of Lord Holst, the greatest hero in the Alliance, making her a very desirable marriage candidate for the aspiring male nobles at the Academy. She knows she doesn't have to work hard to get the cushy life she desires... She then subverts the trope after the time skip where a continent-wide war has broken out and, if the Golden Deer House was chosen, quickly becomes the #2 in the Alliance as well as the monastery's logistician.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Cammy Mele is a ditzy translator and Sexy Stewardess who spends most of her time sleeping rather than doing her job, getting away with it by Sleeping with the Boss. Subverted; her ditzy, sleepyhead persona is a cover for her real job: that of a smuggler.
Web Animation
- Etra chan saw it!: Akane steals Akamatsu away from Karin by pretending to be a feminine Housewife, in order to get her hands Akamatsu's money. Once Akane and Akamatsu are married, she stops doing housework, reveals that the lunches she gave Akamatsu were cooked by her mother, and spends Akamatsu's money on expensive luxuries. Karin could tell right away that Akane was lazy, by looking at Akane's nails and expensive accessories, but didn't bother warning Akamatsu as punishment for his cheating.
- Manga Soprano: Erica in both of these episodes is a young, beautiful woman seduces her male coworkers into doing her work for her, unlike the plain-looking, but diligent protagonists. While Erica's looks make it easy for her to slack off on her work, it also prevents her from rising in the company, as she is incapable of doing the simplest of tasks even despite working the same job for years. Years later, despite Erica losing her looks to age, she still tries to act cutesy to manipulate men, which no longer works due to her male coworkers no longer being attracted to her; In addition, unlike Kanade and Ran, who were able to find love, Erica was never able to find a husband as all she had going for her were her looks, and in middle age she doesn't even have that going for her.
- MoniRobo:
- Ayane is a beautiful Office Lady who bullies her junior coworker Nano into doing her work, getting away with it by acting cutesy towards her boss and male coworkers. She ends up getting fired and later arrested thanks to the efforts of Suguo, the one guy who isn't fooled by her charms, and Nano's friends exposing her true nature.
- Eriko combines this trope with Big Sister Bully; she was spoiled rotten by her parents to the point where they actually allowed her to use her uglier, less favored sister Kyoko as a Homework Slave when they were kids. When Eriko is about to get married, she forces Kyoko to do all of the tedious work of preparing the wedding. When Eriko learns that Kyoko's husband is wealthier and more handsome than hers, she tries to steal him. Fortunately, karma bites Eriko when her husband divorces her for attempting to cheat and she ends up getting nothing due to signing a prenup.
- Ayane
Web Videos
- Apple Texts: Irene was favored by her parents for her beauty, in contrast to her uglier, less favored sister Hazel. Because of how they were raised, Irene became a spoiled, lazy, Money Dumb Womanchild who is in debt and leeches off of her sister to survive, while Hazel became a hardworking, responsible, mature adult. Irene's good life comes to an end when Hazel cuts ties with her family after getting married to a man who loves her despite her looks, while Irene ends up stuck in debt and unmarried because no amount of good looks can make up for a rotten personality. During Irene's Villainous Breakdown, she outright states that being beautiful means she shouldn't have to work and that other people should work for her.
Western Animation
- South Park: Discussed in the episode "The List"; the ghost of Abraham Lincoln explains to Kyle, who was falsely voted the most ugly boy in school that good looking people tend to end up miserable in the long run, as having things handed to them means that they don't have to develop qualities like good character or intelligence, which results in loneliness and misery once their looks fade. Meanwhile, ugly people have no choice but to develop good qualities due to having nothing handed to them. Kyle is still unsatisfied until the end, as he doesn't want to wait to become an adult.
- Total Drama: In "Ocean's Eight - Or Nine", during the bank heist challenge, Justin tries to use his stunningly good looks as an excuse to get out of putting the getaway car together, because he'll get dirty.
