fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2753 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2753 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, I have no problem with a homely guy/hot wife couple, just with the pattern where this happens all the time and yet the inverse basically never happens.

As an isolated incident, it's a wonderful way to show that beauty is only skin deep. But the pattern of how it actually happens in media seems to imply beauty is skin deep only for men. And when the guy has a massive amount of personality flaws as well....it just screams lazy entitled overdone wish-fulfillment.

There've been plenty of secrets on this site about homely girl/hot guy pairings. (Some musician and his wife? That sitcom where the head writer was also the chunky protagonist with the supposedly handsome almost/maybe boyfriend?)

There are t.v. series. (Some high school thingy? Possibly involving the words "mad fat diary." I'd be more specific but I never watched it... but I remember that the chunky teenager got other roles out of it.)

There's those movies by that actress who plays Tammy.

It's in anime/manga - Wallflower and Fruits Basket both come immediately to mind. (Although Tohru isn't ugly, she's just average/pretty when she smiles and everyone else is supposedly ridiculously gorgeous.)

It's a staple in romance novels, modern vampire fiction, urban fantasy, whatever the hell books like Twilight are considered, and their various ilks in which the (invariably) chubby, clumsy, plain girl gets the hot, fit, athletic (bad) boy... who might possibly suck blood.

Every Phantom of the Opera re-write (or Phantom character ripped off, re-named, and shoe-horned into other books/media) where the Phantom, rather than Raoul, gets the ~~vapid~~ hot girl is the embodiment of the homely guy/hot girl trope.

And for what it's worth, I've seen it in real life too.

You dislike a particular trope, and that's fine. But it's a stretch to say that it never happens the other way around. It's common both ways. It just depends where you're looking.

Personally, the only problem I have with either version of the trope is when it's:

a.) The hot person has to be vapid, cruel, and/or unrelentingly obsessed with looks/weight, or
b.) handled like it is in the Big Bang Theory where having the hot person/Penny as a romantic partner and getting to have sex with him/her (as Leonard announces every. single. episode.) is treated like winning a trophy and showing it off (obnoxiously and at length), reducing Penny/the love interest - and his/her hotness - from an independent person to a badge of worthiness and general coolness/social acceptability.

But that's a matter of being badly done, and everything can be (and probably has been) badly done by someone.

EDIT: And Fleur/Bill! (Who I love and thus must be added as a postscript.)

Edited 2014-07-18 05:19 (UTC)

DA I think the point is proven by the fact that you struggled to remember the names of the media where the slobby man/hot wife trope is reversed. If you were posed to name specific media where the slobby man/hot wife trope is present you'd probably be able to easily name at least 3 fairly quickly because most people can. The reverse you really have to think about it and even then most of the time the girl is just "average" looking (although the actress is considered to be conventionally hot).

Those top three aren't in genres that I'm interested in. (And, while I certainly watch television, I don't watch enough to be familiar with All of The Shows.)

The anime/manga and literary ones - Wallflower, Fruits Basket, Twilight, Phantom of the Opera, HP to hit your "at least three" requirement - came easily enough. And I'm certainly familiar enough with urban fantasy to easily name another three besides. (I, er, really like books. And I certainly read more than I watch.)

If the book says she's short, overweight, and plain and the book came first, then she's short, overweight, and plain by my count, regardless of who gets cast to play her.

Honestly, I cannot think of many actors or actresses that I would truly call ugly.

But I can think of a few pairs where the attractiveness skews much more heavily towards the male in a male/female pairing - Jo/Zane (Eureka), Arthur/Gwen (Merlin), Olivia/Peter (Fringe), and Miranda/Ben (Grey's Anatomy).

Of course, I'm absolutely sure there are people out there who won't agree with me (and none of the women would be anything near ugly, just sort of more on the plain or average side and I also feel kind of bad for judging levels of attractiveness).

[ SECRET POST #2753 ]

Re: Common tropes/cliches you hate

Re: Common tropes/cliches you hate

Re: Common tropes/cliches you hate

Re: Common tropes/cliches you hate

I think part of the issue might be that attractiveness really is subjective.