Ugly Betty: Exactly the kind of thought process I’m looking for. Roughly the same league is a wash. No idea who Henry is or who he’s played by, but America Ferrera wouldn’t make the top 100 list of many guys.
House: My understanding is that House is a major sex symbol. Is that not the case? Also, it’s Sela (not Selma) Ward. She was in Once And Again (family drama) with Billy Campbell and Evan Rachel Wood several years ago. While not really “hot,” she’s way sexy. Hopefully the shade of meaning I’m going for is coming across. I’d say she and House are roughly the same league, though Billy Campbell out-hotted her on OAA.
Speaking of Sela Ward, she looks like Jeanne Tripplehorn’s (from Big Love) real life sister. Tripplehorn outclasses Bill Paxton for sure, but maybe that’s just making up for the hotness deficit from The Firm.
Movies are fine as well, but try to keep them to pairings that appear to be pure pandering. (To either gender.)
And yet, in your opinion, Evangeline Lilly isn’t as hot as Josh Holloway or Naveen Andrews? To which I say, bollocks. Kate is totally the hottest chick on the show, and outshines everybody else by several percentage points.
America’s Sweethearts. Catherine Zeta Jones is way better looking than John Cusack.
Stepmom. Julia Roberts and Ed Harris. No comparison there, she totally wins.
Witches of Eastwick. Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. They all totally outshine him. (I realize that was part of the point of the story)
Okay, last post before I’m offline for dinner and catching up on tv. (New Heroes for me!)
Teri Polo is smokin’ hot. She brings up two classic examples:
I’m With Her: Sitcom who’s sole premise and source of jokes was that she (Teri Polo) was way too hot for her boyfriend. I would classify that as the ultimate in not pandering.
Meet the Parents: Every single Ben Stiller movie where his love interest is not played by his real life wife is blatant pandering. The disparity is never mentioned, joked about, or even acknowledged. Along Came Polly? Give me a break. Zoolander and Dodgeball? Totally believable in an “are you fucking kidding me?” kind of way.
Seriously, how did he manage to marry Marcia Brady? Gah!
Which reminds me: Scrubs is very bad for pandering to guys, with Zach Braff going through a slew of superhot chicks ala Seinfeld.
John Stamos is not attractive. I seriously doubt any women my age (and older women didn’t watch, I’m sure) ever uttered this during their teenage years “I love Full House! John Stamos is so hot.” Time hasn’t improved his looks, either.I watch e.r. each week hoping they’ll kill him off, but it has little to do with his looks.
Better Looking Chicks:
The O.C. -
Kelly Rowan vs Peter Gallagher. Peter has a distinctive look, but Kelly is far more conventionally attractive.
Rachel Bilson vs Adam Brody. Adam’s cute in a fanboy sort of way, but he’s not as attractive as Rachel.
Dawson’s Creek -
Katie Holmes vs James Van Der Beek & Joshua Jackson. Two ordinary looking boys and a pretty girl
Eh, maybe. I think people are attracted to his genius but he definitely isn’t conventionally handsome.
A picture of Henry. Under the glasses and dorky sweater is a good-looking guy. He’s more conventionally attractive than America Fererra, in my opinion.
Miranda and Steve on Sex and the City. Tall, smashing, stylish, brainy redhead lawyer + short-ish hooded-sweatshirt dork with no discernible personality except a voice like a cartoon version of Art Buchwald.
Same here. In person, Longoria’s like a tiny, pampered dachsund.
I think listing the exceptions to the hot girl/ugly guy rule might be easier. But I, for one, am more disturbed by the fat guy/skinny wife cliché (the only excepton to that I can think of is on The War At Home, and she’s not even fat she’s just stacked. And way hotter than Rapaport, incidentally)
According to Romano, the reason Heaton got the part was because, out of all the actresses who tested the same scene, she was the only one who kissed Ray when he walked into the house after work.
Oh she’s definitely the hottest woman on that island, and by a decent margin. I dig her in a big way. But in trying to look at it objectively, I can easily see Sawyer and Jack playing hunky beefcake himbo roles if their careers had taken different paths. Hell, one could argue that that is exactly what they’re playing now. But there’s no way Evangeline Lilly is playing a gorgeous bombshell role. The two guys could be Calvin Klein underwear models, whereas she’d be lucky to make the Sears catalog.
John Cusack isn’t hot? When did that happen?
Good call on Stepmom, though I think it’s closer than you do. Jack Nicholson, like House, I understood was thought to be sexy. He’s old now, but that movie is nearing a couple decades old by now.
Hehheh, you must be young. The older woman were salivating over Stamos in the worst way back when he was playing Blackie on General Hospital. (Opposite Demi Moore. Shoot me now for knowing this.)
Let me put it this way: John Stamos married uber-hot Rebecca Romijn at a time when he was less famous and less wealthy than her. (He still is.) Not to kill Rebecca for being shallow, but she did marry within her league, which included Stamos. I’ll grant that he’s been looking a little ragged for the last couple years, but (I believe) he’s approaching 50.
I’ve no doubt that Nicholson, Cusack and Stamos have all made the “sexiest men” issue of People at least once. Parminder Nagra? Not so much.
Also Natalie Portman. As I understand it, all three were part of the same theater group in NY, though possibly at different times.
And I totally agree with you about the Miranda from Sex and the City. Plain Jane, all the way, though that Steve guy was still probably a notch below.
Either way works for me. If you can think of exceptions, by all means post them. Agreed on the War At Home wife, btw. Same deal with Grounded For Life; Donal Logue was way out of his league on that one.
I think male attractiveness is very subjective, and what’s “average” for one person might be damn sexy for 100 others. I think there are a lot of women who’d find Zach Braff attractive. His lips and nose are weirdly proportioned but he has great dark eyes which are enough to sell many a woman. Ed Harris is older, but extremely rugged looking, and also has a brooding confidence, as does Nicolas Cage. Jim Carrey is goofy but has a great smile and an expressive face. The idea of any of these guys having hot wives or girlfriends is completely sensible to me.
I think I need to bow out of this thread, because everything is way too subjective! I think the only conclusion is there aren’t any true dogs on TV (except Sarah Jessica Parker, and some people think even she’s cute).
In the *House *threads we’ve generally agreed that Hugh Laurie is hot - in this role, anyway. Strangely he’s never been hot before. Certainly not as Bertie on Jeeves & Wooster or the Prince Regent on Blackadder.
Then start with the classic: Bogart and Bacall. I don’t think anyone would think Bogart was a particularly handsome man, but he was sizzling in any scene with Bacall.
The Private Lives of Henry VII had Charles Laughton matched with six women who were hotter than he was (even Elsa Lanchester, who most people remember either from Bride of Frankenstein or as a character actor in her 50s, was pretty good looking back then).
In A Letter to Three Wives, Paul Douglas is no match in the looks department to Linda Darnell, but that was a plot point and helped make their relationship the most interesting in the movie.
