Ever come across this? An author, in describing the looks of his character(s) will throw in that “he (for example) has the looks of a young Harrison Ford”. Do you then settle into reading with the idea that a Harrison Ford look-alike is your central character?
Also, has it ever been addressed that to use the name of a celebrity might require some kind of permission from that person? If your answer is going to be no, then I’d like you to consider this: What if said look-alike is a real asshole in the book?
I’m not making a judgement either way, just throwing the question to the forum for discussion.
Thanks
Q
…that I have asked this question before, albeit on another forum. I thought it worthwhile to bring it up here since we now have a forum dedicated to the eclectic and I think it deserves more consideration than it received the first time around.
So no, I’m not “losin’ it.” Not yet anyway! 
Quasi
I think the most interesting use of this technique was in Ghost World by Daniel Clawes. At one point the two main characters, Enid and Rebecca, are walking by a guy who compares everyone to some celebrity. “You look like Bosley from Charlies Angels, you look like Homer Simpson, you look like Julie from the Mod Squad, you look like Zelda Gilroy.” Being a comic there was no need to describe the charachters appearance, but that scene did show us that Enid was trying to look like Zelda from the Dobie Gillis show, and also that Rebecca didn’t know who that was.
Of course when a movie was made of Ghost World, the actresses didn’t really resemble the comics and that scene wouldn’t have worked.