# Does a preponderance of hot chicks & studly men ever take you out of the story? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 4, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671 "2012-09-04T19:33:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/61 "2012-09-07T18:42:59Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > Great question. I’ve just discovered Breaking Bad and am happily working through the series. However right from the first episode my one negative reaction is that Walter’s wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn) is just too damned attractive. MILF. I honestly don’t think her attractiveness is needed to work the story and is actually a distraction. > > Breaking Bad is supposed to be about a mild underachieving high-school chemistry teacher whose life turns bad. Mr middle-class average (played superbly by Bryan Cranston). He wouldn’t have a hot wife. An attractive wife sure. Strong willed sure. > > Anyway thats my grumble for the day. 😃 There is a reason. He used to be an up-and-comming partner in a high-tech firm. He left that, apparently because of fall-out from meeting Skyler and dumping his then-GF (who married his partner) and became an underachieving teacher. His partner stayed in the business and became very wealthy. So although he appears to be “mr average” he never really was. More like “mr frustrated”. It makes sense that a beauty would be attracted to an ambitious up and comming tech genius. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/62 "2012-09-07T18:50:32Z")
From what we have seen, it seems to me that Walter dumped Gretchen well before he got together with Skyler. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/63 "2012-09-07T21:00:25Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > From what we have seen, it seems to me that Walter dumped Gretchen well before he got together with Skyler. Perhaps. In one scene there was a flashback to Walt & Skyler buying the house and he was commenting that it seemed kinda small - indicating that at the time he still believed he was going to make it big. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/64 "2012-09-07T21:06:18Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Perhaps. In one scene there was a flashback to Walt & Skyler buying the house and he was commenting that it seemed kinda small - indicating that at the time he still believed he was going to make it big. I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/65 "2012-09-07T21:08:31Z")
Naw. How hot you are is heavily determined by who you hang around with. My brain instantly adjusts to the Hollywood standard of beauty. In fact, it does such a good job that I find that I find that I think someone is ugly onscreen, but then see a candid picture of them and think they are gorgeous. I guess a book would be worse, as their hotness would have to be described in detail for this to work, but I haven’t really encountered that except in bad fanfiction, and then there’s quite a lot more that takes me out of the story. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/66 "2012-09-07T21:10:32Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. Fair enough. I was thinking Walt in the high-tech business = Walt still associated with Grey Matter. The larger point being, when Skyler hooked up with Walt he was still an ambitious high-tech guy, not a burnt-out chemistry teacher. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/67 "2012-09-08T05:31:48Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Uh what? I seriously don’t follow here, by that I mean I don’t see how one relates to the other. What sitchensis is saying, grude, is that whatever you said in the Pirate Bay thread so upset him or her that he or she cannot read posts by you in other threads and respond rationally to them. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/68 "2012-09-08T08:17:08Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Sometimes. > > What really bugged me was the movie _Dog Fight_, in which US Marines have a contest to see who can pick up the ugliest girl. And one of the ugliest girls in it is played by freakin’ [Lily Taylor](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000666/). That is nothing compared to **Boomerang** , where the plain girl was played by Halle Berry. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/69 "2012-09-08T11:08:17Z")
> [@sitchensis](#): > > Hollywood was more willing to take chances on smaller independent films, where the timeline for the return on investment was longer, when they could build buzz with limited releases and make their money on video sales, TV, and foreign markets. You can’t do that now. Hollywood now needs to make back their investment opening weekend, so they play it safe. All we get are the same beautiful people in the 18th reboot of the same shitty comic franchise. That’s not entirely accurate. Over the last ten years, the number of theatrically-released movies has been growing steadily. [Box Office Mojo](http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/) has numbers going back to the early 80s and the yearly number of theatrical releases stayed pretty consistent at 450-500 until the early 2000s, when it shot up to 550-600+. So more movies are getting made, more movies are getting released by the major distributors, and even more movies than that bypass the theater all-together and come straight to DVD (which doesn’t quite carry the stigma it once did). ---
**Author:** ![jayrey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jayrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayrey)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/70 "2012-09-08T18:12:07Z")
> [@bump](#): > > “Sons of Anarchy” seems to have the ugly down pat. With the exception of the guy who plays Jax Teller, the rest of the main cast are attractive at best, with Katey Sagal leading the pack. > > Opie, Chibs, Tig, Halfsack, Piney, and Clay are all pretty ugly guys. I admit to being absolutely enthralled by this show right now. (I was even thinking of starting a thread asking “what is your current television/book ‘guilty pleasure’” where I would 'fess up about SoA. Most people who know me would be astonished that I would watch a program that glorifies violence and outlaw behavior so religiously. They think I have much more highbrow tastes.) I actually catch myself appreciating the fact that the majority of the actors in SoA are at least ordinary looking, if not downright unattractive. I was in a pool hall last night to watch a tournament. Not a single one of the men\* in that room would have looked out of place on the show. (In fact, some of them looked the part so completely, I found myself wondering just how much they might be like the show’s characters in other ways, which made me pretty uncomfortable.) To me, Ron Perlman, who plays Clay Morrow, hands-down wins the Ugliest Actor Currently on Television award. I sometimes get so distracted by his ugliness that I lose track of his dialogue. \*I will take exception, however, to the show’s cast of “biker chicks.” I’ve seen quite a few real biker chicks in my time and none of them look like the uniformly skinny, perfectly made up and coiffed girls that fill the SoA’s clubhouse. Uh uh. No way. Now, maybe a couple of them are LuAnne’s porn girls happily doing double duty for the club, but the others . . . No. So I guess ugly guys are okay but ugly chicks aren’t. And people wonder why women have body-image issues. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/71 "2012-09-08T23:24:32Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > … Claire & Jamie were assigned to him by Schiff without his ever meeting them. I never knew that Adam was pimping for Jack. Anyway, he surely knew how to keep Jack happy. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/72 "2012-09-08T23:40:44Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I never knew that Adam was pimping for Jack. Anyway, he surely knew how to keep Jack happy. [humorless & blind to sarcasm] Jack had no sexual relationship with Jamie, though she was his personal friend in a way none of the other assistants (except possibly Mike what’s-his-name, the EADA from the last season) seemed to be. And (though I may be wrong), I seem to recall her telling him early on that Schiff had warned her about him. Not that it mattered. After Claire, I’m fairly sure Jack was done with workplace romances. [/humorless & blind to sarcasm] ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/73 "2012-09-08T23:54:58Z")
> [@gwendee](#): > > I think Homicide:Life on the Streets had a cast that looked like real people. I’ve been watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents streaming on Netflix. A lot of character actors show up in lead rolls in that series. I agree with you about H:LotS first couple seasons. After that they had cops played by Isabella Hoffman, Callie Thorne and Michael Michele, each of whom is an attractive babe. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/74 "2012-09-08T23:59:57Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > I agree with you about H:LotS first couple seasons. After that they had cops played by Isabella Hoffman, Callie Thorne and Michael Michele, each of whom is an attractive babe. Michael Michele is the exception here, but the other two, to my eye at least, are everyday-woman-pretty rather than supermodel beautiful. Ironically, the former is not only far more attractive to me than the latter, but less jarring to suspension of disbelief. ---
**Author:** ![Sycorax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@Sycorax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sycorax)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/75 "2012-09-09T00:43:45Z")
I’m female, and yes it bothers me. This is the 21st century, but t.v. and film execs still can’t accept a normal female who is also intelligent and articulate. I’m simply tired of the same old “debonaire, handsome, sophisticated man (regardless of age)” acquires a 20-something hottie. He charms her, fucks her, and moves on to another woman. I don’t watch much of US productions; I’m with anaamika-- a lot of my favorite shows are on BBC (America); they simply feel so true to life for me. Also “Copper” – the tone and atmosphere reminds me of Deadwood. It doesn’t romanticize the early days of our country but shows the raw and sometimes horrifying things that really occurred. (Although I’m having a hard time accepting that a black man could have acquired enough knowledge to be a coroner.) Perhaps these images don’t bother the younger generation, but I’d bet that they get the same message I got from rom-coms and Disney movies: You’re not going to get anywhere unless you’re beautiful and subservient, then maybe your prince will come. HA! ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/76 "2012-09-09T08:38:26Z")
Yep takes me out of the story aswell. When channel flicking the other day I watched for a few minutes a bit of an old series "Dr. Quinn Medecine woman "or somesuch, more out of fascination then anything else. Set in a dusty Wild Western town, not only were all of the characters incredibly good looking, but, their clothes were immaculately clean and unfaded, their hair was likewise perfect, clean AND conditioned, and all had plucked eyebrows, plucked nostrils, clear complexions, bleached teeth and not a few nose jobs around as well. Unsurprisingly I didn’t linger. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/77 "2012-09-09T09:45:54Z")
> [@Sycorax](#): > > Perhaps these images don’t bother the younger generation, but I’d bet that they get the same message I got from rom-coms and Disney movies: You’re not going to get anywhere unless you’re beautiful and subservient, then maybe your prince will come. HA! Beautiful yes, subservient, not so much. I certainly can’t think of a Disney movie of the last 20 years that _doesn’t_ feature in its lead female role a strong-willed, intelligent girl or woman who’s great at everything but eventually has to go against authority to do what she feels is right. So I guess that’s a pretty positive image for girls growing up right there. Although we might end up with a whole generation of mavericks reaching adulthood… ETA: Well, I see I got ninja’d. But perhaps my post is slightly less WTF ---
**Author:** ![MegaBee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@MegaBee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaBee)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2012, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/78 "2012-09-10T13:10:13Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > That is nothing compared to **Boomerang** , where the plain girl was played by Halle Berry. She was supposed to be plain in that movie? ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2012, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/79 "2012-09-10T13:31:08Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > I agree with you about H:LotS first couple seasons. After that they had cops played by Isabella Hoffman, Callie Thorne and Michael Michele, each of whom is an attractive babe. Over the years, you can see the cast for _H:LotS_ getting prettier–while the show didn’t necessarily get better. Young Andre Braugher & Young Kyle Secor were enough male hotness for me; having more “regular” guys in the cast made for a nice balance. I don’t mind a actors being more attractive than average but object when everybody is a 20-something supermodel. Besides, they all start to look alike. (Multicultural casting is not so much PC as Less Boring.) The new _Dallas_ just began in the UK. Caitlin Moran of the _Times_: > [@](#): > > One of the things that made the original _Dallas_ so compelling, is how old most of the cast were. The bulk of them were in their forties, or fifties, so that every time the doorbell at Southfork rang, and some stranger turned up on the doorstep, it could have been anyone from their past: mother, sister, lover, daughter, friend. Former vet. > > The new\* Dallas\* is populated by hard-body hotsters in their twenties and thirties — twentysomething characters don’t have as many dark seams to mine. And man alive, do they all look the same. Thank God for the constant exposition — “Bobby was always harebrained about that foundling, Christopher. He’s not even a proper Ewing” — because, with their cheekbones, dark hair and ripped abs, it’s hard to tell Christopher and John Ross apart. Likewise their girlfriends. At least, in the old _Dallas_, Charlene Tilton was three-foot tall, and Sue-Ellen had a whisky tumbler welded to her hand. Simple identifying traits that made the show easy to watch. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671/80 "2012-09-10T13:58:21Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’m a fan of several shows that air on USA. My favorites are probably _Burn Notice_ (which is admittedly past its best days) and _Royal Pains_ (just approaching its own). But though I generally prefer the latter, one thing about it always bothers me a little. Virtually _every_ woman Hank Lawson treats is absurdly beautiful. Oh, every once in while they’ll throw in an older woman as a matron, but even they are generally MILFS. > > I’m not sure why this bothers me. There’s a lot more exposed skin on _Burn Notice_, but it never takes me out of the story the way the [parade](http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/royal-pains/photos/297342/544447) [of](http://static.tvguide.com/MediaBin/Galleries/Shows/M_R/Ri_Rp/Royal_Pains/season4/royal-pains-232.jpg) [prettily](http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMzQwNjM4NDM4NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjk1Njg0Nw%40%40._V1._SX600_SY399_.jpg)-[ailing](http://static.tvfanatic.com/images/gallery/julie-benz-on-royal-pains.jpg) [hot](http://static.tvguide.com/MediaBin/Galleries/Shows/M_R/Ri_Rp/Royal_Pains/season3/royal-pains-158.jpg) chicks does on RP. I enjoy looking at them; I understand they’re there as eye candy, as RP is anything but a realistic medical show. But looking at them in aggregate, I just can’t help a :dubious:. > > But that’s just me. Anybody else ever have a similar reaction to movies & shows populated entirely by the hot? I’m sure it’s been said before, but I can’t stand medical shows precisely because they feature all 20-something doctors with nary an adult among them except for one older guy who are always “Chief of Staff” or something. Yes, I’m overgeneralizing, but that’s how it seems… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-preponderance-of-hot-chicks-studly-men-ever-take-you-out-of-the-story/633671.md?page=5)