Nice insight there, Finagle.
I was thinking back to the 1970’s (come on now neocortex… 20th century popular culture for $500), and Andromeda Strain did peg my meter.
Several action-adventure films and TV shows of that era also have significantly ordinarily somewhat attractive people in them. Murder She Wrote (not from that era) comes to mind, as Angela Lansbury was well past her young and attractive stage by the time that long-lived series was filmed. Yes, there were attractive younger people in the show, but there were some older and important characters as well.
Curiously, it appears that by watching American movies and TV shows over several decades, one may notice a trend of certain somatotypes going in and out of fashion. It isn’t just the length of the skirts, but also the size and shape of the hips and breasts that change. What once was ‘zaftig’ is now just ‘fat’.
There was a promo I saw recently for a new show on Starz, something about Leonardo da Vinci’s younger years, and the lead looked like he fell off the set of “Gossip Girl”. Sure, I’ll buy that as a random poor Italian guy from the 15th century. Not. The whole premise is ruined by the unbelievable looks of the cast.
Movies have always been filmed with attractive people, but they were attractive in a realistic way. Walking down the street you see attractive people, they aren’t rare.
Now the standards of attractive in Hollywood are so narrow though and expected the actors no longer look like random attractive people, they look like clones from some other planet. Its distracting because they look like no one in real life.
Heh. Doubt it. Moore’s last Bond film was in 1985. Richards’ year of birth is given as 1971. Thought I’m willing to imagine her year of birth has been a little, let’s say, fluid, she would certainly have been in her mid to late teens when that movie came out. The actual Bond movie she was in came out in 1999.
I don’t really so much mind the hotness of all screen people, it’s how ‘done-up’ they all are. The chick from Castle running around in stiletto boots. ER doctors having time every morning to sculpt their hair into perfectly voluminous waves. Female cops with eyelash extensions and smoky eyeliner. One thing I really liked about early seasons of The Office, American version, was how they took Jenna Fischer, who’s obviously quite lovely, and had her in average clothes, wearing her hair in a style that a normal person going to work in an office would. Not bouncy curls, perfect dye job, gorgeous sheen the way that all surgeons and cops pulling the late night shift apparently do.
Bolding added to emphasize my agreement…It’s rare that I sit looking directly at the TV. I watch shows while I work, and at home I am usually knitting or working on a project of some sort and just glance at the screen while the show plays. I often get completely lost when a man’s sister or boss looks just like his wife. How many 5’2" skinny women with straight blonde hair can we cram into one scene?
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.
That’s one thing I love about the British show “Misfits” - the stars aren’t ugly, but they aren’t drop-dead Hollywood gorgeous, either. I thought some of them were very strange-looking when I first started watching, and now I think they’re all attractive because I’ve gotten used to their faces, just like with real-life people.
Melissa Leo (Kay Howard) famously refused to wear more than the absolute bare minimum of makeup on the show because her male costars didn’t wear any more than that, and because of her belief that someone like Kay and in Kay’s position wouldn’t bother with makeup anyway.
I’ve mentioned this before, and it probably has a whole thread devoted to it, but a stick insect, like Angelina Jolie or Keira Knightly, who looks barely strong enough to raise a Dirty Martini with both hands to her trembling lips, who nonetheless turns out to be a lethal dame with near-super-powers when it comes to taking names and kicking ass.
No, never. In fact I have never really tried to watch either show the OP cites because I don’t find the male cast members remotely attractive. TV is escapism. I can see ordinary slobs every time I leave the house, so I don’t need more intruding on my escapism too.
I’m more prone to reading/watching sci-fi and fantasy than anything else and especially in the case of sci-fi I’m more likely to be taken out of the story if I notice people who aren’t hot/studly. Because realistically if we had, say, Star Trek level technology we’d use it to make ourselves into our physical ideals; after all, we do that on a less effective scale now with what we have. Even with fantasy, if I think about it I tend to be a little skeptical that people would invent spells that turn the target into, say, sheep or chickens but not into better looking versions of themselves.
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.
“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 know I’m the one who suggested that McCoy was picking & choosing the hotties, but I seem to recall that both Claire & Jamie were assigned to him by Schiff without his ever meeting them.
A few days ago my wife ran across Something Borrowed on Showtime and started watching it. Total chick flic. Anyway, it’s established that the heroine is not one of the “pretty people”- she says to her studly dinner date at one point, “People like you aren’t supposed to be seen with people like me.”
