How realistic is it – even in places like NYC and LA – that every character on the set looks like they should be on TV or in the movies? It takes me right out of the story.
Most of my favorite shows use lots of not-gorgeous actors – Mad Men, The Wire, Damages, The Shield, and old favorites like St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, etc.
I can understand casting a beautiful person if the role calls for a beautiful person, but why does the bit player with one line and two seconds on screen have to be pretty?
Does this bother anyone else? Or would you rather save homely people for real life and look at Adonises and Helens when you’re watching TV?
I almost started a thread on all the generic pretty blondes I’ve been noticing on TV, but since it’s similar to your OP, I’ll just put it here. I watched Moonlight tonight and there was a blonde chick that reminded me of the blonde chick on Chuck, then Cane came on and there was a blonde that looked like the other blondes. I’m sure I’ve seen a few more of them on other shows. They all look a little like Portia De Rossi, maybe she’s had herself cloned? It’s getting hard to keep track of who’s who.
A couple of years ago I was going around my neighborhood standing on the sidewalk while my kid and his friends went up to houses to beg for candy. (Halloween.) After the third or fourth house I began to notice something. As far as looks went, we could be living on Wisteria Lane!
It really shocked me. Of course, I know some of the people who live in the other houses. We didn’t go to Mrs. D’s because she doesn’t answer the door after dark, even on Halloween–she’s about 80. We didn’t go to the McW’s because we knew they were going to a party, and they are ordinary looking people, too.
But everybody else was SO put together. They were skinny. If not in costume, they were well-dressed. They were fit. Their hair looked fantastic.
Even though I wasn’t going up to the doors, I decided I needed to find a bag, cut some eyeholes, and put it over my head, so as not to let down the neighborhood.
I’d just assumed a career in law enforcement is the standard fall-back when one’s modeling assigments dry up mid-twenties.
What I’m more worried about is how this affects the gene pool: how all the healthy corn-fed descendant daughters of Vikings emigrate from Minnesota or wherever to seek their fortunes in Hollywood, find a glutted market but stay there anyway until they’re ultimatley shot by Phil Spector, while the rest of middle America is bred full of ordinary-looking folks who watch TV shows peopled by strange, superior beings who must have fallen from the sky.
Wile E, Moonlight is the show that prompted my complaint! Even the goth kids in the study group were attractive (how weird is that!), and Beth’s boss was pretty enough to have her own show. The guys working for Echolls? Even the backs of their heads were photogenic.
And yeah, what’s up with the generic blondes? One of the things I liked most about Dirty Sexy Money was Nick’s wife – short dark hair.
I found myself thinking about this not long ago, when I was on the jury for a locally high-profile criminal case. The defendant’s lawyers were two of the best in town, the prosecuting attorneys were two of the most experienced in the DA’s office, and there was a slew of expert testimony. It occurred to me that this trial did indeed look and sound a lot like the ones I’d seen on various TV dramas, but there was a difference I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Then it hit me: although the entire assemblage was, as a group, no less attractive than average, we were all way homelier than the average group of TV actors, including the extras who play members of the jury.
The same phenomenon occurred the first time I visited a Southern California beach. Something seemed a little off, somehow - and it took me a good half hour to realize that it was that the same beach on TV never contained overweight, older, or non-Caucasian people.
This tendency to cast only gorgeous people does often take me out of the story. One of the details I’ve been noticing a whole lot in recent years is that everyone, including characters in historical dramas, has perfectly straight, blindingly white teeth. And, yes, it bothers me quite a bit.
This kind of annoyed me about Chuck. The lead character is supposed to be this socially unskilled nerd who can’t find a date to save his life, but in fact he’s good-looking, witty, and has decent social skills–as seen when he re-films the little girl’s ballet recital. Couldn’t they have found an actor who could actually look and behave like an asocial geek?
So, when you watched the last season of Homicide: Life on the Street, I guess you were out of the story, gone from the house and heading on down the road.
In real life, quite a few goth kids are ordinary looking or even pudgy and plain, just like the rest of the population. I meet them every time I work at the library, like today!
Yes, I would love to see ordinary people on TV. That’s why I like the BBC version of Persuasion–everyone has bad teeth and looks like they haven’t washed their hair in a couple of days. And I did notice that Chuck is suspiciously cute for what he’s supposed to be. I do find it extremely irritating, which may be partly why I only watch about 3 shows.
Now that I’m 40 I’m also becoming incredibly conscious of all the 30 year old surgeons and 25 year old top-of-their-game lawyers as well, incidentally. While we’re at it, just how many 30 year olds, even professionals, who aren’t from wealthy families own lofts [that are always clean] and wear designer clothes?
As a general rule, I would rather look at nice-looking people, both on TV and in real life.
But what kills me is when one of the characters is supposed to be ugly, only she* is not. By any stretch. Even Ugly Betty is obviously not ugly at all, just frumped-out to look that way.
For instance, Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality. Oh yeah, she’s wearing nerd glasses, so obviously she’s a real mess and turning her into a beauty queen is an awesome stretch. [sarcasm]
But even if the plot doesn’t demand that the ugly person turn into a swan by the end, the so-called ugly people are still not that ugly. Not remotely ugly.
Maybe the converse of this is that, given the make-up artists and hair-stylists available to the stars, we could all look great.
*For some reason it’s always a woman. The plot never seems to demand that a man be ugly.
ETA: There is one normal-looking actress I would be happy never to see in a movie again, and that is Rene Zellwegger.
I’ve just recently gotten into *Heroes *on DVD (season 1), and I was genuinely confused that Claire’s friend, Zack , was supposed to be some social outcast. It took me three episodes before I realized it.
My husband: I can’t tell him apart from the quarterback (that Claire had a crush on in the first few episodes).
Me: Apparently that school’s standards are *really *high.
I’m torn. On the one hand, women on TV have been beautiful my whole life and it does nothing for me. In the case of women, I’d like to see more average looking women.
On the other hand, they’re starting to use only beautiful men, and I kind of like it. Actually, I really like it, realistic or not.
