We watched “The People you Hate at Weddings” last night, a silly but mildly amusing movie. It prominently featured gay and interracial relationships. But no one was obese or unattractive - and one character commented on his luck at having been seated next to an attractive woman. Heck, I’m not sure there were even any really old people. (The “old” people - roughly my age - looked fantastic!)
It just made us wonder about “accepted” prejudices in film. It seems music and some advertising has made more advances in accepting different body types and appearances. Is there a need for more overt acknowledgement of people who do not share common western ideas of good looks? I’d suggest there are more goofy looking people than make up some of the groups I hear about desiring different treatment. And I’m pretty sure that social bias in favor of attractive people has been established pretty strongly.
The Canadian show Letterkenny takes place in a bizarre dimension where there are no old people in a small rural town. It’s my theory that the town experienced some sort of Children of the Corn scenario 25-30 years ago and we’re seeing the aftermath.
Lookism is certainly a problem on American television. When Tina Fey is the butt of jokes surrounding her looks and weight on 30 Rock, it’s a good indication of a skewed perspective. And when you’re bombarded with images of beautiful people in popular entertainment, it can give some people a complex when they can’t live up to it. After Brittany Spears had her first child, there were plenty of comments about her weight but she looked fine. Many young women who hadn’t had children didn’t look at good is Spears, and think this kind of thing does have a negative impact on others.
I’ve always been a bit impressed by British television because they have a lot regular looking people. They even have ugly people (my apologies Nicholas Smith). But then a lot of people seem to prefer watching attractive people in their entertainment. It appears to be acceptable.
I guess I’m over- or mis-thinking things. I try to have no prejudices against peoples’ race/culture/gender identity/sexual preference, but some situations seem “over-represented” in film/TV compared to what I experience IRL. And, kinda exacerbating things, it is common for the old/unattractive character to be portrayed as the villain, comic foil, or some other stereotype.
I agree, much of British film/TV seems to feature a much more realistic cross section of appearances.
Discriminating on acting ability isn’t “discriminating”. Discriminating on aspects of the actors’ features that don’t affect the show is “discrimination”.
The critical question is “What affects the show?” or more precisely, “What affects the saleability of the show?” Entertainment isn’t art, it’s business.
50 years ago, non-whiteness adversely affected saleability. 15 years ago overt gayness adversely affected saleability. And both those things still do adversely affect saleability in some subset of US audiences.
Right now obese, elderly to infirm, and less than top 10% looks seem to adversely affect saleability for most of US audiences.
The future? Who knows. But @Dinsdale is definitely onto something here.
I think you can see the premise in the link preview. But the way it was portrayed, when Jack’s character looked at the obese woman it seemed that what he actually saw was Gwyneth. So it idiotically sidestepped the point.
If he’s hypnotized (or whatever it was) to believe he’s seeing a physically attractive woman, then he’s not overcoming his shallowness at all.
There are a lot of exceptions to this “rule”. Advertising in particular has found that there’s $$ in featuring non-conventionally attractive actors/spokespeople.
As far as “western standards of beauty” goes, there’s apparently plenty of prejudice when it comes to Asian standards of beauty.
There’s plenty of “not conventionally attractive” character actors out there. No one is hiring Steve Buscemi or Margot Martindale to play the “hottie.”
But I think there’s two issues at play here:
If you’re not attractive, you’re probably not getting into acting in the first place so the pool is smaller.
There’s a limit to how far “off” you can look before it gets distracting. For example, Peter Dinklage as the Imp in Game of Thrones. In the book, he’s supposed to look hideous, and even more so after he gets slashed in the face by a sword. But if you read that description in the book, you aren’t thinking about it every time you read about him. But you wouldn’t be able to ignore it if he looked like this every time he showed up on screen.
But there are so many counterexamples of unattractive people in the movies. Marilyn Monroe in glasses. Rachel Weisz in glasses. Henry Cavill in glasses.
I once started a thread here asking if people would enjoy movies as much if the actors looked like every day folks. The consensus was a definite “no.” Largely due to escapism being a big part of the whole point.
Should auditions be held blind?
Until the world evolves to the point where the word “attractive” has no meaning, there will always be a tendency to cast better-looking people. Sex sells, after all.
Which reminds me of something that happened to me a few months ago.
I was at lunch at the local Panera, and I noticed an unusual group of people sitting around the big table. They were all wearing name tags, and they were all very good-looking. The younger women were all thin and buxom, and the men were all tall and handsome. Even the older men and women were notably attractive. I overheard someone ask one of the particularly good-looking women what conference they were attending, and she said that they were all actors…
