Ugly Betty: Part Deux

She's So Lovely


It's refreshing to root for a gawky person, especially in movies like Napoleon Dynamite, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Revenge of the Nerds, Sixteen Candles, Mean Girls. Not only are ugly people an easy-to-love stereotype, they show the world the importance of having a big heart underneath the cellulite and acne scars. Ugly Betty is a welcome break from Hollywood beauty--which the above program shows us as the real ugly. Can't say it's the most amazing show I've ever seen, but loveable characters are rare and America Ferrara is a promising young actress.

What's more fun is to mock beautiful people's attempts to seem ugly in movies. Why not get a "real" ugly person to play an ugly character? Isn't that like having straight actors play gay characters?

Here's a list of pretty people who've pretended to be ugly:

Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada: Sorry, but unless she's vomiting right in front of me, I can't ever see her as unattractive.
Susan Sarandon in The Witches of Eastwick, but then she has sex with Jack Nicholson who removes her glasses and volumizes her hair.
Michelle Pfeiffer in Frankie and Johnny, until she blossoms under Al Pacino sweet, understated love.
Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed. Then the BMOC asks her to prom and the popular girls invite her into their clique. This forces Drew to wear tight shirts and finally show off her stellar rack.
Rachael Leigh Cook in She's All That. Loveliness concealed behind thick glasses and loose fitting smocks (brilliant artiste)...until she puts on a bikini and Freddie Prinze, Jr. notices her for the beauty she is deep inside.
Cher in Moonstruck: She snaps out of her homeliness when Nick Cage asks her to the opera.
Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face: Seen as a touching piece showing Gibson's artistry but I think he made it to incite people into analyzing the irony of the title, revealing secret narcissism. Alas, now he is The Man Without a Clean Record.
Barbra Streisand in The Mirror Has Two Faces: She courts same hairstyle as Cher in Moonstruck until Jeff Bridges rejects her lusty advance. This makes her get revenge by exercising (and eating a carrot at the same time, which one does on a treadmill), highlighting her hair and dressing like her prostitute character in Nuts.
Charlize Theron in Monster: Okay, so she was kind of uggo.