Let me paint
a picture for you. Once upon a time, there lived a schlubby guy with low
self-esteem. He toiled away day after day at a menial job, receiving no
recognition for his hard work and generally getting nowhere in life. His
friends and coworkers agree that he is an all-around loser and make fun of him
when he’s not in the room and, on occasion, when he is; perhaps they only hang
out with him because he makes them feel better about themselves. Then, one day,
they get the opportunity to finally meet the wife he keeps talking about (some
of them had even questioned whether she really existed, because who’d want to
marry a guy like that?). The time
comes to meet her, and they can’t believe their eyes! The woman standing before
them isn’t the homely embarrassment they were expecting: in fact, she’s
downright hot. Like, Playboy bunny hot. Suddenly, they’re in awe of him. They
can’t stop giving each other looks, wondering how that sucker scored such a
babe of a wife. What’s his secret?
Does this scenario sound
familiar to you? If it doesn’t, you must not have watched a single movie or TV
show in, I don’t know, your life (in which case, I’m not sure why you’re
reading this blog, but you’re certainly welcome to stay). The average-looking
dude/bombshell gal dynamic, which I am hereby dubbing the King of Queens Principle for this article, has been a pop culture
staple for decades, appearing in everything from Annie Hall and The Hunchback
of Notre Dame to Adam Sandler movies and pretty much anything about high
school and teenagers ever.
In case you can’t already tell,
this particular cliché is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Most recently, it was
brought to my attention by a subplot in the latest episode
of Parks & Rec. For those who
don’t watch the show, or haven’t seen the latest episode, Jerry, who is
essentially the loser described in the hypothetical situation above, throws a
Christmas party, and to the amazement of some of the other characters, this
party is actually really popular and awesome. At the party, they see his wife,
Gayle, for the first time, and what do you know, she’s incomprehensibly hot.
Tall and blonde with an hourglass-ish figure, she looks like a model; as a
matter of fact, she’s played by real-life model Christie
Brinkley. What’s more, she’s so attractive that she looks the same age as
her and Jerry’s three daughters, who are also very pretty. Adam Scott’s Ben
essentially spends the entire episode gaping at the sight this man,
hapless, square-as-a-box Jerry, with that woman.
This plotline, as trivial as it
was, drove me nuts. It would’ve been one thing if this had been used as an
initial “woah” moment and Ben and the others then proceeded to – oh, I don’t
know – actually talk to her, instead of just gawking, but what I described for
you was literally the entire story. That was it.
Now, it’s not a lack of realism that makes me cringe when I see the King of Queens Principle deployed.
People date and marry “out of their league” all the time in real life.
Here’s your daily reminder that these two dated for eight
years.
What’s so problematic about this
trope is that it implies women are only worthy of admiration if they possess
physical beauty. In these situations, are people ever blown away because the
woman in question is stunningly intelligent or charming or kind? No, it’s
because she has bigger boobs, a better ass, a slimmer figure and longer legs
and is just all-around more sexually appealing than they expected. I don’t
claim to understand the first thing about the male psyche, so this could just
be a perfectly accurate portrayal of how heterosexual men select their ideal
mates for all I know, but are men not insulted by these accusations of
shallowness, by the implication that the criteria they use to evaluate a
desirable partner goes only skin-deep?
Because here’s the thing: it is
all about the men. The King of Queens
Principle always goes ugly guy/attractive girl, never the other way around.
Essentially, the woman always exists to validate the man either to himself
(i.e. “you’re such a nice guy, you have a great personality, and I’m a perfect,
not-superficial person so I couldn’t care less what you look like) or in the
eyes of his male buddies as not-a-total-failure/freak.
On one level, this reflects the double
standards regarding physical appearance that are still rampant in the movie
industry. There are few actresses in Hollywood who defy the usual conventions
of beauty and can find steady work, and even those few who manage to somehow
find some success – Melissa McCarthy, for example – are always relegated to
supporting roles. Most importantly, they can never, ever become love interests.
When you look at leading men, however, you can find as many Jack Nicholsons and
Jonah Hills as Brad Pitts; even Steve Buscemi had Ghost World. Where are our female equivalents to Buscemi or Seth
Rogen? Easy answer: they don’t exist. When it comes to casting a romantic lead,
the first thing people apparently ask an actress is, are you someone that men
will fantasize about? Talent is secondary to that all-important fuckability
element. It’s why Jessica Biel is an A-lister, despite the fact that, as far as
I can tell, she can’t act and has never been in a good movie (fine, Cellular was better than I expected, but
there’s a difference between being not-bad and genuinely good, and I don’t even
remember Biel being in it, though her IMDb page insists she was), while
Gabourey Sidibe hasn’t had a substantial role since breaking out with the indie
Precious. Even if they do pass the
hotness test, women still have to spend their entire careers responding to
petty comments about their weight
and body
image.
Only in Hollywood is this woman considered
ugly
The fact of the matter is that the movie and TV industries are still
overwhelmingly patriarchal worlds. Not only are the vast majority of people in
positions of control or power men, but Hollywood also still continues to cater
toward adolescent boys more than any other demographic, while labeling anything
aimed toward someone else as “niche” programming, though hits like Twilight, Bridesmaids and even Magic
Mike could perhaps change this by forcing studios to accept women as a
viable and powerful audience.
It would be nice to have
something productive come out of this silliness.
The most obvious explanation for
the prevalence and popularity of the King
of Queens Principle is that, much like the whole Manic
Pixie Dream Girl trope (warning: TV Tropes link), it’s simply wish
fulfillment. After all, if you’re casting your own girlfriend/wife or the
partner of a male character who could be seen as a stand-in for yourself, why
wouldn’t you cast someone beautiful, the sort of person most of us can only
daydream about? It’s just make-believe anyway. Hell, if I was in a movie, I’d
totally want to be cast opposite Colin Farrell or Jon Hamm, for example.
Though, I’d also “settle for” Jesse Eisenberg or Anton Yelchin. Just putting
that out there.
However, my wish fulfillment
scenario is quite a bit different than, say, Adam Sandler imagining himself in
the middle of a love triangle
with Jennifer Aniston and model Brooklyn Decker, because there’s no history
of men being objectified and defined solely based on their physical
attractiveness. Though there are exceptions, the women in these movies rarely
have any personality or characterization beyond their looks. The King of Queens Principle exists so that
men can convince themselves that, no matter how ugly, unsuccessful or unpopular
they are, hot women will still want to date them. As paranoid as it sounds,
it’s hard not to think about how
this affects men’s romantic expectations or treatment of women in real life.
In essence, this is about “nice” guys believing that women will date and sleep
with them just because they treat women like human beings instead of objects or
toys. Putting aside how messed up it is that people think they should be
rewarded for being not-misogynistic rather than this being an absolute
requirement for them to be tolerated by society, it depicts women as prizes to
be won. They are the rewards men get for defeating the bad guy/bully or becoming a better person or
just being not-a-jerk. We
take it as a given that the good guy will win over his beautiful love interest
by the end of the film – emphasis on the “beautiful”. Moreover, the
attractiveness of these love interests is treated as inarguable, since Hollywood
seems to believe that all men – and women, for that matter – have the same conceptions
of beauty.
So, then what about the women who don’t conform or live up to these
standards? They’re treated as undesirable and unworthy of affection or
adoration. This is why the lack of “ordinary-looking” women in prominent roles
is such a problem. In Hollywood, even the weird or unlucky-in-love women either
look like glamorous movie stars or are one makeover montage from looking like
glamorous movie stars. If Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock can’t find love,
then what hope do the rest of us have?
Sorry, but that line is utter bullshit.
There is a beacon of hope,
though, and it comes from an unlikely source: The Mindy Project. Yes, I am talking about that new sitcom on FOX,
the one that, based on the episodes that I’ve seen, is aggressively mediocre
with a bland supporting cast and uninteresting plotlines. That’s not what’s
important here, though. What’s important is that the show centers on Mindy
Kaling, who is pretty much the opposite of what Hollywood traditionally positions
as attractive. Yet she’s portrayed not only as competent at her job as a
doctor, if not at all other aspects of her life, but also as self-confident and
appealing to the male characters on the show, even if not all of them would
openly admit it. Granted, Kaling had to create and write the show herself, but
it’s refreshing to see a show that puts her, instead of some idealized
model-type, at the center of attention without feeling the need to desexualize
her. In this way, The Mindy Project is
quietly progressive (plus, the episode “Teen Patient” is worth watching
exclusively for a
seemingly throwaway moment regarding the minor, one-off character Ben). Her
show has its problems, but in an industry that still determines women’s worth
by their bodies and treats them as little more than props in male fantasies,
Kaling offers an alternative that others would benefit from following.
Photo Links:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/a73bf041abfdd3ef0c21a33b939e8903/tumblr_mewbwyjQss1r4tw5ho1_500.gif
No comments:
Post a Comment