In my flu-induced-delusion I decided to watch 'Hitch.' The premise (for those who haven't seen this piece of cinematic genius)goes something likes this:
Dating Dr (Will Smith) takes conventionally-physically-unattractive, shy, awkward guys (who are of course sweet and caring on the inside) and one way or another ensures that the conventionally-physically-attractive woman of their choice learns to look beyond the superficiality of appearance and fall in love with them.
The rest of the plot is highly predictable and of no importance here.
There is of course nothing wrong with the feel-good message of looking beyond appearance and loving people for who they are, not what they look like. However it struck me, lying awake in a flu-induced bout of insomnia, that in movies, stories, fairy tales, (society?), it is consistently the female characters who must overcome what is often physical revulsion in order to learn to love the man for 'himself', thus revealing his true inner beauty.
Beauty and the Beast and the story of the Frog Prince are classic examples.
And there aren't many stories of attractive men learning to love physically "unattractive" women for their personalities.
Men are allowed to be fat and still found attractive - eg. Charlotte's 2nd hubby in Sex and the City, Albert in 'Hitch'.
Women are allowed to be beautiful but poor and dirty (Cinderella) - nothing a hot bath won't fix - but men, we are told, are not able to fall in love with "unattractive", let alone fat, women unless the woman has undergone a major physical transformation, rendering her beautiful.
I'd be really interested to hear what other examples you can think of relating to this theme - either supporting or contradicting.
It seems to me that yet again women are being taught they must strive constantly for physical 'perfection' (whatever that means) in order to find a 'good' guy, which they will only do when they stop making judgments based on physical appearance. Meanwhile men are told they can look anyway they like, be a good guy, and still get the hot girl.
Maybe men are just more literal: they don't see the beauty until they
see the beauty.
If anyone's seen that Jack Black/Gwen Paltrow/fat-suit movie I'd love you to tell me how it relates to this so I don't have to watch it.