Ugly Men and Pretty Women

Paul Giamatti and Virginia Madsen in Sideways.

Recently, the movie Sideways has been receiving a lot of Oscar buzz for the performances by its two leads. And although I agree that despite being over hyped, there is some fine acting in it, this isn’t the only reason so many people are talking about it. Part of the reason for its success is that for middle-aged men it feeds into the fantasy that even though they’re past their prime, out of shape and balding, they too can hook up with really attractive women. It’s a theme that’s been around as long as Hollywood.

Paul Giamatti is just the latest in a long line of ugly leading men. He’s short, balding, overweight, with a hairy back on display in a hot tub scene. And yet without even the benefit of a nice personality (he’s neurotic, depressive, and way too obsessed with wine), the very attractive Virginia Madsen still falls in love with him.

This is nothing new of course. One of the most classic movies of all time, Casablanca, featured not-so-good-looking Humphrey Bogart and the very beautiful Ingrid Bergman. Other not so attractive actors from the golden age of Hollywood were Mickey Rooney, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and John Wayne. And yet all of them, like Bogie, scored with some very attractive actresses.

Two of the most respected actors in the modern era of film are Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, neither of who is likely to win a handsome contest even when they were in their physical prime. Yet they’ve never had trouble finding roles or winning accolades, despite their age or appearance. Granted, they’re not playing romantic leads very often anymore, but they’re still doing better than most actresses their age.

Tom Hanks has done his share of romantic comedies and while he’s definitely a good actor, his looks aren’t really better than average. In this year’s Terminal, he ended up with Catherine Zeta Jones despite his accent and increasing waistline. (But then she married aged Michael Douglas, so maybe that one’s not so far from the truth.) Billy Crystal starred opposite Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, proving again that Joe Average can still end up with America’s Sweetheart.

Of course, the real king of ugly who gets the most beautiful women into bed is Woody Allen. His list of female co-stars is amazing. Mariel Hemingway, Charlotte Rampling, Helena Bonham Carter, Mira Sorvino, Tracy Ullman, and Téa Leoni are just some of the women that nebbish Woody some how managed to sleep with in his movies. Of course it helped that he also wrote the movies. And it’s interesting that in one of his few appearances in a movie not written and directed by himself, Scenes from a Mall, he was with the much closer to his own age, Bette Midler.

This is a trend that only very rarely reverses itself. I can only think of two occasions when the sexes have been reversed, and both movies feature Barbra Streisand. In her star making role in Funny Girl she even sings the line, "it hurt my pride, the groom was prettier than the bride," in reference to her character’s onscreen marriage to Omar Sharif. And a few years later, she starred as the ugly duckling that marries Robert Redford’s golden boy in The Way We Were. But these are definitely the exceptions to the rule. We’re not going to be seeing Handsome and the Beastess coming out of Hollywood anytime soon.

My personal theory as to why we see the average guy/gorgeous woman thing so often, is simple; most movie directors are men. There’s no reason for them to hire an attractive actor who will make them look worse by comparison, but naturally, they want to work with attractive women. Hollywood is the only industry in the world where you can hire someone based on their looks and not get sued for discrimination. Also, when a male screenwriter puts together his script he tends to project himself into the story and since if he were more than average looking he wouldn’t be a writer, he tends to write about average guys.

And so, Hollywood continues to give men hope. Who knows, maybe you too could be driving through California Wine Country, so broke that you have to steal from your mother, with a hairline level with your ears, a gut that makes it hard to see your feet, and still wind up in bed with a beautiful woman! It happened in the movies, so it could happen to you.