Pretty to Plain, Just Add Glasses

"She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me" - Mr Darcy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Sorry to state the obvious, but novels are not a visual medium. When a character is described as unattractive, we take their word for it, and create a picture of them in our minds with that in consideration. Because beauty is a personal and subjective thing, many people will have differing ideas on what is unattractive. Not to mention, if not a lot of detail is given, you can interpret 'unattractive' to mean anything from not conventionally attractive in the time period the novel is set in, to utterly repulsive. But what happens when a novel is adapted into a film? Casting directors need to cast the beautiful characters, which should be easy enough with Hollywood's abundance of gorgeous stars. But what to do about the plain women and the unappealing men? Will they cast an unattractive actor? Perhaps a plain, or less conventionally attractive actor? Unsurprisingly, they will often opt for an attractive actor, and they may or may not go to lengths to hide their good looks, depending on how important the character's appearance is to the plot. But expect the character to still look beautiful, as a quote from The Simpsons of all places puts it quite well, they will be "TV-ugly, not ugly-ugly".

It always bothers me when a character in a book is described, sometimes even at great length, as unattractive, at least conventionally so, and yet they are played by a beautiful actor. One example that perfectly illustrates my point is Keira Knightley as Eliza Bennet in the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It was a stupid casting choice because Knightley is not only a very attractive woman, she probably would have been considered very attractive in the era in which the film is set, so you can't even justify it with the differing standards of the time periods. The casting of Jennifer Ehle in the 1995 BBC adaptation was, I felt, much more fitting. Although by no means an unattractive actress, I would believe that, with her rounder face and softer features, Ehle would not have been considered very pretty by the standards of the time period, while her sister Jane, played by Susannah Harker, had the more desirable long face shape and sharper, more striking features.

It is very common for films to have roles of supposedly unattractive characters played by attractive actors, simply because... um... actually I don't know why. Are film makers afraid that we as viewers won't watch a film if it has realistic or ugly characters in them? If we could handle Lon Chaney's hideous makeup in the 1925 film The Phantom of the Opera, we can handle a genuinely plain person every now and then. Anyway, for whatever reason, beautiful people are cast in these roles, usually 'de-prettified' in some way by dressing them in less flattering clothes, giving them bad hair or by adding glasses. Admittedly, giving an attractive actor unflattering clothes is a fairly good trick, but it doesn't really work because a beautiful actor is still beautiful with messy hair and a baggy argyle jumper.

Now, there is something that I must address, because if I don't it is sure to come back and bite me in a less than pleasant place. Here I am going on about characters having makeovers in film adaptations, when I thoroughly enjoyed the film adaptation of Louis Sachar's Holes, despite the fact that this film is guilty of just that. In the book, the protagonist, Stanley Yelnats, is an awkward teenager who is frequently teased for his weight, and later given the nickname Caveman because of his size, and also because a fossil that he finds. In the film, Stanley is played by Shia Labeouf, a tall, thin, lanky actor who is, let's face it, very attractive. Having watched some of the film's extras, they do explain that they had considered casting a chubby or overweight actor, but because in the book the character becomes slimmer and fitter over a long period of time, which would have been very difficult to show in a film, they had to remove that aspect of the character. They also mention that chubby teenage actors are hard to find, although I doubt that very much. True, this casting choice did mean that the whole bullying thing had to be swept under the rug, and the Caveman nickname didn't work quite as well, but I understand why they made this decision, and at least they put some thought into it and didn't just think "well, we can't cast an actual fat person, our characters all need to be attractive!" and I thought the film worked well despite this, so I will let it slide because I just love that film.

Back on the subject of glasses, I have to say that something I always take issue with is this persisting idea that glasses are supposed to be unattractive. It seems that, in movie land, people can't see Julia Robert's face behind a pair of glasses; maybe they are magical or something. Adding glasses works somewhat in older films because glasses were not particularly stylish, and they didn't come in very many differing or fashionable designs, so in these cases I will let it slide, albeit reluctantly. But the problem is that it is still used as a 'de-beautifying' technique to this day, and as a glasses wearer, I can't help but feel offended at the implication that my choice to not stick my fingers in my eyes every morning or spend hundreds of pounds to be shot in the eyes with a laser makes me 'frumpy'. On top of all of that, it is just lazy. Some films utilise makeup and prosthetics to make their actors look less conventionally attractive, but some just feel that throwing on a pair of glasses will do just as well. Don't expect us to see a pair of glasses and automatically see the character as unattractive. Christopher Reeve was still Christopher Reeve, even with his Clark Kent glasses on. Now, I know that Superman wore glasses as a disguise and not as something to make him look less attractive, but my point is that, even when he wore large, thick-framed glasses, he was still a good looking man.

At least the idea of the 'brainy specs' makes a little bit of sense, considering short-sightedness is related to reading a lot of books, even if the reason for this isn't fully understood, so I can accept that it is somewhat grounded in logic. Also, at the very least it is a somewhat flattering trope, even if it does have a somewhat patronising feel to it, as if to say, "Hey, you four-eyed kids may not be good looking, but at least you're smart!" although I suppose it is to separate the 'brains' from the 'beauty' for the sake of balance.

Incidentally, many people now consider glasses to look very attractive, so suck on that, Hollywood.

Out with the Stupid, In with the Silly

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed that television is becoming stupider these days. Maybe people are getting stupider (I hope that isn't the case) or people just want to laugh without having to think too much. Whatever the reason is, I'm not a fan of this new 'stupid virus'. I mean, I will be the first to admit that I like a little bit of stupid comedy every once in a while, but it seems that every new sitcom, every romantic comedy, every reality TV programme is just tired, predictable and often mind-numbingly idiotic. When nearly every new series is just the same stupid series again and again, then we definitely have a problem.

Most people who know me know that I enjoy watching cartoons, the childish person I am, but I have a strong belief that cartoons are not all stupid and childish, despite still being written for children. One example, it still annoys me, even seven years along the line, is when a cartoon called Sheep In The Big City was pulled from Cartoon Network. The series had a more sophisticated humour, using literal comedy, oxymorons and relentless puns as well as comic references to TV broadcasting, breaking the fourth wall (something which I personally love in a comedy series, as long as it's not done to death), and it was popular with older audiences: not only was I a big fan, but both my parents sat down to watch it with me whenever it was on. The funny thing is that the premiere was apparently the highest-rated premiere for a Cartoon Network original series. Now, I know that every series must run its course, but it just bothers me that this programme got pulled, whereas truly awful cartoons like The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (the newer, stupider episodes, that is), Robot Boy and Codename: Kids Next Door, kept their spot. Yuck.

Now the title for this blog might seem strange, but in my mind 'stupid' and 'silly' have two very different meanings (even though they can sometimes overlap).

Stupid leans more towards the moronic: the 'random' comedy that, in my opinion only succeeds if very well executed and expertly written. It tends to consist of (if done badly, extremely predictable) plays on words (double-entendres, strange euphamisms, etc.) and maybe even (heaven forbid) non-sequiturs. It's important to note that I don't hate all stupid comedy, some of it is quite good, for exactly what it is: a quick laugh at something stupid. It's just when it starts taking over that I have a problem. uk.rottentomatoes.com actually has a fairly good way of expressing what I'm trying to say here, that stupid comedy is basically "a kind of studied stupidity that sometimes passes as humor". Incidentally, it was describing the film Napolean Dynamite, a film which I watched on a very long coach journey and absolutely hated for its borderline insulting moronic 'comedy'. Then again, apparently most people who watched that film loved it, so what do I know?

Silly, on the other hand, is closer to intellectual, without necessarily being intellectual humour. A good example of silly comedy is Monty Python. Someone once described Monty Python as wonderfully weird yet sophisticated, which I suppose is a close enough description of silly comedy. One of the sketches even has the line "stop that, it's silly!". True, some of their sketches were terrible, but the good ones are so well known and so well loved that they overshadow and make up for all the flops (on that note, if you have never seen Monty Python, I highly recommend their YouTube channel here).

So, all I'm saying is that, while there is certainly still room in the media for the fun, stupid comedies, we need to also leave room for silly, intellectual or dark comedy, or any other forms of comedy that often get pushed to the side by the 'cheap laughs' crowd. I know it's not for everyone, but I also know that a large number of people would appreciate a little bit more variety in comedy.

Now I know that I come off as sounding very stuck-up pretentious, even condescending in this blog, but honestly it is difficult not to sound that way when dealing with this topic. I assure you, I in no way intended to offend anyone or be patronising, just to be relentlessly vindictive and cynical.

Examinations

Having just set my A Levels, I noticed a few problems in the system. I'm sure I don't have as much experience as some: university finals, driving theory exams and the like, but I'm not here to start a competition.

For one, they are very hard on the neck: unavoidable I suppose, but very inconvenient. Also they are a pain on the hand/wrist/arm, and legs tend to fall asleep as well. Physically, exams are not good for you, and they are mentally stressful as well. Try not to have a heart attack (which, incidentelly, was just about the only thing I wasn't asked about in my Biology exam).

That brings me neatly to my next point: I can't help but think that sometimes we learn things just for the exams, as we don't always learn exactly what something means, just the right way to phrase it to get the marks. This makes me feel like learning about transpiration in plants and atheromas, aneurisms, etc. has been a waste of time because they didn't come up in the exam. Although, knowing about the cause (and therefore prevention) of heart attacks will probably prove useful. Maybe that was a bad example, but you get the idea.

On the subject of exam technique; that's a real mission. Having to phrase an answer just right, paying close attention to the number of marks provided for the question, remembering to crowbar in certain key points and all the terminology can be tedious. Sometimes deciphering the exam paper and finding which questions you are supposed to answer becomes an exam in itself. In fact, that may not be a bad idea. If the candidate can't work out which question they are supposed to answer, or they don't follow the instructions properly, the examiner knows that they aren't A Level (or GCSE or whatever exam it is) material. To be honest, there isn't a lot of confusion about it: if you are given a choice of questions to answer, it seems logical to answer the one relating to the text or topic you have been learning about and revising.

Then there is also the problem that some exams seem to be testing our ability to memorise and regurgitate facts rather than actually knowing the material, and when that is happening, you know something has gone wrong somewhere along the line. However, the French Oral Exam I took in April wasn't the same as the GCSE last year, where I could just recite a passage I had learned (this year there was too much material to memorise) so I had to actually know the French and speak with some spontaneity, so the system does sometimes work. However, one of my biggest problems with Biology (particularly Unit 2) was remembering all the information, when I should have been focusing on how to understand and apply it to How Science Works.

True, exams are there for a reason, and they get the job done: hopefully I haven't failed all of my exams. But even if I have, a cardboard box shouldn't be too hard to obtain...