What’s wrong with real women?

While in a bookstore today I saw the front jacket of a novel I’d read a few years ago. It was Nicholas Sparks’ Nights in Rodanthe. It’s engaging and an easy read; a predictable story of middle age love between two unlikely people who meet by chance. My wonderful friend Crystal from Reno NV sent it to me. I probably wouldn’t have read it otherwise, but I’m glad I did. It’s always good to be reacquainted with passion.

The book jacket wasn’t the same as the one Crystal sent; it had a photograph of a man and a woman. See the picture above for the cover I received. Their faces were familiar to me and I realized the book cover was promoting a film made of the novel. The picture included Richard Gere and Diane Lane (they starred in Unfaithful several years ago). But here’s the problem: while the character in the book played by Richard Gere looked like Richard Gere (or someone equally good looking), the character played by Diane Lane did not. Check out the picture of Diane Lane from the film: petite and slim, cute-pretty, in her early 40s. The character in the book was not. Although she was in her 40s, she was not a ‘knock out’ and was on the chubby side. Let’s say Adrienne was average. In fact, it was because she wasn’t a knock out that the love story with the handsome, divorced doctor fed into our fantasies and helped us better believe in the likelihood of chance encounters.

So then why does Hollywood need to make that character equal to the doctor in the looks department? Why change the nature and spirit of the story this way? Why does Hollywood think we want to see a beautiful woman in the part, rather than the richness and dimension that an average looking woman would offer.

This was done previously (probably many times) and most egregiously in the film production of the stage play, Frankie and Johnny at the Claire de Lune (filmed just as Frankie and Johnny). Another love story. This time with a diner cook with a prison past and a waitress with self esteem issues and a long, bad history with men. I may be wrong but I believe Kathy Bates (Misery) was in the original stage production. Do you know who was cast in the movie? Michelle Pfeiffer. Does Hollywood think that we can’t be sympathetic to the sad, abusive past of an average woman? Or to average looking women regardless of their pasts?

Would it have been so bad to put Edie Falco (Sopranos) or the glorious Cherry Jones (see below) in the part?

Why do you think these casting changes happen? I don’t think they do this with men, or at least as often. We know that Hollywood is certainly not as concerned with men’s looks or their ages. Just think of all the films and television roles in which the less than young or attractive guy is paired with a young (or young-looking), attractive woman? There is clearly a bias for beauty in Hollywood and against average and old.

Yet I did see a woman on screen this summer in a big hit film that made me feel satisfied. She was in Mama Mia. It wasn’t Meryl Streep. (Meryl, goddess that she is, is the antithesis of average). And it wasn’t Christine – the fabulously talented but always seemingly uptight – Baranski. It was Julie Walters. Her looks were fun and relaxed, not Hollywood perfect and matched her carefree attitude. And she was portrayed in the same light. She’s on the left in the picture below. 

Notice, however, whom she was paired with at the end of the film? (hint: It wasn’t James Bond.)

So here’s the formula for pairings in Hollywood films: handsome man + beautiful woman;average looking man + beautiful woman; average looking man + average looking woman (only to be used in the direst of circumstances and only when a handsome + beautiful match exists in the film).

Oh, and as a final note of the inconsistencies between book and film. As I remember it, in the book the characters are about the same age (mid to late 40s). Richard Gere is 59. Diane Lane is 43. I guess it’s also OK to pair our older men with younger women. But can you think of a film where the roles were reversed? I didn’t think so.

~ by modelmom on August 17, 2008.