Actors can get away with a lot in life. Attractive actors can get away with even more.
We’ve all heard of celebrities who get let off the hook for traffic violations and other petty offenses, but they can get away with more than crime if they’re good-looking. How many attractive performers with unremarkable talent have skyrocketed to fame while their less attractive, more talented counterparts lag behind? I won’t name names here, but we all know of someone who fits the bill.
Sales careers, specifically for women, depend highly on a person’s physical attractiveness. Let’s set aside the fact that the definition of “attractive” is highly subjective and fluid—whatever it means to be “attractive” is evidently of vital importance to women seeking careers in sales. Or really, any career where they are performing for a visual audience. Like acting.
There are many reasons why unexceptional actors might achieve celebrity status.
Money, connections, family, willingness to kiss up to people in power… and oh yeah, the hotness factor. Often the hotness factor and the kiss-up factor go hand-in-hand in very unfortunate ways. But being attractive in Hollywood can buy you more than acting contracts—it can buy you an audience for even the dumbest movies out there!
Again, we encounter obscure territory, since the definition of a “dumb” movie is bound to be quite subjective. For the sake of this discussion, let’s define it as a movie that lacks one or both of the fundamental pillars of storytelling: plot development and character development. A storyline whose exposition, inciting incident, rising action, falling action, and denouement do not fit together will be lacking in the plot category. A story whose characters undergo no challenges, personal dilemmas, conflicts, and who have no clear goal will be lacking in the character category. The worst films are lacking in both.
And yet even the worst films have those faithful audience members who will watch if only to see their Hollywood crush waltzing across the screen. What does this prove?
For some people, a cast of attractive actors may be enough to hold their attention. This does not mean that all these actors bring to the film is a pretty face or nice jawline. No doubt some extremely talented actors end up in sub-par films, and although they play their role fabulously, the script is still insipid. Vapid. Asinine. (Yes, these are all synonyms for “stupid.”) They may know it and the audience may know it, but there will still be those who endure the vacuous plotline simply because they enjoy watching pretty faces and sculpted biceps. To each their own!
And so now, in the spirit of being inquisitive, I would like to know whether you are one such an audience member.