Nobody in a Hollywood film is ever truly ugly. At least, not in a mainstream Hollywood film; if you're blessed with what we charitably refer to as character actor features, then you're going to make your mark as either a villain or a star in art house fare (maybe both, if you can play your cards right). You never have to worry about these uggos standing around all your matinee idols, sapping their beauty like some sort of osmosis vampire of good looks. Nope, in the artifice of the Hollywood movie, everybody has stepped right off the runway and into any number of everyday professions or positions which don't require you to take headshots or sit in front of a make up mirror for hours before you show up. And obviously that's true of the teen movie, too, where absolutely everybody is a ten-out-of-ten stunner. Yep, even the dorks. Sure, the nineties teen movie will make concessions to the requisite high school nerd. He or she will probably still be one of those aforementioned stunners, but their obvious areas of outstanding natural beauty will be concealed! Sometimes with dungarees or some other form of unflattering outfit, sometimes with an equally bad haircut - but always with glasses. Glasses are the great equaliser in the arsenal of the big shot film costumer. A four-eyed prop is enough to transform even Ghost World's Thora Birch or She's All That's Rachael Leigh Cook into a hideous, unlovable geek! Even better when paired with the transformation from geek into surprise hottie, simply by removing said prop. Yeah, no, obvious nonsense. Glasses don't make people ugly. We've seen Steve Buscemi with and without spectacles, and it makes no difference.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
