by Sophie Vaughan
Film, television and theater has always been associated with beauty and perfection. The people you grow up watching on the screen, look up to more than the heroes around you, and hang posters of them on your teenage walls are constantly compared to and pitted against each other to be shone the brightest. Often times, beauty trumps actual talent in regards to getting cast in a role. Since film and movies began to be more easily accessible in the 1940’s and 1950’s, the people on the screen has faced more and more pressure to conform to conventional standards of beauty. Though over the past decade, Hollywood has made efforts towards increasing diversity and inclusion, the biasedness towards casting beyond conventionally attractive people continues to trump talent.
From the very beginning of Hollywood, the most idealized and beautiful people have been put as the faces of the industry. In the 1940’s and 1950’s, actors like Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, and Cary Grant were some of the most influential and famous Hollywood actors. Infamously, Marilyn Monroe was not known as an outstanding actress. She quickly became a sex symbol before she even began acting. Magazines, posters, and billboards advertised her for her body and looks, and were frankly one of the main reasons most of her movies were seen. She was not taken seriously as a dramatic actress until she moved to New York City and trained with Lee Strasberg, an incredibly famous acting teacher. Like Marilyn Monroe, many other actors have taken extra measures to ensure the seriousness of their skills and not only be cast based off their looks. Studios, agents and managers devote extreme amounts of time and money to make sure actors maintain their beauty and go above and beyond standards.
For the people who do not fit into the standard or mold that Hollywood holds, they do not get prioritized and sought out like actors who are acclaimed as the beauty standard. Modern actresses like Sydney Sweeney get continuous roles, back to back, as leading characters. While, yes, she does have talent, there are hundreds of actors out in the world that are just as talented, if not more, that are not getting cast because they are not considered as beautiful as she is. The pressure of rising actors to stick to and beat these beauty standards can be concerning for emotional and physical health.
While everyone in pursuit of this career faces the challenges of conformity, it is especially worse for women in the field. Women have always been seen as the more sexual of the genders, which is always shown in film and television. Actress Geena Davis created a nonprofit organization in 2004 where they did a study on Gender in Media. They found that women are twice as likely to be sexualized in film and television than men. From roles themselves being created only for the seduction of the man and audience to having to be completely nude on screen, almost every mainstream piece of media over the past 90 years has sexualized women in one way or another. It is exponentially harder for women to be cast in film over men for appearances, which is mainly due to the fact that it was believed women have to be attractive to be heard or want to be seen.
Mental and physical health issues stem from these challenges in almost every actor. The pressure to look and act a certain way bottle up inside actors heads to tell them they are not attractive enough, on top of the normal burden of asking if you are good enough to even be pursuing this field in the first place. Extreme body issues easily form anywhere from body dysphoria, to bulimia, even to anorexia. The pressure to stay overly active to maintain a standardly attractive look is still prominent. It is not often that actors speak up about these trials and tribulations, but famous actress Jennifer Lawrence has expressed in multiple interviews that she has been asked or pressured into losing weight in order to be cast in a role. On top of the possible eating disorders that can be caused, this also often leads to depression and anxiety.
In similar yet different ways, men face the same issues. Women are told to be a thin and fit as possible, aiming for a small frame in order to appear small compared to men. Men, however, are encouraged, nay, forced to be chiseled and muscular. The rise of superhero and action movies call for men to be larger than maybe they would please. Like Jennifer Lawrence, male actors such as Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhall have gone through extreme transformations to fit roles. They have gone from both ends of the spectrum, between being scarily thin to heroically buff. In order to do this, they put themselves through rigorous training and dieting in ways that can be harmful.
Through these challenges for almost a century, the industry is now pushing to be more size inclusive, as well as colorful casting and inclusivity. Current shows like “Bridgerton” push to celebrate all kinds of people.
Finally, romantic leads are portrayed by people of color and people that are not a size zero. The range of roles has seriously begun to expand for opportunity and availability. “Euphoria”, “Orange is the New Black”, and “Bottoms” all open the conversation for more than physical inclusivity, but also normalizing sexualities other than straight. These shows demonstrate excellence that can be achieved when people are not cast solely based on looks.
There are dozens of new actors, and some that are not new, that have gained huge followings for the unconventional attractiveness that is celebrated now. Actors like Rami Malek, Timothee Chalamet, Tilda Swinton, and even Marilyn Monroe have overcome public hatred and media for accusing them of being non traditionally attractive, and now how mass followings celebrating their looks. These four are some of the most aspirational and acclaimed actors in the world, as well, with resumes longer than a grocery list and multiple awards. One thing, other than successful careers, that they all share are they fact that they never conformed to the standards. People who strive to focus on their work and not beauty standards should be more celebrated throughout the world and hung up on childhood bedroom walls for their work ethics and talents.