I’ve been watching the DVD extras for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and they have interviews with the makeup artist who creates all the funky looks for various species of aliens on that show. He refers often to conversations in which the producers tell him they’ve hired a “pretty girl”, so he needs to “keep her pretty”. So he’ll do just a little forehead ridge or some wrinkly stuff at the bridge of the nose, or some tattoo work – nothing that would distort her eyes, cheekbones or mouth from looking human and traditionally attractive.
No, this is not the most appalling instance of misogyny I’ve come across. It’s just one example of those very subtle things that can make you think an actress is less talented than her male counterpart in a similar role. Even in sci-fi, with characters who aren’t supposed to be human, producers are more concerned about an actress’ visual appeal to the audience than they are with the character’s visual integration into a story.
Patrick says
I also noticed they didn’t give her fancy hair as often, but just had her wear a ponytail. Presumably someone figured out that a) it made more sense for her character, and b) emphasized her cheekbones.
BetaCandy says
I would refer to her as hot rather than gorgeous, and to me that’s an important distinction.
Look at male actors. We have some very pretty male actors who look just great. Then we have these funky looking guys like David Duchovny and Chris Noth who really aren’t good-looking, exactly, but to some women they are just so hot beauty couldn’t turn up the heat one more degree. What is it about these guys? Personality? An air of… something?
To me, CB is like that – not terribly good-looking, but very attractive for much more interesting and mysterious reasons than the usual pleasing visual image. Because that beauty will fade with age… but that hotness is forever.
Does that make sense? Lisa Edelstein is another female actor I think of in this way.
Glaivester says
Although not technically aliens, the remade Planet of the Apes had this phenomenon as well.
And speaking of ponytails, I always thought that Ivanova on Babylon 5 looked better with pulled-back hair and no make-up than on those few occasions when she was “dolled up.”
MaggieCat says
I think it’s probably too subjective to even try and parse out guidelines, but “hot” and “gorgeous” are essentially the same when I use them. But normal human beings have a much broader definition of “gorgeous” and “pretty” than the media does, so whenever someone who would fit into most normal people’s definition of Pretty somehow wanders over and gets accepted by Hollywood‘s definition of Pretty as well we get confused and start adding subcategories to desperately try and explain it. But since one’s motivated by an actual response, and one’s motivated by how much money they think they can make, I doubt the two will ever be able to live in harmony. (Especially since no one will listen to ME when I say that most of those “Pretty” actors are very very boring, and not as good looking as everyone seems to think.)
Or I just refuse to live in a world where Chris Noth is described as someone who “really [isn’t] good-looking, exactly”. Madness, I tell you! (Yes I’m aware that he’s the same age as my mother. I don’t care, I’ve had a crush on him since I was 10.)
BetaCandy says
Oh, Maggie, Chris Noth is one of the hottest guys on the planet. But he has enormous dark eye bags and a big nose, and normally those features are not good-looking to me. Yet it doesn’t matter with him, because there’s just something droolly about him.
It seems to me that most people use “gorgeous” interchangeably with “attractive”. I make the distinction because I’m very into the idea that non-great-looking people can be sexy as hell, because that’s life.
Caroline says
Seems to be an accurate analysis, but this knocks it down:
Very true – they were actually quite frightful-looking (other than B’Elanna who was only half-Klingon) – certainly unattractive by human standards (A face only a Klongon could love). To me, they even seem more ugly than the male Klingons.
That’s a good point too – even when they’re not trying to make the female aliens pretty, they still feel they have to make them ultra-sexy – you just cant have an ugly unsexy female alien like you can with the males. Maybe some network exec decided the Klingon gals needed to dress like Xena!
But now that I think of it, I think I have seen several female aliens on star trek (minor or guest-starring characters mainly) who did look pretty “ugly” by human standards and didnt have cleavage showing.I’m going to look out for that from now on.
Ink says
Not an alien example but… Lisa in the Torchwood episode “Cyberwoman”. Partially converted to cyborg by the Cybermen, process got stopped halfway through and she spent awile strapped to a sort of life support machine undergound, with all these cybernetic components.
You’d expect some sort of scarred, scary looking cyborg woman, bits of metal clashing with flesh, and the like.
Instead, Lisa was a healthy looking woman wearing what amounts to a a very stylish metal bikini.
Of course *sigh*
Charles RB says
IIRC, Russell T Davies was a big confused to see giant metal tits being put on it by the designer.
But he didn’t do anything about it, which is daft. It’s the damn Cybermen, Russ! The original ones were covered in bandages with huge metal bits sticking out and couldn’t talk properly – an imcomplete Cyberwoman should be hideous and unnerving.