It’s 2001. You’re Anne Hathaway, starring in Princess Diaries, and you’re about to begin your transformation into a princess. But, first, one tiny problem must be fixed: you wear glasses. This simple fact makes you utterly unsaveable. What can you do to become a beautiful woman? It’s easy. Take off your glasses, and you’re instantly gorgeous.
I loved Princess Diaries when I was a kid (and still as an adult), but the makeover scene always made me uneasy. It seemed to announce that the path to beauty is straightforward, and only two contacts away. Princess Diaries has perhaps the most famous iteration of this trope, but unfortunately, moments like that are not rare — they have become standard hallmarks of cinema. It even occurred in recent popular releases; in Wicked, though Glinda places Elphaba’s glasses back on briefly after taking them off, Elphaba doesn’t wear them again after her “makeover.” The trope is alive and well. The nerdy girl who reads too much and thus appears undesirable is remodeled into the perfect woman, and it’s all because she took off those annoying frames.
There are so many things wrong about this cliche, but let’s just start with the most obvious one: beauty standards for women that mold us into a certain look. This trope’s prevalence signals to female audiences that we must appear a certain way or risk being “ugly” in the eyes of society. It creates a code by which women must follow if we want to be attractive, a step-by-step guide to looking like everyone else. Yet, we do not need to physically alter ourselves in order to appeal to anyone, for any reason. We certainly should not be adhering to regulations that attempt to impose conformity on a societal level. Physical traits should not be labelled as “desirable” or “undesirable,” as they are almost always up to chance. Labels carry their own misconceptions and assumptions, creating personas for others that oversimplify fellow human beings, often into something they are not. Labels also define boundaries between certain groups, distancing one set of people from another set. They construct a system that implies one group is different, opening up doors for belittlement and exclusion. Yet, chance does not play favorites.
The existence of a set of rules for being pretty implies the sovereignty of a few over half the world’s population. Who is making these dictations? I’d wager someone who’s never worn glasses before. In fact, in makeover scenes in films, it is almost never the girl who takes it upon herself to remove her own glasses. She is either instructed to or has them taken off by someone else. Thus, the movies and shows themselves unconsciously acknowledge the role of outside authority in forming appeal. Whatever the external factors, for the wearer, poor eyesight is not a conscious decision and wearing glasses shouldn’t be one either, between prettiness or unattractiveness.
Furthermore, the concrete depictions of the type of women who wear glasses brand them as against traditional femininity. What do movies portray women with glasses as? Perhaps clumsy? Awkward? Nerdy? These traits are portrayed as undoubtedly negative for women. As shocking as it is, society does not only want to mandate your appearance, but also your personality. When a nerdy girl takes off those pesky glasses, she not only grows beautiful but develops those deeper characteristics every girl should aim for: shallowness, strict elegance and, hopefully, unintelligence. Nerds are bad enough, but a girl nerd with glasses must be a charity case. If something doesn’t change (and fast), these girls will have an awful time finding partners. In cinema, these changes are often accompanied by discarding “nerdier” activities — usually ones that require brain power. Add personal hobbies to the expanding list of “undesirables,” and there’s nothing society cannot control and manipulate. But wait … maybe there’s something wrong with one’s only goal in life being to find a partner and modifying yourself to be more marketable. The phrase “just be yourself” doesn’t have to always be used in a romantic context. We — women and everyone else — can be ourselves without the incentive of romance. Whether or not glasses are worn, it is important that the objective isn’t concerned about finding the perfect match.
It’s time movies and television shows put that idea to practice, bringing to screens more authentic representations. Wear glasses, don’t wear glasses; a woman is still beautiful, and not because of her looks. In that way, appearances actually do matter. They matter if someone is being genuine. Makeovers and drastic personality shifts based purely on receiving approval from others creates artificiality, an imbalance between the interior and the exterior. When cinema buys into this notion and takes off the glasses, they become blind to everything a woman can be, getting stuck on the metal frames and glass lenses perched on her nose.
Jane Locke is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].
Hater Friday runs on Fridays and centers around critiquing media or culture.