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Los Angeles Times
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Opinion: The Makeover Movie: Will it ever be fixed?
'Uglies ,' a film released in September 2024, is Netflix's attempt at a dystopian YA movie reminiscent of 'the Hunger Games' and ' Divergent.' Originally a novel by Scott Westerfield, the adapted film centers around a society where members are deemed 'ugly' until their 16th birthday, where they then undergo serious surgery to become 'beautiful' and are sent across the city from Uglyville to live in New Pretty Town. This movie, along with many other recent releases, have become the 21st century's response to the 'extreme makeover trope.' First seen in ' My Fair Lady' (1964), where Eliza Doolittle (played by Audrey Hepburn) is given an extreme upper class makeover by Henry Higgins, transforming her from an impoverished woman to a passable princess. The 'makeover trope' has made its way into countless movies; from ' The Princess Diaries' (2001) to ' Mean Girls' (2004), to even, most recently, ' Barbie' (2023). ' My Fair Lady' is the blueprint: a clumsy and very nerdy (and thus unsightly) girl who needs in some way or another to achieve social and/or class mobility and get a boyfriend – the ultimate indicators of 'success.' That being said, there seems to be a certain kind of woman that Hollywood and the silver screen expect. The one that is deemed socially acceptable, the epitome of what it means to carry the double x chromosome. The on-screen woman is feminine, but not too feminine to the point of being a bimbo; she is intelligent, but not so much as to be considered a nerdy, social outcast. Thus creates a spectrum that these women can fall into. On the left side: women too brutish, butch, nerdy or awkward; and on the right side: women too air-headed, materialistic, vain, and seeming as if they've never read a book in their life. The goal of the movie industry is to have a woman as center as possible on this spectrum. But a movie would be quite boring without some good 'character growth' , a real good transformation where the women ultimately see the errors of their ways – all the ways they've been doing womanhood wrong; and thus, the makeover movie trope was born. Let's go more in depth about these spectrums, and how exactly they fall under the patriarchal views of society. Mia in 'the Princess Diaries' starts off as a feminist nerd, for lack of better terms, but slowly under the pressure of her grandmother and society, begins to shape up to take the throne of Genovia – which obviously cannot have a bushy haired, glasses wearing, intelligent woman taking up the title of princess. Activism, it seems, is much weaker than the power of plucked eyebrows and hair straighteners. On the other end of the spectrum, our air-headed bimbo heroine will strip back layers of makeup and shed her promiscuous attitude, and cover up with a few more layers of modest, but smart clothing. She learns that life isn't all about outer appearances and men (while simultaneously going to great lengths to achieve that 'naturally effortless' makeover and finding just the right guy to spend the rest of her life with, because makeover movies are often a romantic comedy drama). Sometimes, our heroines will find they've gone too far in their journeys of self improvement, showing that the grass isn't greener on the other side of the spectrum; but by the movie's end, things will have righted themselves again, and the protagonists are more or less center. But there have been some challenges to this stereotypical makeover movie. Disney has finally learned that wearing glasses doesn't make you ugly, Netflix throws in silly little self aware statements about the makeover, and producers are beginning to realize that men can have makeovers too. In ' Can't Buy Me Love' (1987), Ronald goes from astronomy geek to high school womanizer and back. Yet, the makeover was done on his terms, while the makeovers received by women protagonists are forced upon them. The Barbie movie, epitome of 21st century feminism for most, has the subtle makeover too as well. The spectrum here is gloomy, all-black wearing Sasha with her feminist ideals on the left, working mother Gloria pitching 'ordinary Barbie' in the middle, and bimbo, pink and sparkly Barbie on the right. At the end of the movie, Sasha has incorporated pink into her wardrobe, and Barbie is a little more muted now, a beige blazer thrown over her smart, pink-less, modest outfit — both now a little more towards the middle of the spectrum, a little more socially acceptable. All this is to say, the makeover movie constantly shows women what they should strive for, how they should present themselves to be the most socially acceptable. And it leaves us with the question: will that ever change? Or will the media always create a notion of what a woman should be, no matter how progressive these movies seem on the surface. Related
Los Angeles Times
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Mandy Moore blasts Amazon for delivering a package to her in-laws' burned-down home
Mandy Moore had some words for an Amazon delivery person who dropped off a package at her family's burned-down home in Altadena: 'Do better.' The 'This Is Us' star blasted the company for delivering the parcel in the wake of the devastating Eaton fire that burned more than 14,000 acres over 36 days, killing 17 people and destroying nearly 10,000 structures. One of them, Moore said, was her in-laws' home. 'Do better, Amazon. Can we not have better discretion than to leave a package at a residence that no longer exists? This is my mother and father in law's home. Smh,' Moore wrote Tuesday on Instagram stories, sharing a photo of the package amid the debris at the leveled residence. The singer-actor, who is married to Dawes musician Taylor Goldsmith, was among many who have called out the e-commerce giant for continuing service to destroyed and damaged properties in the burn zones. The company's delivery-confirmation photos have been making the rounds on social media in recent weeks. Steve Kelly, a spokesperson for Amazon, confirmed Wednesday in a statement to The Times that the company had reached out to Moore to apologize. 'We've reached out to Ms. Moore via Instagram to apologize for this and to ask for more information from her in-laws so we're better able to investigate what happened here,' Kelly said. 'Those who deliver on our behalf have been advised to use discretion in areas impacted by wildfires — especially if it involves delivering to a damaged home — that clearly didn't happen here.' The 'A Walk to Remember' and 'The Princess Diaries' star has not commented publicly on Amazon's statement. However, she did post about the fires again on her Instagram grid. Reflecting on the month that has passed since the wildfires, Moore said that in addition to feeling survivor's guilt she is struggling and 'reaching out and asking for help and guidance on how to process this trauma.' Her brain and heart, she said, 'are so deeply broken.' In the Tuesday post, Moore said that she, like many Altadena residents, 'never got an evacuation notice' as the wind-fueled fires moved through her community. Instead, she received a call from her brother-in-law at 6:45 p.m. Jan. 7 encouraging her and her family to get 'the heck out of Dodge.' 'I calmly walked downstairs and relayed this to my husband and without skipping a beat, we promptly packed up the kids (in their pjs), our dog, and scrambled to find our 3 cats as the power went out. I'll never forget Taylor trying to figure out how to manually open our two little garage doors ... in the harrowing 60 mph winds, as the sky glowed a dark red and ash started to fall all around us,' she wrote. 'We raced across town amidst fallen trees on the freeway to the safety of our dear friend's place, got the kids down, and then I raced to Target to grab a litter box and some water, impulsively refreshing the watch duty app over and over. As we did all night. Over and over. Watching the evacuation zone narrow in on our little 8-block radius. It took until 4 a.m. for it to turn red. All the while, tossing and turning with a stomach-churning anxiety I've never experienced before.' Moore said that she found out this week that the structure of her Altadena home is still standing. But, due to its proximity to the fire, its contents 'are a near total loss.' 'We won't be there for a very long time as it and the neighborhood itself get sorted out and cleaned and the rebuilding starts. I say all of this because i'm struggling. Yes we are exceedingly lucky to technically still have the structure of a home. But also… do we still have a home? I think my definition is in flux,' she added. Moore and Goldsmith weren't looking to move to that home until they stumbled upon it amid the COVID-19 pandemic in summer 2020, she said. She found out she was pregnant with her first child two weeks after closing escrow and they spent four years restoring and remodeling the house. They were two weeks away from completing the renovation when the fires hit, she said. 'I'm not saying all of this because I'm asking you to feel more sorry for us than someone else,' Moore explained. 'Like I said, I am grateful. We're so lucky! By the grace of god we found a place to stay in the meantime and the kids are happy and safe. We've even starting collecting the books and toys that they've lost. It's not a competition of who lost what or more. Real human beings across this town, regardless of their jobs or socioeconomic status, lost the life they'd come to know and count on in an instant. My whole heart is with them. Every one of them. This place, our home and the town itself, was our dream and I hope in time it will feel like that again… just a slightly different one.' State investigators have not yet determined a cause for the Eaton fire, but video of flames at the base of a Southern California Edison transmission tower in Eaton Canyon the night the fire began has raised suspicions that the utility's equipment was at fault. Residents have filed more than 40 lawsuits against SCE since the fire. Times staff writer Caroline Petrow-Cohen contributed to this report.
