Transcript: The Fix-It Rule
Rob Long on the delicate art of sharing opinions when asked about unflattering looks — and unsalvageable projects
This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler.
In olden times, when a movie or television script called for an actress — and it was pretty much always an actress — to play a character who isn't particularly attractive — the plain younger sister role, perhaps, or the overlooked personal assistant — the casting process was pretty simple: you give the part to a beautiful actress and then you made her wear ugly glasses.
Then, at the appropriate moment in the story, she inadvertently removes her glasses, and everyone sees just how stunning she really is, and the movie or television show moves quickly towards its happy and romantically satisfying conclusion.
Sometimes it’s not a pair of glasses. Occasionally it’s just an unflattering hat. Gee, when you took off your hat just now… you’re… you’re beautiful!
This is sexist, of course — and a lot of other bad things too, I know — but it’s the way it works in Hollywood. People on screen are supposed to be gorgeous, even if the script calls for something else.
Television shows and movies, I don't need to tell you, are not even a bit like real life. In real life, if we're a little (or a lot) fat, awkwardly unblessed in the looks department, given to bad hair days and blotchy skin, we can't just remove our glasses and win over the object of our romantic obsession. In real life, we're stuck with what we have. In real life, you wear a hat to cover up your receding hairline, not your hidden beauty.
And the worst part about it is, your friends — if you ask them — will probably lie to you.
Look, when the people around us — our friends, our families, and, most perilously, our spouses — ask us for our honest opinion about their appearance, we must first rapidly calculate their realistic ability to do anything about it. There's no point in telling someone they're looking a little pudgy if they're about to walk down the red carpet into a hailstorm of photographers and flashbulbs. But if there's a stray hair blowing awkwardly or a collar that's sticking up, by all means mention it.
The operative rule here is what we in Hollywood call the Fix It Rule: If I can fix it, tell me; if I can't, keep your mouth shut.