"Oh Blossom, You're so Beautiful!"

Elisabeth "Hatchet Face" Moss

Blanche Devereaux was stunning in her own mind.

Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City is good example.

Every man in New York wanted to fuck the sinewy, horse-faced Carrie. It only became more ridiculous one SJP became a producer and the show went on. By the time the first film was made they included a ludicrously fawning fashion spread scene for her in which Samantha was made to smile approvingly by the photographer (No wonder Kim wanted to quit). In the second film they had her hail a cab by extending her leg out.

I'll also nominate Lucille Ball and Doris Day, both of whom kept being referred to as "young lady" and "girl" on their respective '60s/'70s sitcoms. The worst was an episode of the execrable THE DORIS DAY SHOW in which she has to go undercover as an exotic dancer or something. There's an audition scene in which the lecherous casting director tells a woman two decades Doris' junior that she looks too old for the job. Then Doris comes up (in Vaseline smeared close-up) and he immediately hires her. This scene is played totally straight.

Donna on 90210 was a famous one.

If this thread wasn't limited to television series I'd include just about every Barbra Streisand film I've ever seen. My favorite was Nuts. The judge, lawyers, and parents kept referring to Babs as a girl. She was 45.

Not TV, but Olivia Coleman in "The Lost Daughter." Everyone kept telling her how beautiful she was and how she looked much younger than she really was. Olivia Coleman? Really? It was laughable.

"Aw, comeon, Julie, ya know you're a knockout."

[quote]Young lady!

Yes.

Erin Moran on Happy Days bagging out of her league Scott Baio

Did someone call me?

What about Cricket the 1980s teen model, later Christine defense attorney, on Y&R. IRL the daughter of the soap's writers. Nepotism at it's finest.

Dustin Hoffman as alter ego Tootsie was fighting them off with a stick.

[quote]"Aw, comeon, Julie, ya know you're a knockout."

Gee Mom, you're gorgeous too!

All the men of Indianapolis think you're a 10!

[quote]Not TV, but Olivia Coleman in "The Lost Daughter." Everyone kept telling her how beautiful she was and how she looked much younger than she really was. Olivia Coleman? Really? It was laughable.

Yeah. That didn't carry over well from the source novel, where she was a beautiful Italian woman.

[quote]Dustin Hoffman as alter ego Tootsie was fighting them off with a stick.

Ah tosh, that old bawbag could nae hold a candle to my womanly charms!

Megyn Kelly with her over-processed hair, collapsed nostrils, and batshit crazy right-wing views.

R3: IT was a generational things, esp. for unmarried women to be a "girl", "one of the girls", etc.---think "The Golden Girls". The male counterpart was the use of diminutives well into adulthood---Mickey for Michael, Ricky for Richard or Frederick. Still, Lucy laid it on thick with her show, esp. as she was getting into Mame/"vaseline as a cinematography technique" territory. Day was sold to us as a femme fatale even when her contemporaries were playing mothers (Donna Reed) or a more mature version of a love interest (Eva Marie Saint) and she probably had trouble shaking the image, much as she was always covering up the freckles.

R5- That’s because they were all NUTS 🥜.

R12- One of those men was OBESE and the other was OVER THE HILL- none were in any way attractive.

Lens Dunham owns this thread.

Lens Dunham on GIRLS 👧- her second boyfriend was good looking ( unlike the first) and she ultimately rejects him.

That episode where she has sex with the slim good looking doctor who’s lusting after her- 🤣

EJ on Days of our Lives, especially when he was played by James Scott, finding the fairly average Sami Brady the most captivating woman on the planet.

The new League of Their Own series has a lead old enough to be the mother of a player and in one episode the chaperone tells the players she is indisposed because she has her period. She’s about 65. I’ve noticed stuff. Like that more and more frequently on TV and in movies, lately.

Telling someone who isn’t beautiful that they are beautiful could just be a realistic reflection of real life, where that happens all the time. Every bride, every HS grad gets told she is beautiful, but most aren’t.

Obvious mis-casting is different. Olivia Coleman in The Lost Daughter is probably the most egregious example, ever. Tory Spelling in 90210 and Moss in Handmaid’s Tale are not so mis-cast that the plot lines don’t make sense but, yes, agree.

Annalise.

[quote]Obvious mis-casting is different. Olivia Coleman in The Lost Daughter is probably the most egregious example, ever. Tory Spelling in 90210 and Moss in Handmaid’s Tale are not so mis-cast that the plot lines don’t make sense but, yes, agree.

Wait a second, my daddy told me I got that part based solely on my own talent...do you mean...OMG, my whole life has been a lie.

I haven't seen Handmaid's Tale, but Mad Men handled Moss the right way. She was well cast. The character wasn't extremely beautiful or sexy, and everyone knew it (Joan: "You're the new girl, and you're not much"), although she was presentable and could be cute. The guys around her age who pursued her (Pete, Abe, Stan, and various minor ones) made sense.