I Am Not Pretty: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
▲[[File:penelope_161.jpg|link=Penelope Cruz|frame|Never before have so many eyes rolled in unison.]]
▲{{quote|'''Starbuck''': Let me ask you, Lizzie -- are you pretty?<br />
'''Starbuck''': There's no such thing as a plain woman! Every real woman is pretty! They're all pretty in a different way -- but they're all pretty!
▲'''Lizzie''': No -- I'm plain!<br />
|''[[The Rainmaker (theatre)|The Rainmaker]]''}}
▲'''Starbuck''': There! You see? -- you don't know you're a woman!<br />
▲'''Lizzie''': I am a woman! A plain one!<br />
▲'''Starbuck''': There's no such thing as a plain woman! Every real woman is pretty! They're all pretty in a different way -- but they're all pretty!|''The Rainmaker''}}
Basically, this is when a girl (or, in some cases, a guy), regardless of her actual attractiveness, believes herself to be unattractive. Many such girls ''are'' lacking in conventional attractiveness, but it's rare for them to be actually ugly. Often the complaint of a girl who believes herself to be 'plain' or 'boring'.
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This is often the basis behind a [[Beautiful All Along]] or [[She Cleans Up Nicely]] event, when a character who is seen (rightly or wrongly) as unattractive is gussied up and made the Belle of the Ball. However, the main issue at hand is not how other characters see her, but the fact that she sees ''herself'' as unattractive. If the girl can realize her worth and attractiveness [[Just the Way You Are|without a makeover]], so much the better.
The [[Trope Namer]] is Thelma Possum from ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20110507020431/http://www.rhjunior.com/NT/00544.html Nip And Tuck]'', a webcomic by RH Junior. It takes a huge effort on the part of her beau and friends to convince her that she's beautiful and worth knowing.
Related to [[Hollywood Homely]], where we are ''informed'' that the girl is unattractive or ugly, and everyone in the show seems to believe it, but to us she seems quite pretty. With [[Suetiful All Along]], the author [[Informed Deformity|insists the character isn't pretty at the outset]], then lavishes complimentary descriptions on her the rest of the time. A girl who is fishing for compliments may ''pretend'' to feel this way, but she really doesn't. This can be [[Truth in Television]], if the girl in question has a poor self-image and/or unrealistic ideas of what constitutes beauty.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Played straight in ''[[The Wallflower]]'', where Sunako believes she is ugly simply because a boy she liked told her she was. Cue the whole series revolving around her "ugliness", even though she's pretty much a ''bishoujo''.
* Male example: Natsume Takashi from ''[[Natsume Yuujinchou]]'' has been used to being ostracized or bullied most of his life because people considered him a [[Creepy Child]]. Thus, he's a bit surprised to find out that many of the kids at his high school consider him quite attractive
{{quote|
'''[[Those Two Guys|Kitamoto and Yushimura]]''': ''Liar!''
'''Natsume''': Eh? Are you serious? }}
* A conversation in the fifth volume of ''[[Durarara
* Yura of ''[[Honey Hunt]]'' believes herself to be plain. This isn't helped by how other people tell her that compared to her beautiful and successful mother she's quite plain. However, once she loses the glasses and fixes her hair she can actually be quite good looking.
* In ''[[Naruto]]'', {{spoiler|Kushina}} says this word by word when {{spoiler|we finally meet her. Even if she's, well, dead. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].}}
* In ''[[
* In ''[[
** Belgium also considers herself as such, but doesn't make a big fuss of it. In her own words:
{{quote|
* Sakurako Sanjou from ''[[Hana Yori Dango]]'' gets extensive plastic surgery just because other children, especial importance placed on Tsukasa, called her ugly as a kid. In the Japanese drama, the girl playing her is [[Hollywood Homely|not at all ugly.]]
* A very tragic case is {{spoiler|Yuri Tokikago}} from ''[[
==
* The title character from ''[[
==
* [[She's Got Legs|Dierdre "Nezumi" Mitako]] from the ''[[Inuyasha]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.suericfanfictions.com/ Purity 3: Forever]'' is a [[Wrench Wench]] who has been [[One of the Boys]] for so long that she has a hard time thinking about herself as an attractive woman, even though almost the entirety of the story is about a guy trying to convince her he actually loves her and wants to marry her.
* Ranma Saotome (who is locked in her [[Gender Bender|female form]]) suffers from this in spades in the ''[[Ranma ½]]/[[Sailor Moon]]'' crossover fic ''[[Relatively Absent]]''. After reverting from her first transformation into Guardian Khronos, she retains the gorgeous mass of red hair she gained and is even ''more'' stunning in appearance than she was to start with -- but despite the obvious effect her appearance has on the residents of the Yamada compound ''and'' their verbal reassurances -- some very enthusiastic -- to the contrary, she is convinced she looks like "a complete idiot". "a total doofus" and "awful".
== Film (Animated) ==
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== Film (Live Action) ==
* Lizzie in ''[[
* Adrian in ''[[Rocky (
* Subverted in ''[[Shallow Hal]],'' when Hal (Jack Black) believes that his "slender" love-interest (Gwyneth Paltrow) has been abused into simply ''thinking'' she's not
== Literature ==
* Sara Crewe in ''[[A Little Princess]]'' thinks she must not be pretty because she doesn't mesh with the beauty standards of late-nineteenth-century England, being small, skinny, black-haired and green-eyed, but the author tells us that she's definitely pretty in her own way.
* In ''[[Howl's Moving Castle (
** And [[Wrong Genre Savvy|Wrong Genre Saviness]]: Sophie ''is'' the eldest of three sisters, and ''is'' in a story - she just assumes it's a classic fairy tale instead of modern fantasy.
* Bella of ''[[Twilight (
* Anne Shirley, of ''[[
* Early on, [[Jane Eyre]] believes [[Byronic Hero|Mr. Rochester]] isn't interested in a homely woman like her, and is instead pursuing [[Alpha Bitch|Blanche Ingram]], a beautiful and classy dame.
* Parodied in [[Discworld]]. Where the human-despite-all-appearances-to-the-contrary-Nobby Nobbs starts dating a beautiful strip dancer, no one can believe it. Apparently, she thinks herself ugly. Why? Because every other guy assumed that she was out of there league and never approached her, leading her to believe she was unattractive.
* The heroine of Stephen R. Donaldson's ''The Mirror of Her Dreams'' is described from the start as beautiful. Those who meet her frequently remark on how lovely she is; her love interest's sister-in-law says, approximately, "He told us a great deal about you, and yet he never mentioned that you could have any man you wanted." Due mostly to [[Abusive Parents|her father's emotional abuse]], her response to all such remarks is to silently wonder (she's too shy to say it aloud), "Do you really think I'm pretty?"
== Live Action Television ==
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* Jadis from the [[Whateley Universe]] believes herself to be unattractive. She's plain at worst, but most of her issues come from being in a school full of Exemplars, and while she's been classified as an Exemplar, she hasn't got the looks to go with it.
* Iriana of ''[[Ilivais X]]'' is a little in the [[Uncanny Valley]], but she believes that she's an undesirable freak and not even worth being called human. However, every single one of her teammates thinks she's VERY cute, Mille in particular consistently fantasizing about her.
* [[Marz Gurl]] seems to think this, in spite of being one [[Channel Awesome]]'s biggest [[Dude Magnet
== Webcomics ==
* [[The Medic|Nurse Pamela]] from ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'' starts out believing herself to be 'plain and ordinary', but when she [[Letting Her Hair Down|lets her hair down]], she reveals that she was [[Beautiful All Along]]... and quite a [[Hospital Hottie]] to boot. [
* Marigold Farmer from ''[[Questionable Content]]'' believes herself to be fat and ugly. While she does have bad skin and poor hygiene, she's actually considered rather cute, and has a not-terrible figure, being [[Hollywood Pudgy]].
** Put her in a nice dress, and then [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1678 she] [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1681 has] [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1684 ''BREASTS'']
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* [[Audrey Hepburn]] thought she wasn't very attractive. Allegedly, she once said: "I never thought I'd land in pictures with a face like mine".
* [[Meganekko]] [[Rachel Maddow]] said at a 2009 "New Yorker" Festival, "I'm not very pretty...I am what I am. I look like a [[Bifauxnen|dude]]. [[Hot Chick in
* Male example: [[Benedict Cumberbatch]], who usually [https://web.archive.org/web/20130130154654/http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/4343480/Sherlock-star-Benedict-Cumberbatch-Im-not-even-the-sexiest-man-in-my-own-flat.html describes his looks] in a [[Self-Deprecation|self-deprecating]] way.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Personal Appearance Tropes]]
[[Category:I Am Not Pretty]]
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