So Beautiful It's a Curse: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* The Pantene commercial where Kelly LeBrock says "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful".

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* This is the power of Allure from ''[[Relative Heroes]]'' in [[The DCU]]. She was enchanted by the god Eryx with mystic pheromones and other powers of persuasion in return for her hand in marriage.

* Bleez of the [[Green Lantern|Red Lanterns]] was kidnapped and gang-raped because of her beauty.

 

== Fan Works ==

* The Naruto fanfiction Winds of Change invokes this trope seriously with some members of the Uchiha clan (usually male members) but with other characters commenting on it instead of the characters themselves complaining, {{spoiler|with the exception of Sasuke at one point, who winds up scarring himself}} and treats it in a half-humorous, half-creepy way with {{spoiler|Hinata}} who wistfully expresses the wish she weren't so attractive when she keeps on having guys fall for her/lust after her. {{spoiler|The creepy part is that one of her 'admirers' is Eight-Tails, who wants to recreate 'Rosemary's Baby' with her.}}

* [http://www.fanfiction.net/~mrevil Mr. Evil's] [[Original Character]] Susan Knives aka Sword Hunter. She was born with an extreme form of eczema that makes her own sweat cause her to break out in rashes. So she is forced to wear pretty much a swimsuit worth of material as clothing. Aside from that she is extremely attractive which causes males to instantly lust for her and the women think of her as a slut, all while anyone unaware of her condition automatically think she is a tramp. Due to this she has nearly been raped several times and forced to change schools because of the harassment she is forced to endure. Though it wasn't until her last school did she meet true friends that revealed to her how she could turn that curse into a weapon for her own gain.

 

== Film ==

* Jack Nicholson's character assumes this of Michelle Pfeiffer's in ''[[Wolf]]'', and calls her out on it.

{{quote|'''Will Randall''': You know, I think I understand what you're like now. You're very beautiful and you think men are only interested in you because you're beautiful, but you want them to be interested in you because you're you. The problem is, aside from all that beauty, you're not very interesting. You're rude, you're hostile, you're sullen, you're withdrawn. I know you want someone to look past all that at the real person underneath but the only reason anyone would bother to look past all that is because you're beautiful. Ironic, isn't it? In an odd way you're your own problem.}}

 

== Literature ==

* Rosalie Hale from ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]''. {{spoiler|Her beauty led her to get bashed and gang-raped as a human.... By her fiance and his friends, no less.}}

** Not to mention Bella, who {{spoiler|is attacked by a gang of rapists only to be saved by her True Love}}. It's actually inverted for Bella: she is so lovely and pale and beautiful that she has several guys in class suing for her prom date, but she spends most of the books [[Suetiful All Along|complaining about how ugly she is]].

** And yet it's ''Nobby'' who dumps ''her''...after Angua cleared things up for Tawneee.

* Male example: [[Lord Byron]]'s [[Alternate Character Interpretation]] of ''[[Don Juan]]'' (and [[Creator Breakdown|Lord Byron himself]], too, for that matter).

* [[Don Quixote]]: Deconstructed with Marcela: Marcela noticed since childhood that she attracted men with her beauty, so when she was fifteen, she decided to become a shepherdess, only to be ‘’free’’. She is always rejecting anyone who declares her love to her, [[Stalker with a Crush|resulting in every bachelor becoming a shepherd just to court her]]. At Chrysostom’s funeral, she makes her speech (in a remote and inaccessible forest) claiming [[An Aesop|that she is free and if Chrysostom chose to be]] [[Spurned Into Suicide]] was his decision. In a [[Romance Novel]], this speech would have aroused the pity of her audience and everything would have cried. In this deconstruction, no one of the audience [[All Men Are Perverts|(made by men) hears anything and they are only interested in Marcela’s beauty]]. They want to follow her, but Marcela, being [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]], was in a remote point to prevent them to follow her… because she has been trying to be free all her life and this is only other day for her. The scene ends with [[Don Quixote]] forbidding anyone to follow Marcela, claiming that she is a decent person who deserves her freedom. Notice this trope was not discredited when Don Quixote was published at [[The Cavalier Years]] (1605).

 

* A girl in cycle 13 or 14 of ''[[America's Next Top Model]]'' whines about how people don't understand how difficult it is to be beautiful. Yeah.

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' at least one minor character uses this trope almost verbatim, with the justification that [[Puppeteer Parasite|Goa'uld]] always want attractive hosts, so being too pretty is more than just a social problem.

* The subject of the [[So Bad It's Good]] single "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__HeE6NWmDE Hot Problems]".

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** It also encourages players to re-create the James Bond atmosphere, where most main characters are either stunningly attractive or hideously deformed.

 

* In ''[[Rent]]'', Maureen uses her beauty as an excuse for 'flirting with a woman in rubber.'

* A male example: in ''The Food Chain'' by Nikki Silver, the superficial supermodel Serge says this, then immediately follows it up by listing off his cursed attributes and titillating the two characters listening to his speech.

'''Sweeney:''' A heinous one in this same town you call home. For here there are men who cannot look upon beauty, and not defile it; who scratch and tear at virtue's shining face with fumbling hands until they have made it as ugly as their own. Two such men there were -- two upright men -- a beadle and a judge, who tried with every flattery, every temptation, to win my wife to their desires. But she, bright angel, would have none of them. So -- then they worked their devilish practices. Falsely, I was charged with petty theft, arrested -- by the beadle, and brought straight to court before that same judge, who, in accents grave, sentenced me to transportation for life, hoping that in my absence my good wife would fall. }}

* Charmin from ''[[The Magic Show]]''. In her case, the curse may well be literal, as she seems to be destined to be the girl summoned by every wizard or other horny supernatural being who wants a little no-strings nookie. She's even got [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFTJXuN_Tc8 a song] about it, which comes yea-close to invoking the trope by name. But while she complains, she's more than a little put out when she discovers that magician Doug has summoned her to be [[Saw a Woman In Half|sawed in half]] instead of for sex.

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''[[A Dance With Rogues]]'', your character is either [[Anything That Moves]] or this, because she's unusually beautiful [[In a World]] where [[All Men Are Perverts|all men have their brains locked in permanent rape mode]].

 

* Gilgamesh's profile in the ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' [[Visual Novel]] gives him [[Rank Inflation|Rank A+]] charisma. "At this level, it is not so much strength of character, but more like a curse." Given who [[The Epic of Gilgamesh|Gilgamesh]] is, this is probably a true statement. If Ishtar hadn't come on to him, for example, Enkidu probably would have survived longer. And he ''did'' look rather fabulous.'

** And Rider {{spoiler|AKA Medusa}} has her rather crappy backstory because she was so beautiful as well. She eventually ended up a horrible monster that killed everyone ({{spoiler|Hint:Medusa!}}) that came near her before eventually being killed herself. And in the story, she's possibly the most beautiful character, has a beautiful voice and is bewitching in general, which Shirou finds to be rather unnerving. Especially the eyes.

** From [[Fate/Zero]] is also Diarmuid ua Duibnhe, who, like his mythological counterpart, has women fall in love with him at first glance. {{spoiler|It ends up killing him here, too.}}

** Saber's natural Charisma rank may "only" be B, but that's still enough to make entire armies want to follow her and people constantly have gushing internal monologues about her beauty upon meeting her, even if she's about to stab them in the face at the time. However, as someone who has given up her ''humanity'' much less her femininity to be a proper king, treating her as a beautiful girl only tends to make her really confused and uncomfortable until she accepts her love of Shirou, and even then she is easily flustered by it. It also doesn't help that it may be a factor in why the likes of Caster, Gilgamesh and Fate/Zero Caster all take an unhealthy interest in possessing her.

 

== Web Comics ==

** Phase too- he's a guy whose mutation gave him a girl's body, but he still has male genitals. He thinks of himself as male and is desperately trying to go back to being a boy, so he ''really'' hates his looks when people compliment him, especially as they mostly think of him and refer to him as female.

* In ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' v4, Charlene Norris's first thoughts upon realizing she is on SOTF is that "people like her, the popular girls with bodies to die for, were rape targets".

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Wish Fulfillment]]

[[Category:The Beautiful Tropes]]

[[Category:Discredited Trope]]

[[Category:Sour Grapes Tropes]]