The Glasses Gotta Go: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|Men seldom make passes

 

The typical Hollywood perception of girls (or, for that matter, guys) wearing glasses is that they are [[Nerd Glasses|nerdy]], [[Hollywood Homely|homely]], or otherwise undesirable in various ways.

 

{{examples}}

* Inverted in a series of Dutch commercials where 'unsexy' people where turned into deadsexy people by giving them glasses.

 

* Yuki Nagato of ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'' gives up her [[Scary Shiny Glasses]] when she protects Kyon from {{spoiler|another [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]]}}, and he comments that she looks better without them.

** And this becomes a plot point multiple times. Whenever Kyon needs to tell the difference between {{spoiler|an alternate-reality Nagato or the one he knows, it's either used as a motif or a definite emotional encounter for Kyon - the one he knows no longer wears glasses. Also, it proves useful during "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody", when Kyon meets a past version of Nagato who doesn't know who he is yet - she's wearing glasses; when she turns out to have the ability to "synchronize" with her future self, and thus downloads her memories of him, she takes off her glasses without prompt, thus informing Kyon that this is his familiar Nagato.}}

* In ''[[Heartcatch Precure]]'', Erika ends up having Tsubomi get rid of her glasses as part of her own makeover, though it doesn't initially stick - mostly because she can't stand someone so energetic. She ends up letting it stay, but she's spotted from time to time with her glasses on, but by the end of the series, she has them back on... and ends up having them off again in time for the third ''[[Pretty Cure All Stars]]'' movie.

 

* Subverted (and confirmed) in, of all places, ''[[Archie Comics]]''. In one comic, Veronica, always at the forefront of style, chooses to wear glasses with no lenses in order to look more fashionable. Ironically, everyone feels sorry for her because they '''absolutely know''' that glasses always make women look ugly.

** Another story showed Betty wearing glasses for school while Veronica taunted her that she'd only attract "nerds and dweebs" (Betty didn't care one way or the other). When she saw Betty was actually attracting attention from handsome guys instead, she snatched Dilton's glasses in an attempt to show her up. The prescription was so high that she couldn't see, however, leading her to flirt with the ''principal''.

* [[Superman]] couples this with [[The Glasses Come Off]]. Mild-mannered Clark Kent wears glasses, but he removes them to become the dashing Superman, with whom Louis Lane falls in love.

 

* A great many ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fanfics have Harry ditch his glasses, replaced by contacts or repaired by magic, lasers, genetic engineering, surgery... pretty much anything. This usually coincides with the introduction of a [[Mary Sue]] and/or Harry's [[Start of Darkness|first steps to becoming a worse villain than Voldemort.]]

 

* ''[[The Princess Diaries (film)|The Princess Diaries]]'' (2001). The guy ''pulls them off her face and breaks them in his hand''. That's right, not only is it shockingly, willfully unattractive to wear glasses on a day-to-day basis, you shouldn't even ''own'' them, little missy. Or remember you spent hundreds on that one pair.

* Parodied in ''[[Not Another Teen Movie]]'', where the protagonist is obviously beautiful, but all the guys are horrified by her glasses and ponytail, to the point that she's deemed more difficult to turn into a beauty queen than a pair of Siamese twins joined at the head and what appears to be a troll.

* The love interest in ''[[Delicatessen]]'' knows that The Glasses Gotta Go for her big date, but she's also [[Blind Without'Em]]. [[Hilarity Ensues]] when she needs to pour a hot beverage.

 

* In the "heroes don't wear glasses" sub-category: One of the main characters in the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series of books, Nita, was originally described as wearing glasses in the first book. In the second book, the description went away. In the following books, one could probably forget she'd ever been described that way in the first place, and no explanation as to why she suddenly got 20/20 vision was given. It gets a passing explanation from Dairine, in ''Wizard's Holiday'': Nita had astigmatism, but grew out of it, apparently.

* In Vivian Vande Velde's book ''Now You See It...'', the protagonist wears glasses and hates them with a passion, citing this trope on the ''second page.'' While the lesson of the book is essentially that [[Just the Way You Are|looks aren't everything]], she still manages to get rid of them permanently at the end of the book, making this a [[Broken Aesop]]. The story is meant as a bit of escapist fantasy for those who hated wearing glasses, since the author had the same problem and even dedicated the story to those share her distaste for bad eyewear.

* Somewhat subverted in ''[[A Wrinkle in Time]]''. Meg takes her glasses off and Calvin notices that her eyes are gorgeous. And then he tells her to put her glasses back on, because he wants her to keep her beauty a secret from unworthy admirers. Aww.

 

* In the [[Sitcom]] ''[[Grounded for Life]]'', the husband goes through ridiculous lengths to keep his wife from wearing her new glasses because he finds glasses ''so ugly'' that looking at them turns him off instantly. In a flashback, he even snubbed his would-be wife simply because she was wearing glasses.

* Subverted in ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]''.

* On [[Caroline in The City]], Richard is ''always'' a prissy jerk with his glasses on and a plausible love interest with his glasses off.

 

* The Japanese music video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fq2cwZf7pc "LOVE Dokkyun"] by [[Capital Letters Are Magic|CLUB PRINCE]] has the band in [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|prince-like]] outfits teaching [[Hot Scientist|scientist-looking girls]] how to [[Shaped Like Itself|LOVE Dokkyun]]. It climaxes with the girls [[Flung Clothing|flinging off their nerdy attire]] to expose their [[She Cleans Up Nicely|happier, trendier]], [[Bishie Sparkle|sparklier]] selves.

 

* Doubly subverted in ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]'': When Galinda takes it upon herself to give Elphaba a makeover (in "Popular"), the first thing she does is remove Elphaba's glasses. The second thing she does is put them back on. All the same, Elphaba stops wearing glasses after that song.

* Male example (kind of) in ''[[The History Boys]]'': "Taking off my glasses is the last thing I do."

 

* Latooni from ''[[Super Robot Wars]] OG'' is ''ordered'' to trade her analytical glasses in for the [[Elegant Gothic Lolita]] look. It doesn't hurt her piloting skills in the slightest.

** In ''Divine Wars'' and ''Original Generations'', Princess Shine only has her ditch the glasses when she's in the Lolita look (since Latooni's her bodyguard). Even more, she gives her a new pair of glasses that doesn't obscure her eyes, showing her opening up more.

** Also, Emma Emmerich. Raiden says she would look better without her glasses, but she tells him 'no', and not for the sake of practicality, either. She doesn't even need them; they're just frames. She says that she just likes glasses.

 

* In the [[Whateley Universe]], Bugs (Bunny Cormick) normally looks like the blonde bombshell of your wildest dreams. But her power is that she's a genius inventor, so, being [[Genre Savvy]], she ''puts on'' the studious glasses to look like what one of her friends calls 'Professor Bunny'.

* Subverted in [[Team Starkid]]'s ''[[Me and My Dick]]'', Joey takes down Sally's hair and attempts to remove her glasses only to have her go cross-eyed.

* Invoked and [[Serial Escalation|played with to ridiculous lengths]] in [http://magicaldeductions.tumblr.com/post/20499699340/ok-lets-see-if-that-thing-with-glasses-chicks this blog post].

 

* Gwynn from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' wears huge, thick glasses and is [[Blind Without'Em]]. However, whenever Riff is around, she takes them off, apparently to appear more attractive to him. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* In ''[[Penny and Aggie]]'', as part of Karen's makeover, Penny urges her to ditch her glasses for laser eye surgery.

** The doctor is clearly aware of the difference between leading people and driving them before you in terror...

 

* The animated series ''[[The Replacements]]'' features a supporting character named Shelton Klutzberry whose insanely thick and heavy glasses cripple his posture and pinch his nose, warping him into a stooped Jerry Lewis clone; if they are ever taken off, he instantly (and unwillingly) turns into a middle-school hunk. Of course, this particular example is so absurd in its extremes that it's likely a parody. His celebrity girlfriend immediately breaks up with him after finding all this out because she was attracted to his goofy awkwardness. In the same episode his sister Shelly has Todd take off her glasses. She is still very ugly.

* In another male example, one of the episodes of ''[[Animaniacs]]'' with Minerva Mink had her falling in love with a nerdy-looking wolf who happened to turn into a hunky werewolf when the moon was out. Naturally, his glasses somehow magically disappeared and reappeared to suit whichever form he was in.

'''Johnny Bravo:''' [[Cool Shades|My glasses! I can't be seen without my glasses!]] }}

 

* [[Ranma ½]] subverts this trope. Mousse, a male member of the same tribe of "Chinese Amazons" that Ranma's [[Accidental Marriage|self-proclaimed fiancee]] Shampoo belongs to, normally looks like a rather [[Bishonen]] guy. Unfortunately for him, his eyesight is horrendous, and to counteract this he has to wear a set of [[Nerd Glasses]] that make him look absolutely ridiculous whenever he puts them on. Worse still, he has a bad habit of taking them off frequently, due to either vanity or [[Glasses Pull|wanting to be dramatic]]... and because he's [[Blind Without'Em]], he invariably ends up making himself look like an idiot. Even worse is the fact that his eyesight honestly isn't so hot with them ''on'' either; he's a bit better at seeing where his target actually is instead of walking right past it, but he still tends to confuse objects and people.

* Kirihara in ''[[Darker than Black]]'' may look better without her glasses, but when she isn't wearing them she [[Blind Without'Em|spends all her time squinting]].

** And he's the Glasses Character, as Kirimi so rightly pointed out. Since they "cater to all types", that would mean they need a glasses character for those with a glasses fetish. Male glasses characters have smaller, frame-less or thin-framed glasses so they don't obscure their [[Bishounen]] faces. Haruhi's glasses don't do that while Kyouya's do.

 

* In the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' series, Harry's iconic glasses are never said to make him any less attractive.

* Averted a bit in "[[A Wrinkle in Time]]" and its sequels. Meg Murray hates her glasses with a passion, as well as her "mouse brown" hair and braces, and wishes she could look more like her mother. But her love interest/boyfriend/husband (depending on where you are in the series) Calvin O'Keefe, prefers her to wear them, saying "You just keep wearing those glasses. I don't think I want anyone else knowing what dream-boat eyes you have."

 

* On the other hand, Wesley from ''[[Angel]]'' removes his glasses in his makeover as a [[Badass]], in addition to growing a five-o'clock shadow. No mention is ever made of how he manages to see well. Fred also wears glasses only sometimes during the show.

** Perhaps contacts. Or magic. But in the comic continuation of the series, Wesley is wearing his glasses again, so probably contacts.

* [[Stoic Spectacles|Logan]] in ''[[Dark Angel]]'' also manages to keep his glasses for the entire run (shorter though it was) and when Max is lusting over him, she mentions how much they ''add'' to his appeal.

 

* In one ''[[Peanuts]]'' strip, Peppermint Patty suggests that Marcie would look more sophisticated if she pushed her glasses up onto her forehead. After walking into a wall and a lamp-post, Marcie comments "Before I became sophisticated, I almost never had headaches."

 

* [[Subverted]] in ''[[Fine Structure]]''. One minor character, Srin Shapur, is described like this explicitly:

{{quote|She has the kind of hair that's ideal for pinning up in a tight bun and then shaking down in slow motion halfway through the movie, and even has the thick, nerdy glasses to take off dramatically too. Unfortunately, this will never happen, because she needs the glasses to see. }}

 

* When geeky shy girl Amber in ''[[Shortpacked]]'' decides to give herself a new look, she merely replaces her [[Nerd Glasses|coke bottle frames]] with some smaller, nicer looking modern glasses. She even notes that [[Lampshade Hanging|no one makes those kinds of glasses anymore]].

* Parodied in [http://www.explosm.net/comics/2734/ this] [[Cyanide and Happiness]].

 

* [[The Baroness]] from ''[[G.I. Joe]].''

* [[Inverted]] in an episode of ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]],'' where [[King Arthur]] is a squinting, nearsighted pipsqueak—until he puts on glasses, and becomes a muscular, flowing-haired action hero with a deep voice.