Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Difference between revisions

* ''The Postman Always Rings Twice'' in both the original and the 1981 remake. Beautiful Cora, the main female character, was married to an ugly, old, boring husband. She was played by Lana Turner (1946) and Jessica Lange (1981) respectively, arguably two of the most sexy women of their time.

* Not quite the same since they're not married, but Riff-Raff in ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'' has the smoking hot Magenta as his lover, though by conventional standards he's unattractive himself (very thin, balding, hunchbacked etc).

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Will and Grace]]'' poke fun at this, with Jack and Karen searching for a new sitcom after the finale of [[Sex and the City]]. Whilst they are channel hopping, they spin through several "Fat guy, skinny wife" shows before hitting upon a "Ugly guy, skinny wife" show.

{{quote|'''Karen:''' "Ugly guy, skinny wife? * shakes head* No, America is not ready for that just yet."}}

* A show about women's sex lives and the toys they used to enhance it featured one couple that seemed to be a middle-aged British woman who was probably rather pretty ten years ago and a Spanish or Italian male underwear model in his early to mid twenties.

* This trope gets [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] quite heavily in an episode of [[Rescue Me]], when Billy (one of the firefighters) {{spoiler|dies. At his funeral, they find out that he'd}} had 2 ex-wives, both of supermodel quality. The episode had a sub-plot of a measurement contest, which Billy had declined to take part in. After having talked with the ex-wives, the chief declared Billy the {{spoiler|posthumous}} winner, stating "Our friend Billy... was packing 10."

** Chandler receives the same treatment (despite being played by the handsome Matthew Perry) in his relationships and throughout the course of his relationship with Monica—in one of the early episodes Phoebe even mentions this trope in conversation with him:

{{quote|'''Phoebe:''' "You know how you always see these gorgeous women with these really nothing guys? You could be one of those guys!"}}

* From ''[[Mad About You]]'', the beautiful Leila Kenzle with Richard Kind, who bears a marked resemblance to [[Magilla Gorilla]].

* Seen in ''[[Homicide: Life on the Street]]'', even though interestingly enough, we never see the man in question. When a beautiful woman reports her husband's disappearance and presumed murder, suspects include his equally gorgeous mistress (who's innocent). One of the detectives expresses complete shock and confusion as to how a "2", as he describes the victim, was able to not only snag two "10's", as he describes the women, but was also able to string them both along when they both could have easily dumped the cheating lout.

** It's also implied with the Veals, but since Mr. Veal is played by [[Firefly|Alan]] [[Perverse Sexual Lust|Tudyk]]...

* ''[[Scrubs]]'' discusses the trope with the [[Patient of the Week]] being a smoking hot woman married to a rather large guy. What does she see in him? He was the only guy there after she dated the attractive jerky guys. J.D. often gets accused of this by watchers of the show, but he's not actually ugly—it's just Hollywood casting for hot girls that makes everyone a model.

** Of course, Lily sees Herman as gorgeous and worries about other women stealing him away due to this. And considering how they all consider their pretty niece as 'odd-looking', their view of beauty is skewed from the cultural norm.

* Examined in a sketch on ''[[Mad TV]]'', where [[Dr. Phil]] asks the fugly husband of a beautiful ([[The Ditz|but dumb]], [[Unfortunate Implications|though that was presented as a positive]]) how it happened: "[[Money, Dear Boy|Are you crazy rich?]] [[Hypno Fool|Are you a registered hypnotist?]] [[Biggus Dickus|Do you have a freakishly large penis?]]"

* Hades and Persephone in the ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]]'' series. Even though Hades ''isn't'' portrayed as an evil god, he's pretty dumpy, covered in spikes and hides his disfigured face with an intimidating helmet. Persephone, meanwhile, is a beautiful queen {{spoiler|who tries to destroy the world in revenge for being stuck as Hades' wife}}.

* ''[[Assassin's Creed II]]'': [[Blood Knight|Bartolomeo]] [[Hot-Blooded|D'Alviano]] has seen many battles in his lifetime, and his heavily scarred face - and scratchy voice that sounds like he's been gargling sand - reflect that. Ezio is understandably surprised when he sees that his wife Pantasilea; A) is a woman and not a sword and B) is very attractive.

 

== Web Comics ==

* Quasimodo and Madellaine from [[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|''The Hunchback of Notre Dame II'']].

* Subverted with Donna in ''[[The Cleveland Show]]''. Cleveland is very overweight and has a child-like demeanor while Donna appears to be pretty with a very pronounced butt. However, on several occasions, it was shown that Donna does a lot to make herself look pretty. Donna wears a wig to cover her short and gray hair, wears make up, wears a push up bra that keeps her breasts from sagging, and wears certain clothing to smooth her figure, to which she would look very overweight without it.

* In ''[[She-Ra: Princess of Power|She-Ra and the Princesses of Power]]'', [[Wrench Wench|Entrapta isn't exactly "hot"]] (maybe [[Adorkable]]) but she's far more attractive than her boyfriend - {{spoiler| Hordak himself, whose [[Heel Face Turn]] doesn't do much to change his demonic appearance.}}