A GOOD ACTRESS CAN OVERCOME BEING PRETTY.

A GOOD ACTRESS CAN OVERCOME BEING PRETTY. I realize that I have been posting a lot about the literalism of New York critics who believe that only a beautiful actress can play an attractive female character. See here and here. But I am surprised how often it comes up. In the Friday Wall Street Journal, Terry Teachout addresses the problem that Audra McDonald, who is a beauty, is playing a character in 110 IN THE SHADE who is supposed to be plain until the hero “teaches her to see herself in the eyes of those who love her.” Teachout identifies the solution: “All she can do is ACT [sic] plain, carrying herself with an awkward self-consciousness that is unexpectedly and sufficiently convincing.” Exactly. It’s a question of acting and the imaginative response of the audience. I can identify several movie actresses who are not beautiful but who are good at portraying a beauty. And we have all encountered beautiful girls who don’t know they are beautiful and so are not perceived as beautiful. And we have all encountered the opposite.