ASK R/FAUXMOI
What are some examples of this trope in film?
For me it's probably Enchanted and The Princess Diaries. I know the concept was to make her wear a modern dress compared to the fairytale inspired dresses she used to wear but I feel like this dress is an absolute disgrace. It honestly looks like a sock to me 😭 not gonna lie they could have let her wear something nice, like the costume design in this movie was magical. In the Princess Diaries they get rid of Mia's curls. They could just styled them better.
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When I watching The Pitt, I kept trying to place him and then someone brought up this and I was like “Stan!?” and realized he’s kind of been kicking ass for like 20 years.
I thought this too but as an adult lesbian goth lol, I watched Breakfast Club for the first time last year and was personally offended by this makeover
Fun fact! Disney princes/male love interests are not allowed to have beards because it reads as too old (even though we've all known 19 year olds with facial hair), and nobody wants to imply the teen heroines should end up in love with old dudes.
But yes agreed, Adam should have had a full beard.
This goes all the way back to Jean Cocteau's version. Apparently when seeing the film for the first time, Greta Garbo said "oh give me back my beautiful beast!" when the prince transformed into a human.
So fun fact about the barbie movies, but the dolls are designed first and then they made movies around them. That's why there's a sleeping beauty barbie without a sleeping beauty barbie movie. So it's more likely that the prince was designed first, and the nutcracker was secondary.
i had the BIGGEST crush on the nutcracker prince as a kid omg i remember cutting out a heart out of printer paper and drawing a picture of him on it and then hiding that under my bed LMFAO
I became OBSESSED with Christian Coulson when his casting was announced. Absolutely obsessed. I joined a fan forum of his and posted photoshops of myself that I made that inserted my face into the like 3 available photos of him in the internet at the time lmao those girls called me out HARD
Anyway, was pleasantly surprised 15+ years later when I binged Gossip Girl for the first time and saw him in an episode.
I get that this one’s meant to be a joke because they each change to fit what they think the other one wants, but as a kid I absolutely HATED Sandy’s makeover at the end of Grease
Edit: I SAID I GET THAT THIS ONE’S MEANT TO BE A JOKE BECAUSE THEY EACH CHANGE TO FIT WHAT THEY THINK THE OTHER WANTS, I just didn’t like her post-makeover look lmao
I know this is a true fact but something about the way you said it with no punctuation made me burst out laughing so abruptly I scared the cats and I can't stop giggling 😂😂
I hated the story-line as a child and I still hate it today. It makes NO SENSE. Like instead of Sandy realizing her self-worth and realizing she deserves someone to love her just the way she is, she instead changes EVERYTHING ABOUT HERSELF to become just a shell of a person so that some moron won't be embarrassed to be seen with her.
ETA - stop replying to say "wElL hE dId ThE sAmE" cause he started exercising. Exercise is personally beneficial to everyone including to Danny himself. That is not the same at all as changing your style and personality to get someone else to like you.
That's because Grease is literally a parody, it's not supposed to be taken seriously. It lampoons the common trope of the bad boy changing to be good for the good girl by flipping it on its head, and it's not the only part that's satire. It's just that Grease is old enough and still culturally relevant enough compared to what it's satirizing that it seems kinda serious (for a comedic musical anyway).
It's just that Grease is old enough and still culturally relevant enough compared to what it's satirizing that it seems kinda serious (for a comedic musical anyway).
This is such a good point and so well put. Like I think I’m pretty media literate but it’s so hard to look at a work through the same lens and the exact cultural context in which it was created.
Not in a “it was a different time and we shouldn’t put 2025 values on a work from the 70s” kind of way but “they were speaking to the zeitgeist and you had to be there” kind of way.
Oh, Pretty in Pink is the top of my list! Molly Ringwald’s character is supposed to be this incredible designer, she takes a perfect vintage dress and creates this.
Molly Ringwald cried when she first saw the dress because it was so ugly! So if it makes you feel better she felt the same way as the rest of us and was super upset because it wasn’t what she pictured at all.
I had to explain to my sister about how fugly this dress is cause shes never seen this movie and shes like wow you have strong feelings about this PLUS the dude shes into is mehhhhh af
And I'm of the age where I saw it as a teenager. In NO WAY did other teenage girls like this dress!!!! You are absolutely right - she ruined a great vintage dress.
The Princess Diaries makeover only makes sense in the context of the time period. In 2001, big curls were out. This was the beginning of the era of the straightening iron.
Of course, less than ten years earlier big frizzy curls were the height of rom-com fashion. See: literally anything with Julia Roberts.
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I just rewatched The Faculty last week and Stokely’s makeover downgrade feels so reminiscent of the Breakfast Club that I’d almost argue that it’s an homage.
I definitely made a Not Another Cheerleader But I’m a Cheerleader joke with my partner watching this movie. I was also like “they did not have a single sapphic person other than Clea Duvall working on this movie because she’s much better looking pre makeover.”
👆🏼. Shes a size 6 which is totally normal/on the small side and then he says something like "size 6 is the new 12" and you're meant to go, "what???" 😭😂
Noooo the movie doesn’t frame that as a good thing, a character that is hopelessly devoted to the industry that doesn’t love him back celebrates it-it’s supposed to be a sign that she’s buying into the fashion world bs that she has previously resisted. You’re supposed to be concerned, not cheer for her.
Society was also a lot more fat-phobic in the early 2000s, especially towards women. Women who were thin-average by today's standards were often dragged for their weight
they literally zoom in on a girl digging in her ass and they’re like “nah, we can do better” and it’s just hot ass rachael leigh cook with glasses on and they think she’s a monster 😂
I mean it's beautiful, but the outfit on the left has me in such a chokehold to this day. The messy bob, the fingerless gloves, the endless scarf, the cool hat, the big-ass coat, UGH
I was shocked listening to the commentary on the Mean Girls DVD to hear Tina Fey say “you know, watching this I actually think Cady looked better before she joined the plastics.” I had always assumed that was an intentional part of the narrative… like obviously she looks best in her plaid shirt and ponytail.
Honestly, Tina Fey managed to completely miss the point of "Queen Bees and Wannabes" in the first place, and her book Bossypants was also very... revealing of her internal thought processes (negative), so I'm not surprised that she didn't "get it" for Mean Girls, either.
Even down to the fact that Janis is actually the instigating bully of the entire film (separate from her middle school backstory with Regina), and that kind of triangulation of third parties and "new girls" to terrorize other cliques/other girls is explicitly described in "Queen Bees and Wannabes."
Or the meta ways in which Linday Lohan and her appearance were later discussed by tabloid media, how she was treated by the other Hollywood "it girls" of her era, and so on.
The comedy of course is very... of its time (also negative lol), but the movie is an example of "used the wrong formula, got the right answer anyway" in terms of its social resonance.
I know the concept was to make her wear a modern dress compared to the fairytale inspired dresses she used to wear but I feel like this dress is an absolute disgrace.
Off-topic but I thought the point was that it's meant to be unnatural, that she's forcing herself to try to fit into the modern world instead of being her magical self, which is also emphasised by her wearing the dress to a fantasy-themed masquerade ball where her normal princess dresses and styling would fit in perfectly.
I like that theory! I also think it's (supposed to be) a visual representation of how she's becoming more attached to the "real" world - the same way the music gets gradually more modern and real-world. Alan Menken basically traces the evolution of Disney music in the score:
"True Love's Kiss" = the dreamy, simple romance; "Someday My Prince Will Come" or "Once Upon a Dream"
"Happy Working Song" = the cutesy comic domestic song; "Whistle While You Work" or the "Mouse Work Song"
"That's How You Know" = the Disney Renaissance Broadway-baby production number; "Under the Sea" or "Be Our Guest"
"So Close" = the pop-tinged Renaissance ballad sung by a character who is not one of the romantic lead; "Beauty and the Beast"
"Ever Ever After" = the radio-friendly pop cover in the end credits (basically every movie since BATB)
(Sidebar to the sidebar: I think that's why Disenchanted didn't work as well: there wasn't that level of storytelling in the structure.)
The "third" evolution for 99% of Pokémon tbh. You could tell for a lot of them they were just making it to make one. All these geriatric bipedal mfers with fists and tanks on them.
Unconventional one but in The Little Vampire, the transformation at the end is absolutely a great thing. But aesthetically such a downgrade from the amazing costume design and styling the characters had.
Very often, the trope of a woman instantly becoming hot by removing her glasses and letting her hair down is this for me. Glasses and hair up look hot too.
In the movie Contact, Jodie Foster is a cute bedraggled scientist who has a one night stand with Matthew McConaughy and then runs into him years later at the White House. She gets flustered seeing him and asks Angela Bassett to help her find a “really great dress” for the gala that night. And then she shows up to the gala in a hideously colored old-fashioned dress with weird velvet bodice and romance novel cover hair. Not pictured here is the long red velvet jacket she wore over the dress.
I think she looks great? That purple velvet is peak 90's alt girl, and it's pretty elegant. I can see both Gwyneth and Winona wearing it. The hair would look better a little more sexy/tousled with the curls, but overall her body and face look amazing.
I dunno what the trope is called, but “beigewashing” might be a good way to put it. It’s basically taking everything from one’s personality to make them fit in a specific social norm.
I'm so tired of the Sandy from Grease and Allison from The Breakfast Club comments. Y'all are so fixiated on their appearances you completely miss the point of their storylines.
In Grease, everyone gets hung up on Sandy's transformation as if Danny didn't spend the whole film changing himself too. By the end, he earned his letterman & left the T-Birds for Sandy, but she put on some leather & got a perm and everyone looses their minds. They changed for one another.
In The Breakfast Club, Allison spends the entire movie mute and hiding within the shadows of her style. When she opens up to the Club she admits she has no friends, even her parents ignore her, and feels like she could disappear without anyone realizing. However she's miserable like that. In the end Allison finds confidence with Claire's help and approaches Andrew first. She was wearing the pink blouse under her sweater the whole time and the makeup & accessories were buried in her bag, she just needed to be noticed.
I love Rapunzel’s transformation in Tangled. Her losing her long hair means she’s free of being objectified and endangered purely because of the hair’s power. Also she rocks the pixie cut IMO.
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