This film was produced and marketed for a teenage audience, meant to fit into the same vein of American Pie and other vulgar gag-based comedies. Now, I have no problem with teen comedies–I enjoyed them as a teenager and still sometimes derive some pleasure from the genre. I have no problem with a good dick joke, and I may be one of the few people who think Freddy Got Fingered was an inspired work of giddy theatrical terrorism worthy of an honored place in the pantheon of gross-out comedies and punk-rock filmmaking.
However, The Hottie & the Nottie isn’t just a bad example of the genre–it’s a straight-up bad example. The message of what masquerades as a story in this film is that if you are ugly, you will never ever have sex and nobody will ever love you. The only real option for you, if you’re ugly (which is to say, if you don’t look like Paris Hilton) is cosmetic surgery of some sort. Something, anything to fix that awful sack of sorry you call a face.
Sure, it doesn’t help that June is bitter and skeptical when we first meet her, but who could blame her? She’s portrayed as a creature so offensive in her visage that she may as well have snakes for hair. Otherwise sensible, presumably sentient human beings living in the real world run away at the sight of her. This woman has been shit on by everyone who has ever encountered her, and not one person we see recognizes that there might be a living human being underneath.
She is Frankenstein’s monster, really: insightful, well-spoken, clever, but hideous. Unlike in Shelly’s novel, however, we’re meant to see June as the monster everyone claims she is, rather than a sympathetic person with feelings, emotions, dreams, desires. It is only after the inevitable transformation into a physical beauty that anyone really listens to her lamentations: that she’s an albatross hanging from Cristabel’s neck, that nobody can look below her physical flaws and see the beautiful thing underneath.
Of course, there’s also the implication that underneath every physically ugly human being is a physically beautiful human being. To be perfectly frank, this is horse shit. Attractiveness is a pretty subjective thing, to be sure, but we do have certain tropes and benchmarks for attractiveness that carry across our culture. Asymmetry, warts, weak bone structures, et al, are generally considered unattractive characteristics, and many of these traits that are generally considered flaws are set in stone unless a person is willing to have invasive surgery that changes the body on a fundamental, structural level.
This movie exists to tell you that if you can’t afford expensive reconstructive cosmetic surgery, you’re straight-up hosed. No amount of personality, charm, humor, charisma, intelligence, talent, or manners will help you. June is quick-witted, occasionally charming, intelligent, well-spoken, and has moments of good humor and genuine cleverness. None of this is as important, or even noticed by anyone at all, until she’s undergone a complete physical transformation from ugly duckling to swan.
In one scene, both Cristabel and June are wrapping up in a towel after coming out of the ocean. Cole and Nate stand agog at Cristabel, her tanned legs, flat belly, reasonably ample bosom, and alluring gaze (which is really the same face Hilton makes in every press photo ever taken). Then, we move to the same sort of shots, but with June. Her legs are hairy and blotched, she’s wearing a one-piece swimsuit, and she looks at the camera with the confusion of someone who just got asked for the time in Swahili. The two men grimace and wince in horror, but that’s to be expected of this movie.
The real kicker is two places: they’ve padded out Lakin’s figure in the swimsuit, and not even in a grotesque way–she’s got a little bit of a spare tire, no big deal. Monroe was a size 16, though they certainly don’t give Lakin anything resembling her curves.
The real turn of the knife is another part of her anatomy they’ve padded out: her labia.They’ve padded out the bulge of her labia to Lady GaGa levels. They took the time to do this, to specifically imply that her vagina is fleshy and prominent. Someone made a design choice on this particular bit of flair.
The implication here is that even her vagina is ugly. It’s big and fleshy and bulbous and gross. That’s right, ladies, even the purest embodiment of your femininity can be lambasted, ridiculed, pointed out as imperfect. They make a point of doing this. Of course, there’s absolutely no comment on the fact that the two men making these faces, reacting in horror to the absolute paragon of anti-femininity in this world, look like this:
Yes, someone made a wallpaper for this movie. Let’s not get distracted, though.
The three male characters in the movie are nothing to write home about. Irene thinks Joel Moore’s not bad-looking, and that’s fair, but I don’t see it. In any case, not once does anyone say “honestly, Nate, you’re not much better than chopped liver, yourself” or suggest that any of the guys change their appearance in any way at all. We have three men of middling to well below-average appearance standing in judgment of June, and nobody seems to have a problem with this.
Furthermore, the men in this movie are awful human beings. They subject one another to torture, fight, lie, and generally try to con their way in and out of every situation they find themselves in. They’re shallow, empty human beings with no empathy, no sympathetic characteristics, nothing redeeming about them–and they’re the protagonists. We’re supposed to root for them because they’re so wretched, because they’re the underdogs–men who must behave in these ways to have a chance in the world.
The male villain is Johann, who has performed dentistry for free and financed June’s entire “makeover”–with her willing consent, and indeed excitement–and turns out to be some sort of monster because he assumes June will be “grateful” for tens of thousands of dollars of free surgery. He assumes this gratitude will lead to him having sex with his girlfriend. What an asshole this tall, muscular, talented, beautiful and generous man is!
This film really boils down to the notion that men being selfish, lying, manipulative, jealous assholes is the right and proper way of things, and that women should be willing and completely able to change themselves into whatever these sorry sacks of shit want, nay, expect them to be. This is the lesson The Hottie & the Nottie endeavors to teach teenage girls.
There is nothing redeeming about this film. Nothing I have written, no lessons learned and realities confronted, not a single thing about this movie leads me to anything but regret for having viewed it. If you possess a brain capable of even protozoan intelligence, do not watch this movie. Do not ever, ever watch this movie.
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