Medium Ugly Men: Explaining The Obsession...
Image courtesy of Unsplash
From Saltburn to Shameless, 2023 was the year we saw a seemingly inexplicable cultural phenomenon: the rise of the Medium-Ugly Man. Straying from the image of the polished and pouty male heartthrobs of the 90s and early 2000s, many of us are now intrigued by the rugged, slightly dishevelled figures claiming the lead roles in Oppenheimer, Saltburn, and The Bear. But why is that? What has sparked this shift in opinion?
Despite the male beauty standards in Hollywood comstantly changing, there are qualities that seem to stand the test of time. For example, the tall, pristinely groomed, symmetrical and sculpted man who will always be cast as the main character…never the best friend. Despite these men being portrayed as the heroes of the story, and the ideal love interest, people who actually love these men are often bashed. They get called superficial and shallow for succumbing to the beauty standards society pushes in front of them.
This brings us to our next topic: the matter of attainability versus desirability. When looking for a partner, those of us in the dating pool understandably feel the need to strike a balance between finding someone who is both desirable and attainable. Nobody wants to date someone they find physically unappealing. But in saying that, there’s the issue of circumventing awkward rejections and lacklustre talking-stages when you aim a little beyond your comfort-zone or ‘league’. This is where medium-ugly men come into the picture. Not too ugly to completely discourage their suitors, but not so perfect as to be intimidating. A happy medium, the perfect middle ground.
Arguably, the more carefully unkempt look fashioned by stars like Barry Keoghan, Jeremy Allen White, and Adam Driver is attractive to us because of its distance from typical ideas of physical ‘softness’ and how that links to femininity. Whilst this argument is of course somewhat problematic in that it perpetuates very rigid and heteronormative ideas about gendered behaviour- I think it is still worth considering as one that has potentially permeated the psyche of many people subconsciously.
That being said, this could all just be a part of a wider trend of diversified ideals of beauty which I’d argue has been unfolding over the last fifteen years. As we allow different kinds of people to be in the spotlight, and to take up space on our screens, we allow them space in our minds. This causes us to recognise and more openly appreciate the different attributes embodied by those who don’t fit the ‘norms’ we’re used to.