History Main / IAmNotPretty

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* An early ''TwilightZone'' episode has a young lady whose head is swathed in bandages as the plastic surgeon laments that he was unable to do much for her. They remove the bandages to reveal she has a lovely face and is, in fact, quite beautiful. As the doctor and the nurses all gasp with dismay and disgust, the point of view pulls back to reveal they are all horribly disfigured by our standards, with ugly pig-snoutish noses. By their standards, she was the horribly disfigured one. The young girl sees her reflection in a mirror and bursts into tears at seeing herself as so ugly.

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* The title character from ''{{Empowered}}'' tries to believe she's beautiful, but rarely manages it, despite being drop-dead gorgeous even by superheroine standards. [[TheLibby Sistah Spooky]]'s constant digs do nothing to help.

* Early on, JaneEyre believes [[ByronicHero Mr. Rochester]] isn't interested in a homely woman like her, and is instead pursuing [[TheLibby Blanche Ingram]], a beautiful and classy dame.

* In ''HowlsMovingCastle'', it's more of a matter that Sophie lacked confidence and self-esteem to see herself as pretty and sees herself as plain and doomed to a boring life.

* Bella of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' does this from ''constantly''.

* Bella of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' does this from time to time.

* Lizzie in ''Film/TheRainmaker'' insists she's plain. Starbuck [[LettingHerHairDown takes her hair down]] and convinces her otherwise.

* Lizzie in ''TheRainmaker'' insists she's plain. Starbuck [[LettingHerHairDown takes her hair down]] and convinces her otherwise.

-->--''TheRainmaker''

* Played straight in ''TheWallflower'', where Sunako believes she is ugly simply because a boy she liked told her she was. Cue the whole series revolving around her "uglyness", even though she's pretty much a ''bishoujo''.

* Yura of ''HoneyHunt'' believes herself to be plain. This isn't helped by how other people tell her that compared to her beautiful and successful mother she's quite plain. However, once she looses the glasses and fixes her hair she can actually be quite good looking.

* Anne Shirley, of ''AnneOfGreenGables''. While in the first book she genuinely ''is'' as plain as she believes herself to be, as she matures she takes on a kind of attractiveness that's just unconventional for her time period. The fact that she's a FieryRedhead in a time period where red hair was deemed horribly unattractive does give her some grounds for believing this even as an adult, however untrue it really is. It's implied that sympathetic people are the kind who will find her pretty, while the jerks think her plain.

* Bella of ''{{Twilight}}'' does this from time to time.

->'''Starbuck''': Let me ask you, Lizzie--are you pretty?\\
'''Lizzie''': No--I'm plain!\\
'''Starbuck''': There! You see?--you don't know you're a woman!\\

'''Starbuck''': There's no such thing as a plain woman! Every real woman is pretty! They're all pretty in a different way--but they're all pretty!

!!Examples
* Lizzie in ''TheRainmaker'' insists she's plain. Starbuck [[LettingHerHairDown takes her hair down]] and convinces her otherwise.
* Similarly, [[TheMedic Nurse Pamela]] from ''DominicDeegan'' starts out believing herself to be 'plain and ordinary', but when she [[LettingHerHairDown lets her hair down]], she reveals that she was BeautifulAllAlong... and quite a HospitalHottie to boot. [[http://www.dominic-deegan.com/images/fanpam5.jpg Hellooooo Nurse Pam!]]
* The waitress in the Harry Chapin song "A Better Place To Be": "I wish that I was beautiful, or you were halfway blind..."
* Marigold Farmer from ''QuestionableContent'' believes herself to be fat and ugly. While she does have bad skin and poor hygiene, she's actually considered rather cute, and has a not-terrible figure, being HollywoodPudgy.
* Adrian in ''{{Rocky}}''.
* Subverted in ''ShallowHal,'' when Hal (Jack Black) believes that his "slender" love-interest (Gwyneth Paltrow) has been abused into simply ''thinking'' she's not beautiful-- when the fact is that she weighs 300 lbs., but he's simply been ''hypnotized'' into thinking that she looks like Gwyneth Paltrow.
* [[ShesGotLegs Dierdre]] "[[ShesGotLegs Nezumi]]" [[ShesGotLegs Mitako]] from the InuYasha fanfic ''[[http://www.suericfanfictions.com/ Purity 3: Forever]]'' is a WrenchWench who has been OneOfTheBoys for so long that she has a hard time thinking about herself as an attractive woman, even though almost the entirety of the story is about a guy trying to convince her he actually loves her and wants to marry her.

* AudreyHepburn thought she wasn't very attractive. Allegedly, she once said: "I never thought I'd land in pictures with a face like mine".
* Liri from TheChallengesOfZona believes she is ugly and unattractive, because she is a giantess and has been reviled by humans her whole life. This persists even after she met and fell in love with another giant, Keltan, leading to the two of them having InnocentCohabitation until Zona, the main character, convinces her otherwise and tells her about sex.
* Sara Crewe in ''ALittlePrincess'' thinks she must not be pretty because she doesn't mesh with the beauty standards of late-nineteenth-century England, being small, skinny, black-haired and green-eyed, but the author tells us that she's definitely pretty in her own way.
* The title character from {{Empowered}} tries to believe she's beautiful, but rarely manages it, despite being drop-dead gorgeous even by superheroine standards. [[TheLibby Sistah Spooky]]'s constant digs do nothing to help.

-->'''Natsume:''' ...Good looks? Nobody's ever said ''that'' to me before.
-->'''[[ThoseTwoGuys Kitamoto and Yushimura]]:''' ''Liar!''
-->'''Natsume:''' Eh? Are you serious?
* In HowlsMovingCastle, it's more of a matter that Sophie lacked confidence and self-esteem to see herself as pretty and sees herself as plain and doomed to a boring life.
* Bella of ''{{Twilight}}'' does this from time to time.
* Fiona of ''{{Shrek}}'' was cursed to become an ogress and later becomes one permanently after sharing a TrueLovesKiss with Shrek. At the end of the first movie she tells Shrek "I don't understand. I'm supposed to be beautiful." Shrek responds with "But you ''are'' beautiful." And indeed, she's still pretty for a CuteMonsterGirl.

* A conversation in the fifth volume of ''{{Durarara}}'' suggests that Shizuo Heiwajima is entirely oblivious to the fact that he looks like... well, ''[[{{Bishonen}} Shizuo Heiwajima]]''
* Done rather beautifully in ''{{Dollhouse}}'' with [[SummerGlau Bennet Halverson]] concerned that Topher had just tried to taze her with a device that only works on Dolls. She has a hard time believing this because Dolls are beautif...oh.

[[quoteright:320:[[PenelopeCruz http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/penelope_161.JPG]]]

[[NipAndTuck http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/MuleInAHarness.jpg]]
[[caption-width:300: This girl goes on to win a beauty contest.]]

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/MuleInAHarness.jpg

Basically, this is when a girl, regardless of her actual attractiveness, believes herself to be unattractive. Many such girls ''are'' lacking in conventional attractiveness, but it's rare for them to be actually ugly. Often the complaint of a girl who believes herself to be 'plain' or 'boring'.