History Main / JustTheWayYouAre

* The Cyclopean Leela on ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' gets another eye, but after seeing a three-eared girl get teased, decides she was wonderful Just The Way She Was and [[StatusQuoIsGod reverts to normal]].

->-- '''BillyJoel''', "[[TropeNamer Just the Way You Are]]"

* The entire "Born This Way" episode of ''Series/{{Glee}}''. Rachel breaks her nose, and decides to get a nose job. (Somehow, without parental consent?) The entire club takes sides, with nearly everyone on the "don't change how you look" side, and Quinn, interestingly, on Rachel's. Rachel, after 40 minutes of angsty singing, decides against a nose job, to the delight of her peers. Quinn, it is revealed, used to be overweight and had glasses, but now changed. However, this somehow works out for her, as people admire her for both being beatiful now and for being "herself" then. It's unclear what the message is for Quinn, as she still remains beautiful. One could argue that the message was for her to accept her old self, but that must be much easier [[GrassIsGreener looking the way she does now]].

* In ''Film/XMenFirstClass'', Erik is able to persuade Raven to his side with this trope, and finds her mutant appearance to be "perfection," in contrast to Charles and Hank, who feel she should look more "normal" to gain acceptance within society.

* In ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' Erik is able to persuade Raven to his side with this trope, and finds her mutant appearance to be "perfection" in contrast to Charles and Hank who feels she should look more "normal" to gain acceptance within society.

* The two hit songs mentioned on top that are obviously called just this. Billy Joel's song is the TropeNamer, while Bruno Mars' song just happens to have [[NamesTheSame the same name]] and overall meaning.

* Creator/WilliamShatner's "''I Want You to Be You''" subverts this trope, describing a man talking about how he loves a woman just the way she is, right up until the point he doesn't.

-->''Don't go changing, to try and please me''
-->''You never let me down before''
-->''Don't imagine you're too familiar''
-->''And I don't see you anymore''
-->''I wouldn't leave you in times of trouble''
-->''We never could have come this far''
-->''I took the good times, I'll take the bad times''
-->''I'll take you just the way you are''
-->-- '''BillyJoel''', "[[TropeNamer Just the Way You Are]]"

-->''When I see your face''
-->''There's not a thing that I would change''
-->''[='=]Cause you're amazing''
-->''Just the way you are''
-->''And [[WhenSheSmiles when you smile]]''
-->''The whole world stops and stares for a while''
-->''[='=]Cause girl, you're amazing''
-->''Just the way you are''
-->-- '''Music/BrunoMars''', "[[NamesTheSame Just the Way You Are]]"

-->-- '''BillyJoel''', "[[TropeNamer Just The Way You Are]]"

-->''When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change''
-->''[='=]Cause you're amazing, just the way you are''
-->''And [[WhenSheSmiles when you smile]], the whole world stops and stares for a while''
-->''[='=]Cause girl, you're amazing, just the way you are''
-->-- '''BrunoMars''', "Just The Way You Are"

If a TV character wants cosmetic surgery, they will be inevitably convinced by the end of the episode that they're beautiful Just The Way They Are and the audience gets AnAesop about loving yourself.

* Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are", the trope namer.
** As well as the Bruno Mars song with the same name.

* WilliamShatner's "''I Want You to Be You''" subverts this trope, describing a man talking about how he loves a woman just the way she is, right up until the point he doesn't.

* Rather touchingly played straight in ''BridgetJones's Diary'', when Mark Darcy tells her he likes her "Just as she is".

----

** In another episode Monica worries that if she gets fat Chandler will stop loving her. In an absolutely adorable moment he proves her wrong.

** A subtle subversion in that Antimony is almost always wearing makeup and manages to avoid carrying on a conversation directly after this CosmeticCatastrophe with Kat as to why Annie needs to wear it. Later it's indicated that its directly connected to her mother's death (she wears make-up both to seem more adult/mature and because it was a right-of-passage her mother shared with her before dying).

[[Tabletop Games]]

-->"I love you just the way you are
-->I'll have you just the way you are
-->I'll take you just the way you are
-->Does anyone love the way they are?"

-->"I love you just the way you are//
I'll have you just the way you are//
I'll take you just the way you are//
Does anyone love the way they are?"//

** Especially heartwarming as Monica was fat in the past and Chandler's disgust of her led her lose weight. For him to grow up enough to say he won't care if she does get fat again is very sweet.

* Played with in [[{{FriEnds}} Friends]] when Chandler ''thinks'' Monica is getting plastic surgery and goes to great lengths to show her he loves her as she is.
** In another episode Monica worries that if she gets fat Chandler wil stop loving her. In an absolutely adorable moment he proves her wrong.

** A subtle subversion in that Antimony is almost always wearing makeup and manages to avoid carrying on a conversation directly after this CosmeticCatastrophe with Kat as to why Annie needs to wear it.

A subtrope of BeYourself. Should they go through with it anyway, the convincer will likely think of it as an UnnecessaryMakeover; whether the audience does as well is [[SubjectiveTrope subjective]]. See FansPreferTheNewHer when the audience disagrees with this trope.

* Cruelly applied in the ''DetectiveConan'' manga. A murder case sees a woman murdering her ex boyfriend over suspected jealousy. After the investigation, it is revealed that the boyfriend ignored the woman after her plastic surgery, but is actually in no way cheating. A post-murder confession from his best (female) friend reveals he's just waiting for the woman to realize that she's beautiful JustTheWayYouAre by herself, which promptly breaks her down.

* As far as manga goes, the popularity of ''KimiNiTodoke'' can be attributed to its mastery of this trope. Whereas lesser stories would make the protagonist get a BeautifulAllAlong makeover or some such thing, ''Todoke'' has Sawako Kuronuma, whose [[StringyHairedGhostGirl unique]] appearance actually catches the eye of the school's most desirable guy. Bonus points for him being made of "100% niceness," too.

* Subverted in ''2012''. Both the recipient of and the plastic surgeon who performed a boob job chat about and completely agree that she would've been better off without the surgery.

* In a refreshing change, Hawkeye and Trapper in an early episode of ''{{MASH}}'' actually give a soldier who wants it a nose-job (after a token attempt to talk him out of it), but in a later episode BJ refuses to perform blepharoplasty (eyelid lift) on an Asian boy because he's fine Just The Way He Is.

* Rather cynically played with (perhaps an outright deconstruction) in a second-season episode of ''VeronicaMars'', where in an attempt to investigate a plastic surgeon's possible gang connections, Veronica (played by ''[[http://amansworldonline.com/wp-content/gallery/kristen-bell-1/kristen-bell-1.jpg Kristen Bell]]'', people) starts listing "flaws" that she wants fixed for her eighteenth birthday. (She doesn't have a large chest--which she of course starts with as "the obvious"--but it wouldn't work with her body type anyway.) The surgeon hands her a pamphlet that deals with body issues, saying he'd refuse to operate on her, and leaves his office. She ''immediately'' gets suspicious of him...and turns out to be right.

* Subverted in ''MalcolmInTheMiddle''. Lois is told by her boss she needs to look more feminine and starts wearing heavy makeup. Everybody likes her more. She quits when someone mistakes her for a hooker. But played straight with her husband. The episode at first seems to play out that Hal is seemingly more attractive to Lois due to the make-up, but when she returned to normal, Hal is still turned on (if not because she briefly donned a plain ol' baseball cap).
* The entire "Born This Way" episode of {{Glee}}. Rachel breaks her nose, and decides to get a nose job. (Somehow, without parental consent?) The entire club takes sides, with nearly everyone on the "don't change how you look" side, and Quinn, interestingly, on Rachel's. Rachel, after 40 minutes of angsty singing, decides against a nose job, to the delight of her peers. Quinn, it is revealed, used to be overweight and had glasses, but now changed. However, this somehow works out for her, as people admire her for both being beatiful now and for being "herself" then. It's unclear what the message is for Quinn, as she still remains beautiful. One could argue that the message was for her to accept her old self, but that must be much easier [[GrassIsGreener looking the way she does now]].

* In one episode of SmartGuy, ACupAngst-suffering Yvette wants to get a boob job for graduation. After padding herself SEVERELY for a play audition, she decides that she doesn't want to get the surgery unless she's '''really''' sure that's what she wants.

* The Cyclopean Leela on ''{{Futurama}}'' gets another eye, but after seeing a three-eared girl get teased, decides she was wonderful Just The Way She Was and [[StatusQuoIsGod reverts to normal]].

* This happened twice on ''TheSimpsons'', to both Marge (breasts) and Moe (face) although both cases were sufficiently surreal and self-consciously bizarre to sort-of-avoid such direct moralizing as this trope implies.

* This is the moral of Tanya Mousekewitz's subplot in ''AnAmericanTail: Fievel Goes West''. She gets a makeover so she can sing at Waul's saloon, but after discovering Waul is actually evil and tried to kill every mouse in Green River, she remembers what her friend Miss Kitty told her, that the real woman is what's underneath the mask, and she washes her make-up off.
* Subverted on ''FamilyGuy'' in "He's Too Sexy For His Fat": Peter gets repeated rounds of plastic surgery, becoming so, [[InformedAttractiveness uh...handsome?]], that his reflection in the rearview mirror distracts him from driving a la [[GreekMythology Narcissus]], causing him to run off the road and fall into a vat of lard which he [[strike:slowly]] quickly drains accompanied by [[{{Squick}} disgusting swallowing noises]]. [[StatusQuoIsGod Like the Simpsons example above, his face is returned to normal by the end of the episode.]]

* In an episode of ''{{Daria}}'', Quinn opted to get plastic surgery to look as good as a fellow classmate. The titular character ends up stepping in and telling her sister she's perfect just the way she is. Of course, since this is [[TheSnarkKnight Daria]] we're talking about, she told Quinn she'd deny saying it if anyone asked. She also managed to help her dodge a bullet since [[spoiler: aforementioned classmate's plastic surgery was almost immediately revealed to have backfired and made her look even worse than before.]]

* In one episode of SmartGuy, {{Pettanko}} Yvette wants to get a boob job for graduation. After padding herself SEVERELY for a play audition, she decides that she doesn't want to get the surgery unless she's '''really''' sure that's what she wants.