History Main / TrueBeautyIsOnTheInside

* Played with in TopTen: Irma (a plump, middle-aged PoweredArmor-wearing mother of two) and Joe Pi (a robot) discuss human appearance. Joe comments after meeting Irma's family, that he believes that Irma has an inner beauty. She replies "Yeah, I've got kidneys to die for".

[[folder:Film]]
* This appears as AnAesop at the beginning of the Disney version of ''[[Film/BeautyAndTheBeast Beauty and the Beast]]''. A beautiful enchantress changes her form to look like an old woman and is not allowed to stay the night at the castle by the prince. She punishes him for judging her by her appearance (and not providing hospitality) by turning him into the Beast.
* ''ShallowHal'' has a character cursed with a very literal example of this trope: He is only capable of seeing a person's "true beauty" which, for most of the movie, seems to be personified by Gwyneth Paltrow. It's also an interesting hypocrisy, since Tony Robbins' real-life girlfriend is something of a "Perfect Ten;" however from his presentation of himself given in the film, his girlfriend should be a hideous girl with a heart of gold. Clearly, Dr. Tony doesn't follow his own orders. And to UnfortunateImplications, it's also worth adding that the movie played on the 300-pound Rosemary as an AcceptableTarget.

* Quasimodo of TheHunchbackOfNotreDame fits this trope as well.
* Oddly not mentioned in ''The Graduate'', although the beautiful Mrs. Robinson is a depressed alcoholic who cheats on her husband and tries to force her daughter into an unhappy marriage, and Ben (who rescues the daughter) is played by Dustin Hoffman. Then again, Dustin Hoffman was cast at the last minute.
* Ludmilla, the BigBad of BartokTheMagnificent, ''thinks'' this is true about herself. Then she takes a potion designed to make its user "10 times what they are inside", expecting to be extremely beautiful as a result. [[OneWingedAngel She was WAY off!]]

* Appears in all the ''BeautyAndTheBeast'' adaptations as it is the crucial linchpin of the story: Beauty must come to understand that just because beast is a hideous monster doesn't mean he's a bad person.
** Which is weird considering the fact that in many cases he's been made into a hideous monster specifically because he's a bad person.

* ''[[Literature/MagicShop Jennifer Murdley's Toad]]'' by BruceCoville is all about this - it's about an ugly girl with a nice personality, and at the climax of the story she encounters a witch who [[spoiler:offers to turn her "inside out," metaphorically speaking, so that her inner beauty will be on the outside — but upon thinking about this, Jennifer realizes that this would make her ugly on the inside, which she realizes would be worse]]. So she stays outwardly ugly (but a good person).

*** For the most part, though, this is played straight, albeit silently. Most of the people who can be termed 'heroes' in this world tend not to be the best lookers.
* OlderThanPrint with ''TheCanterburyTales'': in the Wife of Bath's tale, the DesignatedHero knight of the story finds himself wedded to a smart woman with a great personality - who's also a terribly ugly crone. She catches on to his distress and delivers this Aesop to him (along with a few others regarding wealth and noble birth), and then offers him a choice: as an enchantress, she could make herself young and beautiful, but then he'd always have to risk her sleeping around with his friends - or she could remain old and ugly, but be the best wife he could possibly ask for. His choice. He [[spoiler: [[TakeAThirdOption humbly says that the choice is up to her,]] and she, delighted that he's learned how to respect her, announces that she will be both beautiful ''and'' faithful. And they all life HappilyEverAfter.]]

* In HarryPotter, [[FrenchJerk Fleur]] [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Delacour]] [[spoiler:says that Bill's scars just show how heroic he is. [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming She still wants to marry him, no matters how he looks.]]]]

* UglyBetty is about this trope. At least, that's what the critics said when it debuted, as well as what America Ferrera said at an awards ceremony not long after the show debuted. But not very many actual episodes of the show mention this trope, and the titular character (Betty Suarez, PLAYED by America Ferrera) is usually treated as if nothing is wrong with her. Hooray for CharacterDevelopment!
** Amanda and Mark continue to throw in snide comments about Betty's weight/glasses/braces/clothes throughout the series, even after she bonds with them as they have to maintain their mean and beautiful status. What really undermines the trope is America Ferrara's HollywoodHomely-ness. She was never obese in the first place (despite all the "plus-sized girl" comments Amanda & Co like to make) and lost weight over the course of the show, finally getting to the point where Betty's "ugliness" really is an InfomedAttribute.
* This is the premise behind the Reality Show TrueBeauty.

[[folder:Music Video]]

* It's a well-treaded Aesop, but [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXSkd8apbWM "More Beautiful You" by Johnny Diaz]] does it in a rather heartwarming way[[hottip:*:Yeah, it's a Christian song, but give it a shot anyway. S'nice.]]. And as a bonus, the video even shows the two young ladies' "flaws" being photoshopped away to make the point that the standard of beauty promoted by popular media doesn't actually exist.

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* ''[[MagicShop Jennifer Murdley's Toad]]'' by BruceCoville is all about this - it's about an ugly girl with a nice personality, and at the climax of the story she encounters a witch who [[spoiler:offers to turn her "inside out," metaphorically speaking, so that her inner beauty will be on the outside — but upon thinking about this, Jennifer realizes that this would make her ugly on the inside, which she realizes would be worse]]. So she stays outwardly ugly (but a good person).

This trope is most commonly known for how it's skewered unintentionally by the heavy presence of tropes like HollywoodHomely. As a rule, nearly everyone in visual media who purports this trope will either clearly be beautiful themselves or will become beautiful by the end of the work. Moreover, in most cases ''one'' character is still objectively very beautiful -- but she (and yes, it is almost always a [[DoubleStandard woman]]) is the one who's expected to look beyond the ugliness toward his true character, while quite often the only reason he found her attractive in the first place is because of her looks.

Written works tend to, but do not always, portray this trope better since it's easier to get away with making ugly characters if the audience doesn't have to actually look at them.

* A main theme of BeautyAndTheBeast deals with this.

* CyranoDeBergerac, the WarriorPoet with the big nose, is [[GrumpyBear too cynical]] to believe people actually believe this, despite what everyone else in the play tells him.

* ''Love Never Dies'', the sequel to ''ThePhantomOfTheOpera'', [[Main/{{Anvilicious}} hammers this aesop home]] with such songs as "Look With Your Heart" and "The Beauty Underneath".

* [[ThisTroper You]] ([[DistractedByTheSexy and not just on the inside]]).

** Congratulations. That right there is a TVTropes CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
* [[SubvertedTrope But not you.]]

* A ''{{Discworld}}'' story also deconstructs this when Nobby Nobbs, who is so ugly that he has to carry around a paper from the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork stating he is human, complains that women won't date him. Angua points out to him that maybe he should lower his standards, as he shouldn't expect to be able to date the more sought after women. And when Nobby does land himself a gorgeous girlfriend, Angua is horrified for her, though fortunately by the end of the book Nobby is fixed up with a woman who reeks of fish and whose eyes look in different directions (she is even nicknamed "Hammerhead") while Traceee is free to pursue someone worthy of her beauty.

* A ''{{Discworld}}'' story also deconstructs this when Nobby Nobbs, who is so ugly that he has to carry around a paper from the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork stating he is human, complains that women won't date him. Angua points out to him that maybe he should lower his standards, as he shouldn't expect to be able to date the more sought after women.

* It's a well-treaded Aesop, but [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXSkd8apbWM "More Beautiful You" by Johnny Diaz]] does it in a rather heartwarming way[[hottip:*:Yeah, it's a Christian song.]]. And as a bonus, the video even shows the two young ladies' "flaws" being photoshopped away to make the point that the standard of beauty promoted by popular media doesn't actually exist.

* ''[[MagicShop Jennifer Murdley's Toad]]'' by BruceCoville is all about this — it's about an ugly girl with a nice personality, and at the climax of the story she encounters a witch who [[spoiler:offers to turn her "inside out," metaphorically speaking, so that her inner beauty will be on the outside — but upon thinking about this, Jennifer realizes that this would make her ugly on the inside, which she realizes would be worse]]. So she stays outwardly ugly (but a good person).

* It's a well-treaded Aesop, but [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXSkd8apbWM "More Beautiful You" by Johnny Diaz]] does it in a rather heartwarming way[[hottip:*:Yeah, it's a Christian song; deal with it.]]. And as a bonus, the video even shows the two young ladies' "flaws" being photoshopped away to make the point that the standard of beauty promoted by popular media doesn't actually exist.

*** [[SubvertedTrope But not you.]]

* It's a well-treaded Aesop, but [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXSkd8apbWM "More Beautiful You" by Johnny Diaz]] does it in a rather heartwarming way. And as a bonus, the video even shows the two young ladies' faces being photoshopped to make the point that the "true beauty" promoted by popular media doesn't actually exist.

* MichaelJackson's ''Ghosts'' short film tried to impart this moral as well as disprove LonersAreFreaks. Jackson played two characters at odds with each other -- a Mayor and the mysterious Maestro (really, Jackson himself) -- and stated in the making-of documentary that the Mayor's problem was his inability to see a person's inner beauty; just because a person looks and acts strange doesn't mean they're bad. The aesop fails because Maestro is a JerkSue and the Mayor himself is presented as an AcceptableTarget: a fat, middle-aged white guy whose concern over [[Main/RealitySubtext young boys secretly meeting up with Maestro for ghost stories]] is seen as merely bigotry against anyone who's different.

* Oddly not mentioned in ''The Graduate'', despite that Mrs. Robinson is beautiful (and a depressed alcoholic who tries to force her pretty if not gorgeous daughter into an unhappy marriage) and Ben is played by Dustin Hoffman. Then again, Dustin Hoffman was cast at the last minute.

* ''Jennifer Murdley's Toad'' by BruceCoville is all about this — it's about an ugly girl with a nice personality, and at the climax of the story she encounters a witch who [[spoiler:offers to turn her "inside out," metaphorically speaking, so that her inner beauty will be on the outside — but upon thinking about this, Jennifer realizes that this would make her ugly on the inside, which she realizes would be worse]]. So she stays outwardly ugly (but a good person).

* ''Jennifer Murdley's Toad'' by Bruce Coville is all about this — it's about an ugly girl with a nice personality, and at the climax of the story she encounters a witch who [[spoiler:offers to turn her "inside out," metaphorically speaking, so that her inner beauty will be on the outside — but upon thinking about this, Jennifer realizes that this would make her ugly on the inside, which she realizes would be worse]]. So she stays outwardly ugly (but a good person).

->''"That's just something ugly people say."''

* UglyBetty is [[OrSoIHeard purportedly]] about this trope. At least, that's what the critics said when it debuted, as well as what America Ferrera said at an awards ceremony not long after the show debuted. But not very many actual episodes of the show mention this trope, and the titular character (Betty Suarez, PLAYED by America Ferrera) is usually treated as if nothing is wrong with her. Hooray for CharacterDevelopment!