About the Futurama example (when Leela has plastic surgery to stop being a Cyclops): I don't see why the message is so 'nice'.
Most characters preferred Leela looking normal. Fry's viewpoint was the exception. None of Fry's arguments about how she should Be Yourself mattered to Leela, or anyone else. Leela only changed back because Status Quo Is God and she got annoyed at her plastic surgeon boyfriend.
However the boyfriend was really a case of Minor Flaw, Major Breakup. He was an orphan, like Leela. He knew that children could be cruel to anyone who looked different. The girl Leela wanted to adopt was not merely Ugly Cute. She had a serious problem. The other children all laughed at her for having a third ear.
The boyfriend was willing to adopt the child anyway, he merely suggested performing surgery to remove the ear. The little girl never objects, Leela is the one who gets angry and starts yelling about how the girl was already fine. She dumps the boyfriend, forces him to undo her plastic surgery, then she learns the girl also has a tail and Leela acts disgusted.
So, not only was a poor orphan child not adopted, the little girl never got the surgery that could have improved her quality of life, and the other orphans continued to pick on her. Yet somehow we are to see the polite, apologetic, ex-boyfriend as the villain in all this? Leela was a hypocrite towards the little girl, and she was too proud to admit that Fry had a point about Leela not needing plastic surgery to be pretty, even at the end.
How was the Aesop about how looks don't matter a case of Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped? Leela's behavior during the episode makes it a Broken Aesop at best.
I really don't think The Princess Diaries example really qualifies. First of all, Mia has to get the makeover because she's a public figure so she's expected to look and behave a certain way. Second of all, is anyone about to say that Anne Hathaway actually looks better before she gets her makeover? It seems that the makeover itself was necessary for a princess so I don't think it's an example.
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I agree; it was necessary, and if she looked cuter before then so did every single person ever to get a makeover, which would make this not a trope. Pulled (along with natter):
- Mia Thermopolis in the movie version of The Princess Diaries. What's so wrong with glasses and frizzy hair? Kevin "Tom Servo himself" Murphy in his A Year At The Movies also notes the Unfortunate Implications that her makeover's main result is to remove most traces of Semitic origin from her face. The makeover is particularly unnecessary given the Broken Aesop that beauty is on the inside. In the sequel, she's given another pointless makeover that serves only to pull her hair back.
- Though it should be noted that, until the forced reveal of said makeover, Mia tried to hide it as her best friend thought she'd sold out and she was embarrassed to look exactly like the popular girls.
- It should also be noted that there was a fairly decent in-universe reason for the makeover: her original style, however attractive, was better suited for a high school student than a public figure.
Also the Miss Congeniality example. Sandra Bullock's character is not presented as an ugly woman. She's chosen to go undercover because she looks good in a swimsuit in the first place. Plus the makeover was necessary or are we trying to say that she wouldn't pass for a pageant queen dressed like a tomboy and acting the way she did? The makeover was necessary for getting her to pass for a believable pageant queen.
I know this is a subjective trope, but what if it's acknowledged in-universe by a friend of the person who undergoes said makeover? Would it still be this trope, or perhaps a Lampshading of it?
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There seems to be a good view in universe examples now. Perhaps separate those into a different section?
Should Alison be the trope image when this trope is listed under The Breakfast Club's YMMV page? One troper there pointed out she was unhappy when she was an unnoticed goth-y girl and noticeably much happier post-makeover.