Deglamming as Estrangement: Ugly in Monster, The Hours, and Cake

Abstract

In this paper, I explore female actresses undergoing radical or seemingly radical physical transformation in service of a broader kind of career transformation.  I problematize the simple calculation of deglamming, thinking more closely about the ways that celebrity structure raises challenges to actors and especially actresses attempting to engage with against-type characters.  I turn specifically to three well-known examples of this trend: Charlize Theron in Monster (2003), Nicole Kidman in The Hours (2002), and Jennifer Aniston in Cake (2014).  I argue that the process we see is not about deglamming (or getting ugly) for its own sake.  Deglamming in these cases is a process of estrangement: from beauty, from the celebrity machine, from audience expectations.  I draw on screen shots, film reviews and interviews to explore the relationship between deglamming and estrangement as a kind of acting and character technique, paying particular attention to the stakes for presenting historical characters in biopics.  And while the three films I examine here – Monster , The Hours , and Cake – are often thought together as examples of actress Oscar uglification, they are actually quite different, both in terms of the physical transformations the actresses underwent in service of their characters, and the ways in which these transformations were understood and received.