Oh sweet merciful Jesus, she’s back...

Venture outdoors anywhere in this country at the present time and chances are you will find yourself face-to-face with the menacing physiognomy of one Margaret Thatcher. She’s everywhere, ominously adorning the billboards and bus shelters, doubtless preparing her army of winged monkeys to steal more milk from small children while plotting her return to power as Grand Empress of the New World Order, for the eventual enslavement of all mankind.

Except, it’s not her. Look closer and you will see these posters do not feature the Milk Snatcher herself, but in fact acting luminary Meryl Streep, portraying the former Prime Minister in an upcoming biopic. And the likeness is truly uncanny. Streep nails the old witch. Unusually though, this has little to do with Ms Streep’s preternatural acting ability, and everything to do with make-up: the big eighties hair, the prosthetic nose, and – crucially – those protruding front teeth, the ultimate signifier of evil.

Meryl Streep is, of course, a very beautiful woman (she recently became Vogue’s oldest cover star), and so had to go through an intensive evilification process to achieve an authentic Snatcher look. And hers is a journey embarked upon by many an actor these days: for Oscar glory, one must first make oneself look drastically hideous and dramatically dissimilar from one’s original appearance.

This is a trend that has precedence. Charlize Theron (the current face of Dior) famously donned prosthetic teeth and gained 30 pounds in weight to play serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Robert De Niro went one better, putting on 60 pounds by living in Paris for three months eating himself silly to portray Jake La Motta in Raging Bull. Nicole Kidman played Virginia Woolf in The Hours with a fake nose that would make Pinocchio blush. All three won Oscars for their performances. Meryl Streep’s 17th Oscar nomination is all but in the bag. 

Yes, it’s all very impressive, yes, it shows dedication to a craft, and yes, these actors are undoubtedly very talented. But the question is nevertheless begged: couldn’t they have cast fat, ugly people to play these characters? Was it necessary to cast thin, beautiful actors and then go to a great deal of time, money and effort to get the right look when more aesthetically appropriate actors, many of approximately equal ability, already exist?

The answer is no. Because the thought of fat, ugly people in the A-List Club is unfathomable to Hollywood. 

To gain entry to the A-List Club, you must first and foremost be in possession of obscene, incomprehensible beauty; acting talent is an afterthought. In many cases, it’s completely irrelevant. Anyone who has borne witness to the extraordinary “performance” that British model Rosie Huntington-Whitley gives in Transformers 3 will attest – let’s just say the computer-generated robots were more convincing. And RSH is one of many models parachuted into movies for photogenicity, whilst effectively giving a middle finger to the whole craft of acting.

No one’s doubting the acting ability of Streep or De Niro, actors so good they practically shit talent. But even they are complicit in a system that is shamefully unmeritocratic. For too long, ugly fat actors have been relegated to sideline roles – Man on Bench 2, Woman at Bank 4, Friend of Main Character 2. If real life is so densely populated with uggos and fatties, why can’t movies follow suit?

More John:

... on career choices

... on Christmas capitalism

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