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"Men have such unreasonable body expectations of women and objectivity them in media"
(Yea, I know women who say this while reading these books)
I mean... they're right. It's just that it's also true for men.
I feel like you see a lot more of the whole "fat ugly dude wins smoking hot woman because he is smart and funny and kind to animals" trope than the opposite. In fact, I can't really think of a single example of the inverse other than... Shrek? And even that's a stretch.
The idea that women only like strong, muscular men is a big trope that has been around for a long time. Hence these covers.
Also remember who media targets. Mostly men will watch movies of “fat dude wins the girl because he’s funny” but the vast majority of people watching the Hallmark channel films are women and it’s always “generically attractive man and generically attractive woman find love”
Isn't "fat ugly dude wins smoking hot woman because he is smart and funny and kind to animals" the plot of Shrek, though? Sure, he's not kind to donkey at first, but ultimately he is. Princess Fiona is smoking hot in the Shrek world, and possibly a smoking hot ogre - who knows with ogres?
But yeah, I can't think of an inverse cultural example. I wonder if it's actually pretty common in real life, though.
Shallow Hal? Maybe?