Dorothy McGuire's character reminded me of Betsy Blair's character in "Marty", and also Olivia DeHavilland in "The Heiress". In all these cases, the woman wouldn't be considered "homely" at all, with different makeup and hair styling (and a soft focus lens, of course). So clearly, how a woman feels about herself and carries herself contributes to whether she is perceived as attractive or not. So after DMG's character gains more self-confidence, she could probably go to that same dance and not be perceived as repulsive by others meeting her for the first time. Or, at least, if the men treated her badly, she would now see it as a reflection of the men's own ugliness rather than hers.
I also recall a Star Trek episode in which three women were being delivered by the Enterprise to miners, to become their wives, on a desolate planet. The women were supposedly ugly until they took pills which supposedly made them beautiful. It turned out that the pills were a placebo and that they "became" beautiful when they believed they were beautiful. I like to think that eventually, the character seeing herself as beautiful will lead her to want to use makeup, pluck her brows, and fix her hair, which will make her even more attractive to others. It will give her the confidence to become the beautiful person she always had been.
Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!
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