MovieChat Forums > Shallow Hal (2001) Discussion > Why wouldn't they have cast more attract...

Why wouldn't they have cast more attractive actors as Hal and Mauricio?


It would make much more sense how they were able to get attractive women, and how Rosemary was very confused when he wanted to date her.

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To me it made sense that Hal and Mauricio weren't really hot or attractive.
Cause if they were, they would get all the models easily.

But they struggled with getting the right woman cause they refused to look at inner values and all the model girls weren't into them.

A curse definitely made sense.

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Because there are a lot of guys like Hal and Mauricio in real life. Guys who are about a three of four on the attractiveness scale, but are so blissfully unaware, that feel they are entitled to 10s and disparage the looks of women who are even 7 or 8. Rosemary was morbidly obese. She was surprised that *any* guy would want to date her. I would make an argument in the other direction - at least make Rosemary more height weight proportionate. This movie implicitly condones morbid obesity despite its very serious health consequences. In real life, Rosemary would have stroked out or had a heart attack within ten years.

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I could see Ryan Reynolds as Hal although Rosemary would definitely be more suspious of his intentions.

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Because the movie is about exposing sexism, that also includes the sexism you're exhibiting here by claiming women who don't meet a certain ideal can't end up with certain men. The point of the film is that sexists who go around putting people into "leagues" and claiming people need to date within their "league" are toxic to society and such behavior needs to end. People are more than their outward appearance, it's the personality that matters.

The fact that Hal excludes amazing women simply because they don't match the societal image of what a woman should look like is pure sexism. Instead, we learn more about these women when their outward appearance becomes similar to how they are on the inside.

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