Hollywood has always had a type. Across decades of shifting trends and changing ideals of masculinity, one thing has remained consistent: the men we’re asked to root for are always attractive. Even when the leading man wasn’t built like Chris Hemsworth or Channing Tatum, he was still conventionally handsome. Maybe he was the brooding burnout, the awkward dork, or the “cute” friend, but he was never ugly.

We like to think we’ve moved beyond judging men by their looks, that today’s leading man earns our affection through wit and vulnerability. But even our supposedly “unconventional” heartthrobs remain carefully curated ideals. Hollywood may tell us to fall for personality, yet it rarely asks us to separate personality from physical attractiveness. So when audiences eventually grew tired of the macho action hero, the industry rebranded him and replaced him with the Nice Guy. Ahhh, the Nice Guy.

At this point, there’s very little left unsaid in the Nice Guy discourse. We’ve all gone back and rewatched the sitcoms and rom-coms we grew up with, only to realize that half the men we were supposed to root for were manipulative sociopaths. The sensitive guy wasn’t actually sensitive, he was just waiting for his chance. He treated emotional availability like some kind of currency he could cash in for a girlfriend.

People, including myself, were right to criticize these characters. Eventually, the trope became self-parody and the internet gave it a name: the incel. That word gets thrown around so often it’s started to lose meaning, but the overlap is still obvious. These are men who convince themselves they’re the good guy, blame women when they get rejected, and mistake their own insecurity for virtue. We’ve spent years talking about who these characters are and what they represent, but I don’t think we’ve spent enough time talking about what they look like.

Before audiences realized these characters were entitled, manipulative, or even creepy, we liked them. Why? The reasons are complicated; part of it is the writing, part of it is the framing, but one aspect has been largely overlooked.

The Hollywood Nice Guy is rarely actually unattractive

This might seem obvious, but it changes the way we look at these characters. Yes, their true personalities eventually rear their ugly heads and audiences turn on them—rightfully so—but what about before? What made us stay? We were looking at them through the same lens Hollywood uses for every romantic lead, so their base-level attractiveness was often used to soften traits that would otherwise read as alarming.

Look at some of television’s most recognizable sitcom protagonists: Ted Mosby, Ross Geller, Leonard Hofstadter. These men weren’t supposed to compete with the macho womanizer or the emotionally unavailable bad boy. They were awkward, they were sensitive, they wanted love. And for years, audiences wanted them to find it too. Go back and watch them now, and the cracks start showing almost immediately.

Ted constantly confuses persistence with romance, Ross struggles to accept Rachel’s independence, and Leonard spends years putting Penny on a pedestal, expecting his devotion to be eventually rewarded. These weren’t evil men, but they also weren’t the lovable goofs many people remember them to be. They were incredibly insecure, entitled, and at worst, manipulative. The difference when rewatching them now is that we stopped looking at them through the lens the show wanted us to.

Modern audiences have become really good at spotting this. Every few days, another old sitcom scene goes viral with thousands of comments pointing out how creepy a character actually was. The conversation usually ends in the same place. “We’ve always rewarded this behaviour.” “This is why men think women owe them something.” “He’s literally an incel.”

I think we’ve become so quick to categorize these characters that we’ve skipped over the most obvious contradiction. Hollywood has spent decades selling the Nice Guy as the overlooked underdog, yet rarely allow him to look like one.

You could argue that many Nice Guys, both in fiction and in reality, don’t reveal their true nature until you’re already emotionally invested. The trope hinges on the contrast between the persona they present at the start of a relationship and the person they become when faced with rejection, conflict, or unmet expectations. It’s only when things stop going their way that the resentment and anger begins to surface.

But that raises another question: what changes when a film stops seeing these men the way they see themselves?

Contemporary filmmakers have started exposing the Nice Guy fantasy rather than reproducing it. Films like Companion, Don’t Worry Darling, Fresh, Saltburn, and of course, Obsession, invite us into the minds of men who see themselves as misunderstood. It almost feels as if a new film every year will inevitably address this trope. The Nice Guy may finally be exposed, but he’s still played by someone the camera wants us to desire. They take the language of romance, vulnerability, and male loneliness, and strip it away until what’s remains isn’t romantic at all.

But, these movies more often create the argument rather than settle it.

Look at the conversations and heated arguments that erupt after they come out. Women often talk about recognizing the warning signs immediately. Men are more likely to argue that the character had good intentions or that audiences are reading too much into him. The discussion becomes incredibly polarized almost overnight. You’re either defending an incel or you’re incapable of seeing nuance. There doesn’t seem to be much room in between.

Perhaps that’s because a lot of people genuinely see themselves in these characters. Not in the stalking or the manipulation, but in the loneliness. In the awkwardness. In the feeling of trying to do everything “right” and still ending up alone. Hollywood has spent decades insisting that this kind of man is the romantic lead, so viewers naturally imagine themselves in his place. The catch is that they aren’t imagining themselves as awkward or overlooked, they’re imagining themselves through the face of someone already branded as desirable.

Which keeps me coming back to same one detail, none of these men are actually ugly.

Hollywood loves pretending that glasses, messy hair and social anxiety somehow make someone physically undesirable. They don’t. Strip away the awkward wardrobe, self-deprecating jokes, and indie soundtrack, and you’re still left with conventionally attractive actors. That’s true for the old sitcoms, and it’s still true for the movies trying to critique them. Maybe the industry has gotten better at exposing the Nice Guy fantasy, but it still can’t seem to imagine one who isn’t handsome.

Cast someone genuinely below-average-looking in the same role, and suddenly the fantasy starts to wobble. His persistence feels less romantic. His awkwardness less endearing. The story has to work harder to convince us he’s the hero, because it can no longer rely on the visual shorthand of desirability.

All of these thoughts came to a head for me when I watched Obsession.

The first time I watched it, I caught myself extending more grace than I expected. I felt a bit sorry for Bear. I kept making excuses. Maybe he didn’t fully understand the wish. Maybe he genuinely believed Nikki wanted this too. The film does such a good job of blurring those lines that I found myself looking for reasons to forgive him.

The second time I watched it, my reaction was completely flipped. Every “romantic” moment felt deeply suffocating. The excuses I made before were gone. The movie hadn’t changed so much as I had.

Bear (Michael Johnston) looks like someone audiences will naturally like. Six feet tall, symmetrical face, good hair, wearing a cardigan. I can’t help but wonder how much of my own sympathy came from that. If Bear looked genuinely unconventional—if he wasn’t played by someone easy on the eyes—would I have spent so much time trying to justify his behaviour? Would anyone?

People always say attractiveness is subjective, and they’re right. Nobody is attractive to everyone. But Hollywood has never really operated on subjectivity. It has always had a very clear idea of what an audience is willing to fall in love with, and who deserves to be the romantic lead.

I don’t believe audiences suddenly became better at recognizing toxic behavior. I think we’ve spent decades being taught to overlook it—as long as the person delivering it looked enough like someone we were supposed to root for.

I’m not convinced the Nice Guy trope would have survived if the Nice Guy had actually been revolting. I don’t even know if it would have become a discussion. We probably would’ve agreed he was creepy from the beginning.

Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe it’s just human nature. Either way, I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

We’ve spent years asking Hollywood to write better men, but I’d settle for it casting weirder-looking ones.