I don't know whether the intention of scenarist and director Cameron Crowe was to create a movie on the blackpill / lookism, but he did precisely that; it's not even a subtheme, or something that you have to read between the lines. It's in your face, all the time; it's the only message of the movie, along with "cryonics is actually a cool idea" and "fornicating with women is dangerous".
I consider Vanilla Sky, a 2001 movie starring Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz, as the best (and perhaps only?) movie that Hollywood ever did on the theme of lookism. Unsurprisingly, this main theme has mostly escaped the attention of critics and journalists. Only NYT journalist Stephen Holden has accurately depicted the main message of the film: "looks are everything (...) with money a close second. But if you lose your looks, all the money in the world won't mean diddly unless it can somehow buy them back."
David Aames is the stereotypical wealthy Chad who has everything, and can get nearly anything he demands. His sub8 best friend knows that Aames can get any girl he wants, and it is often a source of despair for him, as every girl he meets and introduces to Aames soon becomes his prey. Most of the early stages of the movie is a glimpse at his privileged life. This cocooned existence starts to derail when...
Stop right here and don't read below if you actually want to watch the movie now that I've told you about it (it is on Amazon Prime). Spoilers incoming.
I consider Vanilla Sky, a 2001 movie starring Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz, as the best (and perhaps only?) movie that Hollywood ever did on the theme of lookism. Unsurprisingly, this main theme has mostly escaped the attention of critics and journalists. Only NYT journalist Stephen Holden has accurately depicted the main message of the film: "looks are everything (...) with money a close second. But if you lose your looks, all the money in the world won't mean diddly unless it can somehow buy them back."
David Aames is the stereotypical wealthy Chad who has everything, and can get nearly anything he demands. His sub8 best friend knows that Aames can get any girl he wants, and it is often a source of despair for him, as every girl he meets and introduces to Aames soon becomes his prey. Most of the early stages of the movie is a glimpse at his privileged life. This cocooned existence starts to derail when...
Stop right here and don't read below if you actually want to watch the movie now that I've told you about it (it is on Amazon Prime). Spoilers incoming.
... he falls in love with a pretty Spanish girl, and soon after, has a horrible automobile accident. When he comes back to life, his pretty mug is irreversibly ruined, leading to an incredibly powerful scene where Aames yells his discontent at the surgeons who were supposed to fix his face. He spends months alone in his appartment, brooding over the loss of his looks, and when he finally decides to come back to "life", he meets at best a very lukewarm welcome. The Spanish girl he loved now seems very reluctant to entertain the thought of becoming his girlfriend, his best friend lets all his past grievances and resentments out instead of being there for him, and he gets mocked by a bunch of dumb fags in a nightclub over his ugliness. Over the following days, it becomes clear that the Spanish girl doesn't love him anymore and is actually with his best friend now! What follows is even more interesting: Aames finally manages to get his face completely fixed with a very risky experimental procedure and everything changes. The Spanish girl comes back. They live blissful days together. At the end of the movie, it is revealed that Aames never managed to get his face fixed: it was all a dream, fed to him in his cryogenic state after he committed suicide soon after the nightclub scene...
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