Everyone is super pretty on TV these days. I used to think I was imagining it but then I watched Charmed again, the original, and Desperate Housewives and I saw it, everyone is way pretty.

It’s not even that they’re pretty, they’re polished. It’s like we see them through a pretty filter all the time.

Because the women on Charmed were gorgeous! Stunning! But they looked real. They looked real world pretty.

These days everyone always has their hair did, nails did and make up beat.

My cousin loves make up and she can slay a wig but even she doesn’t look like full glam every single day. Even the girls who look glam every single day still go home and take it off and chill in their PJs.

Yet we never see that on TV. It’s like they’re glam all the time. Or like I said, it’s like they have a filter on all the time that they just don’t look real.

For example, Grown-ish. They don’t feel like Uni students to me they feel like Hollywood actors playing students. You may say: “But Gift, they are Hollywood actors!” But they’re supposed to sell that they’re students and they’re really not doing that.

Again, there were hot people in my Uni but did they look hot all the time? No. Did they dress up all the time? No. Did I see them in their trackies as they went to a lecture at nine am? Yes.

Where are those people on the show!

Also when does Zoey have time to do her hair in elaborate styles? I’m not gonna lie, most of the time I will just leave my hair out in a twist out or put it in braids for at least six weeks or if it’s long enough, buns… lots of buns.

It’s not just Grown-ish so I’m not even coming for them. It’s every show!

When I watched Desperate Housewives I realised it’d been a while since I’d seen a normal looking mom on a show. Even Gabrielle, a model, still looks real world… what filter did those old shows have where they made attractive people still look like ordinary people?

Also on Desperate Housewives they weren’t afraid to look bad!

Also the men on Desperate Housewives didn’t have to be totally ripped. There were a large variety of men (in body type not race because lets face it the show was pretty white). They looked normal, they looked like someone’s dad, which was the point.

Now they all look like they should be on runway.

Again, sure, there are dads who are models but not all dads are models. Let men have Dad Bods. Or just let them not have a six pac?

There was one scene with Tom and Lynette and they were just enjoying each other and in love and they didn’t look super sexy or super ripped and I appreciated that. As a couple they could look like they had gone through a train wreck one minute and gorgeous the next.

Tom wasn’t even my type but because of how he’s portrayed on the show and just him, I loved him.

I should say though, even then TV had certain standards of what was pretty. The women always wore gorgeous lingerie and they were always slim.

But they were allowed to have no make up on! Or look stupid! Or just… ugh!

And men didn’t have to be sculpted hair less Greek Statues. (What is the hatred TV has nowadays with hairy men?)

Because TV back then was flawed I don’t think we should go back to it but rather, I wish we’d move past the need for everyone on TV to be super pretty and super put together all the time.

Give me muscular women, give me plus size people, give me men who have a belly, give me people with imperfect skin, give me a variety of body types, give me actual representation of different races especially if your story is based in places like New FREAKING York!!!!

*deep sigh*

I’m sick of it.

And honestly, as a writer, I sometimes am guilty of this in one way or another. I excel in one area but not much the other. Especially in my early work. So now, when I’m editing the ones that haven’t been published or when I’m writing new stories, I think about this. I think about if I am reflecting what I see on TV or what I see in real life.

We don’t realise how much TV and film effects the way we see the world but it does. I didn’t want to move to America because of how high schools are portrayed on American television.

So I wish companies would be more willing to change. It’s not that they don’t know, as enough people have told them, but it’s like they just don’t want to change and it’s sad.