Picture This!

While watching The Middleman on ABC Family (whose best line this week was "it's like o'dark thirty in the morning"), I saw a commercial for a direct-to-DVD movie the network is airing. Understanding that the network's primary target age is teenagers and young adults, I can understand why they would take a "underdog at a new high school" movie. I do not fault them for that one bit. However, I do fault them for a bad combination of dialogue and casting.

The dialogue in question: "I don't have to be the most beautiful. I just like to be somebody... to you." Romantic, sappy and honorable, right? It is not anything I would say, but a doey-eyed high schooler in love? Sure, I can buy that. Especially the "I don't have to be the most beautiful" part. Unless those lines are delivered by...

Ashely Tisdale.

Yes, that smiling, gorgeous woman to the right. In this telecast, she is telling the love of her lift that she does not care if she is not the most beautiful woman in the world. I am sorry, Ashley, but if he does not think you are beautiful, you are better off without him.

Worse yet, the guy she is falling in love with appears to be some horrendous stalker who take photos from a distance, like he is a paparazzo and she's Britney Spears. And then he frames his favorite pictures of her. Guys, I am very serious about this.

Do you guys think I am joking about this movie? I am so not.



See? They give Tisdale glasses and supposedly she is not beautiful. The swimming king is also a megaton creep. And, honestly, would an Ashley Tisdale character be singing for a crowd if she were not beautiful? Would she be on Disney's payroll? They force America Ferrera into makeup to become Ugly Betty, but Ferrera herself is very pretty. She may not be Jennifer Garner (nor is miss Tisdale), but they are both very pretty people.

Another complaint: the outsiders try to beat the in-crowd by becoming popular. Hence they become the in-crowd, and then there are outsiders. Nothing is solved. We just switch roles. If the in-crowd is horrible, then it is horrible. It does not suddenly become fine, as long as it's the main character in the in-crowd. No. Not at all. They just become the enemy they thought they were fighting against.

Having this film to try to sell us on the fact that Tisdale's character wants to become more beautiful to impress the stalker photographer is, well, insulting. Now, I know I'm not really the target audience for this film. Nor did I ever have plans on watching it. But the fact that they have that line of dialogue, spoken by that pretty of a lady, just kind of offends me.