“Pretty” isn’t pretty: toxic ideals of beauty and alternative representations in one day, the novel, the film, the series

Abstract

[eng] Since the beauty index was invented in the 1830s (Wolf 1991, 14) toxic ideals of beauty have been imposed on women, functioning as a political weapon to hinder their advancement. While many scholars have examined the role of romance as a safe space for women to satisfy their fantasies, less attention has been paid to how romantic narratives reinforce toxic ideals of beauty and the myth that beauty is a prerequisite for love. The present paper fills this gap by exploring the relationship between beauty and romance in the novel One Day (2009) and its two homonymous media adaptations, Lone Scherfig’s film (2011) and the Netflix series (2024). The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the harmful effects of traditional representations of female leads in romance on its female audience and to highlight the necessity for alternative, inclusive representations. Drawing on feminist theory, particularly Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth (1991), and on Popular Romance Studies this paper argues that the novel and its 2011 film adaptation contribute to sustaining toxic beauty standards, while the new 2024 adaptation is indicative that depictions of beauty in romance narratives are shifting to allow for more realistic and inclusive representations of women which challenge normative beauty standards.