For two years in a row now (Nicole Kidman for The Hours and Charlize Theron for Monster) we've given Oscar gold to beautiful women who command $10 million per film only to dress them down as normal-to-plain old ugly-looking. What gives? Are there "really" no average-looking actresses who can act as sublimely as these high-priced beauties? Seems that a lot of money could be saved. Remember the outrage at not seeing Tom Cruise's real face in Vanilla Sky? Prosthetic ugliness for beautiful people keeps reminding me of the rich kids in school who were rich enough to dress in rags, while the rest of us tried to afford the clothes that would allow us to fit in. Is this trend the new snobbery? Anyone care to explain this in a Metaphilm piece for us?