Looks aren’t everything but…..

4Aug08

Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

Although this column’s subject matter is popular culture, that doesn’t mean it is shallow. When we declare that today’s topic is the best-looking people on television, you will understand that our purpose is deep and serious. Physical appearance matters in the media (except on blogs, mercifully). Jobs can be lost with a single wrinkle and saved with a single act of surgery.

In Hollywood they have a term for what they consider the essential quality in a performer or presenter. A forum in the intellectual magazine Salon discussed this recently: "One of the prime qualities a leading movie star must have is f—ability … Do you honestly think that it’s talent alone that puts them into ‘leading’ category, as opposed to ‘character actor’. Falling in love with the hero or heroine of the movie is often what it’s all about. If that doesn’t happen for you, then the movie won’t work for you."

Apparently f—ability is a combination of good looks and that elusive quality called Presence. Salon suggested that the reason Ellen Page did not win the Best Actress Oscar this year for Juno might have been that she lacked f—ability (despite playing a girl who was pregnant throughout the film, which is only ironic if you take the term too literally).

The term has entered the vocabulary of our own industry. The news director of Channel Nine, John Westacott, is alleged to have told his staff last year: "To make it in this industry, you gotta have f—ability".

This column eschews linguistic crudeness as energetically at it eschews intellectual shallowness, so we are going to use a D word instead of an F word, and try to test the Westacott Theory by developing a "Desirability Index" for Australian television.

Exactly two years ago, with the help of readers, we came up with a shortlist of TV’s best-looking people that included Jennifer Hawkins, Erika Heynatz, Deborah Hutton, Evangeline Lilley, Eva Longoria, Juanita Phillips, Naomi Robson, Sandra Sully, Jana Wendt, and Tom Williams. Sadly, some of those people are no longer on television or no longer so attractive.

So we need your advice on an update we are compiling with the help of a panel of persons of all sexual orientations. Consider this a work in progress …

The most desirable people on Australian television, 2008:


Local Division

Natalie Bassingthwaighte (So You Think You Can Dance Australia)

Chris Bath (Seven news)

Mark Ferguson (Nine news)

Liz Hayes (60 Minutes)

Jeremy Lindsay Taylor (Sea Patrol)

Daniel McPerson (City Homicide)

Brendan Moar (Lifestyle’s Moar Gardening)

Matt Passmore (McLeod’s Daughters)

Bridget Taylor (The Gruen Transfer)

Julia Zemiro (Rockwiz).

The obvious omission from this list is Sonia Kruger, who is only missing because Dancing with the Stars hasn’t been on yet.

International division

David Boreanaz (Bones)

Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy)

Tina Fey (30 Rock)

Evangeline Lilly (Lost)

Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives)

Jesse Spencer (House)

Kate Walsh (Private Practice)

Matthew Settle (Gossip Girl)

David Tennant (Doctor Who)

Olivia Wilde (House).

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