I started noticing, and commenting on, this trend about five or six years ago, long before I was ever blogging. I saw it first on sitcoms, where there'd often seem to be a couple who were, shall we say, odd? The wife could pass for a model or movie star, and the husband would look like... well, Jim Belushi! I'd always point this scenario out to Vicki when I'd see it, and she'd always say something like, "Yeah, in his dreams!" or "Who do they think they're fooling?" My perspective was that their target demographic must be the plain or dumpy-looking male, since that's a very large segment of the North American population (I can count myself among it, if I generously describe my looks as "plain") and why wouldn't my skin-deep brothers and I enjoy watching a TV show, week after week, in which a guy just like us ends up with a super-hottie? Well, I wouldn't, because I like my humour fresh and unpredictable, plus I'm living the marrying up dream, but why wouldn't the average middle-aged guy? I suspect he probably would, and that's why we keep getting more of those shows, year after year.
By the way, I just put "Jim Belushi" and "sitcom" into a Google search, and among the links I got was one called Beauty and the Beast: Why are Fat Sitcom Husbands Paired with Great-Looking Wives?. Some of the same points are made there.
More recently, I've also started seeing the same template being applied to commercials. Not all of them, certainly, but a surprising number feature the same "beauty and the beast" formula. It's maybe not as common as the more evenly matched pairings (usually both attractive; occasionally neither very good-looking) but on the other hand you almost never see a great-looking guy partnered up with an unattractive woman, unless you're spending a lot of time watching the Women's Network!
Not that it should really matter what people look like, but as Vicki says, "Who do they think they're fooling?"
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