A shambling, muck-encrused mockery of a really hot woman

I like Glee. But catching up on the episode Born That Way from a few weeks back I was less than impressed.
In fact, I was quite irked.
The plot has several strands, but the one that concerns me has Glee club member Rachel visiting her doctor who suggests that a little rhinoplasty would improve her looks and boost her chances as a professional actor. Having just lost her boyfriend to pretty blonde Paige (with a petite nose), Rachel contemplates it but after some pushing from the club, realizes that she’s beautiful just the way she is and accepts herself.
Inspiring. Or it might be, if the rest of the cast weren’t treating her rhinoplasty as if it made sense.
I suppose this makes me a dirty old man, but Rachel’s hot. Sexy. Stunningly above average. So why on earth is it that her friend’s response is to reassure her she’s unique and fine just as she is, rather than “Are you insane? You’re awesome! Where the hell do you get the idea you need an upgrade?”
I know the message of the episode is supposed to be insecurity, we should have confidence in ourselves, etc. And that even beautiful people can be insecure; I’ve known women who went in for plastic surgery despite being breathtakingly lovely.
But I’ve seen this excuse raised before (for Jeanine Garofalo in Truth About Cats and Dogs and for Sigourney Weaver in the play Beyond Therapy) and I can’t help but suspect it has less to do with making a statement about insecurity than serving as an excuse for casting good looking women as the shy geeky type. In Cats and Dogs, for example, we see the same thing as in Glee: When Garofalo asks the male lead if he’d date someone who looks like her, he reacts as if she really is the plain jane she’s supposed to be.
That’s not a lack of confidence on her part, it’s a distortion of reality on the filmmakers’ part.
I wonder if part of the problem is that if you actually had plain women in those parts, it would force us to really think about lookism and unrealistic beauty standards instead of allowing us to have it both ways. As one critic observed about Shallow Hal, if Jack Black had fallen for a real overweight woman, instead of Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit, his attitudes might not seem so comical.
And one last thought: Isn’t it odd that a young woman starring in a successful TV show is being told in the show that her looks might be a handicap to a career as an actress?