pigeonholing the penis-less (part III)

A two-fer on the running question of whether female performers have to make a choice between being pretty or funny. Correspondent One:

I play a lot "funny" characters. Once I was told by a director not to sacrifice my beauty in the physicality of the funny-but not to be less comedic.However, at auditions is when it is hard to be accepted as both- even when that is what they're looking for.

Looks/ethnicity, almost always, and I am at all the auditions with the same blondes all the time. Brain has nothing to do with it... Although, I have grown to know a number of these blonde girls I go to auditions with and they are a relatively intelligent crew.

Correspondent Two:

i think that there is certainly truth to women being labeled either pretty or funny, with extraordinarily little crossover (hence one of the reasons i burnt out of the profession, though admittedly i did not have the drive that some do)