Around when did the idea that you can’t have an attractive woman in artwork or entertainment come about? Is the “male gaze” nonsense something fairly new? I remember seeing the “your just mad because you can’t jack off to it” not too long ago on gaming forums if someone pointed out that they seem to make women to look like men.
Yet I’ve heard plenty of women gushing over the Witcher because of Cavill or women who loved Mamoa in GOT and Aquaman. But if I say I’m going to see this movie because the lead actress is hot I’m sexist. Also, it’s interesting how stuff like romance novels have men with rippling muscles but women have to look “realistic”
I think there's been a general move away from good looking actors in general for whatever reason. It started subtly; the first thing they hit was TV commercials, to make them more "relatable" or some shit (and I vaguely remember reading an article about this back in the early 2010s.) Example: The "Shop like a Mother" ads from Sloblaws. That's the first ad I recall seeing actually ugly/crazed looking people in. Now we have some ad that seems to be replicating the "Dance of the Hours" segment from Fantasia, only much, much fuglier ... and ads in general are using more, ahem average/normal looking human specimens.
The male leads will be the last to be uglified, because the gays like the same sort of muscle-men straight women like, while dykes prefer butchybitches.