"I choose to do unattractive people, because then I can pretend they think they're attractive"

Amy Sedaris’s statement delves into the complexities of social perceptions around beauty, humor, and self-awareness. Her choice to focus on portraying “unattractive people” reflects an artistic strategy grounded in both empathy and satire. By selecting characters society might not deem conventionally attractive, she opens a commentary on how individuals present themselves and how others view them. The latter half of her remark, “pretend they think they're attractive,” highlights a fascinating layer: the self-confidence or obliviousness that people can possess, regardless of societal judgments.

Sedaris, known for her distinctive comedic style, plays with the audience’s expectations. By embodying characters considered less physically appealing, she sidesteps the pressures typically associated with attractive roles, pressures to conform, to be charming, to be liked. Instead, her characters exist in a realm of their own, where their self-perception is paramount and, perhaps, divorced from external validation. This inversion is what makes her comedic explorations both funny and poignant. The humor emerges from the audience’s recognition of this disconnect: society might view these individuals one way, yet their internal sense of self-value tells a different story.

This perspective also raises questions about the link between appearance and self-worth. Sedaris’s approach suggests that attractiveness is as much about attitude as aesthetics. By pretending her characters believe they are attractive, she challenges the viewer to reconsider preconceived notions of beauty and confidence. Do we laugh at the character’s misplaced swagger, or do we admire their self-assurance in defiance of societal norms? The joke, ultimately, can be on the very standards that would deem such self-confidence inappropriate.

In playing these roles, Sedaris exposes the arbitrariness of beauty standards and celebrates the individuality and resilience found in her characters’ unwavering self-regard, offering audiences both comedic relief and subtle critique.