"Cute as a button!" Peruse fansites and celebrity gossip blogs and it's a term that crops up again and again in relation to actress Rachel McAdams. It's apt, as far as it goes, and it goes pretty far -- the adorable dimples, the bright eyes, the hopeful, illuminating smile -- part of McAdams' individual allure is her personable, approachable, relatable attractiveness. If it were the 1950s and the term still had useful currency (who even knows their neighbors any more?), she could be a girl-next-door, appealing to both men and women, who like to imagine themselves either with her or as her, depending on preference. But this widespread appeal has a downside: it can typecast the sort of roles that executives and marketing teams most readily believe the public will buy her in (wholesome, sweet-natured young women more likely to be marriage material than the stuff of sexual fantasies), and it can lead us to underestimate her talents as an actual actor. "Cute as a...
