After thinking about this topic for a bit I think I have to dis-agree even more while at the same time pointing out the disparity involved in film vs. print. Film is portrayed by actresses who almost by definition are attractive whereas print is up the reader. An example of a major charater might be Asimiv's Dr, Susan Calvin who is described here:
According to Asimov's fictional history of robotics, Susan Calvin was born in 1982, the same year that US Robots and Mechanical Men was incorporated. At 16 she wrote the first of many papers on robotics, a Physics-1 paper entitled 'Practical Aspects of Robotics'. Four years later in 2002, she attended a Psycho-Math seminar at which Dr Alfred Lanning of US Robots demonstrated the first mobile robot to be equipped with a voice. Susan said nothing at that seminar; took no part in the hectic discussion period that followed. She was a frosty girl, plain and colorless, who protected herself against a world she disliked by a mask-like expression and a hypertrophy of intellect. But as she watched and listened, she felt the stirrings of a cold enthusiasm.
vs.
An excerpt from Harlan Ellison's screenplay adaptation of I, Robot has this to say about Dr. Calvin: "She is a small woman, but there is a towering strength in her face. Tensile strength, that speaks to endurance, to maintaining in the imperfect world. Her mouth is thin, and her face pale. Grace lives in her features, and intelligence; but she is not an attractive woman. She is not one of those women who in later years it can be said of them, 'She must have been a beauty when she was younger.' Susan Calvin was always plain. And clearly, always a powerful personality."
But the part was played by:
In this part she relies more apon makup to look the role rather than being the role. In this case you can make the argument that she is attractive and does fall into the pattern they are talking about.