On New Year's Day, I tried to rope you all in to my latest obsession: Battlestar Galactica. Roz, however, expressed her disappointment in my taste, citing her dispproval of television's abundance of beautiful people (does this disapproval apply to Annakin Skywalker, Padme, Aragorn, Eowyn or Arwen, Roz?). She cited a statistic that I'd heard somewhere before:
On average, pretty people earn 12% more than the rest of us. Although this artice states that it's more of a disadvantage to be ugly, rather than an advantage to be pretty.
Meh. Stereotype directionality and attractiveness stereotyping: Is beauty good or is ugly bad? Griffin AM, Langlois JH SOCIAL COGNITION 24 (2): 187-206 APR 2006
To my own great surprise, I find myself siding with the Beautiful People on this one. (What, the anti-Barbie crusader?!) So here are my thoughts on the subject:
Um... Roz? I hate to tell you this (and I'm not just being flattering, I'm being honest), but you hardly qualify as "ugly people." And frankly, if I had to place myself on one side of the line or the other, I'd have to put myself (and you, and Toni, by the way) on the Pretty People side. Maybe it's just because I'm reading Atwood's Survival for my comps right now, but what is it with the impulse to cast ourselves in victim roles? In general, it's an impulse that kind of makes me angry, perhaps because I've been on the ugly end of the victim complex. Twice.
The first time was when a woman from Pakistan (just learning English) didn't understand what I was asking her when I asked for her squid recipe--I was a cashier at IGA. She complained to the store manager that I had made racist remarks about her ethnic food, and I had to apologize or be fired. The second time was when an LGBTQ activist told the Gateway newspaper that I was a homophobe. After I had tried to help him register his organization in order to get campus funding. Don't get me wrong--I'm not trying to tell you that racism, homophobia and unfair advantages for the physically attractive don't exist. I just think that sometimes, our own insecurities make us unduly sensitive.
And yes, there are some pretty people in some of the TV shows that I like to watch, but with the Battlestar Galactica exception of Tricia Helfer, I don't think they're any prettier than the slightly-above-average people I see on a daily basis--by which I mean that I don't think they represent an unhealthy or impossible or unattainable standard of beauty. (I'm as appalled by those scary sticks on the O.C. as much as anyone!) Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck), for instance, has short legs and a bit of a love-handle to her. Edward James Olmos has major skin issues. And the woman who plays the President is an attractive, but very age-appropriate (i.e. NOT plastic-surgeried) 60-ish woman. Frankly, I like looking at a beautiful woman (or man) who doesn't diet to freakdom or undergo unhealthy medical procedures in order to try and be more beautiful. I'd also rather stare out at a great ocean view than, say, at a row of Siding Wonders in east-end Edmonton.
Yes, the people we see on TV are, on the average, more attractive than the people we see in daily life--partly because they have the on-screen advantage of professional stylists, wardrobers, etc. But guess what? The people we see on a university campus are smarter than average. The people we see on professional sports teams are more physically-fit than average.
While I was doing the Play I No Longer Name last fall, I worked with two absolutely beautiful women. Hollywood-pretty. I'm not saying that neither of these women has had a leg up for her looks, so to speak, but I do have to tell you that neither of them are what I would call successful. In fact, I've learned over the past few months that one of them--the more attractive of the two--is so insecure that she makes up bizarre success stories about herself and passes them off as truth.
Not everybody is the same, and certain professions and situations favour certain advantages. We only say it's not fair when those advantages aren't our particular own. How would you feel if, say, you wanted to be a chemist or an engineer, but you had an IQ of 90 or so? Does anybody have stats on IQs, educational levels and lifetime earnings?
I'm not saying, I'm just saying... so what do the rest of you say?
10 comments:
Wow, what a debate over the fact that I don't like B-lame G-snooze.
Mostly, I don't like the fact that people make out a lot on that show, more than I dislike the fact (or unfact) that there are pretty people on the show. Why do people have to suck face all the time? It just seems a bit unrealistic (or at least more unrealistic than killer robots systematically wiping out human beings in a race across the galaxy). I'm a prude.
The beautiful people. Although we know we aren't ugly enough to be at a disadvantage, are we pretty enough to get advantage? Are we trying? Do we even want it if we didn't earn it?
Justice, that's what I'm looking for. Karma police. Ok, this is exposing all my crazy for everyone to see. Let me hate in peace!
(PS Do you know anyone who looks like Apollo? Can you give me his number? For umm, my sister...)
Go Pretty People! I mean, no, wait, um, uh, we're all equal... I mean ... uh crazy people....no wait,.... go normal people.... ahh to heck with it... GO CYLONS!!!
Tricia Helfer is a hottie, she's from some small Alberta town too. And Lucy Lawless is a hottie too... and yes there are plenty of hot Apollo types here in Halifax, you, I mean your sister, will just have to come visit us.
And about the sucky face bit, did you ever watch or like a show called Friends? or Star Wars ("hey, I'm going to make out with my baby sitter now", Anakin motions to Padme).
Oh well, it's late and time for bed..... and I get to shave my beard soon YAY!
Yesterday, I listened to a program on CBC radio. An author who is an expert on music/musicians was saying that recent studies show how musically talented people have unique brain compositions.
I love music but have a total lack of talent. Do you suppose they can do some kind of replacement in my brain, like they did on my hip?
tania's rant on beauty:
it's true, getting what you want in life is generally easier on the pretty people. thankfully, there are mostly pretty people in the world. very few are truly heinous.
my take: life is unfair, learn to deal.
and i'm sorry, but we all have individual ideas of what is aesthetically pleasing to us, and we like to look at that which we deem shiny. i'm not going to apologize for liking to look at the people i find pretty any more than i would apologize for liking to look at the artwork, costuming, dancing, graphics etc that i find pretty.
the fact that the marketers force their own ideals on us of what we should find pretty is bad, but i wonder if it really has that much of an affect on our individual aesthetic sensibilities? i like women with some meat on their bones, and men with really big noses and that fact has not been changed by the amount of skinny women and wimpy nosed men thrust in my face as "beautiful people." has the marketing industry managed to change any of your senses of what is beautiful?
but who wants to have intellectual debate about beauty? No? Then a debate about BG? Apparently yes.
'kay this is spoken as a fan of the show, but this is my observation thus far. it ain't my favourite show, and it has some big huge flaws, but i'm not seeing them mentioned. roz, you appear to dislike the show for the pretty people and the sex, which is kinda odd as, as has been mentioned, there aren't more pretty people on this show than on any other shows on tv and there isn't more sex on this show than on other shows. though if you hate all television shows, aside from the Red Green show, for these same reasons, then i completely understand :)
the "life is unfair, learn to deal"was a little harsh.
and roz should be allowed to hate in peace, just as my hatred of tall blondes with no body hair will always be precious to me :)
my rant stemmed from having to deal with one specific person for the last two years, a person who will remain nameless. of course people should fight for fairness and equal rights in the world. that's part of the "dealing"with it. i've just been hearing a lot of people in my real (non-online) life make excuses that they didn't get where they wanted to go because, of course, someone richer/prettier/smarter took what was rightfully theirs. And that does happen on occassion, but for the most part, and I know this is going to sound so corny, the people i know who really want something and really work for it, be they poor/ugly/dumb seem to get what they want. and i'd like to shake the people in my life who keep on blaming others for their own lack of success.
so yes, sorry about the rant.
wow... its attack roz night... I feel slightly responsible cuz I know her well enough to know what she's thinking right now. (And frankly, I'm afraid she's probably a little hurt). I'll make it up to you, Roz, I'm sorry...
allow me to clarify:
I have never EVER seen an episode of BG. I know 2 things: Roz has within her a secret hate, yes, for pretty people. AND, Roz strongly dislikes BG. SO, I (INCORRECTLY!) came to the INCORRECT conclusion that Roz disliked BG for the Pretty people in it. As has been identified in the above posts, this is WRONG. A+B DOES NOT EQUAL C (in this case). My bad.
AND. I was kidding. What moved from a joke, kinda transferred into discourse that I think might be interpretted as a bit harsh. And its my fault, I shouldn't talk about other people on a blog. That was unfair of me, I kinda put my good friend out there to be trampled on, exposing her to complete strangers who don't even know her, and who MAY be (incorrectly) judging her.
Anyway, I will (psychologically) go join my friend in the corner now.
Kisses.
Toni
I didn't interpret any of this as a "Roz attack." I kinda thought it was a semi-enlightened discussion based perhaps on a combination of comments from different people. Maybe next week's discussion should be "Political Correctness... has it gone too far?"
As for the suggestion that people see themselves as victims, I tend to think that much of the time people see you as you portray yourself.
Phil
yeah, i was kinda just responding to the whole intellectual debate that becca started, not thinking about roz at all. except about the BG thing - i was just curious about that.
but then i realized that what i said could be seen as an attack on roz, so i tried to clarify that it was not about her. really wasn't trying to attack anyone, just entering a debate. seriously, i'm not a bitch :)
Hey Everyone,
I'm a beautiful, tall, long-blond-haired, long-legged, sexy bummed actor/model...*sniff sniff*... Jerks.
Stop the hating. I love YOU all!
I'm going to go cry now on my enorrrmous pillah!
Now lets talk about something interesting, like the new 'Command and Conquer'.
;-) Bear
New C&C? um... ok. New video:
http://www.ea.com/commandandconquer/
-Phil
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