» Will
Will Harris listens to the woes of the beautiful people and is just not that convinced
The other day, at a party, I met C, the most beautiful man who has ever drawn breath. Certainly the most beautiful man I have ever seen at a party in Hove. He is tall and blond, with the broad, lean body of a racehorse and the face of an actor in an Australian soap. He is also, the part of me that believes in cosmic justice is relieved to note, heroically stupid.
”I’m too fat,” complains C, and struggles to pinch a postage stamp-sized teat of skin from his perfect stomach. ”See?”
“That is skin,” I point out. “You are pinching your skin.”
But I have already lost C’s attention. He is staring past my shoulder at something shiny and fast-moving. So I leave him to it, and think about beauty.
I wonder why people who are beautiful (C is just one of them) make a point of picking out their physical flaws, even when they don’t have any. Why is it that good-looking people feel the need to say, coyly and with downturned eyes: “Well, my friends tell me I’m good-looking.” Is it modesty, or is it shame?
“He is tall and blond, with the lean body of a racehorse and the face of an Australian soap actor”
Society has a new mantra now. Beauty is only skin deep. Physical appeal is superficial, meaningless even. Again and again, in films and on TV, we see the plucky plain Jane triumphing over the vapid supermodel, the industrious nerd foiling the handsome jock. In Elizabethan tragedies baddies were given a deformity; now they are given a bouffant. This is not real life. This is jealousy.
”We hate Keira Knightley!” the uglies cry. “She can not act! She has built her entire career on being beautiful and talking through her teeth!”
And yet Keira Knightley has not been in a film that hasn’t been a success at the box office. Everyone watches them. We don’t care that her only facial expression is teeth.
Of course it’s not pre-destined that attractive people will do better in life, but they do appear to have a head start. Beautiful people have scooped the jackpot in the genetic lottery, and we hate and adore them for it. Can we blame them for their reluctance to poke their symmetrical faces above the parapet?
C knows he is not fat; he is dim but not blind. By pinching his skin, he is saying: “Look! I am imperfect, just like you.” I wish I could sympathise. I can’t. I’m too imperfect for that.
