Let’s face it, looks count in real world

Thursday, October 9, 1997

Let’s face it, looks count in real world

BEAUTY: Ugly people bear brunt of all cruel jokes in society
that place too much emphasis in aesthetics

By Ann Hermele

If the "Real World" is ever shot on a campus, it will be UCLA.
We are a big MTV video. We are the coolest thing to hit California
in the last 8,000 years – second only to Ho-Ho’s. We have our own
boutique, a smoothie bar that sells power drinks (you need energy
to hike from one end of this 6.5 million square-mile,
uphill-both-ways nature trail to another) and a Starbuck’s-type
hangout every six paces. Everyone drives an Acura Integra or a
designer Civic. (I especially like the green ones with the
oversized tires that stick out and make the car look like a frog)
while wearing Reebok-licensed school gear and Westwood Gap’s
finest. Even the squirrels have CD players.

And then there’s me. Up until around two months ago (alright,
two hours ago), I thought that those really jazzy beach pants from
seventh grade (you know, the ones that had neon-green Gecko lizards
on an electric-blue background – the ones that fat guys wear with
tiger-striped football team logos on them) were still the hap’nin’
thing. I thought CK1 was like license plate lingo for Kick One, a
designer cologne for soccer players. I drive a Yugo that spews
toxic waste and smells oddly like Taco Bell hot sauce. I thought
Star Trek – correction – still think Star Trek is the center of all
that is cool, from which other coolness derives. I not only wear my
various captain’s uniforms to conventions, but also to school as
comfy day-to-day polyester wrinkle-free wash-and-wear casual
apparel.

But it’s OK that I’m a mega-weenie. Because I’m a sweet,
intelligent, outgoing, humorous person on the inside. (Well, OK,
I’m really caustic, have an amazingly low IQ, agoraphobic – and I
think "Cabin Boy" is a comedy masterpiece.) But I’m talking theory
here. Work with me. I read an article here in Viewpoint last year
about how we should all stop judging others based on outward
appearance. It was so beautiful I cried. (Seriously, it was a good
article.) Of course, it was more like government-mandated viewings
of the UPN primetime line-up. An impossibility. (Except, of course,
"In the House," which is LL Extra-Cool J).

It’s a really nice thought, everyone moving beyond beauty. And
Care Bears are really neat, too. I read an article about a year or
so ago in either Newsweek or Time about the intrinsic bias we have
for beauty. It said that when 3-month-old babies were shown
pictures, one of a "plain" person and one of an "attractive"
person, they would merely glance at the plain one and then remain
transfixed upon the attractive one. And, when this same test was
applied cross-culturally, using adults from other cultures that had
not been influenced by Western culture, they, too, would pick the
attractive one. So, we can’t blame advertising and that damn Kate
Moss, accomplice to the Devil. I can prove decisively that the
future will be the same. Captain Kirk always has Pamela Lee
look-alikes for yeoman.

The big lie comes when we try to convince kids, through sitcoms
and cute fables (I love sitcoms, all sitcoms – taking Diff’rent
Strokes off the air was the work of Satan) that looks don’t matter.
If your kid is ugly, he/she can’t be a model or an actor/actress.
(Well, I guess Calvin Klein’s "ugly-people-are-trendy" ad campaign
might take off and start a reversal. And Elizabeth Dole might be
the next Penthouse centerfold.)

He/she won’t have the same advantage in every interview for
every job or business because interviewers care about how their
employees look. Your child won’t have instant voter appeal in an
election. If you yourself make it into office and your kid is ugly,
they’ll be abused. (Stanford Chelsea may be the press’ sweetheart
now, but let’s not forget the gawky adolescent kid that got kicked
around.) He/she can be the best speaker since Mario Cuomo (or Al
Gore, hee-hee), but public relations jobs won’t be a-callin’.

Recently, three men won over $3 million in a case against the
restaurant "Hooters," because personnel refused to hire them. The
government has outlawed discrimination based on gender, race and
sexual orientation. These things are outlawed because it is all
predetermined at birth, having no influence on ability, warranting
the government’s protection. But there are no laws which prohibit
the vice president of Bung Corps to hire the busty, bleached-blonde
over the the more-qualified Olive Oil. And, of course, there can’t
be. It’s hard enough to prove such a subjective thing in court.
(The defense would just get near-sighted drunks to say that you’re
good-looking.) Besides, nobody would watch Baywatch if the show’s
casting directors were forced to hire fat people.

And it’s not just a matter of employment, obviously. Now, since
my picture has accompanied this article, we can all, right now,
count me in as a qualified expert on ugly discrimination. (Not that
I’m whining. I’m quite comfortable with it. Really. Don’t feel
sorry for me. My Prozac keeps me quite stable. I don’t care a whit
… Damn you, God! Do you hear me, God?! Not a whit! Not one little
W-H-I-T! Thbbbbbt! Oh, uh … huh. Yeah. So, uh … please send all
donations to "Annie’s Fund for Plastic Surgery," also known as the
"Beautify our Campus Foundation," at the Daily Bruin Viewpoint
office. Note to J. Jioni Palmer, Viewpoint editor: Please avoid
actually informing me of donations.)

Every day, people, just by the looks they give you, make it
clear that they’re pissed at you for being alive, for marring their
otherwise beautiful landscape. I’m like a coffee stain on that
masterpiece of a 38-page report you wrote for your wonderfully
insane sociology teacher.

You, of the 98 percent of UCLA’s campus in the
I’m-too-sexy-for-my … just-about-anything category, may think
that this is an exaggeration, but it’s simply not. I try every day
to look people in the eye, just so that they won’t think that I’ve
caved in, but I’d prefer not to. This could just be my own little
self-esteem-vacuum hell, but I think the truth is that it’s this
way for quite a few people. I was once asked, by a complete
stranger, in the company of my best friend, if I knew that I was
"fucking ugly."

I’ve watched "Saturday Night Live," David Letterman, Jay Leno
and Conan O’Brien for a while (see, I’m catching Trendy Train To
Coolville now! Wheeee!), and I’ve seen, over and over again, the
most powerful lawyer in the country, the attorney general, get
blasted not for her actions in office, but for being ugly. Just to
highlight a point here, we all know that this wouldn’t happen to a
man. Phil Graham gets satirized for his rabid conservatism. Has
anyone taken a gander at that worm with glasses? Phil should be run
out of the country for emotionally scarring children who happen to
flip past CNN.

But no one writes skits based purely on Phil’s ugliness. They do
write skits abut Janet Reno being ugly. They joke about Clinton
being desperate enough to sleep with Reno in order to get out of a
special counsel investigation. And it is funny. But it’s also a
tool of sexism. It’s a way of saying to women, "If you want a
powerful, public job, and you’re not pretty enough, we’ll take you
down." And, at the same time, it says to the ones who are pretty
enough, "We know what got you there."

I’m not writing this to try and promote "ugly rights." Like I
said earlier, that’s not possible. Aesthetics is the one area that
I don’t believe we’ll ever move beyond. So my solution is this:
federally funded plastic surgery for all ugly people. I am taking
this bill to Sen. Graham immediately, feeling that he is the most
likely senator to understand the need for this government-funded
social program, despite his usual conservative positions. Please
back me in this effort. Eradicate ugliness!