Beautiful People Are More Valuable

The BBQ Pit
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How many times have you heard people react to the untimely death of a young lady by wailing that “she was so beautiful”? The corollary of this conceit is that the tragedy would be less lamentable if the young lady had been unattractive, that her life would have had less potential for happiness or material success.

There is something so fundamentally perverse in this view of the value of human life that I become nauseated when I hear such scenarios repeated. We all know that the beautiful are celebrated, and that such celebration is ingrained in us from infancy: “What a beautiful baby!” We have homecoming queens and beauty pageants and matinee idols. But to carry this concept beyond death is too much.

We hear that a coed was kidnapped, raped, and murdered. Then they show a photo of the young lady. Do you have a different reaction if she appears to be a homely and obese young woman rather than a blond blue-eyed pixie? The fact is that people do, and they express it without the faintest hint of injustice. Is there a difference between “It’s terrible; she was such a nice person” and “It’s terrible; she was such a nice person…and so beautiful!”

I was raised as a Christian, and I was led to believe that I lived in a society largely grounded in Christian values. But I see nothing Christlike in a culture where physical “beauty” is so perfunctorily, even subconsciously, calculated.

I learned that Isaiah 53 contained a physical description of the Messiah. It states that “He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.” Yet, in our Western Christian culture, we insist on portraying the Sacrificial Lamb as a sexy hunk with bedroom eyes and flowing locks. I grew up with icons of my Savior which looked more like vaseline-filtered glamour shots of the latest Hollywood beefcake. I guess the sacrifice is seen as greater since Jesus was not only a nice guy but beautiful as well.

Mel Gibson is currently giving people a healthy dose of this “sexy Jesus” shit right now in “The Passion of the Christ.” There is nothing Gibson knows the value of more than the torture of a sex symbol. That theme is the essence of his career. Even the word “passion” has a subliminal double-entendre which fits the true purpose of this sexual sado-masochistic ego-trip.

The real message of Jesus was that the unattractive and unfortunate, the “lepers” of this world, were the souls in most need of the mercy and solace of the Messiah. It is highly ironic that Gibson, an epitome of the rich and the beautiful, is capitalizing on this false image of the Christ. But, considering the value we place on beauty, it is no surprise that it has gone unremarked.

(In his interview with Diane Sawyer, Gibson made a comment about evil or the devil appearing under the guise of physical beauty. I guess when you live in a world of excess an excess of irony will go unnoticed.)

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ala Lacy Peterson
ala Chandra Levy
ad nauseum.

I have to agree with you, but I for one look to John Donne for his immortal words: No man is an island.

Poor John would be taken to task today, though because he didn’t include women by using ‘No person…’ instead of ‘No man…’

:rolleyes:

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But beautiful people are more valuable. There are fewer beautiful people than there are ugly people. Scarcity = value. Simple supply and demand. What are you, some kind of Communist?

:wink: Good rant.

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Of course, people are often lying in their teeth when they say things like this. :smiley:

And they make a hell of a fuss when prominent religious figures croak, and very few could be regarded as sex symbols by that time.

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People find it pleasurable to be around attractive people. Sorry, Ugly McNerd.*

*Just kidding about the second line, of course…

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The Onion will run an article every now and then that is true mind-wrenching satire. An example of this is a news article describing the non-reaction to an uninterestingly homely girl’s demise.

I see your point, lookism is rampant and unfair, and it exposes a great deal of the hypocrisy we are capable of, but I don’t believe it is restricted to Western Society.

Besides, who wants a bunch of ugly people running around? We need more attractive folks and fewer dogs.

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And Let us not forget whose death upstaged Mother Teresa’s…

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Not that I don’t think you have a point, but whenever I hear remarks about the beauty of the deceased, I tend to infer inner beauty rather than outer.

If a person is beautiful enough on the inside, that also makes them lovelier on the outside (at least IMHO). I think my mother is beautiful because I love her, not because I think she is particularly attractive. If she were to die and I had to describe her to a stranger, I would say that she was beautiful. I can’t think of a better word, sorry.

Your rant reminds me how it sometimes bothers me when people remark about a dead loved one’s bubbling personality. They’ll use phrases like “she lit up the room” or “she was always the life of the party” or “he was everyone’s friend”. Being deeply introverted and reserved, I’m the complete opposite of that. I would hope people would accurately describe my personality, and yet still find a way to make me sound like a nice person.

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When a person dies, other people reflect on the good qualities of that person. Is beauty not a good quality? What’s the difference between saying that somebody was beautiful and saying that someone was a great singer, or had a great sense of humor, or was good at poker? Unless some ugly girl died, and the public reaction was that she deserved to die or something, I don’t see the problem. Beauty is a valuable quality. Is that somehow a bad thing?

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I think it’s simply human nature to mourn the destruction of something beautiful. Whether it’s a person, a building, a natural landmark, etc., there is a certain kind of sadness involved, separate from personal grief, when the limited supply of beauty in this world diminishes.

That doesn’t cover the rest of your rant, and for the most part I agree that our society is too shallow by far. But an appreciation for aesthetics is hardly unique to American culture, and I don’t think it’s necessarily anything to be ashamed of.

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Remember Jon Benet Ramsey? Elizabeth Smart?

Why is it that the anchors always referred to them as “…a beautiful little girl…”?

Why were their stories focused on more than some of the political reports of the time? Why is that when the daily report of missing kids comes on the local news, the kids aren’t described with any positive adjectives? Why were their stories national news, while others barely make the local news?

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Well, if we want Jesus to be “ugly,” why not just give him those thick clunky “ugly glasses” that instantly transform the most beautiful movie stars into hideous untouchable nerds? What? You say glasses hadn’t been invented yet? This is Hollywood! Historical accuracy – what’s that?

13

Just like with that girl who was captured in Iraq (for some reason, the name eludes me… Jessica something?)… There were many people taken prisoner, but a pretty blonde girl gets more attention than everyone else combined. I am glad she turned out to be an honorable person and debunked the exaggerated heroism that became pro-war propaganda.

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Well, a lot of the photos that I see of missing/murdered people when the adjective “beautiful” is used may not exact be the same conclusion that I would have reached about that person’s physical status, it is more of a reflection of people’s feelings than reality.

I have called my sister beautiful, and she won Homecoming Queen her senior year of HS. She was blinded and suffered severe facial trauma in a car accident in her frosh year of HS. Again, beautiful is more of a reflection of personality than physical presence.

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“Ugly Girl Killed: Nation Unshaken By Not So Tragic Death”. Funny, but way too close to the truth.

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Jessica Lynch?

And wasn’t there a black woman captured and released around the same time, who got completely overshadowed?

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As far as I remember, she wasn’t injured as badly as Jessica. And she got a LOT of media attention in Houston. She was from Texas.

I agree with monstro and some of the other posters who have stated that the term “beautiful” is meant as a reflection of their inner beauty. It is sometimes because the person has outer beauty, but I don’t think that is what it means in this situation most of the time.

Jon Benet Ramsey and Elizabeth Smart? Their cases were high profile not because they were both beautiful girls, but because of the circumstances surrounding their cases. A girl murdered in her home, seemingly by one of the occupants, all family members? Yeah…that doesn’t happen every day, particularly in an upscale Colorado (?) neighborhood. A girl kidnapped in her home, while her parents slept? Yes, it’s happened a few times, and it ALWAYS makes big news as far as I can tell, no matter what the kid LOOKS like. It’s a scary thing. You think when your kids are with you, they are safe.

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Hogwash. You know very well that when they show a picture of the homecoming queen and play a sound bite from a neighbor saying “…and she was such a beautiful girl” that they are referring specifically to external, superficial ideas of physical beauty.

You know very well that these people are referring to slim hips, button noses, straight smiles, and other standards of beauty. They aren’t saying that the sweet thing had a “beautiful soul.” Good grief.

And it’s true that the lowly and the homely (and often this applies to minorities since they are not “sexy” enough to rate a news story) are not given the same amount of press as the “beautiful” people.

Time and time again I’ve heard people remark on the attractiveness of Laci Peterson as if that amplified the tragedy.

Let’s be honest. When the victim is beautiful their portfolio pictures are omnipresent in the media. If the victim is chunky with a bad complexion, stringy hair, and crooked teeth you will rarely see the first photo.

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Her name is Shoshana Johnson. Her injuries were pretty bad. She was shot in both legs, and now walks with a limp.

There have been accusations of racism. Shoshana’s family contacted Jesse Jackson to ask him to try to pressure the army into paying more in disability to her.

Here is another article.

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I agree whole heartedly with the OP, but I would also like to point out something I learned recently about the media and adverstising. You can’t market personality. Not in a sound-bite. You can’t market good deeds or history. You -can- market how a person looks. All it takes is one second of a clip. No one even needs to say anything. It’s the same reason fast food commercials seem so dumb. You can’t market taste on TV. Just appearance.
TV news and commercials are made to garner viewers. Looks get viewers’ attentions very quickly, so they’ve learned to play to that side of things. It’s a sad but true part of the medium, and because the medium is pretty-much all-pervasive, the values have stuck- pleasant looking people sell, therefore they’re shown more, therefore they seem much more important… And therefore they become more important. It sucks. I don’t like it. But it’s how things work.