The Last Laugh: Smart AND Beautiful
But seriously, I’m talking about rewarding physical beauty. I don’t think it’s necessary to mention, but I’ll do it anyway – of course we all love beautiful things and people. We’re programmed by nature and nurture to do so. The symmetry of a face, the fullness of a bottom lip, the shape and color of an eye, the length of eyelashes, the taught drum of a tan stomach, the perkiness of a nipple – all these things are giving me a boner right now, and that’s fine, they’re supposed to. But our particular society assigns so much importance to physical beauty that it seeps into our consciousness and our drinking water and our interactions with each other.
Gross. And for me, it comes from a nice place, too. It comes from the place where you want to sing the praises of your friends to anyone and everyone, and just let people know how wonderful and accomplished your friends are. But that’s the thing, being pretty is not an accomplishment. Having a unique sense of style can be praised, but being born with the right features is nothing anyone earned. It’s pure luck. What are we saying about each other when we praise those traits? That those of our friends that are chubbier, or have bald heads, or big noses, or tiny T-Rex arms, or lower halves that are horse, are somehow worse than our other friends? Surely we don’t mean that.
And as for comics, how is a funny woman with nice sweater puppies worth any more than a funny woman who’s got little tiny sweater mice? IS THAT WHAT WE ALL BELIEVE? Call me an optimist, but I really don’t think so. We laugh at what’s funny. As much as TV executives try to make us believe that a fat funny man is perfectly paired with a bland pretty woman, we know better. Being funny has zero to do with looks. Iliza Schlesinger is not funnier than Melissa McCarthy because one of them is more classically beautiful. The great thing about encouraging diversity in literally every area of life is that there are unlimited kinds of funny, a broad spectrum of looks and characters and gags. How much richer would our movies and TV shows be if instead of encouraging the best-titted physical specimens who are also funny we tried to encourage the best female comedians regardless of looks or “type?” Can we have female Steven Wrights and Demetri Martins and David Crosses and Emo Philipses, comics who are weird-looking but are never obligated to address it because they’re men?
But let’s start small. The next time you or I list a woman’s accomplishments, can we agree to keep her tight ass out of it?
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When I was a kid, the top 3 professions for a girl to aspire to was Doctor, Teacher, Lawyer. Now? It’s TV Presenter, Pop Star and Model.
What the friggity frack is going on with this world?!
It hurts my brain and my heart… and I’m not laughing at any of them.
Well said, Sofiya