Is being pretty really all that?

[hackthis_archive]

I’m over here shifting through Jude Law photographs for Draco icons, and I remembered a conversation that I had with somebody last week (possibly in RL, possibly with serialkarma or ethrosdemon) and now I must inquire what other people think. The gist of the conversation had to do with Boys vs. Men vs. The Others, i.e. Beautiful Men and who really comes out on top.

Now, we all know what Boys are. We date ‘boys.’ We think boys are cute. We refer to them as The Boy. Ryan Gosling is a boy. Dom Monaghan is a boy. We all love boys. They are adorable. They wear Chuck Taylors and cute second-hand shirts. They belch, and we just roll our eyes. They have beer nights with *their* boys and we just smirk, because they are boys, and we expect this, because boys are not *men*. Men are another species altogether.

Men sometimes have facial hair. They generally own more than one suit, and it’s a good suit, too! A fair amount own property. They can cook more than one meal without burning it. Men have deeper voices, and they exude testosterone. “Men” tend to make your ovaries act funny. George Clooney is a man. Johnny Depp is a man. Brad Pitt in all his 40-year-old glory is a man. Men are good. Boys are good. People take them seriously to the best of their ability, but what happens when you come to those with the XY chromosomes who don’t quite fit the mould? I speak, naturally, of Beautiful Men.

I generally stick Beautiful Men in the “Other” category, because they are not quite men, but they’re not quite boys either. They are a category unto themselves. Whereas Men make your ovaries hurt, Beautiful Men give you cramps. You walk into walls. You forget how to speak. Beautiful Men tend to make women, and other men, act kind of stupid. You forgive the belching and scratching and other pet peeves. BM’s make us all a little messy, and they tend to bring down the average IQ in every room they enter. Jude Law is a beautiful man. Tom Welling may not be Einstein, but when he smiles, people do not fucking care. He is a beautiful man. And yet, in a society where everybody wants to be flawless and thin and *perfect* (whatever the hell that is), is it really better to be an “Other?”

I suspect it must be a bit harder to be taken seriously if you’re a Beautiful Man, because who really cares what you have to say? You look good; people don’t want to hear your thoughts on global warming! So, is it better to be beautiful, but not preternaturally so? Can life really be hard when you look like Jude Law? In an recent Details interview, he talked about 2003 being the worst year of his life. He split with his wife, their divorce was all over the rags, and then he had to explain it all to his children. This cannot have been easy by any account, but it makes you wonder -- people have to go through this same thing everyday, so it’s not like he’s the first person to have a messy divorce. And yet, do you think people have more sympathy for him because he’s good looking or less? Why? Do we always feel this way about people we consider to be more attractive than normal? Why? Is it jealousy? Conditioning? I understand the scientific explanations about feature placement and the way that humans tend to desire symmetry, etc, but I really do have to ask, do people think that life is better for the pretty people just because they can get in a club easier or a few free drinks?

Do you guys think being attractive all it’s cracked up to be? And who would you rather have? A Man, a Boy or an Other?

*Who knew Jude Law could make anybody think so hard!

[Poll #239134]

Comments

[rivki8699.livejournal.com]

See, I've always classified them as boys, guys, men. Examples being Elijah, Dom, Viggo. Guy is that odd in between stage between boys and men. In the OC, Seth is a boy, Ryan is a guy as is Jimmy, and Sandy is a man.

On your point concerning Beautiful Men, I think that beautiful men are both privelaged by and victimized by their looks. While they do manage a degree of success they probably would not have reached without their phenomenal looks they also pay the price. Beautiful men are often looked down upon, people think that they got where they did due to their looks and not talent (Tom Welling). Plus, in a lot of cases, there's this whole "beautiful men are not real men" sentiment going on. They get labeled pretty instead of handsome or hot. And I think they get targeted for their looks - I swear a lot of people think poorly of Orlando Bloom just because he's so damn pretty. But then again, would he have gotten the role that made his career if he didn't look that good? Who knows?

(Ok, I realize I sound pedantic and stilted - but I hope I got my point across - if I ever even had a point to beging with. Damn snow frying my brains.)

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

I think you get your point across beautifully. I do agree with you about Beautiful Men being victimized by the whole V Pretty = V Stupid, and yet, even when they're being victimized they can still turn it to their advantage faster than I think a normal/less attractive person would. When you see a BM, you think, dumb. If he starts talking about Rocket Science, you're thrilled, you think Hot & Smart = Winner. Whereas with Mr Normal, if he starts talking Rocket Science you think, oh, god, boring, and perhaps not as good looking as [insert person of choice here]. That's an uphill battle both ways. I think everybody's kind of stuck, you know?

[rivki8699.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. I think someone earlier said that really pretty people have neither more nor less problems than the rest of us plebiens - they just have a different set of issues to deal with.