Pretty Hurts

We’ve all seen those ‘before and after’ pictures of celebrities, haven’t we? I’ve stopped being shocked at those for a while now. For a majority of that demographic, not all of them naturally are what we refer to as ‘exceptionally pretty or hot’. You know what it is? It’s grooming. If anyone was to be picked up by a big company and label, given a makeover, assigned a personal trainer and monitored continuously, they’d look ‘hot’. Am I right or am I right? 

X Factor contestants are a big example of this. Most of them look like homeless hobos during bootcamp and merely within weeks, they have a makeover and they are suddenly all glamorous and worthy of photoshoots. They are dressed well and made to lose weight, be put on diets and helped to have nice skin to meet Simon Cowell’s perception of a ‘superstar’. All normal problems of having spots on their face and acne disappear and their teeth are whitened and perfected. Their hair is quiffed and dyed and perfected.

What we’ve lost touch of is the aspect of natural beauty. Some people are naturally beautiful. A smile is the best thing a person can wear on their face and things like that cannot be commercialised or groomed to look the way they do. The glint or sparkle some people get in their eyes when they laugh or speak cannot be groomed to be the way it is. The same thing goes for someone’s ability to make people laugh, comfort people and be nice. These things that really define ‘beauty’ are natural. It’s raw in one word.

So the bottom line is that most celebrities and models aren’t flawless at all. In fact, they are quite the opposite and yet we idolise them like there’s no tomorrow.  In vulgar terms, they are taken, shoved into studios, stripped off their clothes, laser waxed till every hair follicle in their body disappears and made to lead a life that they have no control over. They are then drowned in expensive products and perfumes and told to believe that they are what everyone should be. In Plato’s philosophical terms, they are made to believe to be the perfect version of ordinary humans.

Despite every single point made above, we are still jealous of them. No matter how many pep talks we give ourselves, at the end of the day, they are pretty and rich and we’re not.

Even if we know the reality of it, we don’t give in to the harsh truth. Some might say it’s unfair and then some might carry onto say that ‘life’s unfair’. However, it isn’t a matter of fairness. That's what we have to live with. It's not as if you could separate the groomed from the normal which leads to the question of the world being a better place without celebrities and models.

I guess ordinary people like us have the certainty that our private lives aren't on show 24/7, but there is a deeper issue regarding the aspect of fame. For most of us, if we became famous, we wouldn’t have enormous things to hide from others. I, for example, don't do drugs and nor am I a promiscuous person who is ashamed of themselves or their actions. However, it seems that as soon as someone becomes a celebrity, they have to create this fake line between their professional and private lives make a big deal out of it. They complain of having a camera following them everywhere but the real question is, why complain if there’s not something really big that you’re trying to hide. Yes, privacy is a human right but being a celebrity almost means as if you’re suddenly obliged to have a private life. And if one doesn’t exist for you, you have to make one up just to whine about it being invaded.

Alas, let’s not blame the media for all of the above mentioned issues in our society. The truth of the real matter is that it’s in our human nature and psychology to act the way we do. Instinctively, humans are made to be selfish. There is always a need to be superior or better than the person next to us. Humans in logic cannot be in packs or herds like animals and if we are in a group, it is bound by the selfish nature of several people into one. It’s not in us to be in collimation. That is why we have war, greed, fame, power and every other problem in the world. Such issues don’t exist in other species.

The media wouldn't succeed if people didn't feed into it they stuff they published. Everyone knows the majority of what the media say is wrong and they still choose to believe it. They are all hypocrites. We are all hypocrites.

This is where the idea of comparative and superlative come in. ‘Big, bigger, biggest’. ‘Small, smaller, smallest’. Comparative and superlative techniques aren’t just used in literature but in every walk of life. We feed off each other's superiority and inferiority. 

It's just the way things are...