As I stayed up far too late last night watching the Oscars, I was struck again by something that has been crossing my mind a lot lately: everyone is beautiful and thin. This isn’t news, of course. But I can’t help but think about all of the incredibly talented people out there in the world who will never get a break in film, television, music, you name it – simply because they didn’t win the genetic lottery. What a shame.
We live in a world where we are shocked that a woman who looks like Susan Boyle has an amazing singing voice. But why should we be shocked by that? What your face and body look like have literally nothing to do with whether or not you can sing or act, play an instrument, or write. And yet Hollywood, the media, and advertisers have drummed the idea that beauty equals talent into our heads over and over and over, to the point that we (almost) can’t help but believe it.
There are so many actors and singers who not really talented at all, but are rich and famous and revered simply because of their faces and bodies. When I see a particularly horrible acting performance, I can’t help but think about who out there had the true acting chops needed for the part, but wasn’t cast because of what they looked like.
Hollywood is full of very lucky people, those winners of the genetic lottery. They happen to be beautiful. With few (especially female) exceptions, they happen to be thin. Not many of them also happen to be talented, but for some reason, we don’t care. We’ll put up with wooden, awkward, and downright cringe-inducing performances, we’ll put up with lip syncing and Auto-Tune, all because someone is considered nice to look at.
I read an article recently that talked about how book authors are increasingly expected to be beautiful and slim to be successful. Book authors! Because we’re all buying books now based on how hot the author’s photos is on the jacket flap?
These days, if you dare to be in the public eye at all, you’d better be gorgeous, and you’d sure as heck had better be skinny. And if you’re neither of things – but especially if you dare to be fat – you’d better have some seriously thick skin (no pun intended), because chances are you’re going to be judged not on your skills or talents, but on what you look like.
There are so many incredibly talented people in the world, with all sorts of faces and bodies. Imagine the things they could produce to entertain, thrill, and inspire us, if we would give them a chance. Imagine the increase in self-esteem of the young boys and girls who didn’t win the genetic lottery if they could see people who look like them having success, winning awards, and receiving admiration.
I don’t know how we could ever make this happen. But consider it my Hollywood dream.
