a thing of beauty and the geek is a joy forever (not so much about class)

Stay with me.

Dear Nielsen Family,
Today was a long day. I walked around the house trying to decide what needs procrastinating and got caught up in Beauty and the Geek, Ashton Kutcher's famous social experiment. I tried, I really did, to hold back my cynicism regarding primetime dating reality shows. But this medium necessitates discussion, cause fucking everybody watches tv way too much. We mindlessly allow someone's ideologies to pander to us, punctuated by fast food and car commercials. Case in point--B and the G. 8 "beauties" were paraded out--a massage therapist, a sorority girl (that was her profession, I guess), the ultimate Hooters girl (she's on the mousepads too, yo), a Playboy centerfold hopeful, a nanny, etc. Then 8 "geeks": robotic engineers, level five dungeon masters, graduate students, physicists, etc. This year there's a twist--a geek chick and a hot dude. This was the best part--all the couples looked over the stairwell as the plot bombshell walked in, up the stairs, slowly. The "beauties" put their hands over their mouths, salivating at the mere thought of a hot dude in the house while the geeks looked on, disgruntled. Lots of reaction shots. Dum dum dummmm....They turned around to face the camera. And here's the dude, wearing a sleeveless shirt, completely douchebag haircut, fake tan, and a look of undeserved accomplishment on his face. I went to go have a cigarette and cuss. Add a montage complete with reaction shots, embraces, tears, slow-motion, and a pathetically asinine soundtrack and you have yourself a hit tv show which millions of normal people tuning in each week.

People like beauty, I get it. It's no surprise that pretty people get more breaks. I suppose it all evens out when you have your Britneys and Anna Nicoles. There's research that shows newborns favor symmetrical faces. Hotties get hired over not-so-hotties. Not a lot of ugly prom queens. The beautiful people are most usually the rich and the powerful as well. It's human nature. But good genes and luck obviously aren't character traits, you know? It doesn't make you a good person, or better than anyone else. I even understand why such shows have to go to extremes, otherwise it'd just be liking watching a tv version of our own lives, and who wants that?

What bothers me is that the CW and everyone in the biz get to impose stereotypes on the masses, and we blindly accept that this person is a geek and therefore smart and this one is pretty and must be stupid (although that does seem to be the case on this show). They're undermining themselves even as they try to negate said stereotypes. So one chick is smart and necessarily nerd? She could get some nasty extensions and wear too much makeup and get a boob job and be a beauty too, right? I can't wait to hear the shit coming out of the male beauty's mouth. Also, why are there 6 blonds, one black girl, and one Mexican? Just what is beauty? Just curious.

You can be lots of things, you know.

Go here for something else.