Table Of ContentI
N T R O D U C T I O N
Looks, Lookism, and the Media
Farmorethanmeetstheeye
andfardeeperthanskindeep
She was a former NFL cheerleader with silken hair the color of wild
honey,tanned,withflawlessskin,asmilefromatoothpastead,and
ahead-turningfigurethatwasalloriginalequipment.
With such looks, Melana Scantlin had no difficulty attracting
men. But she didn’t want just anybody. She wanted a special man,
one she could start a family with one day, a princely fellow with
whomshecouldspendtherestofherlife.
Butsuddenlyshewastwenty-sixanditwasn’thappening.Then
Melana,anaspiringactress,wasinvitedtojoinakindofvideodating
service, a unique program designed not only to help find her mate
butalsotoentertainavasttelevisionaudience.
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2 LOOKS
As cameras rolled, Melana was introduced to sixteen young
men. They were muscular, they were skinny, they were chubby.
Somewereclean-shaven,othersbearded;theyworebuzzcuts,fash-
ionable hairstyles, or were balding. They were tall, short, and in
between. Line up all sixteen and they were pretty much what you
might expect to find at a typical American high school’s ten-year
classreunion.
According to rules that Melana agreed to, she was obliged to
date each man at least once. Immediately she saw that the group
included several men in whom she had no interest; in short order,
theyweregonefromtheprogramandfromherlife.Concentrating
on the others, she went on dates or hung out with one or another,
gettingtoknoweach,learningabitabouttheirlives,theirpersonali-
ties,theirprivatepriorities.
Allthesemenweredubbed‘‘AverageJoes,’’withunremarkable
physical attributes, diverse but ordinary occupations, and unexcep-
tionallives.Steadilywinnowingthegroupafterafewweeks,Melana
finallychosetoothy,twenty-eight-year-oldAdam
Mesh, a husky securities trader with a strong
Almostfromthemomentof
NewYorkaccent.
birth,eachofusisjudged—
Melana said she was sure that she had
silently,unconsciously,and
found her true love—until the show’s produc-
nearlyinstantly—onthe
ers threw her a curve. Suddenly, three young
basisofeverythingthat
men with looks that would have shamed a
goesintothemixofquali-
Greekgod wereaddedtothemix.WouldMel-
tiesknownas‘‘physical
anapreferanyofthemtoAdam?
attractiveness.’’
With little hesitation, she left her ‘‘true
love’’ for Jason Peoples, twenty-seven, a part-
timewaiterstilllivingwithhisparents.
‘‘Theeyes,theface,thesmile.Howcouldyoudenythat?’’said
Melana as she and her Adonis flew off for a honeymoon-like vaca-
tionatanexclusiveresort.
When this lovely woman abruptly rejected a successful trader
who had been the subject of a Fortune magazine article to party
with a gorgeous slacker, millions of American women, vicariously
livingMelana’sromance,rejoiced.Older andwiser,theymightnot
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INTRODUCTION:LOOKS,LOOKISM,ANDTHEMEDIA 3
havechosentheambition-challengedJasonoveroneofWallStreet’s
risingstars—butstill,theycouldappreciatewhyshehad.
That’s because for a long time Americans, like people of most
other cultures, have allowed what they see of a person to strongly in-
fluence whatthey feelandbelieveabout thatperson. Almostfromthe
moment of birth, each of us is judged—silently, unconsciously, and
nearlyinstantly—onthebasisofourheight(orlackofit),ourweight
and bulk, the shape and symmetry of our facial features, the length
and style of our hair, our mode of dress, our grooming—everything
thatgoesintothemixofqualitiesknownas‘‘physicalattractiveness.’’
Sometimes termed ‘‘lookism’’—treating people in ways biased
by their perceived individual level of physical attractiveness—the
‘‘physical attractiveness (PA)’’ phenomenon has been studied in
depth for decades by social scientists of many disciplines, including
psychologists, sociologists, biologists, and anthropologists. They
haveproducedapanoplyofsometimes-contradictoryresearchdata.
But while this subject continues to be studied, a fair appraisal of
science’scollectiveconclusionisthatinAmerica,morethaninmost
Westerncultures,whatyoulooklike—ormoreimportant,howoth-
ers perceive you—shapes your life in dozens of often subtle ways
fromcradletograve.
As you will see in following chapters, PA affects the way nurses
treat newborns in the same way that it shapes the manner in which
parentsactandreactwiththeirchildren.PAinfluencesachild’sself-
image and becomes a significant factor in how teachers evaluate,
assist,andgrade pupilsfromkindergartentograduateschool.It’sa
keyfactorinfindingandkeepingmatesandclosefriends,inchoos-
ing an occupation, in finding or keeping a job, and in defining the
limitsofanindividual’ssuccessinachosenfield.
PA’s effects permeate such supposedly neutral arenas as court-
rooms and elections. Juries, for example, tend to attach more cre-
dence to the arguments of a winsome attorney than a less enticing
counterpart. Each witness’s testimony is unconsciously processed
through jurors’ perceptions of the individual’s PA, and anyone ac-
cused of a crime is judged as much on his personal PA as on the
factsintroducedtoajury.
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Since the 1960s, when television finally permeated even the
mostremotecornersofAmerica,ithasbeennearlyimpossible fora
truly unsightly candidate to win national elective office. And it is
almostasdifficultforaPA-challengedpersontowinalocalelection
asitwouldbetoenterabeautycontest.
Just as the rise of the mass media has
shapedpublicperceptionsontheparametersof
MillionsofAmericanshave
personal attractiveness, PA has reshaped the
turnedtheirwakinglives
media itself. Where television news reporters
intoendlessquestsfor
once were unremarkable in appearance, it is
enhancedPA,oftenatthe
now virtually impossible to find an American
expenseoftheirhealth.
man or woman reading news copy to a camera
who could not be described as attractive or
good-looking. Fueled by an explosion of media images that glorify
youth and beauty, millions of Americans have turned their waking
lives into endless quests for enhanced PA, often at the expense of
theirhealth.Sopowerfularethesemediaimagesthatinthetwenti-
eth century, once-rare conditions such as anorexia and bulimia are
commonplace throughout the Western world. Literally millions of
young people, mostly female, have become so obsessed in the pur-
suitofattainingasingle dimensionofPA—bodyweight—thatthey
willinglyendangertheirlivesbydenyingtheirbodiesessentialnutri-
tion.Othermillionsexhausttheirsavingsorincurhugedebtstopay
for one or more cosmetic surgery procedures, often risking their
lives. Fed by ever-increasing demand, hucksters, charlatans, and
criminals of every stripe prey on vulnerable people, taking their
moneyandleavingatrailofdeathanddisfigurementintheirwake.
Attheturnofthiscentury,thehottestfadinprime-timetelevi-
sion was a raft of ‘‘reality’’ shows featuring young, attractive, and
often scantily attired contestants competing for love and money.
Whether a ‘‘tribe’’ transported to some remote but photogenic lo-
cation, couples risking their lives to overcome fear, penniless male
hunks presented as wealthy tycoons to clueless female sex objects,
or men and women craving cosmetic makeovers, the common de-
nominator is sex appeal: Except as the butt of some joke, reality
contestantsofaverageappearanceareinshortsupply.
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INTRODUCTION:LOOKS,LOOKISM,ANDTHEMEDIA 5
EvenindeathPAhasnewsvalue:Ifapictureisavailable,televi-
sion news directors are far more likely to air the killing or injury of
anattractivevictimthanaplainone.
PA also has a profound influence on the nature and reach of
Westernculture,includinghowwedefinerolemodels,whogoverns
us, what products we buy, and what services we consume. It is a
component of the core values that we pass along to our children
and of our choice of friends; in short, the PA phenomenon perme-
ates Western society and makes a powerful difference in the lives of
hundredsofmillionsofpeople.
While PA’s effects are amplified by mass media, the phenome-
non itself is older than history: There is evidence that some Stone
AgewomeninsouthernEurope styledtheirhair.Didtheytake the
time and trouble it must have required 20,000 years before perms,
curlers, and hair dryers merely to lure a better class of mastodon to
dinner?Idon’tthinkso.
History began with the written word—and glamour immedi-
atelybecameanimportantpartofit.Forexample,inthefourteenth
century b.c., Egypt’squeen was Nefertiti, whosename means ‘‘the
beautiful one is come.’’ Did she have other qualifications? Impor-
tantfamilyconnectionsordiplomaticskills?Managementexpertise?
Fromhernamealoneit’sobviousthatfewcared.
Even Aristotle (384–322 b.c.), ancient Greece’s premier ob-
server of human nature, recognized the importance of PA. ‘‘Per-
sonal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of
reference,’’hewrote.
And the Hebrew Bible, canonized some 3,000 years ago from
far-older written and oral sources, repeatedly describes characters
whoseappearanceaffectedallaroundthem:
WhenAbram[laterrenamedAbraham]enteredEgypt,theEgyp-
tians saw how very beautiful the woman [his wife and half-sister
Sarai] was. Pharaoh’s courtiers saw her and praised her to Pha-
raoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s palace. And be-
cause of her, it went well with Abram; he acquired sheep, oxen,
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asses, male and female slaves, she-asses, and camels. (Genesis
12:14–16)
This is the story of a stranger in a strange land who becomes
rich virtually overnight just because a powerful man admired the
way his ‘‘wife’’ looked. How many times and with how many varia-
tions has this story been repeated throughout history, not to men-
tioninourowntime?
In medieval times, affluent noblewomen swallowed arsenic or
dabbed bat’s blood on their skin to improve their complexions. As
recentlyastheeighteenthcentury,Americanwomenwashedthem-
selvesinthewarmurineofayoungboytoerasetheirfreckles.Ever
the dispassionate observer of nature, Charles Darwin wrote of a
‘‘universalpassionforadornment’’evenwhenitrequired‘‘wonder-
fullygreat’’suffering.
Atitsroot,PAmay betheunconsciousrecognitionthat beauty
serves to attract the opposite sex for the biological imperative of
reproduction. Just as plants that use flowers to attract insects to
pollinate them and animals to eat their fruit or otherwise spread
their seeds are more successful in ensuring the survival of their spe-
cies, nature commands us to notice the physical characteristics that
tellusthataparticularhumanissuitableforreproduction.
Inhis1989landmarkstudyofhumanmat-
ing preferences, Dr. David Buss, now a Uni-
PAalsohasaprofound
versity of Texas professor of evolutionary
influenceonhowwedefine
psychology, logged mating preferences for
rolemodels,whogoverns
more than 10,000 people of thirty-seven cul-
us,whatproductswebuy,
tures and found that a woman’s PA was at the
andwhatserviceswecon-
top or near it on every man’s list. His conclu-
sume.
sion:Nothingismoreimportanttoamarriage-
mindedwomanthanhergoodlooks.
This observation seems to have a basis in reproductive biology.
For example, most men find a woman’s long, shiny hair appealing,
eveniftheyarenotawarethathairisavisiblehistoryofbodyhealth;
a woman with unhealthy-looking locks is likely a poor candidate to
bearandrearchildren.
Acknowledging this appeal, to which men are attracted, many
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INTRODUCTION:LOOKS,LOOKISM,ANDTHEMEDIA 7
traditional societies, especially in the Middle East, require women
tocovertheirheadsinpublicasasignofmodesty.
In virtually every culture, men find younger women more at-
tractivethanolderones,probablybecausefemalesofourspeciesare
capableofreproductionforonlyalimitedperiod.
Moreover,inmostcultures,womenaremoreattractedtoolder
men than they are to younger ones. Could it be because men are
capable of fathering children for nearly their entire adult lives, but
oldermenusuallyhavemoreresourcestoputatthedisposaloftheir
mateandtheirchildren?
Humans come in an astonishing variety of shapes, sizes, and
appearances,whichleadsthelessphysicallyattractivewomantofret
thatnoonewillwanther,thatshewillfailtoreproduceandpasson
her genes—or that she is incapable of attracting a mate who will
havetheabilitytosupportherchildren.
Women compete to attract men; however, men compete for
poweranddominance,thustobemoreattractivetowomen.These
conditions have given rise to such enormous mercantile empires as
Revlon,MaxFactor,andL’Ore´al;createdmyriadoccupationsfrom
nail stylists and barbers to cosmetic chemists, liposuction techni-
cians,andplasticsurgeons;andcontributed mightilytothegrowth
of such industries as advertising and clothing manufacture—all
merely to help men and women look better. Pursuit of greater PA
has created a $160-billion-a-year global industry ranging from
weight-loss preparations, cosmetics, skin and hair care, and per-
fumes to cosmetic surgery, health clubs, and hormone injections.
Americans spend more money each year on beauty enhancements
thantheydooneducation.
Andit’snotmerelyforpowderandpaint.MillionsofAmericans,
including many in their supposed ‘‘golden years,’’ have gone under
the knife to enhance their appearance. Once almost exclusively the
province of the wealthy and famous or the hideously malformed,
todaymanyAmericansofverymodestmeansscrimpandsaveforcos-
meticsurgeryproceduresaimedatmakingthemmoreattractive.
The following chapters will examine how and why all this hap-
pens,andwhyitis morevitalthanevertorecognizeandappreciate
thephenomenonofphysicalattractiveness.
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C
H A P T E R 1
Older Than Civilization
APAtouroftheancientworld,fromStoneAge
beautyparlorsthroughPharaonicEgyptand
theBibletothefacethatlauncheda
thousandships
Herconceptionwastheconsequenceofaroyalcuckolding:Zeus,king
of the gods, took the form of a swan to seduce and impregnate
QueenLeda,wifeofTyndareus,KingofSparta.InduecourseLeda
deliveredanegg;whenithatched,outsteppedtheimmortaldaugh-
terofZeus,soutterlybeautifulthatherfamespreadtoeverycorner
of the ancient world. Helen of Sparta became history’s first super-
star,famousthroughoutthecivilizedWestlongbeforetheinvention
ofmassmedia.
Accordingtolegendandancientliterature,Tyndareusremained
unaware of Helen’s true parentage. He forced her to marry the
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CHAPTER1:OLDERTHANCIVILIZATION 9
wealthy, middle-aged Menelaus, brother of powerful King Aga-
memnon. Helen’s subsequent kidnapping by the young, virile,
amoral, but oh-so-handsome Paris set off a ten-year war that killed
vast numbers and ruined many of the city-states that took part in
thehostilities.
And what did Helen think of all this? Never mind the movies.
Around800b.c., Homerandother ancientGreek poetspaidscant
attentiontothethoughtsorfeelingsofthewomanbehindthefabu-
lous ‘‘face that launched a thousand ships.’’ Kidnapped first by
Theseus and then by Paris, she was rescued more than once by her
brothersandherhusband.SnatchedbackfromParisbyanEgyptian
king,Helenwaslatertakenfromthatking’ssonbyhusbandMene-
laus, astold inThe Iliadof Homer.And allthe while,she seemsto
haveremainednearlyoblivioustothetumultandterroraroundher,
to the rise and fall of those who sought to possess her beauty and
those protecting her. Was she angry or frightened by her kidnap-
pers? Amused? Aroused? Nothing in legend or literature describes
Helen’s feelings; she scarcely utters a word. Rather, she seems en-
tirely neutral toward the men fighting over her, an empty vessel to
befilledwiththeyearningsandaspirationsofheradmirers.
WasHelen(betterknownasHelenofTroy)fleshandblood,or
merely a fictional plot device? No one can say with certainty. But
whatmattersmoreisthefemininearchetypethatsherepresents.For
thousands of years, Helen’s abduction—even if, as some hold, she
went willingly—has defined the ultimate insult, casus belli for any
sanction,includingwar.
To the Greeks and those who embraced
‘‘Personalbeautyisagreater
theirculture,Helenrepresentedthepowerand
recommendationthanany
potency of human beauty, the immutable cur-
letterofreference.’’
rency of physical attractiveness. But ancient
—Aristotle
Greece’s appraisalof PAdid notbegin andend
withHelen.
Plato (427–347 b.c.) called good looks ‘‘the privilege of na-
ture,’’ while Socrates (469–399 b.c.) described beauty as ‘‘a short
tyranny.’’ As previously noted, Aristotle (384–322 b.c.) went still
further: ‘‘Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any
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Description:We all know one hard and undeniable truth: Physical beauty comes with tremendous power, and tremendous benefits. Those who possess it are generally luckier in love, more likely to be popular, and more apt to get better grades in school. But very few of us realize just how much looks affect every asp
