Brick and Beauty

[Happy-Hangman]

I've only just read Samantha Brick's article from yesterday's Daily Mail, e-mailed to me, sans photograph, by a friend. I won't link to it here as it has become utterly inescapable on the internet. In short, Ms Brick, bewails that she is hated by other woman and alternately resented and confounded by the interests and expectations of men on account of being 'beautiful'.

Now, I'd never read anything by Brick, and had no idea what she looked like. I thought the article a little pompous, but was intrigued. What must this latter-day Helen of Troy whose comely form and features have caused so much envious bile to be spewed upon her. I Googled, and was, underwhelmed. She's not my idea of beautiful, admittedly, but she's hardly hideous, not even unattractive - though some of the responses to her article, online, have been downright vicious with regard to her appearance - but I must admit to being a little surprised that she would describe herself as 'beautiful'. Aside from anything else, I was always led to believe that beauty was in the eye of the beholder, and in my experience goes a little deeper than just a pretty face.

The first thing that came to mind on seeing Ms Brick, after having read her piece, were lines from Robert Burns' poem 'To A Louse'

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

Vanity is, after all, a foolish and often self-deluding notion. Now while I think that Brick's was, in many respects, a very silly, superficial article by a silly, superficial writer (and utterly in keeping with the tone of the wretched publication for which she works), I think it's more deserving of eye-rolling than the (sometimes quite alarming) vitriol that's been directed at her over the past day or so.

Then I started thinking...well, if she thinks she's beautiful, who is to say that she's not? After all, save in matters of morality the main motivating forces which guide us, day by day, hour by hour, are self-perception and self-awareness.

If I say 'I'm clever!' then, I'm acknowledging that I'm smarter than some in a number of areas, while still knowing that I'm as thick as pigshit in many others. The description, self-made, might be boastful, but it also (depending on context) might be accurate. There are, of course, ways of determining just how 'clever' (or not) I am, so just how much of a smartarse I really am can be qualified and quantified. I could, if required, prove how clever I thought I was.

If I said 'I'm handsome!' (just for the sake of argument), though, I'd garner, I'm fairly certain, a rather more universally hostile response. If I was genuinely handsome - in the opinion of others - I'd be derided as vain or superficial for simply acknowledging a truth. If I wasn't I'd be lambasted for being ludicrously self deluded and undeservedly arrogant. But if beauty IS ikn the eye of the beholder - a matter of individual perception - and I truly thought I was handsome, would I be wrong to say so? Would the opinion of others matter where such issues of personal aesthetics are concerned? Or, alternately, is it merely a breach of societal etiquette to publicly proclaim positive opinions of oneself?

A little self-love can be a wonderful ting, as has been discussed elsewhere on the forum, but when is a little too much?

I'm more interested, incidentally, in how we look at ideas of beauty and self-worth, not particularly in Ms Brick.

[darkman]

Originally Posted by Happy-Hangman

Now, I'd never read anything by Brick, and had no idea what she looked like. I thought the article a little pompous, but was intrigued. What must this latter-day Helen of Troy whose comely form and features have caused so much envious bile to be spewed upon her. I Googled, and was, underwhelmed.

I was not, but had more to do with her husband than her:

He really got that Eastern- European war criminal look going for him.

[Mr.Lavigne]

It's a bit odd, isn't it?

I mean, if it was Avril Lavigne, I could maybe understand it, but I half suspect it was done as a piss take in the first place...

[Beaker]

It is either a very elaborate hoax or she is a succubus.

[SgtAngua_CW]

Succubus.

[Paulky]

She is, in my view, distinctly average, and I can't for the life of me see why she garnered so much attention (assuming she did and the article wasn't some piss take), unless she has amazing charisma and personality that doesn't come across in the article.

HH is right, beauty is a subjective thing and for every Gillian Anderson there is an Avril Lavigne. Had miss Brick looked like Charlize Theron, I could perhaps see some merit in her argument, but she doesn't and I don't.

[Australis]

I'm with Paulky, decidedly average. One does wonder if it was meant to be a piss take of all those women who swan about in their beauty and say how tough it is.

Sidebar: when the reverse happens to beautiful people, it's interesting. Gwynrh Paltrow had to don a fat suit for 'Shallow Hal', and was deeply disturbed at how everyone ignored her - she went from being the cenre of attention to zero. There was also a made for TV movie starring Kaley Cuoco, 'Fat Like Me', which was the same kind of thing. When pretty people find out what the other sde of th coin is like, it's an eye opener.

EDIT: just found this quote from a nws article:

Ms Brick, who lives in the French countryside with her husband, said she is not surprised she came across as arrogant but that if she were at a dinner party with ten male guests, all of them would find her attractive.

She's in France, what does she expect? If Frenchmen arren't hitting on someone, their day is wasted (yes, I went there!).

[Happy-Hangman]

She works for the Daily Mail, Australis. She might live in France (probably to avoid paying Tax here), but that doesn't mean she'd actually consort with bally Frenchies.

Beside the point, though. If beauty is subjective, then are we reacting against Brick because her honesty (as far is she is concerned, anyway) goes against some social-convention of personal modesty. I may not think she's a looker, but I'm not looking at her through her eyes - largely because my mind being transplanted into the body of a Daily Mail hack would deviate from a discussion on the abstract nature of beauty and enter the realms of bad 1990s body-swap horror.

[runalong]

Rather than decide on her looks my issue was that the article is not particularly good.

There may be an interesting article into jealousy and how someone can be perceived as a threat at work or with a friend's partner. Taking her experiences at face value and not the Mail's imagination sounds like some nasty things have happened to her.

Unfortunately the article goes past that to be both rather pompous/boasting mentioning how she got free drinks and meals first and more than a little sniffy about everyone else not making the same effort she has had.

Personally she sounds a tad lonely and what a surprise the Mail didn't think to perhaps work with her to avoid a media car wreck instead the page hits built up

[PeteWhite2005]

Not how the Daily Nazi works though mate. They have an editorial policy of changing what their staff writers submitt to reflect whatever right wing editorial line they espouse at any particular time. Someone (i forget who, maybe Ben Goldacre, he HATES the Daily Nazi) posted on twitter a few days ago an article wrtten by an ex lady journo who wrote an article (about what i cant recall, i read too much!) and when it was printed there was a wholeload of negative stuff about people she actually liked and was friends with! There is all sorts of tales along those lines if you look... Although Ms Brick was on ITV yesterday talking about the article (she appears no better on telly) I wonder how much of it was her, and how much is the editor...