Why do we make such a big deal about being hot?

I think it’s important to have some idea of what’s going on in the world with global and national affairs because it helps us form opinions, which can lead to ideas and (hopefully) actions that positively impact the world around us. 

Simultaneously, I also see the value in disassociating from the state of society by turning our attention to more light-hearted distractions. Sometimes, the best thing we can do as citizens of humanity is to keep ourselves afloat mentally and try to be good people in our own corners of the world. 

Some of my favourite ways to do this include obsessing over pop culture, movies and watching MAFS.

This week, we had the Oscar awards. If you didn’t know already, Anora won best picture, and the lead star, Mikey Madison, won best actress. I enjoyed the film and thought Madison was fantastic in it, but I noticed a huge amount of upset from fans of The Substance, who strongly felt that Demi Moore should have received that award instead. Many pointed out the parallel between the award show and the plot of The Substance, where a younger, hotter replacement of Demi Moore’s character is awarded for her acting performance from a panel that are very clearly more enamoured by her sex appeal than her acting talent. 

I don’t have a preference for either film or either actress. I think they’re both great. I genuinely don’t know if the system was rigged.

But I do think it opens up an interesting conversation - whether or not Madison was elected as best actress because she appeals more to the lustful desires of voters, or whether we just don’t like seeing young and pretty women be good at things other than being young and pretty (it’s even worse when they’re nice as well!) - the subject of beauty and youth continues to feel inseparable from our achievements and personalities.

It reinforces a belief that as women, we have a time limit on our worth in society - and that’s only if we were ever attractive enough to meet the beauty standard to begin with. The rest of us older, less put-together, 6-or-below-out-of-ten’s will just have to hope that one day we’ll get spotted for one of those makeover tv-shows where they’ll teach us how to look 10 years younger and upon the grand reveal where we walk onto a stage, all of our friends and family will burst into tears when they see us (oh my gosh, you’re not as ugly anymore!).

For many women, looking attractive is a top priority- perhaps even above career accomplishments or relationships. We see being attractive as having a foot in the door to obtain what we want. You may have heard of the ‘halo effect’ - a theory suggesting that we perceive more attractive people to be more competent, nicer and more interesting than less attractive people. This means that conventionally attractive people tend to have an easier time applying for jobs, asking for promotions, making friends, and, of course, finding romantic partners. 

Women have been taught the importance of physical appearance for millennia, and it seems that more recently, men are also feeling the pressure to meet a certain standard of attractiveness. This could be due to the rise of social media algorithms promoting a specific look for men, as well as heterosexual women beginning to factor physical appearance into their selection process for potential romantic suitors, since women no longer tend to marry for financial security in the West. Yay, equality!

But I think people might be missing the point about Anora, which is that there’s also a commentary there to be had about youth and beauty - and the horrible flip side there can be to being young and gorgeous. The character Madison plays - a sex worker in her early twenties named Ani - is stunning, but she’s also objectified, dehumanised and not taken seriously. 

I know it’s easy to dismiss hot-girl problems as being trivial- but that’s because we place so much importance on physical appearance that we just assume that hot people could never really understand what it’s like to be considered a second class citizen because of our looks in the way that the rest of us might. So what if they get creeped on? At least they’re being noticed, right?

I think we should work towards a society where appearances don’t matter as much as they currently do, but that would almost certainly require a universal abandonment of up-keep routines. As someone who quite likes getting dolled up now and again, this would absolutely result in a drop in levels of joy from individuals like myself who quite like the self-expression and self-care aspect of beauty practices. Is that really a bad thing?

I guess beauty is one of those pesky things where it might take a bit of work to find that happy balance of feeling like you can just exist in the world without worrying so much about it (i.e. building up self-confidence outside of the way that you look) but also allowing yourself to invest effort into your appearance as a way to feel a bit more ‘you’ without feeling shame around it. 

I’d probably say that the majority of us should focus on the former part of that. We need to build up our confidence outside of how we look so that we don’t need to rely on our age or whether we’re wearing make-up or whether we’re at our goal weight to determine whether we should be allowed to do certain activities or simply exist for that matter. 

That way, we won’t be so affected by seeing pretty people be good at things or turn out to be nice people. But we’ll also be less prone to judging people based on their appearances and ignoring the merits of their achievements (which we can subconsciously do to people we consider less attractive, too). We’ll be better equipped to spot injustices, have empathy and not make everything some weird silent competition about looks.

Some ways that we can build confidence include putting time into hobbies, learning new skills, finding creative outlets and spending time with people who don’t tend to comment on appearances too much that it makes you self-conscious.

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Lx