Beauty

– The Great Fallacy Essay, Research Paper

Luzak 1 Amber Luzak English 115 Dr. Frank Giardina Beauty – The Great Fallacy Beauty. Just the mere mention of the word is enough to give some people the shivers. If you asked most people what it was like to be beautiful, they would most likely reply with, |You get whatever you want,X or |People just treat you better.X Beautiful people are looked upon as the elite in our society. Most people would give anything to be part of this exclusive group, thinking that life is much easier for |the beautiful people.X However, once you have lived the life of one of the beautiful people, it is a lot easier to see the many drawbacks of this kind of existence. Sure, people defer to you in many situations; open doors for you, buy you drinks, that type of nonsense. But people also assume that you are spoiled, stupid, and mean. Women glare at you as you pass, and clutch their boyfriend+s arm tighter. Men stare and call out such demeaning phrases as, |Hey there sexy, how+d you like to be with a real man?X or |That+s right, you know you got it goin+ on.X Job interviews are a real pain; the interviewer just stares at you for 15 minutes or so, drooling, and then (after you+ve already submitted a picture and resume with your phone number) confidently informs you that there are no jobs available, please call back at a later time. Unbeknownst to most people, there are serious downfalls involved with being one of the beautiful people. In order to understand and refute the fallacies being upheld by the majority, we must look at the differences between society+s idea of the life of a beautiful person and what it is actually like to be one. The most commonly upheld belief of society is that being beautiful gets you further in life than having actual skills or intelligence. Although this concept makes sense in principle, let me wholeheartedly assure you that this is not true in the Luzak 2 slightest. Say, for example, that you want to apply for a sales job in a department store. Being a |beautiful person,X you think you have it made, right? Wrong. There are a couple different ways this interview might go. If your interviewer is a young male, it is almost assured that he will spend the first half of the interview staring, drooling, and forgetting what it is he+s trying to say. Then, after he has spent about ten minutes hitting on you and you have spent the same amount of time trying meekly to reject his advances without losing your chance at the job, he will begin to ask you questions about your education, experience, and other such job-related questions. You will try your best to answer every query with an intelligent answer; however, he will assume that since you are female and attractive, you must be a fool, used to getting your own way without

having to work for it. And, since you have rejected his advances toward you, he sees you not only as a fool, but as a jerk as well. Either way, you end up losing the job to someone whom you know is less qualified than you, all because you are a |beautiful person.X Of course, there is always the off chance that you are going to be interviewed by a female, in which case you have lost the job before you even said a word. No self respecting woman would ever hire someone more attractive than her. This is just common female logic. Why would you want to work with someone more beautiful than you? Then you would never get any attention. Either way, you end up losing the job to someone whom you know is less qualified than you, all because you are a |beautiful person.X

Another way in which popular opinion differs from reality is in the way that people treat beautiful people. Sure, guys open doors for you. Sure, you get the occasional free drink. But what about all the women walking with their husbands and boyfriends that literally growl at you as you pass? The repugnant men with their obnoxious catcalls? And then, of course, there is the way that you are treated by people you date. For some reason, beautiful people are never deemed trustworthy by Luzak 3 people they are dating. People just assume that because someone is beautiful, they are that much more likely to cheat on whomever they are seeing. Of course, this is a grave error in judgment. Just because someone has the capability of dating lots of people doesn+t mean that they will. For that matter, beautiful people are most likely to be single as compared with everyone else. Sure, they+re nice to look at, but who would want to have a relationship with such a coldhearted, spoiled brat? This opinion, held by the majority of people today, makes it difficult for the beautiful person to meet anyone, and to ever have any sort of lasting relationship. |Look at her. She+s so gorgeous, I bet she gets whatever she wants. Well, I+m sure not going to let her get away with it.X Admit it, you+ve said or at least felt this way at one point or another in your life. The sad reality, however, is that this is the same attitude that beautiful people encounter all the time. Although a commonly held fallacy in our society is that the life of an attractive person is carefree and wonderful, this, as we can now see, is most definitely an untruth. To be perfectly honest, if I had my druthers, I would never want this lifestyle. However, I+ve been thrust into it by simple genetics and a confident attitude. I+m not going to just sit back, though, and let people treat me this way. Stop the insanity! Just because someone is attractive, it doesn+t mean that they are inferior intellectually or emotionally. Can+t we all just be nice… and get along?